Everything you need to know about employee grievance handling. Employers are, often, bombarded with grievances of various kinds from workers almost on a daily basis.
The employer might be the target in most cases. At other times, workers may target the supervisors and even their co-workers. Such grievances may be real or imaginary, valid, or invalid, genuine or false. They might look silly and completely baseless at times.
Learn about:- 1. Introduction to Employee Grievance Handling 2. Meaning and Definition of Employee Grievance Handling 3. Features 4. Objectives 5. Successful Pre-Requisites 6. Reasons 7. Elements 8. Principles 9. Effects 10. Importance
11. Merits and Demerits 12. Points to be Remembered When Handling a Grievance 13. Difficulties 14. Measures to Improve 15. Legislative Frameworks for Grievances Handling.
Employee Grievance Handling: Meaning, Definition, Reasons, Effects, Importance, Merits and a Few Others
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Contents:
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- Introduction of Employee Grievance Handling
- Meaning and Definition of Employee Grievance Handling
- Features of Employee Grievance Handling
- Objectives of Employee Grievance Handling
- Successful Pre-Requisites of Employee Grievance Handling
- Reasons for Employee Grievance Handling
- Elements of Employee Grievance Handling
- Principles of Employee Grievance Handling
- Effects of Employee Grievance Handling
- Importance of Employee Grievance Handling
- Merits and Demerits of Employee Grievance Handling
- Points to be Remembered When Handling a Grievance
- Difficulties in Employee Grievance Handling
- Measures to Improve Employee Grievance Handling
- Legislative Frameworks for Grievances Handling
Employee Grievance Handling – Introduction
Employers are, often, bombarded with grievances of various kinds from workers almost on a daily basis. The employer might be the target in most cases. At other times, workers may target the supervisors and even their co-workers. Such grievances may be real or imaginary, valid, or invalid, genuine or false. They might look silly and completely baseless at times.
It is the duty of HR managers to look into such grievances without prejudging anything in an objective and unemotional manner. As the famous Hawthorne Studies indicated, from the workers’ point of view, it is important to allow worker to ventilate his grievances freely and listen to everything showing patience and restraint. There is no use dismissing the contentious issues on hand as trivial or unworthy of critical attention. The old adage is worth recounting here. “Beware of small leaks.
A small leak can sink a great ship”. When the worker gets a feeling that his voice is not cowed down by brute strength and gains the confidence to place the facts before management in a bold fashion—management will be able to put out fires quickly and effectively. If the petty grievances are not attended to promptly, they may erupt in volcanic forms at a later stage.
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All in all, it is in the best interests of management to encourage workers to blow the whistle whenever they see things going off the track. Organisations that have empowered employees this way would definitely reap the dividends of a healthy work climate in the long run.
Employee Grievance Handling – Meaning and Definition
In an organization, employees have complaints against their employers such as dissatisfaction from the quantum of wages, mode of payment for overtime work, working conditions, promotion, transfer, dismissal or discharge, poor quality of food in the canteen, etc. These types of complaints should not be allowed to aggravate.
An HR manager should try to identify and resolve them as they come to his knowledge. Identification of grievances and their proper handling is necessary for maintaining harmonious industrial relations. A grievance can be any discontent or dissatisfaction, whether expressed or not, whether valid or not, arising out of anything connected with the company that an employee thinks, believes or even feels is unfair, unjust or inequitable.
This dissatisfaction may be stated or unvoiced, written or oral, legitimate or ridiculous, but the only thing is that the discontent must affect performance. A grievance is anything that an employee thinks or feels is wrong and is generally accompanied by an actively disturbing feeling. It is not to be justified. There is a difference between the word ‘grievance’ and ‘complaint’.
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A complaint is a discontent or dissatisfaction that has not, as yet, assumed a great measure of importance to the complainant. Complaints are more in numbers than grievances at the workplace, e.g., it is too hot in the shop; a colleague is not cooperating, etc. Often, the complaints are submitted in a very informal way.
But a complaint becomes a grievance when the employee feels that an injustice has been done. When the supervisor or manager ignores the complaint and thereafter dissatisfaction that grows within the employee usually assumes the status of a grievance. A grievance is always expressed whether verbally or in writing.
