Forms, Causes and Effects of Grievance

Forms of Grievance

A grievance may take anyone of the following forms:

Factual: A factual grievance arises when the legitimate needs of employees remain unfulfilled, e.g., wage hike has been agreed but not implemented citing various reasons.
Imaginary: When an employee’s dissatisfaction is not because of any valid reason but because of wrong perception, wrong attitude, or wrong information he has. Such a situation may create an imaginary grievance.
Disguised: An employee may have dissatisfaction for reasons that are unknown to himself. If he/she is under pressure from family, friends, relatives, neighbors, he/she may reach the work spot with a heavy heart.

Causes of Grievance

Grievances may occur for a number of reasons:

Economic: Wage fixation, overtime, bonus, wage revision, etc. Employees may feel that they are paid less when compared to others.
Work Environment: Poor physical conditions of the workplace, tight production norms, defective tools and equipment, poor quality of materials, unfair rules, lack of recognition, etc.
Supervision: Relates to the attitudes of the supervisor towards the employee such as perceived notions of bias, favoritism, nepotism, caste affiliations, regional feelings, etc.
Work group: Employee is unable to adjust with his colleagues; suffers from feelings of neglect, victimization and becomes an object of ridicule and humiliation, etc.
Miscellaneous: These include issues relating to certain violations in respect of promotions, safety methods, transfer, disciplinary rules, fines, granting leave, medical facilities, etc.

The classification and causes of grievances are listed below

Wage grievances

– demand for individual wage adjustment

– complaint about job classification

– complaint about incentive system

– miscellaneous

Supervision

– complaint against discipline/administration

– complaint against behaviour of supervisor

– objection to the method of supervision

Working conditions

– safety and health

– violation of rules and regulations

– miscellaneous

Seniority and promotion

– loss of seniority and transfers

– calculation/interpretation of seniority

– promotion

– denial or delay

– transfer or change of shifts

Discipline

– discharge/dismissal/layoffs

– alcoholism, absenteeism and accidents

– harshness of punishment and penalty

Collective bargaining

– violation of contract/award/agreement

– interpretation of contract/award/agreement

– settlement of grievances

Union management

– recognition of union relations

– harassment of union bearers

– soldiering / go-slow tactics

The causes of grievances usually arise from issues as

working environment e.g., light, space, heat.
use of equipment, e.g., tools that have not been properly maintained.
supervisory practices, e.g., workload allocation.
personality clashes and other inter-employee disputes (work-related or otherwise).
the behavior exhibited by managers or other employees, e.g. allocation of ‘perks’ such as Sunday overtime working, and harassment, victimization, and bullying incidents.

Identifying Grievances

Grievances can be uncovered in a number of ways as:

Observation: A manager/supervisor can usually track the behaviours of people working under him. If a particular employee is not getting along with people, spoiling materials due to carelessness or recklessness, showing indifference to commands, reporting late for work or is remaining absent – the signals are fairly obvious.
Grievance or Formal procedure or Step Ladder Method: A systematic grievance procedure is the best means to highlight employee dissatisfaction at various levels. Management, to this end, must encourage employees to use it whenever they have anything to say. In the absence of such a procedure, grievances pile up and burst up in violent forms at a future date.
Gripe boxes: A gripe box may be kept at prominent locations in the factory for lodging anonymous complaints pertaining to any aspect relating to work.
Open door policy: This is a kind of walk-in-meeting with the manager when the employee can express his feelings openly about any work-related grievance.
Exit interview: Employees usually leave their current jobs due to dissatisfaction or better prospects outside. If the manager tries sincerely through an exit interview, he might be able to find out the real reasons why ‘X’ is leaving the organisation. To elicit valuable information, the manager must encourage the employee to give a correct picture so as to rectify the mistakes promptly.
Opinion surveys: Surveys may be conducted periodically to elicit the opinions of employees about the organisation and its policies. Group meetings, periodical interviews with workers and collective bargaining sessions are also helpful in knowing employee discontent before it becomes a grievance.

Effects of Grievance

Quite often when minor grievances are accumulated, major problems creep 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.

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.

Grievances lead to: