Explain grievance procedure
#1
What are the steps involved in grievance procedure?
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#2
A well-defined grievance procedure is another element of sound industrial relations machinery. Prompt and effective disposal of workers grievances is the key to industrial peace. There is no legislative provision for a well-defined and adequate grievance procedure. In the absence of a satisfactory procedure for handling them, day-to-day grievances will accumulate with the consequent risk of their degenerating into disputes.
A grievance procedure is a graduated series of steps arranged in a hierarchy of increasing complexity and involvement. The number of steps in a grievance procedure varies with the size of organisation. A small organisation may have only two steps:
1. The supervisor
2. The manager
A big organisation may have as many as ten steps. Though a labour union is not essential. But generally, there is a trade union. We can describe a grievance procedure in a unionised organisation as under:
Step 1—The aggrieved employee explains his grievance to his immediate supervisor or in a discussion or in a conference specifically arranged for this purpose. If the concern is unionised, a representative of the union may also join the employee. This step is necessary to preserve the authority of the supervisor over employees. The grievance may or may not be settled by the supervisor.
Step 2—All the grievances cannot be handled by the supervisor because many of them involve issues or policies which are beyond the limits of authority. There may be some grievances which he may fail to solve. Hence provision is made for a second step. The second step may be the personnel officer himself or some middle level line executive. Some higher personnel in the union-hierarchy may join him.
Step 3—If the suggestion or decision of middle management is not accepted by the aggrieved employee, top management handles grievances involving company-wide issues. In this step top union leaders also join.
Step 4-If the grievance has not been settled by the top management, the fourth and final step is taken when the grievance is referred to an arbitrator—an outside and impartial person who is acceptable to the employee as well as the management. The two parties may agree beforehand that the arbitrator's award will be final and binding on both the parties.
The "Open Door" policy-Some managers oppose the view that there should be a formal grievance procedure consisting of a graduated series of steps. In their opinion there should be a general invitation to all employees to informally drop in at any time and explain their grievances. At first glance, the policy may 1 appear very attractive but it has following limitations:
(1) This policy is workable only in very small organisations. In big organisations the top management does not have the time to attend to innumerable routine grievances daily which is the work of lower level managers.
(2) Under this policy, the front line supervisor who should be the first man to know about the grievances of his subordinates is by passed. This provokes him in two ways:
(a) He thinks the man who skipped him is disrespectful.
(b) He fears that he will incur his superior's displeasure because this will be interpreted as the superior as his failure to handle his subordinates.
(3) 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.
(4) Top management is not at all familiar 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 employee and the top president of a company. Theoretically, each level affords an equal opportunity for distortion, fading and delay of certain facts on which a complaint may be based.
(5) The door of the executive's office remains physically open but psychological and social barriers prevent employees from actually entering it. Some employees hesitate to be singled out as having a grievance. Others are afraid they will incur their supervisor's disfavour.
(6) This policy may be used to hide the top management's own hesitation to make contracts with the operatives and open door is only a slogan to conceal closed doors.
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