Meaning and Types of Grievance:Definition

Have you ever worked for an employer who you believed did not meet the terms of your
employment contract? Perhaps you were not fully compensated for your work or you experienced
unsafe work conditions. In this situation you may wish to file a formal complaint against your
employer. This is known as an employee grievance. Whether the grievance is valid or not, it can
have a negative effect on employee morale, productivity, and retention. Organizations must
therefore have policies and procedures in place to address employee grievances. This is an
important human resource management function.

Grievance means any type of dissatisfaction or discontentments arising out of

factors related to an employees job which he thinks are unfair. A grievance arises
when an employee feels that something has happened or is happening to him, which
he thinks is unfair, unjust or inequitable. In an organization, a grievance may arise
due to several factors such as:
1. Violation of managements responsibility such as poor working conditions
2. Violation of companys rules and regulations
3. Violation of labour laws
4. Violation of natural rules of justice such as unfair treatment in promotion, etc.

Types of Grievances
Let's first look at some of the most common types of employee and workplace grievances. Keep
in mind that a grievance can be real or imaginary, and employees file grievances for a range of
issues that can be minor or major.
Pay and Benefits: This is the most common area of employee complaints and grievances.
These grievances may involve the amount and qualifications for pay increases, pay equity for
comparable work within the organization, and the cost and coverage of benefit programs.
Workloads: Heavy workloads are a common employee and workplace grievance. If you work for
a company that is going through lean times, you may have been asked to take on more work
without a pay increase. Perhaps your employer decides not to fill a vacant position and instead
assigns additional work to you and your colleagues. Such situations lead to employee frustration
and dissatisfaction.
Work Conditions: A safe and clean work environment is crucial to employee satisfaction and
motivation. Extensive state and federal regulations protect worker health and safety. Employees
who believe a company is not following applicable regulations and guidelines may decide to file a
grievance.
Union and Management Relations: When unions represent employees, both the union and
management must avoid unfair labour practices. These illegal acts involve threatening or
coercive behaviour by either party designed to obtain an employee's loyalty or cooperation.

The National Labour Relations Act specifies unlawful activities for employers and unions. For
example, employers cannot threaten employees with termination if they vote for a union.
Employees may file grievances when they experience unfair labour practices.

1.

Grievance resulting from management policies include:

o

Wage rates

Leave policy

Overtime

Lack of career planning

Role conflicts

Lack of regard for collective agreement

Disparity between skill of worker and job responsibility

2.

Grievance resulting from working conditions include:

o

Poor safety and bad physical conditions

Unavailability of tools and proper machinery

Negative approach to discipline

Unrealistic targets

3.

Grievance resulting from inter-personal factors include

o

Poor relationships with team members

Autocratic leadership style of superiors

Poor relations with seniors

Conflicts with peers and colleagues

It is necessary to distinguish a complaint from grievance. A complaint is an indication

of employee dissatisfaction that has not been submitted in written. On the other
hand, a grievance is a complaint that has been put in writing and made formal.
Grievances are symptoms of conflicts in industry. Therefore, management should be

concerned with both complaints and grievances, because both may be important
indicators of potential problems within the workforce. Without a grievance procedure,
management may be unable to respond to employee concerns since managers are
unaware of them. Therefore, a formal grievance procedure is a valuable
communication tool for the organization.

Process of handling grievance:The manager should immediately identify all grievances and must take appropriate steps to
eliminate the causes of such grievances so that the employees remain loyal and committed
to their work. Effective grievance management is an essential part of personnel
management. The managers should adopt the following approach to manage grievance
effectively1. Quick action- As soon as the grievance arises, it should be identified and resolved.
Training must be given to the managers to effectively and timely manage a
grievance. This will lower the detrimental effects of grievance on the employees and
their performance.
2. Acknowledging grievance- The manager must acknowledge the grievance put
forward by the employee as manifestation of true and real feelings of the employees.
Acknowledgement by the manager implies that the manager is eager to look into the
complaint impartially and without any bias. This will create a conductive work
environment with instances of grievance reduced.
3. Gathering facts- The managers should gather appropriate and sufficient facts
explaining the grievances nature. A record of such facts must be maintained so that
these can be used in later stage of grievance readdress.
4. Examining the causes of grievance- The actual cause of grievance should be
identified. Accordingly remedial actions should be taken to prevent repetition of the
grievance.
5. Decision process- After identifying the causes of grievance, alternative course of
actions should be thought of to manage the grievance. The effect of each course of
action on the existing and future management policies and procedure should be
analysed and accordingly decision should be taken by the manager.
6. Execution and review- The manager should execute the decision quickly, ignoring
the fact, that it may or may not hurt the employees concerned. After implementing the
decision, a follow-up must be there to ensure that the grievance has been resolved
completely and adequately.
An effective grievance procedure ensures an amiable work environment because it
redresses the grievance to mutual satisfaction of both the employees and the managers. It
also helps the management to frame policies and procedures acceptable to the employees.
It becomes an effective medium for the employees to express t feelings, discontent and
dissatisfaction openly and formally.