A grievance may be submitted by a worker or several workers. 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. In other words, where the issue is of a wider or of general nature or of general applicability then it will be outside the purview of grievance machinery.
Broadly speaking, a grievance is any dissatisfaction that adversely affects organizational relations and productivity. As such, the discontent or dissatisfaction can be either stated or unvoiced, written or oral, legitimate or ridiculous. As far as basic managerial philosophy is concerned, this broad definition of a grievance has its value as it is the basis for a sound approach to the development of good morale.
However, in practical situations, the term grievance is more restricted in its meaning. Pigors and Myers” while explaining the meaning of grievance use three terms dissatisfaction, complaint and grievance indicating the three stages of employee dissatisfaction. They define employee dissatisfaction as “anything that disturbs an employee, whether or not he expresses his unrest in words”.
A dissatisfaction which is orally made known by one employee to another is known as a complaint. A complaint becomes a grievance when this dissatisfaction, which is mostly related to work, is brought to the notice of management.
Dale S. Beach defines grievance as “any dissatisfaction or feeling of injustice in connection with one’s employment situation that is brought to the attention of management”.
Richard p. Calhoon defines a grievance as “anything that an employee thinks or feels is wrong, and is generally accompanied by an actively disturbing feeling”. This point is very well explained further by Jucius as- “….and discontent or dissatisfaction whether expressed or not, whether valid or not, arising out of anything connected with the company that an employee thinks, believes, or even feels is unfair, unjust or inequitable”.
Thus, dissatisfaction when expressed becomes a complaint and when he believes that some injustice is being done, it becomes a grievance. Usually grievances relate to problems of interpretation or perceived non-fulfillment of one’s expectations from the organization. Aggrieved employees usually manifest deviant behaviour.
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The ILO defines a grievance as a complaint of one or more workers with respect to wages and allowances, conditions of work and interpretation of service conditions covering such area as overtime, leave, transfer, promotion, seniority, job assignment and termination of service. The National Commission on Labour observed that complaints affecting one or more individual workers in respect of their wage payments, overtime, leave, transfer, promotion, seniority, work assignment and discharges would constitute grievances.
“Individual” and “Group” grievances should be distinguished. If the issue involved relates to one or a few individual employees, it needs to be handled through a grievance procedure, but when general issues with policy implications and wider interest are involved they become the subject matter for collective bargaining. Ideally speaking, trade unions do not or should not play a significant role in individual grievance redressal whereas they need to be involved in grievance handling of a collective nature.
Employee Grievance Handling – 4 Key Features of a Good Grievance Handling Procedure Referred by Torrington & Hall
Torrington & Hall refer to four key features of a grievance handling procedure, which are discussed below:
1. Fairness – Fairness is needed not only to be just but also to keep the procedure viable, if employees develop the belief that the procedure is only a formality, then its value will be lost, and other means sought to deal with the grievances. This also involves following the principles of natural justice, as in the case of a disciplinary procedure.
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2. Facilities for Representation – Representation, can be of help to the individual employee who lacks the confidence or experience to take on the management single-handedly. However, there is also the risk that the presence of the representative produces a defensive management attitude, affected by a number of other issues on which the manager and representative may be at loggerheads.
3. Procedural Steps – Steps should be limited to three. There is no value in having more just because there are more levels in the management hierarchy. This will only lengthen the time taken to deal with matter and will soon bring the procedure into disrepute.
4. Promptness – Promptness is needed to avoid the bitterness and frustration that can come from delay.
Employee Grievance Handling – 6 Main Objectives
1. To enable the employee to air his/her grievance.
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2. To clarify the nature of the grievance.
3. To investigate the reasons for dissatisfaction.
4. To obtain, where possible, a speedy resolution to the problem.
5. To take appropriate actions and ensure that promises are kept.
6. To inform the employee of his or her right to take the grievance to the next stage of the procedure, in the event of an unsuccessful resolution.
Employee Grievance Handling – 8 Successful Pre-Requisites
1. Conformity with the prevailing legislations – The grievance procedure should be in conformity with the existing legislations. It should be designed in such a way that it supplements the statutory provisions.
