Employee grievances are formal expressions of dissatisfaction where staff believe their treatment, terms, or conditions breach organisational policies, legal statutes, or implied promises. Grievances not only signal individual discontent but often foreshadow broader systemic issues. In a post‑merger public‑sector setting, addressing the root causes of grievances promptly is vital to preserve morale and avoid disruptive disputes. Three key grievance drivers are poor management practices, excessive workload pressures, and workplace bullying.
- Poor Management Practices
Inconsistent, opaque, or biased management erodes trust and breeds resentment. For example, inequitable application of flexible‑working requests can leave some teams feeling unfairly disadvantaged, prompting formal complaints (Garvey & Mackenzie 2024). Common manifestations include:
- Unequal Treatment: When managers apply rules selectively such as approving overtime pay for some staff but not others, affected employees perceive injustice, undermining organisational credibility.
- Feedback and Support: Employees who are not given the appropriate appraisal or coaching at regular intervals may feel under-utilized; thus, career growth and appreciation complaints arise.
- Ineffective communication: Lack of explicit messages describing new structures or decision-making channels in the wake of a merger may cause rumours and anxiety. Employees feel in need of assurance, and when managers fail to do this by explaining policies, many of them use a formal grievance system.
To overcome the issues with poor management, we can offer well-planned education regarding inclusive leadership, create uniform processes of requesting and appraising, and set up regular skip-level check-ins to identify the issues in the early stages.
- Excessive Workload Pressures
Unrealistic workloads and chronic understaffing are among the most frequently cited grievance triggers. The CIPD’s Good Work Index (2023) found that 42 % of public‑sector employees report stress due to unmanageable demands. Key factors include:
- Task Imbalance: In the transition process of mergers, the mixing of teams may overwhelm some positions until the harmonization of systems.
- Inability to prioritize: In the absence of clarity on task priority, employees will, at best, be running around to meet competing deadlines and, at worst, be stressed, leading to complaints of constantly being put in a firefighting situation.
Mitigation measures include workloads, dynamic resource planning tools, temporary location of project staff to cope with the transitional requirements, and the capacity of the staff to meet the changing requirements in operations.
- Bullying and Harassment
Bullying in the workplace, including the humorous subtext to aggressive and open attacks, forms an abusive climate, often ending in official complaints (Tuckey et al. 2022). Manifestations include:
- Verbal Abuse: Repeated put-downs or public humiliation by instructors.
- Exclusionary Practices: Actively shutting people off in terms of meetings or flows of information.
- Unreasonable Criticism: Placing unrealistic expectations with severe punishments.
Moreover, misunderstandings in a merged organization may be enhanced since then different cultural norms would mean that a clear anti-bullying policy and quick, confidential investigation processes are vital.
