What is grievance handling?
The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) defines grievance handling as the management of employee dissatisfaction or complaints (e.g. favoritism, workplace harassment, or wage cuts).
By establishing a formal grievance handling process, you provide a safe environment for your employees to raise their concerns. You also create a channel to increase employee engagement and maintain a positive workplace culture.
Abide by:
The Tripartite Guidelines for Grievance Handling:
TAFEP’s guidelines emphasizes fairness, transparency and consistency in grievance handling.
What are the key principles?
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Impartiality: All grievances should be investigated impartially and fairly.
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Confidentiality: Protect the confidentiality of all parties involved throughout the process.
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Timeliness: Address grievances promptly, avoiding unnecessary delays.
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Non-Retaliation: Ensure employees can raise concerns without fear of retaliation.
Our training helps you integrate these principles into your organisation’s grievance handling process, ensuring compliance with legal standards and fostering a positive work culture.
Now that we know what the tripartite guidelines are, let's explore a high-level overview of a grievance process. This gives you a general idea of the stages involved.
Step 1:
Set up, document and communicate an internal grievance handling process.
Explore resources set out by TAFEP to guide companies on how to create a grievance handling procedure that suits your company and officially communicate it after. Including forms, templates that you can utilise immediately or tweak accordingly to fit your needs.
TAFEP E-Learning Module. Attend this complementary session to guide you on how to create a grievance handling policy.
Step 2:
Ensure that your grievance process is discreet.
2 parts to discretion when handling a grievance.
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Confidentiality:
Ensuring that no one outside of the case knows about the details of the investigation.
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Retaliation:
Undesired consequences experienced by employees as a direct result of raising a grievance.
Including and not limited to:-
Withholding of employment benefits
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Employment decisions that are made in an attempt to punish the employee who has raised a grievance.
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Step 3:
Train managers and people involved in the grievance process
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Identify and define the role of managers and supervisors when someone goes to them with a grievance.
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Appointed person.
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HR will typically serve as the appointed person(s) who will handle the end to end grievance process in your company.
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In the absence of an internal HR team, you should appoint a specific person(s) to handle internal grievances in your company.
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All appointed persons should be trained on how to conduct end to end investigations.
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