Stakeholder Grievance Procedure

Data Classification: Public

Who This Is For and Why It Exists

Posit builds software used by millions of people, including researchers, data scientists, educators, students, and organizations across the public and private sectors. Our decisions affect a wide range of people, not just our paying customers. When we get something wrong, or when something we do causes harm that we haven’t recognized, people should be able to tell us. This document explains how.

This grievance procedure is available to any stakeholder: employees, contractors, customers, open-source community members, suppliers, partners, and anyone else affected by Posit’s operations, products, or conduct. It covers concerns that go beyond ordinary customer service issues, such as things like ethical conduct, human rights, social and environmental impact, and other matters where someone believes Posit has acted in a way that is inconsistent with its values or obligations.

We publish this procedure publicly. We take it seriously. And we protect the people who use it.

What This Procedure Covers

This procedure is designed for concerns that are substantive and relate to how Posit conducts itself as a company. That includes, but is not limited to:

• Conduct by Posit or its Associates that the stakeholder believes is unethical, discriminatory, or inconsistent with Posit’s stated values or policies.
• Negative impacts, both actual or potential, on human rights, labor conditions, or the wellbeing of individuals or communities, whether inside Posit’s own operations or in its value chain.
• Environmental harm caused or contributed to by Posit’s operations or business relationships.
• Concerns about how Posit’s products are being developed or deployed in ways that may cause harm.
• Failure by Posit to honor commitments made in its Code of Conduct, Human Rights Policy, Lobbying Policy, Stakeholder Governance Policy, or other public-facing policy documents.
• Any other concern where a stakeholder believes Posit’s actions or inactions have caused or risk causing a material harm.

This procedure does not cover routine product support issues, billing disputes, licensing questions, or service delivery complaints. Those issues should be handled through our standard support channels at posit.co/support. 

If you are unsure whether your concern falls within this procedure, submit it anyway. We will review it and let you know how it will be handled.

How to Submit a Grievance

Grievances can be emailed to stakeholders@posit.co 

When submitting a grievance, it is helpful, but not required, to provide the following:

• A summary of the concern and the key facts, as you understand them.
• A description of the events or conduct that led to the grievance, and when they occurred.
• The names or roles of any Posit Associates or others involved, if known.
• Whether you have previously raised this concern with Posit and, if so, what response you received.
• The outcome you are seeking.
• Whether you are requesting confidentiality.

If you are submitting on behalf of another person or group, please confirm that you have authority to do so. Anonymous submissions are accepted and will be treated with the same care as named ones, though our ability to follow up directly may be limited depending on the information provided.

You may submit in any language. We will respond in the same language where possible and will seek appropriate translation assistance where needed.

The Grievance Process

All grievances are reviewed and managed through the following steps. We aim to follow the timelines indicated in every case; where circumstances require more time, we will communicate that as proactively as we can.

Step 1: Acknowledgement — within 5 business days

We will acknowledge receipt of a grievance within five business days (unless your submission does not provide us with your contact information). The acknowledgement will confirm that we have received the submission, identify the team or individual managing it, explain next steps, and provide a point of contact for follow-up questions. If you submitted anonymously and provided a way to receive communications, we will use that channel.

Step 2: Initial Review — within 15 business days

We will assess the grievance to determine whether it falls within the scope of this procedure, whether any immediate action is needed to prevent ongoing harm, what additional information (if any) is needed, and which resolution tier is most appropriate (see below). We will communicate the outcome of this review to you (provided we have a way to contact you), including whether we have accepted the submission as a formal grievance. If we have not accepted it, we will explain why and, where appropriate, direct you to a more suitable channel. If we accept it, we will confirm the scope of the investigation, the anticipated timeline, and the name or role of the person leading the process.

Step 3: Investigation and Resolution

The investigation and resolution timeline depends on the complexity and severity of the concern. We will keep you informed at each stage (provided we have a way to contact you): when the investigation is underway, if the timeline changes, when a conclusion is reached, and when any remedial action has been completed. We will not close a grievance without communicating the outcome to you (unless we have no means to communicate with you). Where the concern involves a potential human rights impact, we follow the additional processes set out in our Human Rights Policy and the addenda to that policy.

Step 4: Closure

When a grievance is resolved, we will (provided we have a way to contact you) communicate the outcome to the stakeholder who raised it, confirm any actions taken or remediation applied, and note whether ongoing monitoring or follow-up is warranted. Closed grievances are documented and contribute to our periodic human rights saliency assessments and B Corp reporting.

In complex cases, we may also involve external expertise, such as a subject-matter expert, mediator, or independent arbiter, to ensure the matter is handled fairly and with appropriate competence. If we have your contact information, we will notify you if this is the case.

Resolution Tiers

Not every grievance is the same in its severity, complexity, or the appropriate mechanism for resolution. We apply a tiered approach proportionate to the nature of the concern.

Provided we have contact information, the person who submitted the grievance is told which tier will be applied and why. If you believe a different tier is more appropriate, you can say so and we will consider your view before confirming the approach.

Conflicts of Interest

A grievance process is only trustworthy if the people managing it don’t have a stake in the outcome. We take this seriously.

Any Posit Associate involved in investigating or resolving a grievance must disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest before taking on that role. A conflict exists when the person managing the grievance has a personal, professional, or financial relationship with the subject of the grievance that could affect their objectivity. Where a conflict is identified, that person will be recused and replaced with someone who has no relevant connection to the matter.

Where a grievance involves a member of senior leadership, management of the grievance is managed by the General Counsel and, if necessary, escalated to the Board or to an external party. Where a grievance involves the Board itself, an independent external arbiter will be engaged unless the General Counsel can adequately manage the matter.

At Tier 2 and Tier 3, the internal facilitator is specifically selected because they have no involvement in the underlying matter. We maintain a pool of potential external resources with relevant expertise, including human rights, employment, and ethics backgrounds, who can be engaged to assist the facilitator as needed. 

Protection Against Retaliation

Anyone who raises a concern through this procedure in good faith is protected from retaliation. 

Retaliation means any adverse action, whether direct or indirect, taken against a person because they submitted a grievance, participated in a grievance investigation, or supported someone else in doing so. For employees and contractors, this includes termination, demotion, reduced hours, exclusion from opportunities, or any other form of professional harm. For external stakeholders, it includes withdrawal of services, termination of commercial relationships, or any other action that penalizes them for raising a concern.

This protection applies regardless of whether the grievance is ultimately upheld. We ask only that submissions be made in good faith, by which we mean that the person raising the concern genuinely believes it to be true. Bad-faith submissions intended to cause harm to others are not protected, but we will not treat a concern as bad faith simply because our investigation does not substantiate it.

If you believe you have experienced retaliation for raising a concern, that is itself a grievance and should be submitted through this procedure immediately. Retaliation claims are typically treated as Tier 2 matters by default and escalated if they involve senior leadership.

Our no-retaliation commitment is also stated in our Code of Conduct, which applies to all Posit Associates. Violations of this commitment may result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination.

How Stakeholders Are Notified of This Procedure

This grievance procedure is published on posit.co and accessible to all stakeholders. Beyond public availability, we communicate it proactively to our main stakeholder groups in the following ways:

• Employees and Contractors: Employees can review this policy on Confluence, our intranet. Associates are required to acknowledge the Code of Conduct.
• Commercial Customers: Referenced in our public Policy Center on posit.co.
• Open-Source Community: Referenced on posit.co and in our public B Corp and PBC reporting. Community members can also raise concerns through our public GitHub repositories or community forums, and we will direct them to this procedure where appropriate.
• Suppliers and Vendors: Referenced in our public Policy Center on posit.co.
• Investors and Shareholders: Referenced in governance documentation and Board materials.

Where a stakeholder group communicates primarily in a language other than English, we will make reasonable efforts to communicate this procedure in that language or to provide translation support for grievance submissions.

Governance and Accountability

The General Counsel is responsible for this procedure and for ensuring it functions as intended. People Operations co-owns the procedure for employment-related grievances. The General Counsel reports on grievance activity, in aggregate and anonymized form, to the Board annually, and more frequently when a matter warrants Board involvement.

This procedure is reviewed annually alongside our Human Rights Policy. It is approved by the Board of Directors. Any material changes require Board approval.

The General Counsel conducts an annual review of all grievances received during the year. That review produces an internal report, presented to the Board of Directors, covering the number and types of grievances received, which were accepted as formal grievances and which were not (and why), how each was resolved, the average time from submission to closure, whether any patterns or recurring themes emerged, and what improvements to this procedure or to Posit's underlying practices are recommended as a result. Where three or more grievances raise similar concerns about the same subject, department, or geography, the report flags this as a hotspot and recommends a targeted response. The goal is not a compliance exercise but an honest look at whether the procedure is working and whether anything in how Posit operates needs to change.

We are aware that the absence of grievances is not necessarily a sign that nothing is wrong, as it may mean that people do not feel safe raising concerns, do not know how, or do not trust the process. That is why the annual review assesses not just the grievances we received but also whether our channels are accessible and trusted, using stakeholder feedback and periodic surveys where available. If the review concludes that the procedure is not functioning as intended, the General Counsel will recommend specific remedial steps to the Board.

Annual Review and Public Reporting

Accountability requires more than good intentions, it requires a record of how the procedure has performed and a willingness to share that record. Posit reports on grievance outcomes both internally (to the Board) and publicly (to all stakeholders), in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights effectiveness criteria.

Report to the Board

Each year, the General Counsel prepares an internal grievance report and presents it to the Board of Directors. The report covers:

• The number of grievances received and the number accepted as formal grievances, broken down by type (employment, human rights, environmental, product-related, other).

• The number rejected and the grounds for rejection in each case.

• The number of completed cases, the resolution tier applied, the outcome, and the average time from submission to closure.

• Whether any hotspots were identified, defined as three or more grievances raising similar concerns about the same subject, department, or geography, and what they indicate.

• An objective assessment of whether the procedure is functioning effectively: whether channels are being used, whether stakeholders appear to trust the process, and what the survey or feedback data (where available) shows.

• Recommended improvements to this procedure or to Posit's underlying policies and practices, based on what the data shows.

The Board reviews this report, considers the recommendations, and approves any material changes to the procedure or to the policies it references. The General Counsel is accountable for implementing approved changes within the agreed timeframe.

Public Reporting

Posit publishes summary of grievance procedure performance on our PBC Report. The public summary reports in aggregate and does not disclose personal information about individuals without their consent. It includes:

• The number, types, and nature of grievances received.

• The number of submissions rejected and the grounds for rejection.

• The number of completed cases, the outcomes, any follow-up activities, and the average duration of the process.

• An assessment of stakeholder satisfaction with the process, based on direct feedback or survey data where available.

• Any material changes made to the procedure or to underlying policies as a result of grievance findings.

• Any other information that helps stakeholders understand how the procedure is performing.

Where no grievances have been filed in a reporting period, we will say so clearly, along with the steps we have taken to make the procedure accessible and trusted, and our assessment of whether the absence of submissions is a genuine indicator of no concerns or a sign of underreporting.

Beyond aggregate reporting, where a grievance has resulted in a significant policy change or a meaningful remediation, we may describe that case in anonymized form, with the consent of the person who submitted the grievance, to give stakeholders concrete visibility into how the procedure works in practice.

Last Update: 2026