A grievance can lead to collective disputes when they are not resolved on time. Grievance can be an imaginary feeling of dissatisfaction or it can be genuine as well or an injustice felt by an employee experienced by them about his job and the way of working, about management policies and procedures. Grievances are problems and complaints raised by an employee of an organization about workplace issues like work culture, leave policies, workload or the team they work with. Handling employee grievance is one of the many aspects of personnel management. When an employee merely expresses his thoughts and opinions regarding his issues verbally to anyone who cares to listen is considered as a complaint. It becomes a grievance when the employee starts putting the complaint in writing and submits it to the concerned authority to look into that matter further.
It is very important for an organization, whatever the size of the organization, to have a proper formal grievance management procedure in place. It is equally important that all employees are aware of this procedure. It the duty of an organization to provide their staff with details of all workplace disciplinary and grievance management procedure. Grievances can be effectively managed by reducing the number of complaints which the employees are facing. Encourage senior managers to give regular feedback to their subordinates on their performance regularly. Employee lacks the input received from managers on how they`re performing. Always acknowledge the employee`s ideas. In this way, employees will feel invested in the corporate culture and the organization will be successful in preventing a culture of complaint.
Take all the grievances submitted by your employees seriously. Listen to the person submitting the grievance carefully and try to analyze his problems. Look at his complaints from his point of view. Understand his complaints by the situation he is going through. When you are validating an employee`s grievance always consult the HR professional and then decide upon specific steps which you need to take. After deciding upon the required steps with the employee, inform them what steps you plan to take. Also, it is necessary for the managers to gather appropriate facts explaining the employee`s grievance and then decide upon the steps. This will also help the organization to keep a record of such facts which can be used at a later stage of grievance redressal. The manager should find the actual cause of grievance and accordingly execute the decision taken quickly. After implementing the decision, a follow-up should be taken to check whether the grievance is solved completely and the issue is being resolved from both the ends.
A proper grievance management system guarantees an amicable workplace since it reviews the grievance to common fulfillment of both the employees and the organization. It likewise causes the organization to outline strategies and methods satisfactory to the employees. It turns into a powerful mode for the staff to express their emotions, discontent, and disappointment transparently and officially.