Escalation

What it means

Escalation moves an issue up to a higher decision level when it cannot be settled where it arose - no authority, no resources, no time. It is not a complaint or an expression of displeasure but an ordinary management device.

For it to work, three things must be known in advance: what warrants escalation, who it goes to, and within what time a response is expected. Without that it degenerates into an e-mail copied to everyone.

Escalation is neither delegation nor a transfer of responsibility. Whoever escalates an issue remains its owner and prepares the facts; the higher level only decides or allocates resources. That split of roles - who does the work, who approves and who must be kept informed - is usually captured in a RACI matrix.

How it works in practice

In a supplier relationship these rules belong to the SLA and the escalation matrix: first the working contact, then the manager, then the statutory representative. Each level has its own response time.

In accounting what gets escalated is a missing document before a filing deadline, a disagreement on how to book a material item, or a suspected payroll error. Escalating early is cheaper here than silence and a late fix.

We also escalate to the client when documents keep arriving late and the VAT return is at risk of not being filed on time and complete. The director gets a short note: what is missing, from whom, by when we need it and what happens if it does not come, so the decision can be made before the deadline.

What to watch out for

Escalate the fact, not the feeling: what happened, what it will cause, what the options are and what decision is needed. An escalation that skips the agreed level stops being a governance tool and becomes a source of conflict between stakeholders.

The opposite mistake is escalating too late. If the director learns of a payroll error or a missing invoice only after the deadline has passed, the decision is no longer how to fix it but who pays the penalty or the interest. The escalation deadline must therefore be shorter than the deadline it is meant to protect.