STRESS:DEFINATION OF STRESS

Stress is a state of discomfort experienced by an individual. Loss of emotional stability is

the general expression of stress. It is generally apparent when the individual experiences
a biological disorder. Stress has a positive association with the age constraints and the
nature of occupation. Certain occupation is more prone to stress than the others. For
instance, drivers of vehicles, doctors, lawyers and managers are more likely to get stress
than teachers, bankers and operating personnel. Individuals feel stress when the need of
desire is not accomplished in the normal expected ways. This is because of natural
constraints operated on the individuals. The more the intensity of the desire and the
greater is the uncertainty associated with the achievement of the goal, the greater is the
degree of stress. Employees are working for longer hours, talking on the work once done
by laid-off colleagues, meeting tighter deadlines and cutting back on family demands of
monthly mortgages, childcare issues and aging parents, and the deterioration. Perhaps
these are potential reasons for stress in the employees. Let us first learn what is stress?
The following are the features of stress.

Stress is both psychological aspect.

It is common to both the genders.

It results from deviation of expectations from actual situation.

It is symptomatic, Potential stress appears with the symptoms. If the potential

stress is ignored it leads to actual stress.

Stress is treated to be negative. Nevertheless, it has positive consequences. This

is called as eutstress.

Stress is an interactive concept. It does not spring from the internal organs of the
individual. It comes from the interaction of the human being with the environment. Thus,
environment has a profound influence on the stress.

Stress is generic term. If it is applied to the context of organization, it is known as

work stress or job stress.

Stress occurs only when the human being feels mediation of the internal or
external factors.

Stress is related to the attitude of the person. Stress does not occur when the
person is having an indifferent attitude to the opportunity.

Stress is associated with certain common biological disorders such as heart

attack, stroke, diabetic, blood pressure, neurological disorders etc.

CAUSES OF STRESS
Stress is a psychological state of imbalance coupled with biological disorder. Individual
experiences deviation in his biological system which is called potential stress. Potential
stress moderated by individual, organizational and environmental variable leads to actual
stressors. Thus, stressors can be intra-organizational factors. The intra organizational
factors causing stress are divided into individual factors and organizational factors. Let us
learn them in detail.
9.2.1

Intra Organizational factors

Individual Factors: Individual factors, which cause stress include: personality and
individual differences, family problems, economical problems, life styles and role
demands.
i)

ii)

iii)

iv)

v.

Personality and individual differences: Individual basic dispositions are

the main reason for potential stress. Introversion, extroversion, masculinity,
rigidity, locus of control, personal life, demographic differences such as age,
health, education and occupation are some of the reasons causing stress in
individuals. It is found that type A personality is prone to more stress than type B
personality. Type B personality is typically relaxed, carefree, patient and less
serious in achieving objectives. Thus, he never feels stress.
Family Problems: Family issues influence the personal life of individuals. Sound
marital relationships, marital discipline, early and healthy children may lead to
happy personal life. They enjoy the life and become positive in their attitudes. So
they do not tend to greater stress. On the other hand, poor marital relationships,
nagging wife, family separations, extra marital relationships, disturbing children,
poor settlement of family members, aging parents, dual reasons for greater
stress in the individuals.
Economic Problems: Economic difficulties are the main cause of stress. Poor
management of personal finances, heavy family expenditure, and constant
demand for money, poor incoming earning capacity and slow financial growth in
the job are some of the economic reasons responsible for greater stress. For
instance, an increasing family expenditure, increased expenditure on children
education and health create heavy demand for income. This creates greater
stress in the individuals.
Life styles: Life styles of individuals can cause stress. The following situation
of life style cause stress:

Sedentary life styles cause greater stress.

Individuals experiencing certain unique situations may be compelled to

alter their attitude, emotions and behavior. These are known as life
trauma. Life trauma is potential reason for stress.

Faster career changes bring more responsibilities to the individuals.

Persons occupying higher positions in the younger are likely to get heart
attacks due to greater stress. This is because of inability to adapt to the
new carrier responsibilities.

Role Demands: individuals play multiple roles in their personal life and
organizations. In their personal life and organizations. In their personal life, they
play the roles of family head, husband, father, brother and son. In social life they
play the roles of club members, informal community group members, members of

reaction groups, religious groups and a number of other social groups.

Organizational Factors: An organization is a combination of resources, goals
strategies, and policies. In order to make people to work, organizations create structure,
process and working conditions. In modern organizations, number of globalism,
organizational adjustments like mergers and acquisitions lead to stress among
employees stress. In addition, a number of internal organizational factors cause
management employee stress. Some of them are poor working conditions, strained
labour management relations, disputed resources allocations, co-employee behaviour,
organizational design and policies, unpleasant leadership styles of the boss,
misunderstandings in organizational communication, bureaucratic controls, improper
motivation, job dissatisfaction, and less attention to merit and seniority. Let us learn the
organizational stressors in detail.

