1. Red Tape, Green Tape & Grievance Policy in Local Government
Leisha DeHart-Davis, UNC-School of Government

2. Research Overview Importance of Grievance Policy Research Questions
Research Design
Results
Recommendations
Next Steps

3. Importance of Grievance Policy
Manage legal risk
Data
Fairness
Employee voice
Potential conflict resolution
The most important reason: grievance policies allow you to conduct due diligence on employee claims of unjust managerial behavior, you can address that behavior and head of lawsuit
Manage legal risk by triggering an internal investigation that allows local governments to find fault, whether manager or employee, hopefully reduce the likelihood of lawsuit
Data provides feedback: Good data can tell whether particular supervisors or policies are causing problems
Grievance policies can – don’t always – generate data that organization can use to diagnose itself. If particular policies/departments/supervisors are source of grievance – addresses these hotspots accordingly
Grievance policies form of employee voice. Knowing what I know now about grievance policies, voice of last resort. Grievance policies are essential/important, but there are many other forms of voice to consider. Don’t make grievance policy your only one.
Potential conflict resolution. My reading of the literature indicates that grievances do not resolve conflicts. Divorce court. Grievance rates correlate with turnover rates, meanings that grievance policies don’t heal relationships.
Thinking: process, all sides being aired, employees are being heard, conflicts… You’ll see why shortly.

4. Research Questions How common are grievance policies & rates?
How are grievance policies designed?
What factors influence grievance rates?
How do grievances affect local government organizations?

5. Research Design NC cities and counties Research-for-training swap
Interviews
Surveys
Online Qualtrics survey
78% county response rate
19% city response rate

6. How Common Are Grievance Policies?
Almost all counties
84% of responding cities
40% have just cause standard for termination
Just cause standard for termination: employees have to have advance notice and opportunity to be heard before adverse employment action

7. How Many Grievances Were Filed?
Average 1%-2% of workforce grieves
Average 4 weeks to resolve
Wrongful termination most common
Low-occurrence/high time-consuming events

8. How Are Grievance Policies Designed?
Retaliation protection
Opportunity for employee to provide evidence
Maximum timeframes
Purpose of grievance policy
These pieces are low-hanging fruit: all cities/counties

9. How Are Grievance Policies Designed?
Peer review committees (25%)
Mediation (62%)
Bypass supervisor (62%)
More variance in other elements
¼ uses peer review committees
Well over half use mediation
Only 62% allow supervisor to be bypassed

10. Who was involved in grievance design
Usual suspects at top: HR, manager, attorney, department heads
Much less common for citizens or boards of commission to be involved

11. Key Findings Lack of basic HR data GrievanceTurnover Training 
Upheld decisions
Departmental resolution
One of the most interesting findings in my mind was the number of local governments that did not have the data we were asking for: didn’t track grievance, much less resolution.
Grievance rates are associated with turnover rates, not conflict resolution

12. Key Findings Employee surveys/performance appraisalsgrievances
Grievance policies effective, sometimes not understood
Policy revisions correlate with perceptions of better grievance policies
Employee surveys forms of voice/performance appraisals manage expectations
Most considered be not be red tape, but the weakest link understood
Effective grievance policies strengthen management decision:

14. Grievance-Related Innovations
Mediation
Ombuds
Zero-Fault Grievances
Employee-Driven Policy Design
The report identified different ideas for reducing grievances to begin with
Mediation, involving third-party dispute resolution, which was not related to grievance
Ombuds: confidential resource for employees and managers, only three survey respondents
Zero Fault Grievance: grievance automatically resolved in employees favor of management has made procedural errors. Pressures managers to follow own rules
Employees: involving employees in design of grienvace policies, as way of creating better policies.

15. Recommendations Collect HR data Periodically revise grievance policy
Train
Employee-centered workplace
Employee centered workplaces, that focus on giving employees voice in organization, should make it so that you don’t have to use grievance processes very much.
Employees surveys, ombuds office, employee advisory committees, employee appreciation, leadership training

16. Limitations of the Research
Small sample and item response size
Correlation≠causation
Generalizability to union settings

17. Questions Raised By Research
Are grievance processes really conflict resolvers?
Does mediation truly have no affect on grievance outcomes?
What key outlets for employee voice are most effective for reducing grievance?
If the relationship between grievance rates/turnover any indication, answer is not.
Depends on when mediation occurs… before or after grievance is filed

18. Questions About Research