What is a Grievance?
Grievance refers to an employee’s discontentment with the way an observational difference in workplace methodology has violated a defined, contractual workplace policy. It is caused by a gap in an employee’s expectations and the actual obtained result. An employee grievance may be a trivial issue, maybe even unjustified, but must be handled very carefully and with caution. The HR personnel must give utmost importance to any issues arising out of employee discontentment with the way the organization may have handled things, and must talk to and understand the employee’s perspective very carefully.
Employee grievances are generally caused by a undesirable workplace changes and conditions, lack of proper employee relations and unsatisfactory HR policies with regard to remuneration, appraisals, leaves, work timings, etc. The HR staff can observe the employees and find out whether they’re really discontented or not by making note of their behaviour, any complaints made by them recently and by asking and encouraging them to approach the HR openly by way of the open door policy.
