Influence of Grievance Handling Process on Conflict Management in Public Universities in Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

Conflict management is an integral pillar for any organization to achieve its goals and objectives. Due to unpredictable trends in the labor force market, today, organizations are challenged to lay down policies and procedures that can help resolve workers grievances. The primary objective of this research was to examine the influence of grievance handling process on conflict management in public universities in Nakuru County. The study adopted a descriptive research design methodology and with the population being drawn from six selected public universities in Nakuru County. From the selected universities, 147 employees were targeted. The primary data for analysis was collected through a questionnaire using closed-ended questions. The regression analysis reveals that Provision of grievance capturing systems contributes 30.5%, Grievance handling process contributes 31.9% to conflict management in public universities in Nakuru county. The study concludes that availability of grievance handling process helps in resolving conflicts. Employees in public universities in Nakuru County agreed that grievance handling process have impact on conflict management. This implies that when grievance handling process in an organization is enhanced conflict management could be realized. Therefore, It can be noted that grievance handling process may act as a problem-solving tool in which all the parties of interest are put in picture concerning the underlying problems at the workplace with a purpose of refining the state of affairs. From the research, it was recommended that public university departments should ensure that grievance handling process and function of the system is transparent. The registration system or mechanism should be readily available accessible to all staff/employees to use whenever they have a grievance that needs registration and should be easy and simpler to use. Keywords : Conflict, Grievance, Handling, Management, Process. DOI : 10.7176/EJBM/11-30-08 Publication date :October 31 st 2019