Grievance Handling

UNIT 17 GRIEVANCE HANDLING

Objectives
After going through this unit, you should be able to understand:
• the overview of the grievance function in industrial relations;
• the grievance mechanism and how it is useful to the aggrieved employee;
• the various approaches to grievance resolution; and
• the advantages and disadvantages of grievance handling procedure.
Structure
1 7.1 Introduction
17.2 Meaning and Content
17.3 Grievance Mechanism: Its Nature
17.4 Legal Framework
17.5 Grievance Resolution: Approaches
17.6 Formal Mechanism: Advantages
17.7 Grievance Procedure
17.8 Grievance Redressal: Linkages
17.9 Grievance Interview
17.10 Grievance Handling: Managing Pitfalls
17.11 Recommendations of the National Commission on Labour
17.12 Summary
17.13 Self Assessment Questions
17.14 Check Your Progress
17.15 Further Readings

17.1 INTRODUCTION
Despite the best of management practices in acting and communicating, conflicts
between employees and the organisation will occur. Conflict per se is neither
bad nor contrary to good organisation. Disagreements and dissatisfactions can
be helpful in re-examining the basic assumptions and practices to the end that
adjustments can be made to improve overall organizational effectiveness. The
first step in the resolution of conflict is the discovery of the conflict and its
exposure.

Employers can devise and put in place a variety of upward channels of

communication, and a properly constituted grievance procedure is one such
valuable channel through which employees can bring their dissatisfaction to the
notice of management. It is desirable that organisations should be proactive in
designing and putting in place a formal grievance procedure, which allows
employees to ventilate and seek redressal of work-related dissatisfaction. There
is hardly any organisation where the employees do riot have grievances of one
kind or another. The grievances may be real or imaginary, valid or invalid, genuine
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Grievance, Discipline and or false; yet in all cases, grievances produce unhappiness, discontent, indifference,
Dispute Resolution
low morale and frustration, which may adversely affect the employees’
commitment, concentration, efficiency and effectiveness. A large number of work
stoppages, shop floor incidents, strikes, violent and disorderly behaviour patterns
can be attributed to the faulty handling of grievances by managers or, in certain
situations, to their refusal to recognize the very existence of grievances. The
costs of unattended or faultily handled grievances can be very high in terms of
time lost, poor performance, damage to the plant and machinery arising out of
neglect or sabotage, employee resentment, poor customer service, resistance to
change, union-management conflict and so on.
A well-defined, time-bound, in-house, grievance redressal machinery would go
a long way in maintaining industrial peace and harmony apart from heightening
employee commitment and morale. Effective grievance administration helps
management to shift from purely preventive and maintenance needs to the growth
and developmental needs of employees such as improving communication, job
redesign, integration with corporate goals, fostering democratic and participative
culture.

17.2 MEANING AND CONTENT

The definition of grievance can differ from organisation to organisation and from
one thinker to another. For the purpose of present discussion and in the context
of employment relations, it can be broadly defined as “any discontent or
dissatisfaction, whether expressed or not, whether valid or not, arising out of
anything connected with the company that an employee thinks, believes or even
feels as unfair, unjust or inequitable.” (Prof. Jucius). This definition predicates
that the grievance: (a) can be either silent or expressed by the employee; (b) is
written or unwritten; (c) is valid and legitimate or untrue or completely baseless,
and (d) must have something to do with the employment relationship. Keith
Davis defines grievance as “any real or imagined feeling of personal injustice
which an employee has concerning his employment relationship.” The common
thread in the above definitions is that the discontent can be termed as grievance
only if it is connected with organisational policies and practices affecting the
employees in their work situation. Further, the expressions ‘grievance redressal’
and ‘grievance resolution’ presuppose that the employer has the power and
authority to resolve the employee’ discontent by making suitable adjustments in
the organizational policies or practices. By the same token, any discontent arising
out of extra-mural, personal or family relations, which has nothing to do with
the terms of employment, is clearly outside the scope of the grievance procedure.
Whether or not an employee is aggrieved of an organisational decision is up to
him, and not to the supervisor or any other manager of the organisation. Managers
should be alive and sensitive to employee’ discontent, notwithstanding their
personal opinion about the validity of the discontent. They should watch for
unexpressed dissatisfaction and, if necessary, extend all support to individual
employees to muster courage and express it.

