Unit 5

Employee Discipline and Handling Grievance

Discipline is a ‘Management’s Complaints’ against an employee.
Grievance is an ‘Employee’s complaint’ against management.
Why Discipline Employees?
• Employees experience conflict at work and sometimes break the
rules.
• It then becomes your job to minimize the conflict and get things
going back on track.
• Disciplinary policies and actions play the prime role in
prohibiting unwanted employee behaviors.
Employee discipline is defined as the regulation and modulation of human
activities in a workplace, which will generate a controlled employee
performance. The main purpose of employee discipline is to behave sensibly
and safely at work. Discipline encourages self-control, orderly conduct, and
dedication of employees.

Objectives of Employee Discipline

• Motivates employees so that they obey the organization's performance
standards.
• Employee discipline helps maintain trust and respect among supervisors,
employees, and higher powers. If discipline is not supervised it can create
internal issues like low morale and ill-will among employees.
• Helps to improve the job performance of the employee.
• To help improve the morale and efficiency of working among employees.
• Helps behavior correction
• To protect the organization's image and its employees
Types Of Discipline
Positive discipline
The synonyms of positive discipline: are self-discipline or constructive discipline. It
is a type of discipline that does not have any punishment. The main goal of positive
discipline is to encourage self-discipline in the employees. Self-discipline involves
identifying your aims and striving towards them to achieve them. In this type of
discipline, the employee is not afraid of punishment but will still obey the rules and
regulations of the organization. The employees also practise self-control to meet
their aims and goals.
Negative discipline
The synonyms of negative discipline: are corrective discipline or punitive discipline.
In this type of discipline, the employees obey the rules of the organization because
they fear punishment. The punishment can be in the form of fines, demotions,
transfers, etc. The management of the organization will take this action to make
sure the needed code of conduct is followed. This makes sure no employees go
off-track in terms of workplace discipline. The employees do not have the freedom
to have their own goals in the negative discipline.
7 Principles of Industrial Discipline to Ensure a Good Disciplinary System in
Your Organisation

• Knowledge of Rules
• Prompt Action
• Fair Action
• Well-Defined Procedure
• Constructive Approach
• Self-discipline
• Review and Revision
Knowledge of Rules:
• The employees (both supervisor and the worker) must be informed clearly about what constitutes good
behaviour and the rewards that may emanate from it. For this purpose, the organisation should develop
a code of discipline in co-operation with the workers.
• This code should contain in writing the rules, regulations and procedures considered necessary to
maintain discipline. These must be known to all concerned along with the punishment for their
violations. Code of discipline should be published in employee handbook.
Prompt Action:
• All violations and misconducts should be promptly enquired into. When the penalty is imposed
immediately after the misconduct, the offender identifies the punishment with the act he has committed.
• Accordingly, the subordinate attempts to avoid the violation in future. The principle followed here is
“strike the iron when it is hot”. The greater the delay, the more one forgets and the more one feels that
punishment is not deserved.
Fair Action:
• All acts of indiscipline should be punished consistently and uniformly. All persons should receive the
same punishment for the same offence.
• If different rules were applied to different persons, management would be accused of favouritism.
Well Defined Procedure:
Constructive Approach
• The disciplinary system should be as far as possible preventive rather than punitive. Focus should
be on preventing violations rather than on administering penalties.
• The immediate line supervisor should carry out disciplinary action. The employee should be told not
only the reason for the action against him but also how he can avoid such penalties in future.
Self-discipline:
• Self-discipline is the best form of discipline and management should encourage such sense of
discipline among employees. After taking the disciplinary action, the supervisor must assume a
normal attitude towards the worker.
Review and Revision:
• A supervisor must play the role of a judge enforcing the law with impartiality. He should not engage
in personal ridicule, insult or even criticism.
• All rules and regulations should be appraised at regular intervals to ensure that they are appropriate
to the changing times. If a particular rule is violated time and again, it should be thoroughly studied
to discover and remove the causes of such violations.
Grievance Handling
A grievance is the feeling of dissatisfaction among the employees, working in the organization.
Grievance, whether real or imaginary, valid or invalid, genuine or false, is a complaint affecting
one or more workers within the organization. Dissatisfaction or discontent expressed by
employees brought to the notice of management, it becomes grievance. Grievance is defined as:

According to Dale S. Beach, “Grievance is any dissatisfaction or feeling of injustice in

connection with one’s employment situation that is brought to the attention of
management.”
1. Grievances resulting from management policy:
1. Leave
2. Transfer
3. Promotion demotion and discharges
4. Hostility toward a labor union
5. Wage payment and job rates
6. Lack of career planning and employee development plan
7. Over time
8. Seniority

2. Grievances resulting from working conditions:

1. Changes in schedules or procedures
2. Bad physical conditions of workplace
3. Non-availability of proper tools, machines and equipment for doing the job.
4. Poor relationship with supervisor
5. Light production standards.
6. Changes in schedules or procedures
7. Improper matching of the worker with the job.
Grievances resulting from personal maladjustment:
1. Excessive self esteem
2. Impractical attitude to life etc.
3. Over ambition

Grievances resulting from violation:

1. Central or state laws
2. Company rules
3. Management’s responsibility
4. Past practices
5. The collective bargaining
Grievance Handling Procedure
Step – I Defining and describing the nature of grievance as clearly as possible:-
Defining or describing grievance implies that it has been expressed.

