Nick Martindale (2010) stated in his article, “Grievances - what employers need to know to avoid or deal with them,” that “the most striking fact is the high number of cases concerned with managerial relationships in the workplace. Poor working relationships between line managers and employees accounted for 77 percent of workplace disputes.” I find this to be a fair statistic. If you have a good working relationship with your staff and throughout your organization, you have a better chance of addressing issues and/or problems before they reach the stage where a formal complaint would need to be filed. How can you create this good working relationship? I often state the most important aspect to creating this relationship is to hire and utilize those who are “reasonable and rationale.” A reasonable and rationale person is able to avoid the ego, self-interest and lack of confidence that may be barriers to the resolution process.

Questions:

1. What does research state about the effectiveness of grievances?

2. Do they typically result in resolutions in favor of management or the employee?

3. More important, does it tend to enhance, or disturb, the relationship between management and the union? If so, what would be the benefit of filing a grievance?