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2. Acceptability – The grievance procedure should be developed with the mutual consultation among management, workers and labour union. In other words, it must be acceptable to all the concerned parties.
3. Simplicity – It should be as simple as possible. It should involve steps only to encourage the employees. Otherwise if there are so many steps or stages the procedure will become complex and the workers get discouraged.
4. Clarity – Each and every step in the procedure should be clear-cut and unambiguous. An aggrieved employee should be well-informed to whom he should make representation, the form of report, the time limit for making request, appeal, etc.
5. Promptness – A grievance procedure must make speedy redressal of grievances as unnecessary delays add to frustration of the workers.
6. Based on facts – At all the stages, the officer in charge of handling the grievance should make full search of facts and maintain his records properly. Getting the relevant facts is very essential and equally important is the analysis of the facts after taking into consideration the economic, psychological, social and legal issues involved in it.
7. Training – Proper training of supervisors and union representatives is essential for the effective working of grievance procedure.
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8. Follow-up – The working of grievance handling procedure should be reviewed at periodical intervals. To make it more effective necessary improvements must be made.
Employee Grievance Handling – Reasons for Grievances Handling
(i) Economic – wages, overtime, bonus, etc.
(ii) Work environment – poor working conditions, substandard equipments and machinery, defective tools, materials, etc.
(iii) Poor quality of supervision – perceived notion of favouritism, nepotism, bias, etc.
(iv) Work organization – rigid and unfair rules, lack of recognition, etc.
Normally grievances originate from managerial policies and practices, when the latter lack consistency, uniformity, equity, fair play, and the desired level of flexibility. Grievances also arise because of interpersonal problems of individual employees, and labour union practices aiming at reinforcing and consolidating their bargaining strength. The lack of proper communication between the employees and the management can also be a significant reason giving rise to grievances.
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Grievances lead to:
(i) Low morale and commitment
(ii) Loss of interest in work
(iii) Low productivity
(iv) Increase in wastages and costs
(v) Increase in absenteeism
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(vi) High employee turnover
(vii) Indiscipline among employees
(viii) Employees unrest.
Employee Grievance Handling – Top 9 Elements of a Sound Grievance Handling Procedure
The grievance handling procedure is very important for grievance handling in an organisation. It provides the clear-cult guidelines and shows the path to the managers how to solve the grievances. For smooth working it should have certain basic elements so that it can claim that is a good procedure for effective working.
The following elements for a sound grievance handling procedure are suggested:
(a) Well defined communication channels.
(b) The procedure should be simple, to understand.
(c) Properly defined steps for redressing of grievances.
(d) Should have logical sequence of steps.
(e) Favourable attitude of concerned authorities responsible for redressing.
(f) Fact base approach for redressal of grievances.
(g) Proper communication of procedure to all employees and authorities.
(h) Respect for decisions of redressing authority.
(i) Periodical review of grievance handling procedure.
Employee Grievance Handling – 4 Important Principles
Principles or Guidelines for Grievance Handling:
For effective handling of grievances certain principles or guidelines can be followed with good results.
These may be described as follows:
(i) Adequate time must be given for talking to employees, collecting data from and giving them various types of information needed.
(ii) In grievance-handling the representative of management should develop an attitude towards employees that should be instrumental in winning their confidence, loyalty and genuine cooperation. Management’s sincere interest and constructive willingness to help the employees should be displayed throughout.
(iii) A positive approach of management representatives indicating their full awareness of the specific issues as well as their desire and capabilities to carry out the entrusted responsibilities proves highly useful in gaining respect and cooperation.
(iv) In handling grievances, the management representatives must keep in focus not only the current impact of the grievances but also its effects in the long run along with its far distant implications. Thus, grievances should be handled in terms of their total effect on the organization and not solely their immediate or individual effect.
In this connection, the following list of Do’s and Don’ts grievances is useful.
