Effective Grievance Handling in the Workplace: An Analytical Approach

The assignment delves into strategies for addressing grievances within an organization, emphasizing the importance of a structured grievance procedure. It outlines steps such as thorough investigation, preparation of detailed response letters, and collaboration with legal departments to ensure effective resolution. The analysis aims to enhance employee satisfaction by implementing fair conflict management practices, thereby fostering a positive work environment. References from various studies provide insights into the impact of these procedures on workplace dynamics.

Running head: GRIEVANCE MANAGEMENT IN ORGANISATIONS
Grievance Management in Organisations
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Answer 1:
The case study given presents the events against the backdrop of an organisation
where labour union plays a very significant role. A manager has terminated an employee on
the grounds of intentional misconduct and breach of decorum. This means that the employee
has violated a policy or has committed an action intentionally, which is capable of causing
harm to a co-employee and the organisation. This employee has committed an action, which
has caused harm to an individual or to the company, which forced the management to
terminate him. The dismissed employee launched a grievance but the manager who received
it has no knowledge of dealing with grievances. The manager wanted the human resource
department to receive the complaint and deal with it. However, the case study does not
provide any detail about the type of complaint the complainant launched and events, which
led to the employee to breach the organisational codes of conduct, are not mentioned. It can
be assumed that the employee was involved in grave unethical activities like fighting, theft or
unethically using the company data. He might have been caught presenting fraud expenditure
reports to obtain reimbursements for expenses he has incurred for professional reasons like
going business tours. The study is silent about the tenure and time when the employee
dismissed committed the serious misconduct, which led to his dismissal. It does not bear any
information regarding the witnesses of the gross misconduct and the place of the incidence.
However, the study clearly states that the manager who received the complaint was not
experienced to handle it and asked for the discretion of the human resource department it.
However, one can point out that failure of the manager and the human resource department to
resolve the employee complaint may lead to conflicts between the management and the
labour union. The labour union using its power may jeopardise the productivity of the
company (tbs-sct.gc.ca, 2017).

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Answer 2:
The following are the roles and responsibilities of the manager and the human
resource department:
 Roles of the mangers in dealing with the grievances from subordinate employees:
1. Take informal actions:
The manager who has received a grievance from an employee against a manger,
senior manager or a subordinate should first speak to the complainant employee in an
informal manner. The aim of the conversation between the manager and the aggrieved
employee should be finding an amicable remedy to the problem, which is the cause of the
grievance. The manager should try to find out the factors responsible for the wilful
misconduct of the employee.
2. Formal meeting:
If the informal conversation between the manager and the aggrieved employees fails
to produce an amicable settlement, the manager should arrange for a formal meeting to solve
the issue. The meeting must be held in private with appropriate witnesses and the proceedings
should be confidential. This would allow the grievance to be redressed without intervention
of the external parties like union (Sainath & Thomas, 2017). The main aim of the formal
should be to attract the attention of the management towards the growing tendency of wilful
misconduct among the employees. The manager, the management and the HR should form
strategies to deal with this breakdown of organisational culture.
3. Investigate:
The manager must initiate an investigation into the issues, which led to the employee
grievances. He can also seek help from the important departments like the legal department to

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help him deal with the case. The informal meeting can provide the manager with the
preliminary information to initiate the investigation. He can also adjourn the formal meeting
to incorporate the findings of the investigation in the meeting to provide long-term solution of
the grievance (Saundry et al., 2014).
 Responsibilities of a manager in handling employee grievances are as follows:
1. Report grievance to the management for dealing with it:
The responsibility of the manager is to report the grievance of the employee to the
management. This way the manager can communicate to the complainant that his issues are
serious and the management would try to resolve it amicably if the manager fail to do so. As
pointed in the study, the organisation experiences strong influences of labour union. Hence,
in the light of the above, one can point out that informal conversation may help in amicable
settlement of the grievance and prevent union intervention which may lead to conflict
between the management and the union (Jain & Kaur, 2014).
2. Meeting the union representatives:
The second responsibility of the manager is to establish a smooth communication
system with the union leaders to ensure that they cooperate with the management in solving
the problem. This way the manager ensures that the union does not interfere in the grievance
management process of the company. The case study states that the organisation has strong
influence of labour union. Hence, the responsibility of the manager is to maintain a healthy
communication with the union leaders so that they do not take any action against the
company in support of the dismissed employee.
 Role of the HR employee grievance management are as follows:
1. A smooth communication channel:

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The human resource department should establish a smooth communication within the
channel for the employees to report their grievances. The HR managers should ensure the
employees that their privacy would not be divulged and they would be saved from retaliation
from employees against whom they complain This would encourage them to report problems
to the HR which would give latter the chance to resolve it before the situation becomes
serious (Goldman et al., 2016).
2. Being transparent:
The human resource department should be transparent to the employees on the status
of their complaints. The ways the complaint management depends on several factors like the
type of complaint, the profile of the complainant and the respondent and the size of the
organisation. For example, if the compliant involves criminal activities like fraud, the
resolving the complaint would require legal intervention and be time consuming. The HR
department should inform the concerned employee about the complexity of his complaint and
the expected time that resolving it would take (Wood, Saundry & Latreille, 2014). Thus, this
transparent role of facilitating complaint resolution of the HR department would encourage
the employees to report their grievances in a transparent way and would help the
organisations in avoiding future conflicts.
 The following are the responsibilities of HR in managing employee grievances:
1. Recruitment of ethical employees:
It is the responsibility of the human resource department to ensure that the employees
are ethically sound. This would ensure that they do not commit wilful misconduct that could
lead to their dismissal. This would ensure also help the organisation in avoiding counter
grievance from these employees after this termination.

