Is your Grievance been Handled by your Organization Confidentially and Positively ?

The business dictionary defines grievance as "Specific complaint or formal notice of employee dissatisfaction related to adequacy of pay, job requirements, work conditions, other aspects of employment, or an alleged violation of a collective bargaining agreement."

In simple, Employee Grievance is a real or imagined form of dissatisfaction or complaint an employee experiences in the work place. If such grievances cannot be resolved in an informal manner such would be brought to the notice of the management in a formal manner of a grievance complaint. It is mandatory for all organizations to have a written grievance procedure which should be informative for the employees to know what they should do in order to make a grievance complaint. 

Reasons for Employee Grievances:

Employee Expectations not been met

Employees expect that employers will treat them reasonably, fairly and consistently. In the event that any of these expectations are not met employees may grieve. 

Eg- If the management does not act fairly towards all employees and does not maintain transparency in their decisions.

Poor Communication resulting in lack of Employee Engagement

Due to not communicating the employer expectations and creating the psychological contract with the employee initially, grievances tend to arise later on in the employment relationship.

Personality Traits

This is another main reason for grievances, since the workforce of an organization will consist of combination of people with different personality traits. Thus there could be personalities which tend to create grievances for the minor points (Eg- If their proposals on a certain project are not executed) which in turn would also create grievances for the rest of the workforce dealing with him/her.

Weak Leadership

Leadership plays a key role in employee engagement. If this responsibility is not been shouldered by ones immediate supervisor/team leader/manager, the employee would be demoralized and one may tend to lose interest and grieve.

Unsafe Workplace

According to Abraham Maslow on his Hierarchy of Needs which identifies the needs of humans, which are drivers of motivation for humans, Safety is the second most searched need by humans. Thus the workplace should offer all forms of safety starting from security of body, employment etc. And if an employer fails to meet this need of employees they would tend to be grievant.

Discrimination

This could be in the form of Direct Discrimination or Indirect Discrimination.

"Direct discrimination takes place when a person is treated less favourably than others are, or would be, treated in similar circumstances."(Armstrong, 2006) 

"Indirect discrimination takes place when, whether intentionally or not, a condition is applied that adversely affects a considerable proportion of people of one race, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, religion or marital status, those with disabilities, or older employees." (Armstrong, 2006). 

Discrimination is a major cause in creating grievances.

Bulling and Harassment

This is also identified as a reason for turnover by Armstrong in his book of Human Resource Management Practice. Policies should be brought up by employers in order to eliminate harassment of all kinds from the work environment by promoting ethical practices within the organization.

Structural/Organizational Change

Changes of organization structure may result in employees having to change the reporting structure, organizational policies and procedures etc, thus disrupting the traditional work flow of employees. This is also identified as a cause of grievances.

Unattended grievances result in employee demotivation, dissatisfaction, low productivity, absenteeism etc. and on the long run collective disputes. Thus managing employee grievances it is a crucial point and should be handled carefully and in accordance to a company policy and procedure. Mainly there are two methods for grievance handling procedures;

1) Open Door

This method is used in small organizations where the managers know all employees and their context of work and environment of work. Here any employee has the ability to bring their grievances forward to managers directly. However this approach is not suitable for large organizations.

2) Step Ladder

In this method the grievance originator reaches the highest level management in a step- wise procedure and grievances does not meet the top level at once.

General Grievance Handling Procedure;

(Howell,2014)

In conclusion, there are many factors for employee grievances, out of which action could be taken by employers to eliminate some factors, while others are based on the employee, again where employers could attempt to minimize the impact from such factors. Taking quick action in Accepting Grievance, Investigation and Decision making will provide a great employee experience, and build a strong employment relationship. 

References

Armstrong, M.(2006) Human Resource Management Practice.10th edition.

London:Kogan Page Limited.

Business Dictionary. Grievance[online] Available from:http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/grievance.html [Accessed 9 November 2017]

Chimoria, B.(2016) Employees Grievances: Reasons/Causes, Forms, Handling Procedure[online] Available from:http://www.wisenepali.com/2016/02/employees-grievances-reasonscauses.html [Accessed 12 November 2017]

GOV.UK. Handling an employee's grievance [online]Available from:https://www.gov.uk/handling-employee-grievance[Accessed 9 November 2017]

Howell, J. (2014) Disciplinary & Grievance Handling [online] Available from:https://www.slideshare.net/PublicSpeakingMojo/ss-disciplinary-presentation-030714 [Accessed 13 November 2017]

Management Study Guide. Employee Grievance - Effective Ways of Handling Grievance

[online] Available from:http://www.managementstudyguide.com/employee-grievance.htm[Accessed 8 November 2017]

Storify.com Maslows Hierarchy of Needs [online] Available from:https://storify.com/CLAU88HOTMAIL/maslow-s-hierarchy-of-needs [Accessed 13 November 2017]

Does your Organization Assist your Learning and Development Aspirations and Goals? Any Experience of Studding in a Corporate University?

