1. A grievance lands on your desk
An employee puts a complaint in writing: about a manager, a colleague, how they have been treated, or a decision you made. It feels personal, and your instinct is to explain why they are wrong.
That instinct is the trap. What protects you is not winning the argument, it is following a fair process: hearing the complaint properly, investigating where needed, and keeping a record. A grievance handled calmly and procedurally rarely becomes a claim. One brushed aside often does.
Treat any written complaint as a process from the moment it arrives, not an argument to win. Pause before you respond.
2. Someone goes off sick and you are not sure they are coming back
A valued employee is signed off, the fit notes keep extending, and you are caught between supporting them and keeping the business running. Most owners handle this by either doing nothing for fear of making it worse, or pushing too hard and ignoring the bigger question.
The bigger question is whether the condition counts as a disability, because that changes everything about how you must handle it. Get that wrong and a sympathetic situation can become an uncapped discrimination claim.
Get a clear medical picture before you make any decision, and assume disability law may apply until you know otherwise.
3. An underperformer the quiet word has not fixed
You have had the conversations. Maybe more than once. Nothing has changed, and now you are stuck: absorbing work that is genuinely hurting the business, or moving towards letting them go with nothing written down to support it.
The trap is the missing paper trail. By the time most owners act, the performance issue is real but there is no record of the standards, the feedback, or the chance to improve. That is what loses cases that should have been winnable.
Write down what good looks like and exactly where they are falling short, then give a fair, supported chance to improve.
4. You need to let someone go, or reshape the team
A redundancy, a restructure, or a difficult exit. The commercial case is usually obvious, and that is exactly where owners come unstuck: they treat it as a purely business decision and skip the people process.
Change that affects someone's role cannot simply be imposed. Get the process wrong and a sensible business move can trigger grievances, constructive dismissal claims, or redundancy obligations you did not realise you had created.
Treat it as a process, not just a decision: genuine consultation, fair selection, and clear documentation, even when the business case is obvious.
5. You have already reacted in the heat of the moment
You confronted them. Sent the email. Said the thing. It is done, and now you are worried you have made it worse and there is no way back.
The trap here is assuming the situation is now unfixable and either freezing or pushing on regardless. In reality, most situations that started badly can still be put back on a fair footing, but only if the next step is the right one.
Stop before you act again. Get advice first. A situation that started badly can usually still be recovered if the next move is sound.
The one move that protects you in all five
Look across those five and the pattern is the same. The problem is rarely the decision itself. It is acting before there is a fair, written process behind it.
The single most protective habit any owner can build is simple: pause before you act, make sure the steps are fair, and write them down. That one habit turns most expensive situations into manageable ones.
If you are facing any of these right now and are not sure how serious it is, the free Employee Situation Check gives you an honest read in a few minutes, with no login and no obligation.
Key takeaways
- The five that catch owners out: a grievance, long-term sickness, persistent underperformance, a redundancy or exit, and a situation you have already reacted to.
- In every one, the danger is acting before there is a fair, documented process.
- The protective habit: pause, check the process is fair, and write it down.
- If you are unsure how serious it is, take the free Situation Check before you act.