EMPLOYEE WELFARE

Chapter 6

• The term 'Employee welfare" refers to various benefits and facilities offered to employees by the employer. Welfare measures, whether mandated or undertaken by the employer voluntarily, would the following purposes:

Objectives of labour welfare.

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• Enables workers to lead a richer and more satisfying life.
• Improves the physical and psychological health of workers.
• Absorbs the shocks injected by industrialisation and urbanisation
• Promotes a sense of belongingness among workers.
• Acts as a deterrent against social evils like drinking and gambling etc.

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Agencies for welfare work

Central government

• Canteens, crèches, rest rooms, washing facilities etc. in various
• Pieces of labour legislation
• Statutory welfare funds for housing, educational, recreational
• And medical facilities
• Labour welfare officers to ensure justice to workers

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State governments

• Statutory welfare funds
• Labour welfare centres
• Medical, educational, recreational facilities

Employers

• Hospitals, health centres, dispensaries to workers
• Family planning clinics

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• Credit societies, gymnasiums, clubs, crèches
• Canteens, schools, recreational centres

Trade unions

• Running schools, libraries, sports centres, cooperative societies, Recreation centres, legal cells, labour journals, cultural centres

Types of Welfare Facilities

• Welfare facilities could be classified into two categories: Intramural (provided within the establishment) and Extramural (undertaken outside the establishment)

Intramural and Extramural welfare measures by ILO

Measures undertaken by Employers in India

• Education
• Housing
• Transportation
• Recreation
• Other facilities

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• Canteens, rest rooms, lunch rooms
• Washing facilities, medical aid, leave travel concessions
• Consumer cooperative societies

Statutory Provisions

1. The Factories Act
2. The Plantation Labour Act

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3. The Mines Act
4. The Motor Transport Workers Act
5. The Contract Labour Act

Labour Welfare Officer

Usually appointed whenever the number of employees in a plant exceeds 500 (300 as per the Plantation Act) to carry out the following duties and responsibilities:

• Advisory

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• Service oriented
• Supervisory
• Functional
• Policing
• Mediation

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EMPLOYEE GRIEVANCES AND DISCIPLINE

• When an employee feels that something is unfair in the organization, he is said to have a grievance. To be precise, grievances have certain common features

Features of the term "grievance"

• Perceived non fulfilment of one's expectations leads to dissatisfaction with any aspect of the organisation.
• The dissatisfaction arises out of employment and not due to personal or family problems
• The reasons could be real or imaginary or disguised

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• The discontent may be voiced or unvoiced

EMPLOYEE GRIEVANCES

Causes

• Economic
• Work environment
• Supervision

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• Work group
• Miscellaneous

Effects

If grievances are not identified and redressed properly, they will adversely affect the workers, managers and the organisation.

• Production

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• Employees
• Managers

Grievance Procedure

• It is a formal channel of communication used to resolve grievances. Having a formal grievance procedure has its own advantages. Workers get a wonderful opportunity to ventilate their feelings. Management can go back to the roots of a problem quickly. Supervisors, too, have to fall in line and listen to workers' complaints more seriously. A fair redressal mechanism would boost the morale of employees greatly.

The discovery of grievances

• The success of a grievance procedure, to a large extent, depends on the various ways adopted to dig out the problem:

How to uncover grievances?

• Observation

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• A formal grievance procedure
• Gripe boxes
• Open door policy
• Exit interviews
• Opinion surveys

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Prerequisites of a grievance procedure

• Conformity with statutory provisions
• Unambiguity
• Simplicity
• Promptness
• Training

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• Follow up

Steps in the grievance procedure

• Identify grievances
• Define correctly
• Collect data
• Analyse and solve

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• Prompt redressal
• Implement and follow up

Model Grievance Procedure

• The model grievance procedure suggested by the National Commission on Labour involves six successive time-bound steps each leading to the next, in case employees have any reason to complain against any issue affecting their organisational lives.

Model grievance procedure

Grievance Procedure

Guidelines for handling grievances

• Treat each case as important and get the grievance in writing

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• Talk to the employee directly
• Discuss in a private place
• Handle each case within a time frame
• Examine company provisions in each case
• Get all relevant facts

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• Control your emotions
• Maintain proper records
• Be proactive, if possible.

Discipline

• In a restricted sense, it is the act of imposing penalty for wrong behaviour (negative); broadly speaking, it is a condition of orderliness, where employees willingly practice self control and respect organisational rules and codes of conduct (positive). The differences between the two sides of the same coin could be expressed thus:

The differences between positive and negative discipline

Common disciplinary problems

Causes of Indiscipline

• Absence of effective leadership

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• Unfair management practices
• Communication barriers
• Non-uniform disciplinary action
• Divide and rule policies
• Inadequate attention to personnel problems

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Positive Discipline Approach

• The positive discipline, based upon reminders, is a cooperative discipline approach where employees accept responsibility for the desired behavioural change. The focus is on coping with the unsatisfactory performance and dissatisfactions of employees before the problems become major.

Steps in positive discipline approach

Step 1: An Oral Reminder: Notice here that the word warning was removed. The oral reminder, supported by written documentation, serves as the initial formal phase of the process to identify for the employee what work problems he or she is having. This reminder is designed to identify what is causing the problem and attempt to correct it before it becomes larger.

Step 2: A Written Reminder: If the oral reminder was unsuccessful, a more formalised version is implemented. This written reminder again reinforces what the problems are and what corrective action is necessary. Furthermore, specific time tables that the employee must accept and abide by, and the consequences for failing to comply, are often included.

Step 3: A Decision-making Leave: Here, employees are given a decision-making leave—time off from work, usually with pay—to think about what they are doing and whether or not they desire to continue to work with the company. This "deciding day" is designed to allow the employee an opportunity to make a choice—correct the behaviour or face separation from the company.

Progressive Discipline Approach

• In a progressive discipline system, the employee is given advance warning of performance or other work related problems. Failure to change his or her behaviour is accompanied by increasingly harsher disciplinary action. Due process is based on the assumption that employees have the right to be treated fairly, particularly when being disciplined.

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The Progressive Discipline Approach

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