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Employee Relations

Employee relations case management that holds up when it matters

Employee relations cases are the ones that end up in front of a lawyer, a regulator or a tribunal. Document them properly from first contact instead of reconstructing the file afterwards.

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Dovetail employee relations console showing case documentation and investigation timeline

#1

Five consecutive years in HR Service Delivery

Sapient Insights 2025-2026 HR Systems Survey, 28th edition. 10,000+ HR professionals across 4,670 organisations.

8 months

Payback period, fastest in the category

G2 payback metric, against a category average of 14 months.

3 of 3

Enterprise categories ranked #1

HR Service Delivery Help Desk, Portal and Content Management. A clean sweep.

What ER casework needs

Four requirements that are not negotiable

General purpose ticketing tools were built for IT requests. Employee relations casework has different confidentiality, documentation and retention requirements from the first minute.

Restricted visibility

Case level permissions so only the people who should see a matter can see it, separate from general HR case management.

Confidential by design

Immutable audit trail

Every action, actor and timestamp recorded. Hiding a note changes its visibility, not its presence in the record.

Defensible

Structured documentation

Consistent capture across grievance, disciplinary, investigation, accommodation and harassment matters.

Consistent

Outcome reporting

Case types, cycle time and outcomes, so patterns surface before they become organisational risk.

See the pattern

Caseload growth

When the caseload outgrows the spreadsheet

Rising ER volume and increased compliance scrutiny are the two triggers we see most. Both expose the same weakness: casework held in inboxes, personal drives and individual memory.

  • Separate internal notes from employee-facing correspondence
  • Employee case history visible in context at the point of intake
  • GDPR and privacy tooling for subject access, retention and erasure
  • Reporting that stands up in front of legal, works council or a regulator

See HR shared services

Dovetail employee relations console showing case documentation and investigation timeline

Expanding beyond ER

Start with employee relations. Grow into HR service delivery.

A meaningful share of our customers buy Dovetail for employee relations first, then extend the same platform to general HR case management and self service once ER is running.

  • Same platform, same permissions model, no second procurement
  • ER casework stays restricted while general HR volume opens up
  • Knowledge base and employee portal added when you are ready
  • One reporting layer across ER and HR service delivery

See HR case management

Dovetail HR case management console showing the case queue, employee record and resolution timeline

Common questions

Can we restrict who sees ER cases?

Yes. Visibility is controlled at case, category and team level, entirely separately from general HR case management.

Does the audit trail cover hidden notes?

Yes. Hiding a note changes its visibility, not its presence in the audit record. That distinction matters the moment a case becomes a formal matter.

Can we run ER separately from general HR case management?

Yes, on the same platform with different permission models. That is how most of our ER customers run it.

What about works councils and non-US requirements?

Multi language support, regional permissions and GDPR tooling are standard, which matters for pan-European and global ER teams.

Swire Coca-Cola adopted Dovetail ER Case Management in 2022, improving case documentation, tracking and collaboration, with a measurable gain in operational efficiency.

Swire Coca-ColaEmployee Relations case study

See employee relations casework end to end

Bring a case type you handle and we will document it live, including the parts your current tool cannot evidence.

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