17.3 GRIEVANCE MECHANISM : ITS NATURE

The above discussion testifies to the fact that management has an inalienable
interest in ensuring that the satisfaction level of employees is maintained so that
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the organizational objectives, i.e., production of high quality goods or rendering
of services to the community, are not imperiled. Even so, the process of grievance Grievance Handling
redressal is essentially employee-driven. Grievance mechanism gives an
opportunity to the employee to bring his latent dissatisfaction to the surface and
to give formal expression to it. In this sense, grievance mechanism performs a
very valuable function for the organisation by permitting employees to express
their problem and thereby relieving them of their tension and emotional burden.
Further, it creates awareness among employees about the arbitrary approaches
adopted by a few managers and helps in challenging their ‘absolute’ authority.
Where managerial actions, which affect the working conditions or the conditions
of service of employees, proceed on unfair lines, the employees have an outlet in
the form of grievance mechanism to bring the same to the notice of top
management. In organisations, which are non-unionised, it is often the only
process by which conflict is resolved. The effectiveness of any grievance
mechanism has to be judged by the degree of satisfaction derived by employees
rather than that of the management. The quality and success of grievance
mechanism procedure depends both on its process and outcome.

Classification of Grievances
Grievances may fall into certain broad categories such as:
a) Wages, incentives, work assignments, complaints about job specifications;
b) Interpretation of rules, transfer, seniority, promotion;
c) Working conditions, safety, health and welfare amenities;
d) Supervision, discipline, favouritism, victimisation, interpersonal relations;
and
e) Violation of the terms of collective agreements, unfair labour practices and
wrongful extraction of work.
Dissatisfaction - Complaint - Grievance
According to Pigors and Myers, the three terms ‘dissatisfaction’, ‘complaint’,
and ‘grievance’ indicate the various forms and stages of employee dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction is “anything that disturbs an employee, whether or not lie expresses
his unrest in words.” A complaint is a “spoken or written dissatisfaction, brought
to the attention of the supervisor and the shop steward”. A grievance is simply a
“complaint that has been ignored, overridden, or dismissed without due
consideration.” A grievance in the context of a business organisation is always
expressed either verbally or in writing. If the discontent remains unexpressed, it
does not constitute grievance for the reason that the management cannot take
note of such subliminal processes, which are not ventilated. This does not mean
that the management should not be concerned at all with unexpressed discontent.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that in an organisational setting, such unexpressed
grievances are not capable of being handled through the grievance procedure.
Thus, the grievance is more formal in character than a complaint. While a
complaint can be either oral or written, a grievance is always in writing. Un-
redressed, piled-up individual grievances may often assume the form of industrial
disputes, thereby attracting the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1747
or leading to a snap industrial action such as work stoppages, violence or
disorderly behavior.

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Grievance, Discipline and
Dispute Resolution 17.4 LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Sec. 9C of Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (inserted in 1982), provides for the
setting up of Grievance Settlement Authority in every establishment where 50 or
more workmen are employed, for settlement of industrial disputes connected
with individual workmen. In terms of the said section, where an industrial dispute
connected with an individual workman arises, a workman or any trade union of
workmen of which such workman is a member refer the dispute to the Grievance
Settlement Authority provided for by the employer. The Grievance Settlement
Authority shall follow such procedure and complete its proceedings within such
period as may be prescribed. The section also provides for referring the dispute
to a Conciliation Board or a labour court or an industrial tribunal, or to an
Arbitrator, if the decision of the Grievance Settlement Authority is not acceptable
to any of the parties to the dispute. It is, however, important to note that this
section has not been enforced so far.

17.5 GRIEVANCE RESOLUTION : APPROACHES

There can be many approaches to grievance resolution as dictated by the policy,
practices and the culture of organisation. Some of these are concerned with such
questions as indicated below:

a) Whether the organisations should have a grievance mechanism at all?

Answer to this question depends upon the managerial style and management
philosophy of each organisation. For instance, organisations, which believe
in autocratic style of managing people, may not find it necessary or
worthwhile to have a grievance mechanism, for they operate on the
presumption that the management has exclusive right to manage its affairs
as it deems fit and that, it is up to the employees to accept the management
philosophy/policies an stay within the organisation or, in the alternative,
quit. However, in organisations, which are progressive in their outlook and
which, in addition, are unionized, it is quite likely that some form of grievance
mechanism is in operation.

b) Whether it should be formal/structured or free-wheeling/informal?

In the case of the former, the grievance procedure is formulated by the
management in great detail indicating the steps involved, the timeframe for
communicating decisions at various levels, the persons/officials who will
be dealing with the grievance at different stages, etc., whereas in the latter,
no detailed procedure is prescribed, excepting a circular from the
management to the effect that employees may air their grievance, if any,
before any officer of their choice which will be looked into. Between the
formal and informal mechanisms, it seems the formal and structured one is
preferable in the light of the fact that the grievance procedure is spelt out in
clear and unambiguous terms and communicated to all the employees.

c) Singe-level or multi-level?
This question is concerned with the manner of disposing grievances. ‘Single-
level’ redressal means that the grievance is disposed of at the stage at which
it is first submitted without any further review by a superior officer. In other
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 words, the decision given by the authority to whom it is first submitted Grievance Handling
becomes final and conclusive. In the case of multi-level mechanism, the
grievance, if not redressed at the first level, goes to the second and from
there to the third and so on, and each succeeding level is of superior
jurisdiction to, and possesses greater organisational authority than, the
preceding level. Between the two, the multi-level mechanism is advantageous
both from the individuals’ and organizational point of view. From the
individual’s perspective, it gives a distinct advantage in getting the grievance
examined by higher management. The grievance petition, as it moves form
one level to the next higher level, acquires the character of an appeal over
the decision of original authority. The grievance thus, gets the benefit of his
grievance being examined by senior managers who, by virtue of their long
experience and organistional position, are generally capable of bestowing
their best attention to the problem objectively and dispassionately. From
the organizational perspective too, the multi-tier system is preferable as
quite a large number of individual grievances are likely to have policy, and
sometimes legal, overtones, and a decision thereon calls for an overall view
of organizational policy and its wider implications, which cannot be expected
from a shop supervisor.

d) Whether unilateral or participative?

‘Unilateral’ approach to grievance redressal necessarily implies that the
redressal process in management-driven and its decisions are not open to
scrutiny by the representatives of employees. On the other hand, a
participative or bilateral mechanism ensures that the union representatives
participate in the redressal process jointly with the management. Apart form
this, participative mechanisms ensure openness in handling grievances and
have an immense educative value in so far as the representatives of employees
are in a better position to understand the ling-term policy, and/or legal
implications of redressing individual grievances in certain situations.
Between the two, participative mechanism is definitely superior as it reflects
transparency in the redressal process.

e) Whether time-bound or open-ended?

Individual grievances, as has already been discussed in the preceding
paragraphs, have far reaching consequences from the standpoint of employee
motivation and performance. it is, therefore, essential that grievances be
redressed as quickly as possible. Viewed in this light, an open-ended
grievance procedure is likely to delay the process of grievance redressal
with the result the dissatisfaction remains alive during the entire period
affecting employee performance. This is certainly not in the best interests
of the organisation. A formal grievance mechanism should prescribe
reasonable time limit for each stage by which a decision has to be given to
the grievant, failing which the matter should automatically be referred to
the next stage.

f) Whether bipartite or Tripartite?

Answer to this question depends to some extent on the legal framework of
the country. Section 9C of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (which has not
yet come into force) provides for referring unresolved grievances for
conciliation, arbitration or adjudication. Both the measures have their own
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Grievance, Discipline and advantages and disadvantages. Bipartite redressal mechanism operates at a
Dispute Resolution
much faster pace than the tripartite one. This is because the process of
adjudication or arbitration is necessarily slow and cumbersome, and the
issue may take years before it is finally decided one way or the other.
However, employees in general prefer third party intervention on the score
that an outsider is more objective and dispassionate than an insider.

17.6 FORMAL MECHANISM: ADVANTAGES

A formal mechanism of grievance redressal has several advantages. First, it spells
out rules of the game clearly and in unequivocal terms. It tells the employees as
to whom to approach, when and how to approach, should they have grievances.
Secondly, it serves the important function of establishing an individual-driven
upward communication channels. Upward communication channels operate as
effective survey mechanisms and give valuable feedback to management on the
perceptions of employees about organisational policies and practices, fairness or
the lack of it. As a necessary corollary, it helps the management in reviewing its
policies and practices and to make necessary adjustments. Thirdly, a formal
mechanism infuses a sense of courage in the employees to speak out. It helps the
employees to “let the steam off”. Fourthly, the time boundaries prescribed for
each stage of redressal process propel the managerial personnel to ward off their
lethargy and ensure prompt action. Fifthly, a formal mechanism operates a a
valuable tool in the hands of the top management for evaluating the problem-
solving and decision-making skills of mangers. By the same token, it provides
valuable inputs to the management for assessing the training needs of managers.
Sixthly, it insures employees against arbitrary and biased actions of individual
mangers. Seventhly, A formal mechanism, which provides for inclusion of shop
stewards an union representatives at different stages of redressal pocess, fosters
participative culture. Alongside, it creates awareness among union leaders and
an understanding of the organizational problems and the policy implications of
decisions affecting individual employees. Lastly, it promotes goodwill a a sense
of having been heard, even when the grievance has not been redressed to the full
satisfaction of the employee, and thus minimizes employee’ resistance. In this
sense, it serves the vital purpose of building positive attitudes among employees
towards work, processes, people and the organisation.

17.7 GRIEVANCE PROCEDURE

The Code of discipline, adopted in the 16th session of the Indian Labour
Conference, highlighted the need for a model grievance procedure as under:
a) The aggrieved employee to present grievance verbally in person to the officer
designated for this purpose, who shall give an answer within 48 hours.
b) If the employee is not satisfied with the decision, he can, accompanied by a
union representative, present the grievance in writing to the head of the
department, who shall settle it within 3 days.
c) If the workman is still dissatisfied, lie may request the departmental head to
refer the matter to the grievance committee, which normally consists of
equal representatives of management and the union. The grievance
committee shall submit its recommendations to the manager concerned
10 within 7 days of receipt of the grievance. Unanimous recommendations
 shall be straight away implemented by the management. In any case, the Grievance Handling
decision should be is communicated to the employee by the personnel officer
within 3 days of the receipt of the recommendations of the grievance
committee.
d) If dissatisfied with the decision, the employee has a right of appeal to the
higher tier of management for revision. A decision on the appeal should be
communicated within 7 days.
e) If still not satisfied with the-decision, the union may ask for voluntary
arbitration in the matter.

Principles Governing a Good Grievance Procedure

An ideal grievance procedure should rest on the following principles:
a) It should be prompt, well-defined, simple and time-bound.
b) It should encourage employees to ventilate grievances without any inhibition,
howsoever minor or imaginary they may be.
c) It should facilitate settlement at the lowest rung of the ladder as far as
practicable.
d) It should be in conformity with the existing legislation.
e) It should permit active involvement of union at the stage of formulating the
grievance procedure and also in its implementation.
f) It should gain the confidence of employees at large.
g) It should promote a healthy industrial relations climate.
Procedure to Handle Grievances
a) Receive and define the problem precisely.
b) Identify the nature of dissatisfaction in its integrated whole.
c) Get the facts and ensure that the facts represent the real, picture in objective
terms.
d) Analyse the facts. Look for precedents, if any, set in the matter.
e) Look for organizational implications of the likely solution.
f) Take a decision; make sure that the solution does not trigger problems
elsewhere within the organisation.
g) Apply the answer to the case at hand.
h) Communicate the result.
i) Follow up to evaluate the impact of the redressal decision on the morale of
the aggrieved worker as well as on other employees of the organisation.
Activity 1
What are the major determinants of grievances? How can you manage
grievances in organisational settings?
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Grievance, Discipline and Advantages of a Good Grievance Procedure
Dispute Resolution
A well-planned and administered grievance procedure has the following
advantages:
a) It offers an opportunity to employees to process their grievances in a dignified
manner.
b) It satisfies the employees’ need of self-expression.
c) It improves man-management skills of managers at the various hierarchical
levels by building up mature behaviour.
d) It helps management to locate problem areas in the union-management
relations and to anticipate union demands.
e) It strengthens union functioning and fosters understanding between the
parties that facilitates negotiation.
f) It gives an indication as to the general level of employees’ morale, their
attitudes toward the management and the kind of problems they face in the
work situation.
g) It enables the management to understand the problems of the workforce
and workplace, and helps in initiating timely corrective action.
Role of Human Resource Department
The role of personnel department should be:
a) To devise a sound grievance procedure which could serve as an effective
upward communication channel;
b) To advise line managers about the importance of a sound grievance handling
system and its implementation;
c) To train the supervisory personnel in interviewing and counselling skills;
d) To implement promptly the decisions taken by the grievance committee,
and to maintain effective and close liaison with all concerned;
e) To maintain records of the activities of the grievance committee such as the
details of ~meetings held, actions taken and implemented;
f) To review the procedure and, if necessary, to modify the existing procedure
to suit the changing circumstances; and
g) To follow up individual cases of grievances settled and identify their effect
on the employees concerned as well as on other employees of the
organisation.

17.8 GRIEVANCE REDRESSAL :LINKAGES

Grievance handling is essentially a ‘problem-solving’ exercise. A typical problem
solving process involves the following steps:

i) Identify and define the problem; separate the cause from symptoms
The first step in the problem-solving exercise is to identify the problem. It
so happens that in most cases we mistake symptoms for causes and deal
with the problem, which can prove very costly. A simple example is
‘headache’, which actually is not the problem but only outward symptom of
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 some ailment that is subtler and invisible and, which lies much deeper within Grievance Handling
the organism. Taking a painkiller may give a temporary relief to the patient,
but the underlying cause remains alive, only to re-appear later in the form
of another symptom. It is, therefore, essential to separate the symptoms and
look beyond for the underlying causes and define them in clear terms.

ii) Collect factual data and analyse it

Once the real and underlying cause is identified, gather factual information
relating to the subject matter of grievance. For example, in a grievance
relating to the “unfair and discriminatory bypassing of someone’s seniority
in the matter of promotion”, it is necessary to collect all the relevant
information, such as,
a) what does the promotion policy say in matters of promotion from the
grade to which the grievant belongs;
b) are promotions based exclusively on seniority or are they based
exclusively on merit or are they based on both seniority and merit; if so
in what proportion;
c) if they are based exclusively on seniority, are there any other criteria
that are taken into consideration along with seniority, i.e., attendance,
general discipline, lack of adverse remarks, etc., (d) if, on the other
hand, they are based exclusively on merit, what are the components
that constitute ‘merit’, i.e., is it past and present performance in the
present job or is it the potential to take up higher responsibilities; if so,
how and in what manner the potential is determined; (e) what are the
credentials of the employee(s), who were alleged to have been promoted
over the head of the grievant;
f) in what manner was the merit, if that was the sole criterion, assessed;
what were the tests administered; whether the grievant was given an
opportunity to appear for the test along with others; if so, what was the
level of his performance in the test relative to others, who secured the
promotion; etc.

iii) Generate alternatives and weigh them in terms of their effectiveness

Problem solving is a creative exercise and calls for ability to think laterally.
Once the data analysis is complete, the next step is to generate as many
alternatives as possible with a view to find out a solution to the problem at
hand. It is possible that some of the alternatives may be inconsistent with
the organisational policy or otherwise impractical or may even be against
the legal framework, if any, governing the issue. Such alternatives should
first be excluded from further consideration. The next step is to weigh the
remaining alternatives with one another in terms of their feasibility and
effectiveness in the given situation. Care should be taken to ensure that the
choice of a particular alternative should not kick off fresh problems.

iv) Decide, communicate and follow-up

The last step consists of choosing the best available alternative out of the
many generated, arriving at a decision and communicating the same. It is
important to note that all grievances need not necessarily be resolved in
favour of the aggrieved workman. It is also possible that certain actions
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Grievance, Discipline and taken in the past, though erroneously, cannot be rolled back. For example,
Dispute Resolution
an erroneous promotion given to X in preference over Y some months back
cannot be revoked as it would give rise to a different set of problems involving
X. In such a situation, the management may give an assurance to Y that his
case will be favourably considered next time, but it cannot revert X and
promote Y in his place, because of certain legal and other implications.
Where the grievance has been resolved in favour of the grievant, implement
the decision and follow it up.

