There is no requirement for an employer to halt disciplinary proceedings in order to address an employee’s grievance.
If the grievance is related to the disciplinary, then the issues can either be discussed at the disciplinary hearing (in the form of the employee’s mitigation), or a grievance hearing could be held immediately before or after the disciplinary hearing so that all points can be considered.
If the latter, the invite to disciplinary and grievance can be outlined in the same invite letter, a template can be found in Primed Online under, Poor Performance & Misconduct, available free when you sign up to our 12 month free trial here.
If the points of grievance are unrelated to the disciplinary hearing, then the grievance procedure can run concurrently with the disciplinary procedure.
If an employee fails to attend a disciplinary hearing and the employee gives no satisfactory reason for non-attendance, e.g. sickness absence, the employer ought to reschedule the hearing at least once, to ensure the employee has had ample opportunity to attend.
If the employee fails to attend the rescheduled disciplinary hearing then assuming the employee was warned that a decision could be made in their absence; the manager could make a decision in the employee’s absence based on the information that is available. In such cases, it is recommended that prior warning is given to the employee that this may happen.
Given that much will depend on the precise facts, expert advice is advisable before deciding to proceed in the employee’s absence.