Case study: Solving Tshepang$$s grievance

Background

Tshepang has been working for the North West Department of Health for the past seven years and has been relatively happy and challenged by the work. He works as a senior administrative clerk having been appointed as administrative clerk $7$ years ago and promoted after he completed his Honnours in Public Administration degree. Tshepang works in the Directorate: Media and Communications and has the primary responsibility of ensuring appropriate external communication via the Department$$s social media platforms. He is$,$ thus, responsible for implementing the social media policy developed the previous year. Since the communications portfolio changed dramatically with the introduction of social media and the occurrence of $$fake news$,$ Tshepang$$s role and job description has changed dramatically. While Tshepang has done an excellent job fitting into his new role, his current performance agreement does not adequately reflect his current job responsibilities and cannot be considered a true reflection of his work situation. Since Tshepang and his line manager have always had a positive and constructive relationship, Tshepang was not concerned about his performance agreement not reflecting his job performance and assumed that any inconsistencies would be corrected in the following performance period.

The case

Thus, during his previous performance agreement discussions $(6$ months ago$)$ Tshepang has requested an updated job description emanating from a complete job evaluation process due to his changing work conditions and responsibilities. Upon inquiring $4$ months ago from his line manager the progress towards achieving this, he was told to stop $$pestering your boss, keep your head down and do your job otherwise you might just find yourself without a job$.$ Tshepang was flabbergasted by his line manager$$s apparent reluctance to manage this change in his team and Directorate. Tshepang decided to follow the formal grievance procedure as he felt mistreated by his employer. He$,$ thus:

$$ Informed his line manager about his complaint;

$$ Informed his shop steward$/$union representative about his complaint; and

$$ Placed his complaint in writing and presented to the Chief Director of the Directorate with copies sent to the discipline management human resource practitioner.

A month has since passed and Tshepang has heard no feedback from his line manager. In fact, his manager is treating him as though he either does not exist or will bully Tshepang in front of his colleagues. Tshepang has also heard that because of his previous performance feedback report his line manager has told a colleague that Tshepang$$s $$head is on the chopping block$$ and formal discipline procedures will soon be instituted against him for poor performance.

The problem

Tshepang does not feel protected enough to speak openly and honestly to his line manager in an attempt to resolve his complaint. He no longer trusts his line manager and has little faith in the human resource unit since it does not seem as though the human resource practitioner has done anything about addressing the complaint. What should Tshepang do$?$

Questions

$1.$ If the line manager applied the hot stove rule $$ how could things have been different?

$2.$ What possible outcomes are available to Tshepang and substantiate your argument with reference to formal departmental policy $($compare your own organisation$$s policies and submit what you think could be the most appropriate solution to Tshepang$$s complaint$)$