Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-3, Issue-9, 2017 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Page 581 Study of Employee Grievances and Grievance Handling in Small Scale Construction Companies with Informal Grievance Handling Procedures in Central Province, Sri Lanka 1 Y.Y.Dharmapala, 2 P.R.H.N.G. Thilakarathna, 3 M.M.K.Bandara, 4 Eng.H.T.D.Hittige 1 Department of IT, Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education Sri Lanka 2,3 Department of Technology, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka 4 Department of Provincial Irrigation, North Central Province, Sri Lanka Abstract : Grievances are common to any level of work force in any company/industry while they are working together to achieve a common goal. Even though the poorly handled grievances are leading to employee inefficiency, employee dissatisfaction, and finally to high turnover ratio of the company, still some companies are not practicing formal grievance handling procedures within their organizations. This study focuses on the grievance handling of small scale construction companies with no formally established grievance handling procedures in central province of Sri Lanka. The study identifies the grievances among different job categories of the selected companies and through the findings tries to identify whether these companies are efficiently handling the grievances with current informal procedures or not. Finally the study determines whether there is a need of a formal grievance handling procedure or not. 1. Introduction Construction Industry in Sri Lanka has shown an upward trend after the year 2009 immediately after the civil war situation as the constructions in North and East provinces are boomed up. According to the industry report on Sri Lanka by ICRA Management Consultancy service Limited, the Sri Lankan construction industry contributes to about 70% of the Gross Domestic Fixed Capital Formation and about 8 % to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to the same report Sri Lankan Construction Industry contributes 7% to total employment generation of Sri Lanka and direct employment in construction industry was 562,000 persons in 2009. But they have already shown on SWOT analysis of the report that there are lack of skilled works within Sri Lanka to contribute to the Construction Industry. A study on Shortage of Skilled works in Construction Industry of Sri Lanka show that grievances like low wage and poor working conditions are two of major reasons for the shortage of skilled workers in Sri Lankan construction Industry. This study has conducted in order to identify employee grievances and grievance handling procedures used in small scale Construction Companies which do not have formal grievance handling procedures in Central Province, Sri Lanka. According to the Sri Lanka Construction Industry development Authority Small scale Companies are defined as the companies who do projects with financial limit less than ten million. The companies with Informal grievance handling procedures considered for the study are the companies which do not have a well-defined and well-documented grievance handling procedures. The geographic location considered in this study is central province of Sri Lanka. This is a quantitative study which uses questionnaire method to collect the data. For the study we considered randomly selected 160 workers from 5 different construction sites in Central province including building, road and irrigation constructions. The study mainly focused on identifying the nature of grievances, reasons for the grievances and the possible redressing methods for the identified grievances of Construction workers. 2. Literature Review According to Jucius as cited by Rao (2005) a grievance is “ any discontent or dissatisfaction whether expressed or not whether valid or not arising out of anything connected with the company which an employee thinks believes or even feels to be unfair, unjust or inequitable”.