Sources of employee grievances: handling procedures and employee job satisfaction among Seventh-Day Adventist institutions in Malawi

Abstract

In a workplace, complaints, concerns and issues arise from time to time and it is important that organizations have in a place an effective grievance handling mechanism to help address such issues as may be raised by the employees. The aim of this study was to assess the sources of employee grievances, the current procedures for handling grievances and their relationship with employee job satisfaction in selected Seventh-day Adventist institutions in Malawi. The study was a cross-sectional causal research design; 231 employees participated in the study from the selected Seventh-day Adventist Church institutions. The instrument for data collection was mainly questionnaire. The study used descriptive and inferential statistics to generate results of the study. Data was collected using a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS version 20 after it was checked for validity and reliability. For the descriptive aspect, the data was used to calculate means and standard deviations. Correlations and regression analysis were used for inferential statistics. Based on the findings reported in the study, sources of employee grievances are caused by factors such as communication, workload, working conditions, the organizational culture and supervision. In addition, employees reiterated that mistreatment in the workplace, favoritism, unfairness, intimidation, discrimination and sexual harassment are common sources of employee grievances. The grievance handling procedures existing in these institutions are generally effective. This means that employees were aware of the grievance handling procedures. Also, dialogue and passing time seems to be the strategies of resolving grievances in the selected institutions. Another finding was that employee job satisfaction is positively correlated with procedure awareness. However, the regression analysis results showed that among the procedures in handling grievances, only ‘able to resolve grievances’ was a significant predictor of job satisfaction in the model (β = 2.037, p < .05). Another finding was that employee job satisfaction is positively related with supervision. Nevertheless, regression analysis result showed that among the sources of grievances, only supervision was a significant predictor of employee job satisfaction in the model (β8.065, < .05). Further, researches are recommended to explore the area under study together with the other parts of the non-work-related factors in non-faith based organizations. In particular, this study has dealt with the sources of grievances; grievance handling procedures in Seventh-day Adventist institutions. The same study can be done in other institutions and beyond the region and the findings can be compared to find if there are better ways being practiced elsewhere that can be shared and emulated.