17.9 GRIEVANCE INTERVIEW

Grievance resolution may quite often involve a personal interview with the
aggrieved employee. Grievance interview serves several purposes as, for instance,
bringing the concealed feelings to the surface, narrowing down the issues and
making the problem more explicit and clear. It also helps in getting confirmation
from the employee that the interpretation placed by the supervisor on the true
nature of grievance is correct and helps him in dealing with the grievance
application in the right perspective. Typically, grievance interview is informal
and unstructured i.e., it is employee-driven and is situation-specific. It is lion-
directive and freewheeling in so far as the employee has full freedom to say
whatever he feels about the real or perceived injustice done to him, while the
supervisor (interviewer) plays the role of an ‘active listener’. It is important to
see that the interview setting ensures absolute privacy and is free from interruption.

17.10 GRIEVANCE HANDLING: MANAGING

PITFALLS
Following are few suggestive mansures to manage the pitfalls (if any) in the
grievance handling procedure.
a) Vagueness should be avoided while handling grievances. The problem has
to be defined properly and in precise terms, as otherwise, the management
may have to solve the same problem over and over again with no finality.
b) Careful, attentive listening is an essential feature of grievance handling.
More specifically, where a grievance interview is held, the supervisor should
be able to listen projectively, i.e., he should be able to grasp (a) the direction
in which the grievant is proceeding, (b) what is deep down in his mind, (c)
what may probably come next; and (d) in what manner, tone and tenor the
grievant is likely to express it, as the interview progresses. It is essential to
remember that grievance interview is an unstructured interview and the
aggrieved employee has to do most of the talking. It is equally essential that
the interviewer should not express his opinion on any aspect of the grievance
before the grievant has completed his part of the job. He should strictly
adhere to the principle, “withhold evaluation until comprehension is
complete.” The interviewer should constantly display empathy towards the
grievant throughout the interview process. A great deal of skill in interviewing
and counselling, and a proven ability to hold conferences and discussions
are called for.
c) Facts should be separated from opinions and impressions. Similarly, the
person (grievant) should also be separated from the problem, which means
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 that those in- charge of handling grievance should not have any pre-conceived Grievance Handling
notions about the grievance on the basis of who the grievant is. This calls
for total objectivity on the part of the supervisor. The facts should be carefully
analysed and evaluated before arriving at some decision. There can be more
than one possible solution.
d) The management representative should be aware that the decision taken on
a seemingly simple grievance of an individual employee might have
organisation-wide repercussions and set a precedent, which cannot be
departed from later. A wrong decision may have to be lived with in other
cases also in future. Sometimes the decisions may lead to serious conflicts
of dysfunctional nature among individuals, groups and departments. These
possibilities call for a holistic perspective on the part of the managers while
handling individual grievances.
e) An answer should be communicated to the employee within the prescribed
time limit, whether it is favourable or adverse to him. People dislike
procrastination, and have no respect for supervisors and managers who are
incapable of taking a stand -be it for or against.
f) There should be a consistent policy as to who should communicate the
grievance redressal decisions to the employee. The same functionary should
communicate all the decisions, good or bad, to the grievants.
g) It should be ensured that, as far as practicable, decision is are taken at the
lowest level of the grievance ladder, i.e., the front-line supervisor. This will
help in building better rapport between employees and the supervisory
personnel and will enhance the overall efficacy of supervision. However,
all grievances are not sirnple either in their content or implications. Thus,
where the redressal of a given grievance is likely to have policy and/or legal
implications for the organisation, the matter has to be settled at the grievance
committee level or even at a much higher level.
h) The object of grievance procedure is to resolve disagreement between the
employee and organisation. Discussion and conference naturally form the
important elements of the process.
i) Follow-up is necessary to determine whether the grievance, as perceived by
the employee, has been resolved to the satisfaction of the aggrieved. If it
reveals that the grievance was handled unsatisfactorily, then the management
may have to review and redefine the problem and find a solution afresh.

