Employee Grievances: Causes and Solutions

Ever received grievances at your workplace? Let’s start with what an employee grievance is all about.

Workplace employee grievances may take many forms. This includes anything from harassment, bullying and discrimination, Workplace health and safety, work environment, organizational changes to issues concerning the management of employees – such as micro-management. They will not always be made formal in writing and titled ‘workplace grievance’. They may often be made informally through discussion. It is essential to be able to recognize a grievance and treat them with fairness and offered transparency.

Causes of employee grievances are:

1. Salaries and Wages:

The primary cause for employee dissatisfaction is insufficient compensation. In addition, salary & wage-related reasons such as occasional pause in paying wages, unreasonable deductions, inadequate rise or insufficient overtime payments, inability to revise wages over time, etc. lead to the dissatisfaction and grievance of the employee.

2. Working Environment:

Employees are allowed to work in safe and secure working conditions. Due to inadequate lighting, defective ventilation, poor sanitation facilities, the use of faulty tools and machines, lack of toilets and drinking water facilities, etc., workers can disagree with management.

3. Quality of Manager:

The physical, emotional and behavioral state of the employee is negatively impacted by bad employee-manager relationships. Interfering, dominating and short-tempered administrators make the workplace climate unfriendly. It creates mental tension that affects the output of workers adversely.

4. Unfair Practices:

Unfair promotion policies, forced transfers, lack of adequate training, inappropriate job design, etc., cause excessive employee tension and frustration. Which also results in increased absenteeism and turnover of staff.

5. Work Overload:

The jobs are burdened by forceful allocation with additional duties and obligations. Employees are often unable to withstand the job pressure, which has a negative effect on their emotional and physical health. It also creates discontent among workers & affects their efficiency.

6. Team Environment:

The environment of teammates & teams also affects the level of trust and self-esteem of employees. For eg, employee superiority produces an unpleasant work atmosphere for their peers. Using pointless gossip and office-politics often raises staff frustration, fear and stress.

With each type of complaint, it is very important for an employer to taken the appropriate steps to address the problematic conditions; and protect the employee where possible

Grievance procedure is a formal communication between an employee and the management designed for the settlement of a grievance. a) Open door policy allows aggrieved employee to meet the top executives of the organization and get his grievances redressed. Such a policy works well only in small organizations. b) Under step ladder policy, the aggrieved employee has to follow a step by step procedure for getting his grievance redressed. In this procedure, whenever an employee is confronted with a grievance, he presents his problem to his immediate supervisor and to department head if the employee is not satisfied with superior decision.

How to deal with employee grievances

Writing Strong Policies and Procedures

Before a problem occurs, be sure you you have strong processes and protocols in effect for handling grievances. Such documents let employees know what to expect when they file a grievance. In reality, they protect the business if the worker file a Law suit.

It should include the scope of the policy, the rights of workers and your responsibilities as an employer. Include notes on the right of an employee to be accompanied or represented during the course of dispute handling and their right to appeal decisions.

Investigate grievances thoroughly

Make sure that the situation is investigated, all information is gathered, the personnel involved are heard in a proper meeting and then make a decision and ensuring that the decision is properly conveyed to the parties involved.

Include third parties when necessary

Although management should be able to resolve complaints of its own, often the grievance stems from a conflict with their employer. If that’s the case, a third party should be called forward to treat all sides of the equation equally.

Prioritize impartiality

Failing to be neutral further worsens matters during a staff confrontation. As an employer, to the extent practicable, one would like to be non-artisan. Taking sides can only make the scenario worse.

Document everything

The record of its findings should be properly recorded in every formal process or inquiry. For potential complaints of the same sort, keeping a record will be helpful and it would be helpful particularly when you try to get back to that information.

Appeal and the Final Decision

If the aggrieved staff wants to appeal the decision, they must present their arguments in writing. Then, hold an appeal meeting that will follow a structure identical to the settlement meeting. Someone at the next level of management should if possible, hear the appeal. Most significantly, pay attention to all new data or evidence.

The proper execution of employee grievances procedure generally requires the keeping of adequate documents, experience, and equal representation of all parties involved.

However, there might be times when the above-mentioned method needs to be improved to make it work faster. The Human Resource Department retains the right to make mandatory and sufficient revisions.