Step – II Collect all facts that help to explain how, when, where, why and to whom the grievance occurred
After defining the grievance, the next step is to gather all pertinent facts concerned with the case. The person handling the
grievance must know the alleged grievance was first experienced, whether it has been repeated or not, how and where it
took place and the circumstances under which it transpired the employee should be fully convinced that management are
perfectly sincere in seeing that justice are done.

Step – III Establishing tentative solution of the grievance

After getting the clear picture of the grievance, the next step involves the establishment of tentative solution.

Step – IV Collect additional information to check the validity of tentative solution

On the basis of the tentative solutions, facts are gathered. The executives establish a tentative solution and then observing
critically whether his hypothesis is right or wrong. If the thinkers are wrong, he sets up another tentative solution and
proceeds this until he finds the right answer.

Step – V Applying the solution

For applying the solution, the executive may hold conference with aggrieved employee and questions other employees.
Having reached a final decision it should be applied without delay.

Step – VI Follow up
The executive should not conclude that grievance has been until a check is made to determine whether the employee
attitude has been favorably changed. Checking can be done through causal observation while the employees are working,
decision taken favorably or unfavorably. The other method includes to ask from the other employees about the aggrieved
employee’s reaction.
 Collective Barganing & Negotiation
The phrase ‘Collective Bargaining' is coined by famous authors Sydney and Beatrice Webb in their
celebrated treatise on ‘History of Trade Unions’. Collective Bargaining is a method of determining the
terms and conditions of employment and settling disputes arising from those terms by negotiating
between the employer and the employees or their trade union. The very fact that the parties reserve the
ultimate right to use economic weapons of strike and lock out helps in stimulating the parties to arrive at
an agreement.
•Meaning of collective bargaining
✔ The term collective bargaining is made up of two words, ‘collective’ – which means a ‘group action’
through representation and ‘bargaining’, means ‘negotiating’, which involves proposals and
counter-proposals, offers and counter-offers. Thus it means collective negotiations between the
employer and the employee, relating to their work situations. The success of these negotiations
depends upon mutual understanding and give and take principles between the employers and
employees.
✔ In the work situation, an individual worker has to face many problems such as, low wages, long hours
of work, loss incentive etc. These problems of an individual or few individuals cannot attract the
attention of the employer because of their less bargaining power. The growth of trade union increased
the bargaining strength of workers and enables them to bargain for their better conditions
collectively.
✔Collective bargaining is a source of solving the problems of employees in the work situation collectively. It provides
a good climate for discussing the problems of workers with their employers. The employees put their demands
before the employers and the employers also give certain concession to them. Thus it ensures that the management
cannot take unilateral decision concerning the work ignoring the workers. It also helps the workers to achieve
responsible wages, working conditions, working hours, fringe benefits etc. It provides them a collective strength to
bargain with employer. It also provides the employers some control over the employees.

✔The process of collective bargaining is bipartite in nature, i.e. the negotiations are between the employers and
employees without a third party’s intervention. Thus collective bargaining serves to bridge the emotional and
physiological gulf between the workers and employers though direct discussions.

✔The HR Labor Relations Manager directs the organization's labor relations agreement in accordance with executive
level instruction and endorsement. They supervise labor relations support staff and serve as the management
representative in labor negotiation, bargaining, or interpretive meetings.
✔The phrase collective bargaining is made up of two words collective which implies group action
through its representatives; and bargaining which suggests haggling and / or negotiating. The
phrase, therefore, implies collective negotiation of a contract between the management’s
representatives on one side and those of the workers on the other. Thus collective bargaining is
defined as a process of negotiation between the employer and the organized workers represented
by their union in order to determine the terms and conditions of employment.
✔Stevens: Collective Bargaining as a ‘social control technique for reflecting and transmitting the
basic power relationships which underlie the conflict of interest in an industrial relations system.’
✔Prof. Allan Flanders: Collective Bargaining is primarily a political rather than an economic
process. He describes collective bargaining as a power relationship between a trade union
organization and the management organization. The agreement arrived at is a compromise
settlement of power conflicts. Collective Bargaining has also been described as “the great social
invention that has institutionalized industrial conflict” Dubin