17.11 RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE NATIONAL

COMMISSION ON LABOUR
The National Commission on Labour has given a statutory backing for the
formulation of an effective grievance procedure which should be simple, flexible,
less cumbersome, and more or less on the lines of the present Model Grievance
Procedure. It should be time bound and have a limited number of steps, say
approach to the supervisor, then to the departmental head, and thereafter a
reference to the “Grievance Committee” consisting of management and union
representatives. It should be made applicable to only those units which employ
more than 100 workers. The right to redress grievances is provided for under the
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Grievance, Discipline and Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 and the Rules framed there
Dispute Resolution
under. The Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act, 1982 has provided for a
reference of certain individual disputes to grievance of certain individual disputes
to grievance settlement authorities. Section 9C of the Act stipulates that in every
establishment in which one hundred or more workmen are employed or have
been employed on any day in the preceding twelve months, the employer shall
set up a time-bound grievance redressal procedure. However, this particular
provision has not come into force.

A grievance procedure, whether formal or informal, statutory or voluntary, has

to ensure that it gives a sense of satisfaction to the individual worker; a resonable
exercise of authority of the manager and an opportunity of participation to the
unions. The introduction of unions in the grievance procedure is necessary because
ultimately it is the union that is answerable to its members. It is also important
that any procedure, to be effective, should be simple and have a provision for at
least one appeal. A basic ingredient of the procedure should be that the total
number of steps involved should be limited; not more than four are generally
envisaged even in the largest units.
A grievance procedure should normally provide for three steps, namely:
a) approachto the immediate supervisor;
b) appeal to the department head/manager; and
c) appeal to the bipartite grievance committee representing management and
the recognised union. of the committee should have a provision that in case
no unanimous decision is possible, the unsettled grievance may be referred
to an arbitrator.

Activity 2
What is a grievance? What are its causes and symptoms? Describe briefly
grievance hand ling procedure being followed in your organisation or any
organisation you are familiar with.
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17.12 SUMMARY
• The rate and number of grievances presented by employees can have several
implications for the organisation. A high incidence of grievances may indicate
that there is a high degree of employee confidence or, alternatively, it may
also pinpoint the fact that the personnel and HR practices of the organisation
are unprofessional and primitive giving rise to problems in several aspects
of employment relationship.

• Conversely, a low incidence of grievances may indicate one of the two things:
either professional approach to personnel and HR management coupled with
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 fairness on the part of the management, or, alternatively, a lack of confidence Grievance Handling
in the system on the part of employees in general.

• A formal, time-bound. participative grievance mechanism will be of immense

help to employers in monitoring the perceptions of employees about the
organisational policies and practices. It serves as a mechanism of employee
feedback of the managerial decision making process in matters which affect
their work life. Prompt and timely redressal of grievances, in turn, will be
the building block of employee confidence in the organisational processes
and contribute to the development of positive attitudes and satisfaction
among employees in general.

17.13 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1) How do you define a grievance? What is the role of HR department in
grievance handling?
2) What are the advantages of a formal mechanism of grievance redressal
procedure? Explain.
3) Explain various approaches to grievance resolution in your opinion which
approach is most effective and why?

17.14 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

State whether the following statements are True or False:
1) Effective grievance administration helps the management to shift from purely
preventive and maintenance needs to the developmental needs of employees.
2) Grievance handling is the monopoly of a specialist or of a functional
department.
3) There is no provision in the ID Act for setting-up of a grievance redressal
machinery.
4) Grievances, if they are not identified and redressed, may affect adversely
the workers, managers, and the organisation.
Answers:
1. True 2. False 3. False 4. True

17.15 FURTHER READINGS

th
Michael J. Jucius(1963), Personnel Management, 5 ed., Richard D. Irwin, Inc.
Homewood, 111.

Ed Rose (2001), Employnient Relations, Prentice Hall.

Government of India (1969), The Report of the National Commission on Labour.

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