1. Investigate and handle each and every case as though it may eventually result in an arbitration hearing.
2. Talk with the employee about his grievance; give him a good and full hearing.
3. Get the union to identify specific contractual provisions allegedly violated.
4. Enforce the contractual time limits.
5. Comply with the contractual time limits for the company to handle a grievance.
6. Determine whether all the procedural requirements, as dictated by the agreements, have been complied with.
7. Visit the work area where the grievances arose.
8. Determine if there were any witnesses.
9. Examine the relevant contract provisions, and understand the contract thoroughly.
10. Determine if there has been equal treatment of employees.
11. Examine the grievant’s personal record.
12. Fully examine prior grievance records.
13. Evaluate any political connotations of the grievance.
14. Permit a full hearing on the issues.
15. Identify the relief the union is seeking.
16. Treat the union representative as your equal.
17. Command the respect of the union representative.
18. Hold your grievance discussions privately.
19. Provide the grievance process to non-union members as well.
20. Satisfy the union’s right to relevant information.
21. Demand that proper productivity levels be maintained during the processing of incentive grievances.
22. Fully inform your own superior of grievance matters.
Don’t:
1. Discuss the case with the union steward alone; the grievant should definitely be there.
2. Make agreements with individuals that are inconsistent with the labour agreement.
3. Apply the grievance remedy to an improper grievance.
4. Hold back the remedy if the company is wrong.
5. Admit the binding effect of a past practice.
6. Relinquish your authority to the union
7. Settle grievances on the basis of what is fair. Instead, stick to the labour agreement which, after all, should be your standard.
8. Make mutual consent agreements regarding future action.
9. Bargain over items not covered by the contract.
10. Concede implied limitations on your management’s rights.
11. Argue grievance issues off the work premises.
12. Treat as “arbitrable” claims demanding the disciplining or discharge of management members.
13. Commit the company in areas beyond your limits of responsibility of familiarity.
14. Give away your copy of the written grievance.
15. Discuss grievances of striking employees during an illegal work stoppage.
16. Settle grievance when you are in doubt.
17. Support another supervisor in a hopeless case.
18. Refer a grievant to a different form of adjudication.
19. Overlook the precedent value of prior grievance settlement.
20. Give long written grievance answers.
21. Trade a grievance settlement for a grievance withdrawal (or try to “make-up” for a bad decision in one grievance by “bending over backwards” in another)
22. Negate the management’s right to promulgate plant rules
23. Deny grievances on the premise that “your hands have been tied by the management”.
24. Agree to informal amendments in the contract.
Employee Grievance Handling – Effects
Grievance which indicates discontent and dissatisfaction among employees adversely affects their productivity. In other words, by not initiating timely action to deal with grievance, the organisation tends to lose the productive efforts of the discontented employee. It is indeed unrealistic to assume that an aggrieved or dissatisfied employee will put his or her best efforts on the job. The redressal of the employees’ grievances, therefore, assumes importance.
Following are some effects of grievance handling:
1. It encourages employees to raise concerns without fear of reprisal.
2. It provides a fair and speedy means of dealing with complaints.
3. It prevents minor disagreements developing into more serious disputes.
4. It saves employers time and money as solutions are found for workplace problems. It helps to build an organizational climate based on openness and trust.
5. It is a channel for an aggrieved employee to express and present his grievance.
6. It is an assurance for dispassionate handling of one’s grievance.
7. It provides assurance about the availability of some machinery for prompt handling of grievance.
8. It is a means by which an aggrieved employee can release his feelings of discontent or dissatisfaction with his/her job.
Employee Grievance Handling – Importance
Any feeling of discontent or dissatisfaction usually results in definite and considerable losses to employee morale, efficiency and productivity. Grievances generally give rise to unhappiness, frustration, indifference to work and thus affect the interests of the organization very adversely.
Quite often when minor grievances are accumulated, major problems creap in like work-stoppages – strikes, lockouts and other forms of unpredictable eruption causing long-term damage to productivity. Therefore, it becomes extremely essential to handle the grievances at the earliest possible moment.
Human Resource Manager’s role in grievance redressal is significant and to be successful he must know and understand the causes which lie behind grievances and how to set them right. His skill in observation of behaviourism, attitudes and habits of people may be highly useful in exploring early symptoms of changes in individuals due to unexpressed grievances. Attitude surveys also provide clues to actual or probable grievances and their impact on productivity.
With the help of thorough analysis of the nature and pattern of grievances, the causes of employee dissatisfaction can be removed. The HR manager has to probe deeper into the details of grievances and explore the best possible method of settling them.