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2. Training:
The human resource department should train the employees to function ethically,
legally and morally. This would ensure that the employees do not commit actions attracting
moral turpitude. This would in turn allow the organisation to retain the employees and reduce
turnover expenses. For example, the company has to hire to fill up the vacancy created by the
dismissal of the employee. One can point out this requirement to hire employees frequently to
replace unethical employees would add to the turnover cost of the company. This would
enable the organisation avoid future misconducts and enable the company to retain the
employees. Thus, it is the responsibility of the HR to train the employees to check unethical
actions and subsequent turnover.
Answer 3:
The following advices would be given to the manager on the action they would
require to take in response to the complaints:
 Meeting the griever:
The manager must meet the aggrieved employee and the union representatives. The
purpose of the meeting should be to find out the reason behind the grievance and to resolve it.
The meeting should take place in a formal way in presence of the top managers of significant
departments like the human resource department, the department of the employee and the
legal department. The manager should inform all the parties including the griever, the union
representatives and managers from other departments about the date and time of the meeting
in a formal way. He proceedings of the meeting should be recorded formally in written form
including the final decision taken to resolve the issue. The manager should take steps to
ensure that the issues are resolved. He may also seek cooperation from other managers or

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even legal firms if the complaint is of legal turpitude to ensure proper resolution (Saundry &
Wibberley, 2014).
 Investigation and gathering of information:
The manager should initiate an investigation to find out facts pertaining to complaint
and to ascertain its ingenuity. He should speak to the senior managers who have experiences
of dealing with complaints and the legal department. He key elements the investigation
should seek to find out are who were involved in the incidence that led to the complaint, what
was the issue, the place and time of the incidence and the reason and method of the
incidence. The thorough investigation should take place with within a specified time and
lead to gathering of documentary evidences, which would help the manager to resolve the
issue (Saundry, McArdle & Thomas, 2013).
 Grievance response:
The manager should prepare a grievance response based on the findings of the
investigation. The response should incorporate the advices to the grieving employee(s). The
manager should seek advices from the legal department and the investigator in preparing the
appropriate response (Gomathi, 2014).
 Preparation of a draft letter:
To,
The Manager,
... department (the department of the complaining employee),
Subject: Grievance resolution response
Dear Mr...,

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This letter is in response to the grievance letter dated... received from ..., an employee
working under your supervision. The following is the resolution to the grievance as per the
instructions of the management and the compliance department based on the findings of the
detailed investigation conducted:
The aggrieved employee ....(name) should be treated as per the directions of the
grievance addressing committee.
Regards,
.....

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References:
Archived - Grievance Procedure. (2017). Tbs-sct.gc.ca. Retrieved 21 November 2017, from
https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=12598&section=HTML
Goldman, B., Goldman, B., Shapiro, D. L., Shapiro, D. L., Pearsall, M., & Pearsall, M.
(2016). Towards an understanding of the role of anticipatory justice in the
employment dispute-resolution process: An investigation of EEOC-sponsored
mediation. International Journal of Conflict Management, 27(2), 275-298.
Gomathi, S. (2014). A Study on Grievance Management in Improving Employee
Performance in a Pvt Enterprise. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(20), 20.
Jain, R., & Kaur, S. (2014). Impact of work environment on job satisfaction. International
Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 4(1), 1-8.
Sainath, A. R., & Thomas, R. (2017). AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON INFLUENCE OF
MOTIVATIONAL PRACTICES ON MOTIVATION OF EMPLOYEES.
International Journal of Research in Management & Social Science, 42.
Saundry, R. A., & Wibberley, G. (2014). Workplace dispute resolution and the management
of individual conflict—A thematic analysis of five case studies.
Saundry, R. A., Latreille, P., Dickens, L., Irvine, C., Teague, P., Urwin, P., & Wibberley, G.
(2014). Reframing Resolution-Managing Conflict and Resolving Individual
Employment Disputes in the Contemporary Workplace. Acas Policy Discussion
Papers, 1-21.

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Saundry, R., McArdle, L., & Thomas, P. (2013). Reframing workplace relations? Conflict
resolution and mediation in a primary care trust. Work, employment and society,
27(2), 213-231.
Van Gramberg, B., Teicher, J., Bamber, G. J., & Cooper, B. (2017). A Changing World of
Workplace Conflict Resolution and Employee Voice: An Australian Perspective.
Wood, S., Saundry, R., & Latreille, P. (2014). Analysis of the nature, extent and impact of
grievance and disciplinary procedures and workplace mediation using WERS2011.
Acas Research Papers, 10, 14.
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