Extra-Organizational Factors
Environmental Factors: Environmental factors are extra organizational. Nevertheless,
they create job stress in individuals. These are internal and external factors. Most of the
internal environmental factors relate to the organizational goals, management systems,
structure, processes and design of organizations. They are discussed on preceding
section. External environmental factors relate to general environment of the
organization. They are political, economical, technological, governmental, social, cultural
and ethical.
CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS
An individual experiences stress through psychological breakdown or biological changes.
However stress is not negative always. Stress has also positive consequences. The
positive form of stress is known as eustress. The word taken from Greek language means
good stress. Mild stress elevates body metabolic and biological rates. The increase in the
metabolism leads to secretion of juices from body glands that will increase the inner
drive for achievement. Achievement motivation comes from deep intention, mild tensions
inner urge, fire and feeling of restless to achieve objectives. Stress helps in the
development of people too. In its mild form it enhances job performance, leads to
excellence and provides impetus to work hard ad perform better. Individuals involved in
the discharge of professional oriented jobs, jobs involving creativity, challenge,
interpersonal communications and certain managerial jobs, will be benefited by stress,
which leads to positive performances. However job involving physical effort do not get
benefit out of stress. As indicated above mild levels of stress increases job performance.
It stimulates body and increases reactivity.
Physiological consequences: Stress influences the biological system of the human
being. Certain visible forms of stress are increased blood pressure, proneness to heart
diseases, cancer sweating, dry mouth, hot and flashes cold, frustration, anxiety,
depression, increased level of cholesterol, ulcer, arthritis, etc. physical stress increases
the body metabolic rate. This results to manulfuctioning of internal and consequently the
body disorder. This is felt in the form of increasing heart beating, increase in breathing
rate and headache. This creates biological illness. The physical stress also creates
psychological problems. In fact, physical stress and psychological disorders are
interrelated. However, physical disorders and stress always need not associate positively.
This is because of complexity of symptoms of physical stress and lack of objective
measurement of impact of stress on bodily disorders.
9.4.2 Psychological Consequences: Psychological consequences are interrelated to
biological consequences. They are invisible, but the employees job performance.
Psychological stress creates a pressure on human brain. This is expressed in terms of
certain psychological symptoms such as anger. Anxiety, depression, nervousness,
irritation, tensions, anxiety and emotions lead to procrastination. Psychological stress
produces interpersonal aggressions, misunderstanding in communication, poor job
performance, lowered self esteem, increased resentment, low concentration on the job
and increased dissatisfaction. Psychological stress produces harshness in the behavior
and may lead to assumption of authoritarian leadership style by the superior executive.
9.4.3 Behavioral Consequences: Stress has an impact on employees behavior. An
abnormal behavior is observed in those individuals who are prone to stress. A change in
eating habits, sleep disorder, increased smoking alcoholism, fidgeting and aloofness are
some of the behavioral changes observed in stressful employees. Sometimes leads to
anxiety, apathy, and depression and emotion disorder. This leads to impulsive ad
aggressive behavior and frequent interpersonal conflicts. Under eating, overeating, drug
abuse ad sleeplessness are some of behavioral consequences.
Organizational Consequences: Stress has negative impact on the performance of the
job. Organizations face the problems of poor performance and other negative
consequences. Some of them are described below:

i)

Absenteeism: Employees subject to stress were found to addict to drugs and

alcohol. Thus, they abstain from the jobs frequently. This creates discontinuity in
the jobs and adversely effect performance of other employees.
ii)
Turnover: Turnover and stress have shown some relationships. An employee
experiencing continued stress develops disgust and frustration. Therefore, they
are likely to change their jobs.
iii)
Decision-Making: Excessive stress distorts perception of managers. This
adversely affects their capacity to take decision. Thus, stressful executives
become irrational in the decision making. This leads to loss of organizational
resources and reputation.
iv)
Disturbed Customer Relationship: Employees experiencing excessive
stress develop irritation, looses emotional tolerance. Intolerance impels them to
pick up conflicts easily due to misunderstandings. Employees dealing with the
customers and the public disturb relationship due to their impatient behaviour. For
instance sales persons, bank employees, otherwise, customers dealing with them
will have trouble in dealing with the company. This also creates poor impression
on the corporate image of the organization.
CREATING A STRESS FREE ENVIRONMENT
Stress is both positive and negative. You have already learnt that mild to moderate levels
of stress helps in developing positive behavior in organization and its good for the
organizational health. However negative consequences of stress always overweigh
positive ones. Thus, it is generally agreed that stress reduction is a serious concern to
management and individuals. The individuals responsibility should always be greater
than organizational responsibility. This is because of dictum that protecting ones.
Organizations perhaps help in developing certain programmes for stress reduction. It is
not out of the context to mention that theoretical management of stress should be
distinguished from practical management. Most of the individual techniques relate to the
personality of individuals. Certain techniques require the individuals to sacrifice the self
concept and comfortable levels. Thus, it is difficult to promote the individuals to adapt
the strategies of stress reduction. Nevertheless, it should understand that it is not an
impossible task. Creating a stress free environment requires a thorough investigation of
the stressors, understanding, analyzing the implications, appraising the costs and
benefits and above all brings commitment to the programmes by changing the attitude.