Grievances handling in an organisation

 

Figure 1-Grievances handling

Grievance handling in the organisation is the process of handling complaints received from the employees with related to his employment. This may be a matter related to his work allocation, Job rotation, transfer, promotion, pay cuts etc. several authors have defined this process as follows;

 

·         In their working lives, employees occasionally have cause to be uncomfortable, disappointed or aggrieved either about certain managerial decisions, practices or service conditions (Monappa, 1995).

·         Monappa (1995, p. 149) writes:

“A grievance may be submitted by a worker, or several workers, in respect of any measure or situation which directly affects, or is likely to affect, the conditions of employment of one or several workers in the organization. Where a grievance is transformed into a general claim-either by the union or by a large number of workers-it falls outside the grievance procedure and normally comes under the purview of collective bargaining.”

·         A grievance is a formal dispute between an employee and management on the conditions of employment (Glueck, 1979).

 

Employers always need to taken better care of the grievances raised by the employer since it may be help to improve employer satisfaction and also, it may improve the management practices in the organisation as well. If we overlook these grievances then the matter will be escalated to a third party which may resulted in reputational loss the organisation as well.

Basically, there are two ways in handling grievances which is called as formal and informal. Formal grievances handling process is much longer and it is suitable to solve major issues. Where informal grievances handling process is most suitable to solve minor issues in a faster phase.

 

Benefits of having proper mechanism to address employee grievances

 

·         It’s narrows the gap between the management and the employee

·         Management could identify employee expectations and able to develop the organisational framework accordingly.

·         Develop transparency and trust within the organisation.

·         Addressing small issues may avoid serious conflicts in future.

·         Enhance the brand image of the organisation and minimize possible reputational damage to organisation

·         Create a motivated and satisfied work force to exceed expectations of stake holders.

 

Therefore, presently organisations has taken this initiative very diplomatically and they have established separate units for this purpose in their Human resources units. Apart from that they are conducting periodical online surveys with regard to the common issues/the way doing things at present within the employee community to upheld the orgainsational policies and procedures. In addition to that they conduct exit interviews as well to identify whether employee leaving the organisation due to a management issue.

Further companies have set up one of their directors as a whistleblower where an employee could report any malpractices/unfair treatment directly to him personally. Even organisations published respective persons direct contact numbers to the employee community to make the access easy to inform their grievances.

Conclusion

Handling of grievances of employees in a faster and confidential manner are the key to increase employee satisfaction and it will increase their motivation level as well. Also, employees feel confident with regard to the decisions made by management and they will corporate by providing their active inputs and report any adverse things to implement a corrective measure immediately to the management through grievances handling procedure.

 

References

Figure 1 ; online available at ; https://asslstlucia.com/index.php/contact-us/report-issues/assl-grievance-handling

Monappa, A. (1995), Industrial Relations, New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Ltd.

Glueck, W.F. (1979), Foundations of Personnel, Texas: Business Publications Inc.

Opatha, H.H.D.N.P. (2019), Defining a Grievance: A Theoretical Examination of An Old Issue, Sri Lankan Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 21-41.