75 Q 79. Why these criteria? The criteria in this Guiding Principle were developed through a process of research, consultation and road-testing. There are other ways in which some of them could be articulated or in which the issues they cover could be labelled or clustered. But the core elements they reflect provide a set of benchmarks for ensuring that a mechanism can achieve the benefits and avoid the pitfalls identified in response to question 78. These criteria should be taken as a whole as they are inter-related—excluding one will weaken the ability to meet others and make the mechanism as a whole less effective. The individual criteria are explained further in the commentary to the Guiding Principles. As noted above, a grievance mechanism’s effectiveness requires all relevant departments or functions, as well as senior management, to support it in principle and in practice. It will also be beneficial to include relevant personnel or departments in the development of a grievance mechanism so that they understand its aims and the standards it needs to meet, and support the model developed. It is particularly important for personnel to feel that hearing about problems is not a threat, but constructive and necessary to enable the enterprise to learn and succeed over time. Q 80. How should a grievance mechanism’s effectiveness be assessed? It will be important for the enterprise to develop appropriate measurements that can help it assess the mechanism’s effectiveness in practice. There can be advantages to getting stakeholders’ input on what these measurements should include, so as to ensure that their perspective on what “success” looks like is adequately reflected. An enterprise should be wary of easy assumptions about what certain numerical indicators might mean. A decrease in the number of complaints over time may indicate that the enterprise is learning from past complaints and preventing their recurrence; it may equally indicate that stakeholders are losing trust in the grievance mechanism and perhaps looking at other ways to vent their grievances. Conversely, an increase in complaints—at least initially or after a major new development—may indicate either that the mechanism is trusted and working, or that problems are on the rise. Qualitative indicators—