The Corporate University concept came into picture in the late 1980s and has been evolving ever since. This has been the advancement of creating a learning organization, in line with company vision, mission and strategy. It is very useful in creating a workforce equipped with skills and competencies necessary for their job roles in the organization. This provides a great employee experience since the organization is providing opportunities for career growth for the employees which inline gains trust and enthusiasm of employees, while achieving the organization's objectives.

Advantages of this approach include:

• Provides learning opportunities across the hierarchy
• Strategically align employees with company goals
• Decreases turnover since employees tend to be motivated for long term commitments with the organization
• Creates an adaptable workforce to meet up with the rapid environmental and technological changes
• Creates brand enhancement

The inevitable Disadvantages include:

• Is an added expense and can be facilitated only by large scale organizations
• May not always include "Real World" scenarios thus the quality may be questionable
• Solely based on the parent company procedures, thus the learning outcome may not create employability in other organizations

Some Examples of the World Re-known Corporate Universities

In a nutshell Corporate Universities are a great approach in creating a learning organization resulting in employee motivation and retention. But it also contains the inevitable drawbacks which should be very carefully avoided where possible in order to achieve the expected benefits.

References:

Jonah(2010) Corporate Universities [online] Available from http://maytheforcebewithu.blogspot.com/2010/09/corporate-universities.html[Accessed 4 November 2017]

Staff, S(2002) Cooperate Universities: A Powerful model for Learning[online] Available from http://www.clomedia.com/2002/11/01/corporate-universities-a-powerful-model-for-learning/[Accessed 4 November 2017]

Tyler, K(2012) Advantages of Cooperate Universities [online] Available from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0412tyler3.aspx [Accessed 4 November 2017]

Does your Organization consider Employee Wok Life Balance as Unimportant and Irrelevant?

Balancing work-life and personal- life has become a huge challenge in the world today, with employers expecting employees to be available 24/7 for work related activities. However it is essential for any and every employee to have a balance in their work and person lives. If they fail to maintain such balance between the two, it could lead to stress, unhappiness and reduced productivity. Thus it is the duty of all employers to see to it that all employees in their organization are able to achieve their work life balance by setting up company strategies, mission and vision in achievable heights. This would in turn lead to a positive employee experience at the organization.

 

Are you in this situation?

       Immediately follow the listed steps!!!

1. Put yourself first before anything else
2. Prioritize your time and track your time
3. Unplug and ask for support if necessary
4. Leave your work where it belongs; at work, and establish boundaries and stick to them
5. Get moving and plenty of exercise
6. Spend quality time with your family

Achieving balance in your work and personal life helps you perform optimally and you will be amazed to see the impact it has on you as well as your family, friends and even colleagues.

References

Diana 5 Tips to Achieve more Balance in your DBA Life[online] http://dbaparadise.com/2016/11/5-tips-to-achieve-more-balance-in-your-dba-life/

[Accessed 3 November 2017]

Dugan,D 14 Steps to Achieving Work Life Balance [online]https://www.salary.com/14-steps-to-achieving-work-life-balance/[Accessed 3 November 2017]


Parallelcoaching (2015)The Ugly Truth About the Work Life Balance[online] https://parallelcoaching.co.uk/the-ugly-truth-about-the-work-life-balance[Accessed 3 November 2017]

Stahl,A(2017) 5 Secrets to Achieving Work Life Balance[online] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2017/03/30/5-secrets-to-achieving-work-life-balance/#293e4f6a3bba[Accessed 3 November 2017]

Can Pay for “Position” rather than Pay for “Performance” be a reason for Negative Employee Experience ? What is your Experience on Remuneration?

From the employee point of view, Monetary Compensation or Financial Incentives are at the core of the ambition of many employees, thus it is one top reason for employment. It is realistic enough for the monetary perspective to become the core of employment in many cases since in terms of basic needs of humans - putting food on the table is the priority. Financial Incentives meets the employee in the form of a Remuneration Package. Thus, let’s consider the definition of a Remuneration Package first. The definition Scribd offers is;

“The remuneration packets of an employee include wages/salary, incentives, fringe benefits, perquisites and finally non-monetary benefits.” (Aniket)

Next let’s look into the components of a Remuneration Package;

1.Wages/Salary
This refers to a fixed amount paid in exchange of obtaining services by an employee. This could be annual, monthly, biweekly or weekly for full time employees while for part timers  this would be the hourly rate.

2. Incentives
These are drivers used to attract and motivate employees. The following types of incentives are available.

3. Fringe Benefits
These are extra benefits offered to an employee outside of salary/wages. Some examples are;

4. Perquisites
These are usually benefits offered to executive status employees in order to maximize the time available for business related purposes and at the same time enhance the quality of  their lives. Some examples include;

5. Non-Monetary Benefits
The could include many different elements. Some are listed below;

Remuneration of an employee may be decided on the basis of the Compensation System. Position/Job based compensation and Knowledge based compensation are two such compensation systems that we will review. These compensation systems need not be standalone or whole systems. But could be a combination of both compensation systems.

Eg- Base pay could be Position Based while incentive plans could be Knowledge Based.