He has to help the top management and line managers, particularly supervisors, in the formulation and implementation of the policies, programmes and procedures for effective grievance handling. These policies, programmes and procedures are generally known as the grievance redressal procedure.
The importance of grievance handling lies in the fact that grievances can have several effects which are essentially adverse and counterproductive to organizational objectives. As we have seen, these adverse effects include – indiscipline, unrest, low productivity, poor quality of production, increase in wastage and costs, increase in employee turnover, increase in absenteeism, increase in accident-proneness, loss of interest in work and consequent lack of morale and commitment.
Therefore, management must be alert to signs and symptoms of employee dissatisfaction and attempt to uncover root-causes of the ill-feelings so that harmony and productive results can be achieved in the organization.
If managed or handled properly the importance of effective grievance handling would be following:
(a) Relieve employees from mental pains or suffering.
(b) Employees feel satisfied at workplace.
(c) Develop employees’ interest in their jobs.
(d) Sense of belongingness or attachment develops.
(e) Employees become cooperative at work.
(f) Avoid many labour problems in industry.
(g) Industrial disputes and accidents are avoided.
(h) Develop good industrial relations in industry.
(i) Industrial peace and harmony are maintained and developed further.
(j) Performance of employees improves to a good extent
(k) Production volume and quality improve.
(l) Profitability of the company improves.
(m) Overall effectiveness and reputation of the company in business improves.
(n) Reputation of the company in markets improved.
(o) Contributes in development of employees, society and national economy.
Employee Grievance Handling – Merits and Demerits
Merits:
1. Investigate and handle each and every case as though it may eventually result in an arbitration hearing.
2. Talk with the employee about his grievance; give him a good and full hearing.
3. Get the union to identify specific contractual provisions allegedly violated.
4. Enforce the contractual time limits.
5. Comply with the contractual time limits for the company to handle a grievance.
6. Determine whether all the procedural requirements, as dictated by the agreement, have been complied with.
7. Visit the work area where the grievance arose.
8. Determine if there were any witnesses.
9. Examine the relevant contract provisions, and understand the contract thoroughly.
10. Determine if there has been equal treatment of employees.
11. Examine the grievance personal record.
12. Fully examine prior grievance records.
13. Evaluate any political connotations of the grievance.
14. Permit a full hearing on the issues.
15. Identify the relief the union is seeking.
16. Treat the union representative as your equal.
17. Command the respect of the union representatives.
18. Hold your grievance discussions privately.
19. Provide the grievance process to non-union members as well.
20. Satisfy the union’s right to relevant information.
21. Demand that proper productivity levels be maintained during the processing of incentive grievances.
22. Fully inform your own superior of grievance matters.
Demerits:
1. Discuss the case with the union steward alone; the grievant should definitely be there.
2. Make agreements with individuals that are inconsistent with the labour agreement.
3. Apply the grievance remedy to an improper grievance.
4. Hold back the remedy if the company is wrong.
5. Admit the binding effect of a past practice.
6. Relinquish your authority to the union.
7. Settle grievances on the basis of what is fair. Instead, stick to the labour agreement which, after all, should be your standard.
8. Make mutual consent agreements regarding future action.
9. Bargain over items not covered by the contract.
10. Concede implied limitations on your management’s rights.
11. Argue grievance issues of the work premises.
12. Treat as “arbitral” claims demanding the disciplining or discharge of management members.
13. Commit the company in areas beyond your limits of responsibility or familiarity.
14. Give away your copy of the written grievance.
15. Discuss grievances of striking employees during an illegal work stoppage.
16. Settle a grievance when you are in doubt.
17. Support another supervisor in a hopeless case.
18. Refer a grievant to a different form of adjudication.
19. Overlook the precedent value of prior grievance settlement.
20. Give long written grievance answers.
21. Trade a grievance settlement for a grievance withdrawal (or try to “make up” for a bad decision in one grievance by “bending over backwards” in another).
