22 | HR Connection
Grievances: Hindsight is So Last Year A 2021 Approach to Handling Grievances
Dennis J. Eichelbaum, Managing Shareholder
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orget everything you have been taught or thought you knew about grievances. Leave behind the notion that grievances are bad, grievances cause problems, grievances poison the environment. Let us take a fresh perspective and see if we can make grievances work for administrators. Maybe they can actually be an effective tool to resolve issues, as they were theoretically intended. Gone are the days when building administrators could make decisions in the same fashion that Caesar ruled. Now that grievances are permitted to be filed for every reason under the sun, it is time to step back and see how to calmly control the situation. Employee grievances can be used to the advantage of the administrator: it simply takes adopting a new perspective. You may not recognize it, but more than 90% of grievances are resolved in favor
of the employee. When you take into consideration every complaint, whether it be the temperature is too cold or “I did not receive my copies” is an informal complaint that you routinely address and resolve, then most “grievances” are resolved for the employee.
they provide a framework from which the building “concerns” and “grievances” are used synonymously, since a grievance is nothing more than an employee concern. Please note, the gender used below is masculine, solely for the purpose of fluency.
Remember, grievances against the government are a constitutional right. From the First Amendment and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, to the Texas Constitution’s right of a remonstrance, complaining to the government is as much an American tradition as apple pie. The Texas Legislature has even forced school boards to now listen to any member of the public that signs up during public forum prior to voting on matters during school board meeting.
1. Consistency is not only the best offense, it is the best defense. It is convenient (and proper) to respond to an inappropriate request by informing the employee that it must be done a certain way because that is the school (or district) policy. However, should an employee concern ever come to a grievance, consistency gets the administrator past the main grievance claim, “arbitrary and capricious.”
While grievances may be filed even in the smoothest and friendliest work environment, there are four steps which should be taken in order to prevent grievances, or at least minimize the potential for losing grievances. While the following lists are not all inclusive,
Administrators cannot be arbitrary and capricious toward an individual employee if he has consistently ruled the same way. Regardless of whether the decision by the administrator was the correct one, it cannot be said to be arbitrary and capricious.As for an employee relation strategy, employees prefer knowing the rules will remain
