eLearning

Managing Complaints

Managing complaints is not at the top of any manager’s list of favorites.

It’s easy to write off a complaint as a whining employee or someone who just likes to complain. In reality, most employees don’t enjoy complaining, so if they approach a manager or team leader with a complaint, it’s likely a legitimate problem.

Leaders need to keep an open mind when it comes to managing complaints. After all, one complaint may be something small, but another could be something that affects the entire company — like a whistle-blower reporting illegal conduct or activities.

Knowing how to listen to and resolve complaints is a critical skill for every supervisor, manager and team leader to possess. Ignoring complaints won’t make them disappear, and it could negatively affect the productivity and morale of an employee or the entire team.

Managing complaints well requires a proven process that builds on listening and problem-solving skills. Most employees don’t enjoy complaining to their managers, so supervisors, team leaders and managers must keep in mind that there’s a good chance the complaint is legitimate and requires resolution or intervention.

Purpose

The Vital Learning Managing Complaints™ program provides supervisors, team leaders and managers with a proven process and individual skills to effectively deal with employee complaints in a way that supports employee and team goals. This course makes clear that leaders need to listen to employee complaints and remain nonjudgmental, which is critical because what appears to be a minor issue to the team leader may be a major problem to the employee.

The best leaders are those with an open-door policy for complaints. They follow a specific methodology for finding the root cause of an issue, and they apply the appropriate problem-solving technique. Using this approach, these skilled leaders handle issues before they snowball and require much more time and effort to resolve. A leader’s inability to effectively solve problems and resolve complaints can limit the success of an entire organization. With its focus on listening and problem solving, Managing Complaints can help even experienced managers become more comfortable hanging an “always open” sign on their office doors.