22. Negate the management’s right to promulgate plant rules.
23. Deny grievances on the premise that “your hands have been tied by the management.”
24. Agree to informal amendments in the contract.
Employee Grievance Handling – 8 Points to be Remembered When Handling a Grievance
i. Every grievance must be considered important no matter how irrelevant or insignificant it is or seems.
ii. A grievance should not be postponed in the hope that people will “see the light” themselves. If an executive is tired, in a bad temper or otherwise feeling out of sorts he may courteously apologetically and with regret postpone a grievance hearing, but he should never say something that would incur the distrust or enmity of the aggrieved employee.
iii. Grievances should be put in writing – In order to avoid ambiguity and correctly determine the exact nature of a grievance, the grievance should be put in writing. Writing about the ambiguous nature of most grievances Jucius observes “grievances of today often have their roots in the acts of yesterday and their branches in the effects of tomorrow. The roots are sometimes difficult to locate, and how the branches will grow, difficult to forecast. But difficult though the task is, it must be tackled as best as one can, else grievance handling becomes grievance fighting.” A vague grievance will have to be solved over again.
iv. The management should gather all relevant facts about a grievance and their proper records maintained. This will convince the employees about management’s sincerity, integrity and honesty of purpose. Full facts will also help the management in reaching a fair decision. Maintenance of records is essential for future reference.
v. The worker should be given free time off to pursue his grievance.
vi. Management should make a list of all solutions and later evaluate them one by one in terms of their total effect upon the organization and not solely upon their immediate or individual effect. Tentative solutions can be determined on the basis of experience, examples of other companies technical and trade publications and pure guess.
vii. Decision once reached should be communicated to the employee and acted upon by the management. If the decision is unfavourable, its legitimate foundations should be well explained.
viii. The management must follow-up to determine whether action taken by it has favourably changed the employee’s attitude or not.
Employee Grievance Handling – Difficulties in Grievance Handling
1. Expressing an opinion before gathering full facts
2. Stopping the search for facts quickly and arriving at a conclusion
3. Failing to maintain proper records due to which facts may not be available
4. Arbitrary exercise of executive discretion
5. Settling grievances wrongly, thereby causing disgruntlement.
Employee Grievance Handling – 11 Measures to Avoid the Errors in Grievance Handling
Managements should try to avoid the errors in the grievance procedure by following the measures indicated hereunder:
1. Helpful attitude and support of the management.
2. Belief on the part of all concerned in the practice of the procedure.
3. Introduction of the procedure with the concurrence of employees and trade unions.
4. Following the simple, fair and easily comprehensible procedures.
5. Formulating the clear policies and procedures of the company.
6. Delegation of appropriate authority to the parties concerned.
7. Functioning of the personnel department in the advisory capacity.
8. A fact-oriented and issue-oriented rather than employee-oriented procedure.
9. Respect the decisions taken at all levels.
10. Adequate publicity to the procedure.
11. Periodic evaluation and review of the procedure.
Employee Grievance Handling – Legislative Frameworks for Grievances Handling: The Industrial Employment Act, The Factories Act and The Industrial Dispute Act
Legislative Frameworks for Grievances Handling:
Adequate attention has been paid to the settlement of grievances in Indian industries by the Government of India by framing appropriate legislative frameworks.
It consists of:
1. The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946:
It provides that all industries employing hundred or more workers should frame standing orders which should contain, among other matters, provision for means of redressing the workers against unfair treatment or wrongful executions by the employer or his agents or servants.
2. The Factories Act, 1948:
The Act provides for the appointment of welfare officers in every factory wherein 500 or more workers are employed. These officers are generally entrusted with the task of dealing with grievances and complaints.
3. The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947:
This law provides that:
(a) The employer in relation to every industrial establishment in which 50 or more workmen are employed shall provide for a Grievance Settlement Authority for the settlement of industrial disputes connected with an industrial workman employed in the establishment.
(b) Where an industrial dispute connected with an individual workman arises in an establishment referred to above, a workman or any trade union of workmen of which such workman is a member may refer such dispute to the Grievance Settlement Authority for settlement.
(c) The Grievance Settlement Authority shall follow such procedure and complete its proceedings within such period as may be prescribed.
(d) No reference shall be made to Boards, Courts or Tribunals of any dispute referred to in this section unless such dispute has been referred to the Grievance Settlement Authority concerned and the decision of the authority is not acceptable to any of the parties to the dispute.