Grievance means any discontent or dissatisfaction, whether expressed or not and whether valid or not, arising out of anything connected with the company that an employee thinks, believes or even feels is unfair, unjust or inequitable. This discontent can arise out of something connected with company, or expressed and implied, or may be valid, legitimate and rational or untrue and irrational or completely ludicrous.

A good management redresses grievances as they arise, excellent management anticipates them and prevents them from arising. A manager can know about the simmering even before they turn into actual grievances through several means such as the exit interviews, gripe boxes, opinion surveys and the open door policy.

Exit Interview: Employees usually quit organization due to dissatisfaction or better prospect elsewhere. Exit interview, if conducted carefully, can provide important information about employee’s grievances. It should be remembered that those employees who believe in keeping their relationship cordial, because they never know when their paths may cross again, will not like to burn their bridges behind them by speaking about their grievances.

Gripe Boxes: These are the boxes in which the employees can drop their anonymous complaints. They are different from the suggestion boxes in which employees drop their named suggestions with an intention to receive rewards.

Opinion Surveys: Group meetings, periodical interviews with employees, collective bargaining session are some other means through which one can get information about employee’s dissatisfaction before it turns into a grievance.

Open Door Policy: Some organizations extend a general invitation to their employees to informally drop in the manager’s room any time and talk over their grievances. It also has the following limitations although it may appear very attractive. These are: This policy is workable only in very small organizations; under this policy the frontline supervisor who should be the first man to know about the grievances of his subordinates is bypassed.

This provokes him in two ways: First, he thinks the man who skipped him is disrespectful. Secondly, he fears that he will incur his superior’s displeasure because this will be interpreted by the superior as his failure to handle his subordinates;

By following an “open door policy” the top management cannot have adequate clues to assess a supervisor’s skill in handling grievances; sometimes an open door policy is used to hide the top management’s own hesitation to make contacts with the operatives and the open door is often a slogan to conceal closed minds.