A Guide to Designing and Implementing Grievance Mechanisms for ...

Chapter 3. Initiating a Grievance
Mechanism
Grievance resolution is everybody’s business,
from the company’s core business operations,
to production, to environmental management.
Grievance mechanisms start somewhere and with someone. It is common practice for the
company’s community relations, external affairs, human resources, or legal department to be
charged with initiating the effort. These offices, however, are not the backbone for resolving
community grievances. Grievance resolution is everybody’s business, from the company’s core
business operations, to production, to environmental management. As one regional director
commented: “You need to view inside and outside the fence as part of the same system.
Otherwise, Environmental and Operations folks will look at grievance handling as Social’s job,
dismissing a complaint as something that has nothing to do with them. The reality is that
grievances often materialize as a result of perceptions by community members related to
environmental and operations issues and performance.”
Identify and Engage Key Actors
When starting out, it is important to recruit support and leadership for building the new
system: from within the company, from the community, and from a range of stakeholders.
To develop needed support:
• Identify a promoter within the company. 9 These individuals are rarely experts on grievance
mechanisms. Nonetheless, they are important change agents who:
– Maintain momentum through the early stages, addressing skepticism and resistance
– Garner support inside the company and the community
– Build the business case and articulate it to gain acceptance from senior management
– Contribute ideas that strengthen how the grievance mechanism will work
– Critically assess results once the grievance mechanism is up and running.
• Identify promoters within the community. It is also important to locate key champions
within the community who can help build support for the use of the system and address
concerns. The mechanism should ensure that promoters represent the community (such as
elected, selected, or traditional leaders), and are not a self-promoting individual or group
with a political agenda.
• Cultivate leadership within the company and community. Leadership commitment is critical
for deciding whether or not to move forward with developing a grievance mechanism.
The initiative should not proceed until such support can be raised.
Establish a Design Team
Building a core design team is especially
important for large, controversial projects.
The design team serves as a strategy team, sounding board, designer, and promoter. The team
normally provides technical and political capability to move the process forward, enhances
acceptance during the initial introduction, and ensures that implementation is effective.
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