Employee Relation - disciplinary & grievance procedures Outline

Employee Relation - disciplinary & grievance procedures - Outline Example Such a procedure enables the employees to have a formal means of complaint about their terms and conditions, working environment, and related issues. Just like grievance procedure, disciplinary action is also meant to resolve issues that are deemed to be in violation of the organisation’s code of conduct in order to improve their performance. If such issues are unresolved, they may lead to conflicts among the members of the organisation and these are counterproductive. Therefore, the role of the disciplinary and grievances procedure is to set the benchmarks that can guide the behaviour of the members in an organisation. Hawkins (1979) posits to the effect that these procedures in an organisation are meant to influence the behaviour of management, employees and trade union representatives in a defined situation to abide by a certain code of conduct. In short, the main purpose of procedures is to have an agreed set of rules which can be used to channel any discussion with regards to issues reflecting discontent through appropriate mechanisms towards finding a resolution. In most cases, matters pertaining to disciplinary and grievance issues are expected to be resolved informally at lower levels in an organisation. However, it must be noted that these procedures are hierarchical in nature. Such issues are first dealt with by the line manager. If the matter has not been resolved, then mediation is considered as a viable option. If there is no solution in sight to the contentious issues, then the matter is raised formally through the disciplinary and grievance procedures for consideration by the top management. Such procedures have been designed in a way to delineate a proper channel that can be followed by a complainant to have his or her issue solved in a formal way. Likewise, every organisation is structured in a particular way and this structure helps to shape the behaviour as