Employee Grievance: Meaning, Features, Causes

Employee Grievance: Meaning, Features, Causes: Employees are human beings with particular expectations, assumptions, conventions, and beliefs, as well as the ability to represent their culture. When management or an organisation fails to recognise its human elements, workers get unsatisfied, which may lead to employee grievances. Employees may get enraged as a result of inhumane or unfair treatment. Aside from that, bad leadership, a lack of suitable motivation, an unneeded or unscientific cannot system, and inefficient management may all be reasons for dissatisfaction.

Employees may have a grievance over an existing policy, regulation, or work practise, or they may be dissatisfied with a specific behaviour. If the degree of unhappiness continues to rise, they file a grievance, which is a written complaint to the management. Employees file grievances with their employers to express their worries, difficulties, or complaints. All workers have the ability under the Employment Relations Acts to file a personal grievance if they have legitimate grievances.

Employee dissatisfaction has a detrimental impact on the company. Employees may engage in unpleasant actions such as protesting, strike, and lockout if the problem is not resolved in a timely manner. This will lower the organization’s productivity and may result in a disagreement or conflict between management and employees. Employees that are capable, experienced, and honest may quit the company. Genuine staff may depart the company, increasing production costs. The cost of production may rise, and the quality of goods and services may suffer.

A grievance is any unhappiness or sense of unfairness related to one’s job situation that is brought to management’s notice. A grievance is any dissatisfaction that has a negative impact on organisational relations and production. It is vital to differentiate between discontent, complaint, and grievance in order to comprehend what a grievance is.

Anything that makes an employee unhappy, whether or not the disturbance is stated verbally, is considered dissatisfaction.

Employee Grievance: Meaning, Features, Causes

A complaint is a verbal or written expression of displeasure that is brought to the supervisor’s or shop steward’s notice. A formal complaint to a management representative or a union official is referred to as a grievance.

‘Grievance is any unhappiness or dissatisfaction, whether stated or not, whether genuine or not, coming out of anything linked with the organisation that an employee thinks, believes, or even feels to be unfair, unjust, or inequitable,’ according to Michael Jucious.

In a nutshell, a grievance is a condition of unhappiness with one’s job that is stated or unspoken, written or unwritten, justifiable or unjustified.

Grief’s Characteristics:

Any sort of unhappiness or dissatisfaction with any component of the organisation is referred to as a grievance.

Workplace discontent must be the source of the dissatisfaction, not personal or family issues.

Dissatisfaction may be caused by genuine or imagined factors. Employees have a grievance when they believe they have been treated unfairly. The cause of such an emotion might be genuine or invalid, reasonable or irrational, justified or absurd.

The dissatisfaction might be expressed verbally or nonverbally, but it must be expressed in some way. However, dissatisfaction is not a grievance in and of itself. Initially, the employee may voice his or her dissatisfaction vocally or in writing. If this isn’t addressed right away, the employee will feel unjustly treated. Now, the dissatisfaction has grown to the point where it has become a grievance.

In general, a grievance may be traced back to a lack of fulfilment of one’s expectations from the organisation.

Employee Dissatisfaction: What Causes It?

Individual dissatisfaction not only affects employee and organisational productivity, but it also puts the organization’s survival in jeopardy. As a result, the issue must be resolved as soon as feasible. The explanation for this must be determined. The cause of dissatisfaction may vary depending on the circumstances. The following are some of the most significant reasons:

• Management that is unequal

Employees want to be treated in the same way as their coworkers. However, if management treats similarly performing workers differently, a grievance will emerge.

• Communication Issues

Employees are motivated by open and two-way communication, which promotes a good connection. Each employee must receive policy, directions, information, and other notifications in a consistent manner, based on their work responsibilities. One-way, regulated communication makes people feel inferior, which leads to miscommunication between staff and management. This misunderstanding will eventually evolve into a complaint. As a result, inadequate, regulated, and one-way communication is also a source of employee dissatisfaction.

• Various interpretations

Employees and management have different understandings and interpretations, which leads to dissatisfaction. Employees who do not comprehend the policy, regulations, terms and conditions, directives and guidelines established by management develop a negative attitude toward the management and the whole firm. A company with poor communication has a greater risk of employee dissatisfaction.

• Personality characteristics

Even in tiny and minor instances, some workers have a propensity of becoming irritable. Even in little faults, they nag or point out other workers. This will cause dissatisfaction among the employee and his or her coworkers. As a result, one of the causes of the complaint is a personality attribute.

• Organizational Culture

Employees may get disgruntled as a result of an organization’s poor culture. Employees are dissatisfied and the organisational environment suffers as a result of bad culture. This unhappiness becomes a grievance as it increases.

• Leadership flaws

As a protector of all workers, the leader must be present. They’ excitement may dwindle if the leader is ineffective, and employees may refuse to follow and disregard the leader. In the organisation, serious in-disciplinary activity may be carried out. Employee dissatisfaction will rise as a result of this.

• Conflict of personalities

Some employees may experience personality clashes with their coworkers, management, and others’ ideas, concepts, and work styles. When their concept is rejected, they may see it as a challenge, and a sense of vengeance may arise. Employees may get enraged, sad, or disheartened as a result of ego feelings, resulting in employee dissatisfaction.