presentation on Grievance Management for graduate and postgraduate level students of management.

2.  According to Michael Jucius, the term grievance
means any discontent or dissatisfaction,
whether expressed or not and 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.

3.  Dale Yoder defines it as "a written complaint
filed by an employee and claiming unfair
treatment".
 The National Commission of Labour states 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 grievance.

4.  The discontent must arise out of something
connected with the company.
 The discontent may be expressed or implied
 The discontent may be valid, legitimate and
rational or untrue and irrational or completely
ludicrous.

5.  The causes of grievances may broadly be
classified in the following categories:
(A) Grievances resulting from working
conditions:
a) Improper matching of the worker with the
job
b) Changes in schedules or procedures
c) Non-availability of proper tools, machines
and equipment for doing the job.
d) Tight production standards
e) Bad physical conditions of workplace.
f) Poor relationship with the supervisor.

6. (B) Grievances resulting from management
policy.
a) Wages payment and job rates.
b) Leaves
c) Overtime
d) Seniority
e) Transfer
f) Promotion, demotion and discharges
g) Lack of career planning and employee
development plan

7. (C) Grievances resulting from alleged violation of:
a) The collective bargaining agreement
b) Central or State laws
c) Past practices
d) Company rules
e) Management’s responsibility.
(D) Grievances resulting from personal
maladjustment.
a) Over-ambition
b) Excessive self-esteem
c) Impractical attitudes to life etc.

8.  Indiscipline
 Low production and morale
 High absenteeism and turnover
 Loss of faith in management
 Increases in accidents
 Formation of cliques
 Greater dependence on unions
 Lowering of public image of the organisation.

9.  Exit Interview: employees quit organisation due to
dissatisfaction or better prospect elsewhere. Exit
interview, if conducted carefully can provide
important information about employees’ grievances.
 Gripe Boxes: These boxes in which the employees
can drop their anonymous complaint. They are
different from the suggestion boxes in which
employees drop their named suggestions with an
intention to receive rewards.
 Opinion Surveys : Group meeting, periodical
interviews with employees, collective bargaining
sessions are some other means through which one
can get information about employees dissatisfaction
before it turns into a grievance.

10.  Open-door Policy: some organisations extend a
general invitation to their employees to informally
drop in the manager’s room any time and talk over
their grievances. At first glance, this policy may
appear very attractive but it has the following
limitations:
a) This policy is workable only in very small
organisations. In big organisations where
management by exception is practiced, the top
management does not have the time to attend to
innumerable routine grievance daily which is the
work of lower-level managers.
b) By following an ‘open door’ policy the top
management cannot have adequate clues to
assess a supervisor’s skill in handling grievances.
It does not know what action, if any, the
supervisor would have taken to resolve a
grievance.

11. c. Top management is likely to be too unfamiliar
with the work situation in which the grievances
developed to be able to correctly evaluate the
information that it gets. There may be several
levels of management between the operative
employees and the top president of a company.
d. Though the door of executive’s office remains
physically open, psychological and social barriers
prevent employees from actually entering it.
Some employees hesitate to be singled out as
having a grievance. Other’s are afraid they will
incur their supervisor’s disfavour.

12. Machinery for Handling Grievances
 Every organisation needs a permanent procedure for
handling grievances.
 This procedure usually consist of a number of steps
arranged in hierarchy.
 The number of these steps varies with the size of the
organisation. A small organisation may have only two
steps- the supervisor and the manager, but a big
organisation may have as many as ten steps.
 The first and the last steps are almost always the same
for all organisation. Though a labour union is not
essential to the establishment and operation of a
grievances procedure, one is assumed in the schematic
diagram of a four-step grievance procedure as follows:

13. IV STEP
II STEP
III STEP
I STEP

14.  I STEP: As shown in the diagram, the frontline
supervisor is always accorded the first
opportunity to handle grievances. He is the first
rung of the ladder. If the concern is unionised,
a representative of the union may also join him.
The step is very necessary to preserve the
authority of the supervisor over his workers.
But all grievances cannot be handled by the
supervisor because many of them involve
issues or policies which are beyond the limits
of his authority. There may be some grievance
which he may fail to redress and find solution
for. Hence provision is made for a second step
in handling grievance.

15.  II STEP: this second step may be the personnel
officer himself or some middle-level line
executive. If the concern is unionised, some
higher personnel in the union hierarchy may
join him. It should, however, be remembered
that by injecting the personnel officer into the
procedure at this step and by giving him
authority to overrule and reverse the decision
of the supervisor the fundamental principle of
line and staff relationship is violated.

16.  III STEP : a third step is constituted by the top
management to handle grievance involving
company-wide issues. In this step the top
union representatives join. The redressal of
grievances become complex and difficult
because by now they acquire political hues
and color.
 IV STEP: if the grievance has not been settled
by top management and top union leadership
then in the fourth and final step it may be
referred to arbitration, conciliation or
adjudication.

17.  It bring grievances into the open so that
management can learn about them and try
corrective actions.
 It helps in preventing grievances from assuming
big proportions. The management catches and
solves a grievance before it become a dispute.
 It helps in establishing and maintaining a work
culture or way of life. As problem are
interpreted in the grievance procedure, the
group learns how it is expected to respond to
the policies that have been set up.
 It acts as a check upon arbitrary and capricious
management action.

18.  Conformity with existing legislation: the
procedure should be designed to supplement
the existing statutory provisions. Where
practicable, the procedure can make use of
such machinery as the law might have already
provided for.
 Acceptability: the grievance procedure must
be accepted by everybody. In order to be
generally acceptable it must ensure a) a sense
of fair-play and justice to the worker b)
reasonable exercise of authority to the
manager and c) adequate participation of the
union.

19.  Simplicity : the procedure should be simple
enough to be understood by every employee.
The steps should be as few as possible.
Channels for handling grievances should be
carefully developed. Employees must know the
authorities to be contacted at various levels.
 Training : in order to ensure effective working
of the grievance procedure it is necessary that
supervisors and the union representatives are
given training in grievance handling.
 Follow-up: the working of the procedure
should be reviewed periodically by the
personnel department and necessary structural
changes introduced to make it more effective.