Grievance Handling - Conflict Management, Human Resource Management | Human Resource Management - B Com PDF Download

Grievance Handling
A grievance is any dissatisfaction or feeling of injustice having connection with one’s employment situ­ation which is brought to the attention of management. Speaking broadly, a grievance is any dissatisfac­tion that adversely affects organizational relations and productivity. To understand what a grievance is, it is necessary to distinguish between dissatisfaction, complaint, and grievance.

1. Dissatisfaction is anything that disturbs an employee, whether or not the unrest is expressed in words.
2. Complaint is a spoken or written dissatisfaction brought to the attention of the supervisor or the shop steward.3. Grievance is a complaint that has been formally presented to a management representative or to a union official.

According to Michael Jucious, ‘grievance is any discontent or dissatisfaction whether expressed or not, whether valid or not, arising out of anything connected with the company which an employee thinks, believes or even feels to be unfair, unjust or inequitable’.

In short, grievance is a state of dissatisfaction, expressed or unexpressed, written or unwritten, justified or unjustified, having connection with employment situation.

Features of Grievance:
1. A grievance refers to any form of discontent or dissatisfaction with any aspect of the organization.

2. The dissatisfaction must arise out of employment and not due to personal or family problems.

3. The discontent can arise out of real or imaginary reasons. When employees feel that injustice has been done to them, they have a grievance. The reason for such a feeling may be valid or invalid, legitimate or irrational, justifiable or ridiculous.

4. The discontent may be voiced or unvoiced, but it must find expression in some form. However, discontent per se is not a grievance. Initially, the employee may complain orally or in writing. If this is not looked into promptly, the employee feels a sense of lack of justice. Now, the discontent grows and takes the shape of a grievance.

5. Broadly speaking, thus, a grievance is traceable to be perceived as non-fulfillment of one’s expec­tations from the organization.

Causes of Grievances:

Grievances may occur due to a number of reasons:

1. Economic:
Employees may demand for individual wage adjustments. They may feel that they are paid less when compared to others. For example, late bonus, payments, adjustments to overtime pay, perceived inequalities in treatment, claims for equal pay, and appeals against performance- related pay awards.

2. Work environment:
It may be undesirable or unsatisfactory conditions of work. For example, light, space, heat, or poor physical conditions of workplace, defective tools and equipment, poor quality of material, unfair rules, and lack of recognition.

3. Supervision:
It may be objections to the general methods of supervision related to the attitudes of the supervisor towards the employee such as perceived notions of bias, favouritism, nepotism, caste affiliations and regional feelings.

4. Organizational change:
Any change in the organizational policies can result in grievances. For example, the implementation of revised company policies or new working practices.

5. Employee relations:
Employees are unable to adjust with their colleagues, suffer from feelings of neglect and victimization and become an object of ridicule and humiliation, or other inter- employee disputes.

6. Miscellaneous:
These may be issues relating to certain violations in respect of promotions, safety methods, transfer, disciplinary rules, fines, granting leaves, medical facilities, etc.

Effects of Grievance:

Grievances, if not identified and redressed, may adversely affect workers, managers, and the organiza­tion.

The effects are the following:

1. On the production:

a. Low quality of production

b. Low productivity

c. Increase in the wastage of material, spoilage/leakage of machinery

d. Increase in the cost of production per unit

2. On the employees:

a. Increase in the rate of absenteeism and turnover

b. Reduction in the level of commitment, sincerity and punctuality

c. Increase in the incidence of accidents

d. Reduction in the level of employee morale.

3. On the managers:

a. Strained superior-subordinate relations.

b. Increase in the degree of supervision and control.

c. Increase in indiscipline cases

d. Increase in unrest and thereby machinery to maintain industrial peace

Need for a Formal Procedure to Handle Grievances:
A grievance handling system serves as an outlet for employee frustrations, discontents, and gripes like a pressure release value on a steam boiler. Employees do not have to keep their frustrations bottled up until eventually discontent causes explosion.

The existence of an effective grievance procedure reduces the need of arbitrary action by supervisors because supervisors know that the employees are able to protect such behavior and make protests to be heard by higher management. The very fact that employees have a right to be heard and are actually heard helps to improve morale. In view of all these, every organization should have a clear-cut proce­dure for grievance handling.