Complaint Procedures

Different participation systems can be implemented to authentically get employee input and to capitalize on the benefits.

Learning Objective

Explain employee influence in an organization

Key Points

Employees are the resources of an organization in the same way as material assets but they are also the firm's stakeholders. Even so, they do not often command the majority of attention in terms of decision-making influences.
Grievance and due process systems allow employees to address grievances and to argue their point if they feel they are wronged by management or another employee.
Employers benefit from the increased trust that comes from sharing information and giving employees influence.
Open-book management empowers employees with the information they need to see the reality of the organizational situation and to give relevant and helpful input.
Feedback programs can be a less expensive way to get feedback from employees concerning specific programs or policies.
Team mechanisms such as quality circles, work teams, and total-quality management teams provide employees with the ability to synthesize their individual input into a better solution to organizational problems.

Terms

open-book management
A management phrase coined by John Case of Inc. magazine, who began using the term in 1993 (Aggarwal & Simkins, 2001). The basis of OBM is that the information received by employees should not only help them do their jobs effectively, but help them understand how the company is doing as a whole (Kidwell & Scherer, 2001). The technique is to give employees all relevant financial information about the company so they can make better decisions as workers. This information includes, but is not limited to, revenue, profit, cost of goods, cash flow and expenses.
grievance
A wrong or hardship suffered, which is the grounds of a complaint.
feedback
Critical assessment on information produced.

Example

In order to benefit from complaints and observations of employees, an employer may use a feedback program, which for example, may entail her creating a survey for the employees to complete and review various aspects of the organizational situation in the workplace.

Full Text

Employees: Often the Unheard Stakeholders

Employees are the resources of an organization in much the same way as material assets. They are also the firm's stakeholders.

The concept of employees as stakeholders refers to the interest employees have in the success of the company and the fact that actions taken by the organization directly affect the employees (Olson, 2003). Though employees are the stakeholders who are arguably most visible to management on a day-to-day basis, they do not often command the majority of attention in terms of decision-making influences.

Employees can get their Voices Heard

Employers benefit from the increased trust that comes from sharing information and giving employees influence (Pfeffer & Viega, Putting People First for Organizational Success, 1998). However, managers who are used to having control often find it "disconcerting, difficult and even impossible" to share power in the form of influence in exchange for the many organizational benefits (Marken, 2004).

Employees can obtain influence in organizational decisions in several ways :

Employees

They can obtain influence in organizational decisions in several ways.

Grievance and due process systems allow employees to address grievances and to argue their point if they feel they are wronged by management or another employee.
Many different participation systems can be implemented to authentically get employee input and to capitalize on the benefits associated with employee influence.
Open-book management empowers employees with the information they need to see the reality of the organizational situation and to give relevant and helpful input (Case, 1997).
Similar to open-book management are open-door policies, where management makes it clear that employees can informally raise issues or give input at any time.
Feedback programs, sometimes implemented in the form of employee surveys or through direct employee-management interaction, can be a less expensive way to get feedback from employees concerning specific programs or policies (Solnik, 2006).
Team mechanisms such as quality circles, work teams, and total-quality management teams provide employees with the ability to synthesize their individual input into a better solution to organizational problems.

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