HRES 2302 Labour Relations: Manager's Role in Grievance Handling

This report analyzes a case of employee grievance in a unionized workplace, where an accounts assistant, Ms. Sharon, was terminated for alleged misconduct. The report outlines the incident leading to the grievance, detailing the manager's suspicions and subsequent investigation. It explores the responsibilities of both the manager and the HR advisor in handling grievances, emphasizing the importance of quick action, fact-finding, and objective decision-making. The report provides advice to the manager on the steps to take in responding to the grievance, including the meeting with the grievor and union representative, and emphasizes the need for a problem-solving approach and maintaining neutrality. It also details the investigation process, including gathering information and preparing a grievance report. The report concludes with a sample response letter to the employee, denying the grievance based on the findings of the investigation and the employee's admission of guilt. The report highlights key aspects of labour relations and grievance handling, offering practical advice for managers and HR professionals in resolving workplace conflicts effectively.

1
Labour Relations
Author name
Institutional affiliation
Course number and name
Instructor name
Assignment due date>

2
Contents
Event leading to grievance...........................................................................................................................2
Grievance Received by the manager............................................................................................................3
Responsibilities of the manager and Human Resource advisor in handing grievances................................3
Roles of the manager in handling the employee related grievances.........................................................3
Roles of the Human Resource advisor.....................................................................................................4
Advice to the manager on the steps they need to take to respond to the grievances.....................................5
Investigation and Gathering Information.....................................................................................................6
Grievance Report.........................................................................................................................................7
Response Letter:..........................................................................................................................................8
References...................................................................................................................................................9

3
The event leading to the grievance
(Ms. Sharon) presented a case accusing her line manager of harassing and mistreating
her in her work location. Ms. Sharon works as an accounts assistant, scheduled to work in the
cash office. Among her main roles, include collection, receipting and ensuring safe custody of
the organization's money and general resources. This is according to her job description as it
appears in her file in the custody of the Human Resource department. On the 30th of March, an
incident happened in the cash office that was reported to the line manager by the chief security
officer of the firm. Ideally, the office has three employees who are well conversant with all the
processes in the office. In case of any emergencies, they can sit in for one another. On 3rd March,
Ms. Sharon did not leave the office at 1700hrs, as it is usually the case for all the employees.
From the footages of the security cameras, the day was not too busy for her, however, she chose
to stay late in the office. This sparked up suspicions from the security team, who decided to ask
her line manager if any employee was staying up in office late, claims, which the line manager
declined.
In the better part of the evening that Ms. Sharon was in the office, she is seen to receive a
call and she walks out of office, later on, she comes back, picks the key to safe, opens the safe,
takes some substantial amount of money from the cash box, and leaves the office. Later that
evening according to the manager, she sends text messages to her colleagues informing them that
she will not be able to make it to work on the next day. All along, her colleagues do not know
why but accept to stand in for her. On the 4th of March, the accountant while carrying out the end
of month reconciliations realizes that some money was not banked hence the bank balances were
less compared to the cashbook balances. Upon checking the cash box, the money was missing.

4
When Ms. Sharon is asked about the money, she admits having taken the money and promises to
bank it the next day.
The line manager upon realizing this sends Ms. Sharon home for an immediate leave so
that he could carry out investigations into the matter. Upon finishing the investigations, he
summons Ms. Sharon for a hearing and chose to propose to the Human Resource Department to
terminate Ms. Sharon’s contract on grounds of insubordination and lack of integrity, an event
that led her to file this grievance against the proposals of her line manager.
Grievance Received by the manager.
From the manager, Ms. Sharon believes that the manager is up to something wrong. She
claims the manager has harassed her enough since the incident occurred. To her view, being sent
out of work on forced leave for almost one month is enough punishment and she had learned her
lesson. She claimed that she took the money out of emergency reasons, which the manager did
not agree to. She believes the termination of her contact was an unfair proposal.
Responsibilities of the manager and Human Resource advisor in handling grievances
Roles of the manager in handling the employee-related grievances
a) Quick action- Once the manager is aware of the grievance, he should act in his capacity
to identify and solve the same. Managers need proper training to equip them with skills to
efficiently and timely manage grievances. This will reduce the harmful effects on the
output of the employee.
b) Recognizing grievance- The manager needs to accept and consider the grievance by the
employee as an indicator of the actual feeling of the employee (Juneja, 2015).

5
Recognition of the grievance shows that the manager is able and willing to consider the
complaint objectively without any form of biases.
c) Collecting facts- The managers should collect proper and satisfactory facts elucidating
on the grievance’s nature. Records of such facts should be stored properly so that they
can be used later on for grievance rectification.
d) Investigating the causes of grievance- The ideal cause of the grievance should be
established and remedial actions to be taken to avoid such grievances happening in the
future.
e) Making a decision – Once the causes of the grievance has been identified; appropriate
measures should be designed to solve the grievance. All measures need to be examined to
ascertain the effects in the harmonious running of the firm in the future (Saundry et al.,
2011). This will make the manager take the most suitable measure to solve the grievance.
Roles of the Human Resource advisor
In an employee or union grievance, the human resource advisor is an independent party.
He or she comes in with an open mind, listens or analyses both sides of the grievance, i.e. from
the manager’s view and the employee's view and comes up with a very sober solution to the
grievance (Wilton, 2016). Human resource advisors must not support the decisions made by the
managers since in some situations the manager's decisions are always impartial. The roles of the
human resource advisor include;
a) Provision of advice in the manner the process needs to take place. This includes the mode
of conducting investigations and communication to the people affected by the grievance.
b) The advisor as well will ensure that all parties are treated with respect and are supported
and led through the grievance procedures.

