Our Commitment: In keeping with our Customer Service Charter, ACCES strives to act with the highest standards of honesty, ethics and accountability. Our goal is to meet or exceed the goals of our customers in the delivery of our services assisting jobseekers, facing barriers to employment, integrate into the Canadian job market. Customers include clients, employers, funders and community partners.

Complaints from our customers may arise from time to time; this may be a concern about the service you received or may be due to a misunderstanding. This policy is to outline the process for raising complaints or concerns about ACCES business and our services. For all concerns raised, ACCES will treat it professionally, confidentially and seek a timely resolution. Complaint resolution is important to ACCES. It is through working to resolve these matters that we identify opportunities to enhance the customer service experience.

Our Complaint Resolution Standards

• To ensure the investigation and analysis is fair and handled confidentially
• To obtain relevant information from all parties involved
• To resolve the concern is in a manner consistent with the ACCES Customer Service Charter, the ACCES Code of Conduct Policy for Clients and Visitors, Client Privacy and other related ACCES policies
• To assess each complaint and only those substantiated would be investigated (e.g. made in good faith, sufficient information etc.)
• To keep the customer informed through the progress of the investigation and resolution
• To take corrective steps to ensure the concern/mistake does not happen again that may involve:
  • Update to organization information and/or marketing materials
  • Update policy or procedures or service delivery processes
  • Training or guidance for employees
  • Take other appropriate action

If you have a complaint or concern about ACCES or the service you received, you can address the situation by the following complaint process:

Our Complaint Resolution Process:

All complaints need to provide sufficient, precise and relevant information including dates, places, persons/witnesses, so that the information can be reasonably assessed and further fact finding can be undertaken as needed.

Most concerns can be resolved without the need for an investigation. The complaint assessment is made before the commencement of an investigation to evaluate and substantiate the complaint to ensure it is made in good faith and there is sufficient information to move forward with an investigation. All investigations would involve the head of Human Resources.

Step 1: Notify us of a Concern: Discuss your concern with your primary contact at ACCES or the person with whom you are interacting. This often allows for a quick, easy and expedient resolution and avoids unnecessary delays and frustrations. It also helps to preserves the customer’s direct relationship with ACCES. The employee receiving this initial complaint will work to resolve the problem straight away with you and/or involve his/her manager.

Step 2: Speak with Management: If the concern isn’t resolved to your satisfaction, you can ask to escalate your concern to Management. Depending on the concern, you would be referred to the site manager (or appropriate management personnel) to review the complaint. If the Manager is not available to deal with a complaint, he/she would contact you promptly by telephone. This ideally takes place within 48 hours but always strive to be within 5 business days.

Step 3: Senior Vice President: If the concern still isn’t resolved to your satisfaction in step 1 and 2, a Senior Vice President will be assigned to investigate the complaint further to reach final resolution. For complaints reaching this level, you would need to provide details of who was involved in these initial steps and why you disagree with their decision.

Step 4: President & CEO: If you remain dissatisfied with the Senior Vice President’s decision and you wish to pursue your complaint further, you would escalate it to the President & CEO.

If the concern is relating to the ACCES leadership, it is to be directed to the President & CEO, and/or the Chair of the Board, depending on the individual concerned.

Timeframe: Most complaint investigations are concluded with 30 business days of receiving a complaint and all supporting information. If this timeline is not met, ACCES would contact you to explain that more time is needed and when you can expect a response.

Vexatious Complaint: There could be a rare occasion when a complainant is not satisfied with the outcome of a complaint (ACCES’ investigation conclusions and corrective steps) and decides to pursue the complaint further with ACCES or other ACCES stakeholders. In very extreme circumstances and after detailed and careful assessment, ACCES may consider this action to be harassing behaviour and treat it as a vexatious complaint. Should this occur, the complainant would be notified that ACCES has already addressed the complaint and would not be responding further to the issue.