PROJECT PROPOSAL

GRIEVANCE HANDLING PROCEDURES AND THEIR IMPACT ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: A CASE STUDY OF GHANA COCOA BOARD

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Grievance is a sign of an employee’s discontentment with his job or his relationship with his colleagues. Grievance generally arises out of the day to day working relations in an organization, an employee or a trade union protest against an act or policy of the management that they consider as violating employees rights.

An organization will establish a grievance practice to give an opportunity to the employee to file his or her frustration. The establishment of grievance procedure is in line with the principle of “due process” (Mante-Meija & Enid, 1991) which guarantees the application of procedural justice and ethical decision making in an organization. Besides the establishment of grievance procedure will resolve employees’ dissatisfaction fairly, behavior of personnel who handle grievance also brings effect to the employee’s satisfaction on the result of grievance resolution. Managers will handle grievances referred to them base on their personality reference.

One of the effective ways of minimizing and eliminating the source of employee’s grievance is by having an ‘open door policy’. An ‘open door policy’ facilitates upward communication in the organization where employees can walk into superiors’ cabin at any time and express their grievances. The National Commission on Labour suggested a Model Grievance Procedure, which lays down the sequence of steps to be taken whenever a grievance is expressed.

According to Britton (1992), grievance is defined as any dispute that arises between an employer and employee, which relates to the implied or explicit terms of the employment agreement. Studies examine that direct effects of employee demographic differences on grievance handling filling have yielded mixed results.

Moreover, little is known regarding the possible moderating effect that such differences might have on the link between workplace adversity and grievance filling. Many people have made contributions in the field of personnel management and human resources in general. So far the work of Tyson and York (2003) bring very interesting revelations.

1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM
Grievance is a sign of employee’s discontentment with his job or his relationship with his colleagues. Grievances generally arise out of the day to day working relations in an organization. Given the fact that when there is a break in communications at the workplace, it leads to disunity which eventually maintain organizational harmony.
The question is what has led to this strong harmony and integration among the staff and management?, whether grievance handling has any impact on employee relations?. The study therefore seeks to investigate on grievance handling procedures and its impact on employee performance.

1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: * To assess grievance handling procedures and its impact on employee performance * To assess the causes of workplace grievances and its impact on output * To evaluate the relationship between management decisions and conflict regulation in the workplace * To assess the challenges involved in handling grievance procedures

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
Based on the research objectives the following research questions will be investigated. * How do grievance handling procedures impact employee performance? * What are the causes of workplace grievances and their impact on output? * How can the relationship between management decision and conflict regulation be evaluated in the workplace? * How can the challenges involved in handling grievance procedures be assessed?

1.5 Significance of the study
In ensuring that grievance handling procedures are rightly implemented, they help managers to utilize their time more effectively and efficiently. The grievance handling procedures help employees to learn more and improve upon their potentials to the maximum.
It is assumed that this research will be a guide to human resource managers as well as those who may have keen interest in handling grievances in organizations.

1.6 CHAPTER DISPOSITION
The study will be organized into five (5) chapters. Chapter one (1) is the introductory chapter which focuses on the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, hypothesis/research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study and organization of the study. In the second chapter, the study will review the existing literature, thus books published. The review will mostly be reviewed to the fundamental concept of grievance handling procedures and elements.
The third chapter is the methodology underlying the study, questionnaire and personal interview will be discussed. The fourth chapter will contain mainly discussion on the research findings in relation to whether they are consistent with existing knowledge or view or whether new findings are acquired. In the final chapter, conclusions will be made which will be a summary of the previous chapters upon which recommendations will be suggested.

1.7 LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study will be limited by the unwillingness of some staff to complete the questionnaire. Another area of limitation will be how to finance for items such as cost of paper for printing, questionnaire, transportation cost for face to face interviews, secretarial expenses and other overhead cost. Time will also limit.

1.8 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research is a systematic method of finding solutions to problems. It is essentially an investigation, a recording and an analysis of evidence for the purpose of gaining knowledge. According to Clifford Woody, “research comprises of defining and redefining a problem, formulating hypothesis or suggested solutions, collecting, organizing and evaluating data, reaching conclusions, testing conclusions to determine whether they fit the formulated hypothesis. In this study, the data needed for the study will be collected from the employees through questionnaires and through direct interviews. Analysis and interpretation will be done by using the statistical tools and data and presented through tables and charts.

Systematic sampling is a statistical method involving the selection of elements from an ordered sampling frame. Systematic sampling procedure will be used to identify the respondents. The aim is to obtain a representative sample so that the findings can be generalized to the population at large. A sample size of 60 respondents will be obtained from the population.

A well-defined questionnaire will be used to effectively gather information on both overall performance of the test system as well as information on specific components of the system. A well-defined questionnaire will be carefully prepared and specially numbered. The questions will be arranged in proper order in accordance with its relevance.

1.8.1 RESEARCH DESIGN
The purpose of this research is to evaluate grievance handling procedures and their impact on employee performance. The study is descriptive by nature since it discusses how grievance handling procedures can impact employee performance. The research is designed to make use of quantitative techniques in the collection of data.

1.8.2 THE RESEARCH POPULATION
Castilo (2009) defines population as the universal set of all the existing people, units, items or events that contain characteristics of interest as well as all the set of possible data values for a subject under study. The population of this study comprises all employee of Ghana Cocoa Board. This population was selected because of easy access to data.

1.8.3 SAMPLE SIZE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
Patton (1990) defines sampling as a process used in statistical analysis or research methods in which a predetermined number of observations will be taken from a larger population (Patton, 1990). A sample size of 60 respondents was chosen for this study. This study adopted both probability sampling and non-probability sampling as its method of sampling. This approach was adopted because it provided in-depth information and greater knowledge of grievance handling procedures. 1.8.4 DATA COLLECTION METHODS
For the study, primary data will be gathered through questionnaires. Questionnaires will be administered to employees on issues pertaining to grievance handling and employee performance. Secondary data will obtained from textbooks, magazines, journals, reports and the internet.

1.8.5 INSTRUMENTATION The study will use structured self-administered questionnaire as the research instrument. That is, the researcher will designed one set of questionnaire for all categories of employees. The questionnaire will be made up of closed and open ended questions. The questionnaires will be personally administered to the respondents by the researcher himself at the various office of Ghana Cocoa Board. The questionnaire is in one part and comprises questions for management and staff to provide responses to. 1.8.6 DATA ANALYSIS Statistical Product and Service Solution (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel will be used in the analysis of the result. Descriptive statistics such as percentages and frequencies was also employed in the study to measure demographic characteristics of respondents. Tables and bar charts will be used to present results. 1.9 PILOT STUDY
Pilot study will be carried out to test the questionnaire designed prior to the exact research. Its main purpose is to ensure that the questionnaire which has been designed is viable and reliable. In other words, it is to check whether our respondent understood the questionnaire as our understanding without misinterpreting it.

1.10 CONFIDENTIALITY
Information provided by respondents will be kept confidential and their identity will also not be known. This is to give maximum security to respondents so as protect them during and after the exercise.