6
c) In the informal stages, the HR advisor can be called upon to support either party in the
grievance. If the employee had earlier discussed the issue with an HR person, an
alternative HR person may be called in to support the line manager.
d) For reference purposes, the Human Resource advisor has the role of retaining all
documentation that relates to the grievance, the investigations and then later on recording
the same in the Human Resource Department System.
Advice to the manager on the steps they need to take to respond to the grievances.
Purpose of the meeting- This meeting aims at getting more information from the
employee, this is an opportune moment to get the key details about the grievance raised by the
employee. The manager needs to listen to the information to make a judgment; the union
representative is present to assist the manager in making a decision (Tyson, 2012). This meeting
needs to be held within four weeks after the employee launched the grievance.
During the meeting the manager should;
a) Uphold a problem-solving tactic- The meeting is not to prove the wrongs of the
employee. The purpose of the meeting is to listen through the hearing to collect facts, and
then together with the employee and the union representative, solve the problem at hand.
b) Avoid taking matters on a personal level-The manager should understand that grievances
are filed against the organization and not an individual (Gawerc, 2013); as such they need
to develop a neutral, relaxed and calm attitude throughout the meeting.
c) The manager should stick to the subject- The manager should stick to the issue at hand
and avoid diverting other unrelated issues into the hearing (Suffield & Gannon, 2019).

7
Trying to bring in issues against the employee will imply that the manager is not neutral
in the meeting.
d) Give the labor representative some space- the labor representative fights for the
employee. The manager needs to practice professionalism and not to drag the behaviors
of the representative against him.
After the meeting, the manager will have to present a written response. The union representative
will assist the manager in writing the response and the settled decision to the grievance
(Anastasia, 2017). The union representative will organize the dispatch of the final response of the
grievance to the employee.
Investigation and Gathering Information.
The manager needs to interrogate the colleagues to Ms. Sharon independently and have
them write up statements on anything they know related to the case. This should be done
immediately the issue was discovered to avoid the employee from telling her side of the story to
her colleagues so that they support her. The manager should ask the colleagues on the general
behavior of the employee on that day or the previous day before the incident happened, this
would offer more evidence around the case. To have a strong defense, all proofs of payment i.e.
invoices, receipts and banking slips within the time of the incident need to be scrutinized.
Among the key questions, the manager should ask the other employees in the office include,
a) Cash handling policy, how is cash supposed to be handled in the Cash office? Who has
access to the safe and who knows the passcode?
b) On the material day, how were operations in the office did the team serve clients until
late in the evening?

8
c) Did Sharon tell any of the colleagues that she took money in the safe and will return, if
yes, why did she tell him/her and not the manager?
d) Who and how did the team discover that money was missing in the cashbox?
e) Did Sharon tell anyone of them the reason why she would not make it to work the next
day after the incident occurred?
Grievance Report.
To solve the issue, the line manager should approach the Chief Finance Officer, who
heads the finance dept. for advice. The manager should present the evidence collected supported
by the policies of the organization and tell the Finance Manager why he settled for the decision
he made.
While preparing the grievance report, the manager should not be rigid to what be believes
is right. He should consider all the information tabled before him and make a sound decision out
of the collected evidence (Snook, 2019). Once the decision is made, the manager needs to write
the employee within five business days telling the employee why the grievance has been denied.
The manager as well needs to advise the employee that she can appeal the decision.

9
Response Letter:
April 4th, 2020
Ms. Sharon McCarthy,
Accounts Assistant,
Dear Ms. Sharon,
We write to you in response to the grievance filed on 24th March 2020, describing an incident
with your line manager Mr. Paul Erickson. In your grievance, you indicated that you want the
decision made by Mr. Paul to be overturned and your actions pardoned by the organization citing
that your actions were because of an emergency. We would like to let you know that after a
secured investigation into the details around your grievance, we have settled for a conclusion that
we want to share with you.
During the hearing, we had on 3rd April 2015, where you admitted having taken money from the
safe without the consent of your employees and your line manager. Additionally, this was not the
first time such an incident occurred with you in the center of it all. We have scrutinized all
gathered evidence from the security team as well as your colleagues and have unanimously
agreed that your action was against the staff policy of this organization. Your level of integrity
has been put to question and that is an act that the firm does not support.
In line with the meeting that happened on 3rd April 2020, your grievances and suggested
remedies are hereby denied.
Best Regards.
Cassius Arthur
Human Resource Executive.

10
References
Anastasia. (2017, April 12). Effective Ways Of Handling Employee Grievance | Cleverism.
Cleverism; decoadmin. https://www.cleverism.com/handling-employee-grievance/
Gawerc, M. I. (2013). Research Note: Integrative Ties as an Approach to Managing
Organizational Conflict. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 31(2), 219–225.
https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21083
Juneja, P. (2015). Employee Grievance - Effective Ways of Handling Grievance.
Www.Managementstudyguide.Com.
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/employee-grievance.htm
Saundry, R., Jones, C., & Antcliff, V. (2011). Discipline, representation and dispute resolution-
exploring the role of trade unions and employee companions in workplace
discipline. Industrial Relations Journal, 42(2), 195-211. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-
2338.2010.00600.x
Snook, A. (2019, July 12). How to Respond to an Employee Grievance Letter. I-Sight. https://i-
sight.com/resources/how-to-respond-to-an-employee-grievance-letter/
Tyson, S. (2012). The Handbook of Research on Comparative Human Resource
Management20131Edited by Chris Brewster and Wolfgang Mayrhofer. The Handbook of
Research on Comparative Human Resource Management. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar
Publishing Limited 2012. 704 pp., ISBN: ‐10: 184720726X; ‐13: 978‐

11
1847207265. Personnel Review, 42(1), 127–129.
https://doi.org/10.1108/00483481311285264
Wilton, N. (2016). An introduction to human resource management. Sage Publications Ltd.