Let’s review the two compensation systems;

F A C T  S	Knowledge Based Payment	Position Based Payment
	Based on; ·   Variable Pay ·   Business Performance ·   Based in individual performance ·   Based on team and organizational performance	Based on; ·  Cost of living and labor market ·  Base wage/salary ·  Evenly distributed between employees ·  Co-related with seniority
	Also known as contribution based pay, skill based pay etc.
	Focuses mostly on the ability of the employee to perform the job	Focuses mainly on the job analysis and the requirements of a given position
	Have been around since 1960’s but gained popularity in the 1990.	Usually comprises of an annual increment of 3%-4%
	Knowledge based payment is of three types;        1)   Merit Pay         2)   Individual based bonuses        3)   Long Term Incentives (Park,Struman,2016)
	“Merit pay is an incremental increase in base salary used to recognize past performance … and bonus pay is a lump sum cash payment used to recognize past performance.” (Anthony, 2013)
A D V A N T A G E S	Select, attract, motivate and retain key employees	Each position is provided a pay range based on job duties.
	Increases Organizational performance as a whole and strive towards the vision in a speedy manner	Will differ only according to education and seniority.
	Lower turnover rate and increased recruitment	Predictable payment method, eases in budgeting
	Encourages continuous learning and job enlargement	Reward long standing employees
	Flexibility in position coverage enabling work team to cover for absentees	Reduces potential for discriminatory practices since the pay is structured for the job
	Increased self-esteem and self-management abilities	Comparison of payments between companies is possible
	Faster adaptation to changes in technology	Provides an illusion of possible career paths and promotions
D I S A D V A N T A G E S	Bitterness and conflicts with colleagues receiving high pay	High performers may get frustrated when others get similar pay
	Spend time for learning and skill development in order to perform well	Leads to office politics in order for a promotion
	Personal reluctance to learn	Motivational scarcity for employees in the high end of the pay range
	The decisions on performance could be biased	Less compatible in team based structures and incentives
	Diverts focus from core business, where resources are required to identify the contribution of each employee on an ongoing basis	Does not assist on development of a flexible organizational structure or boundary-less organizations
	Some research shows that this method could tie up with health effects of employees, where they would try to achieve unreachable targets in order to reap the benefits	Job holder may not be competent in the job

In conclusion, both the traditional approach of Position related pay and the Performance related pay has pros and cons. Since the Human Resource approaches need to align with company strategies, and this in order has the requirement for well-equipped human capital in order to gain the competitive advantage; as of the Resource Based View. Thus, the need to motivate all members and retain key members, plays a vital role, for the company in its path on achieving its vision. The Performance based payment method seems to provide positive outcome on achieving that goal. Thus, the Performance based approach seems to dominate the future of payment slabs and enhance a Positive Employee Experience in an organization rather than the Position based approach. 

References

Barkman, D.F(2002)What is SBP? Its Pros and Cons. Why Use it? [online]http://bizcenter.com/index.php?page=skill-based-pay-excerpt[Accessed 1 November 2017]

Kokkemuller, N.Job based pay versus knowledge pay[online]Available from http://work.chron.com/jobbased-pay-vs-knowledgebased-pay-8232.html [Accessed 27 October 2017]

Kokkemuller, N.What are the Advantages of Job-Based Compensation Structure? [online] http://woman.thenest.com/advantages-jobbased-compensation-structure-19791.html

Available from [Accessed 1 November 2017]

Liritz,L.(2012)Introduction to Skill-Based Pay[online] https://www.erieri.com/pdf/skillbasedpay.pdf [Accessed 30 October 2017]

MaRSLibrary(2009)Employee Compensation: Salary, wages, incentives and commissions[online] https://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/employee-compensation-salary-wages-incentives-and-commissions/[Accessed 28 October 2017]

Mohanta,G.C.Bases for Traditional Pay System& Modern Pay System and Establishing Pay Plans[online] https://www.slideshare.net/GaurangaMohanta/bases-for-traditional-pay-system-modern-pay-system-and-establishing-pay-plansAvailable from [Accessed 1 November 2017]

Park,S., Struman,M.C(2015) Evaluating Form and Functionality of Pay-for-Performance Plans: The relative incentive and Sorting effects of Merit Pay, Bonuses and Long Term Incentives[online]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hrm.21740/epdf?r3_referer=wol&tracking_action=preview_click&show_checkout=1&purchase_referrer=journals.sagepub.com&purchase_site_license=LICENSE_DENIED[Accessed 25 October 2017]

People Center(2015)Job-based vs People-based pay Structures[online] https://peoplecentre.wordpress.com/2015/10/17/pay-structures/[Accessed 1 November 2017]

Root, G.N Types of Incentive Plans[online] http://smallbusiness.chron.com/types-incentive-plans-1307.html[Accessed 28 October 2017]

Thompson,S.What is the difference between merit pay incentives & Pay for Performance[online] http://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-merit-pay-incentives-pay-performance-65935.html[Accessed 26 October 2017]