Grievance Management Procedures

For those practitioners who are in the process of reviewing your staff

grievance management procedures, you may find the following tips helpful.

These tips have been taken from a bi-monthly newsletter which I produce on

issues relevant to my field. If you would like a copy of the newletter

which is in Word format sent to your email address please mail me and I

will be happy to forward it on.

Grievance Management and Prevention

From: Sally Jetson

What is a grievance?

Any type of complaint, concern, injustice or wrong related to work or the

work environment. A grievance may result from an action, behavior,

omission, situation or decision which the person feels is unfair or

unjustified.

Who can grievances be against?

The action may have been done by management, an individual manager or

supervisor, another employee, or a group of employees.

What can grievances be about?

A grievance can be raised on a range of employment related matters,

including matters which are not covered by legislation, including:

discrimination and harassment

transfers and promotion policy

training and professional development

rosters and overtime

occupational health and safety

work environment

performance management

bullying

any breaches of codes or standards of conduct which have been adopted by an

organisation.

other forms of unfair treatment which can have an adverse effect on an

individual or work environment.

What is a grievance procedure?

A grievance procedure is a process which sets out a series of steps to be

followed when dealing with a range of problems in the workplace.

It should spell out what issues are to be included and what issues are to

be excluded. There is no ready-made grievance procedure which can be used

in all cases and ideally they should be designed to suit the particular

industry and organisation.

What should a grievance procedure do?

Provide a constructive way of dealing with individual and group grievances

by helping to provide orderly resolution of grievances and the prevention

of disputes.

Enable employers to deal with matters in a fair and impartial matter, and

ensure consistency in similar matters across the organisation.

Help supervisors understand what management requires of them when a

grievance arises. It helps employees understand their role and the roles

of others in the procedure.

Provides an opportunity to fix the problem before it gets out of hand, and

for all involved to follow an agreed and systematic approach to resolve the

issue.

Five Essential Components

There are five key matters which must be addressed in each grievance

procedure.

1. Steps

Consider the number of steps which are appropriate in any given

circumstances in the grievance procedure. The procedure should be flexible

enough