Employee relations

Employee relations is forming a mutual bond between employees and employers by fulfilling needs and expectations of both parties through communicating and understanding for the betterment of the organisation. Employees expect their personal needs like better pay, sufficient leave, safe working environment, promotions, job security, work life balance etc., social and cultural needs as well as acceptance of their ideas and suggestions related to work.

There are several approaches to employee relations policy and level of employees’ involvement in decision making is vary as follows.

Employee relations focus on individually or collectively. Today it is more focused on employee relations individually. However collective employee relations based on adding value to the organization being both parties are motivated. These relationships are based on success of the organization, employee’s work satisfaction, building employee trust, feeling on fairness and greater commitment, helping organizations to improve profitability, efficiency and productivity, let employees to involve in decision that may affect to their interests by voice to influence and involving. This employee voice may be through trade unions, work councils, business enhancement forums, quality circles etc. (Gennard and Judge, 2005).

Trade union recognition, Collective bargaining and participation & involvement are some employee relations considerations in organisations. Negotiation is an important feature of collective bargaining while employee’s voice is predominant feature in participation & involvement.

In order to review employee relations it is necessary to understand employee and employer expectations.

Employee interest	Employer interests
Employment security	Flexibility between tasks.
The opportunity to work with good colleagues in a sociable atmosphere.	Minimum standards of competence in the task for which they are being hired, as expressed in qualifications, training received and the experience.
The potential of advancement and promotion.	A willingness to change
Training and development opportunities to upgrade skills, acquire knowledge etc.	An ability to work as a member of a team
Being treated as human being, not merely a commodity.	A capacity to show initiative
Job satisfaction in relation to job design, the degree of control  over the job (Empowerment)	A talent to give discretionary effort
Family friendly employment policies.	A demonstrational commitment to the organisation’s objective.
Fair and consistent treatment by managers relative to other employees
Influence on the day- to- day operations at the workplace and at policy level.

Table 01. Employer and Employer interest in labour market adapted from (Gennard and Judge, 2005). 

Figure. 01.Dimensions of the employee relationship. (Kessler and Undy (1996) cited in Armstrong and Tylor (2014).

In unionized process it is important to review employee relations (Dias, 2011).Some large organizations prefer nonunion relations and adopted employment policies and pay packages which may attractive than trade union membership. These organizations deal with employees individually rather than collectively (Armstrong and Tylor, 2014). 

In unionized process it is important to review employee relations (Dias, 2011). Some large organizations prefer nonunion relations and adopted employment policies and pay packages which may attractive than trade union membership. These organizations deal with employees individually rather than collectively (Armstrong and Tylor, 2014).

According Foulkers (1981) large nonunion organisations like Black & Decker, Eli Lilly, Gillette, Grumman, IBM, and Polaroid benefit believe that they achieved productivity .They have executed creative approaches of employee relations and achieved higher productivity than would if they were organized. In their organisations, employee turnover, absenteeism, resistance to technological change are low and employee loyalty is high. They point out followings are the reasons for attaining point higher degree of success

      -  Freedom to experiment with employee relations plans,
      - Opportunity to deal directly with workers,
      - Absence of an adversary relationship between employees and management.

This study reveals nine common attributes, policies, and attitudes among large nonunion companies as follows.(Foulkes, 1981)

            1. A Sense of Caring

            2. Carefully Considered Surroundings
            3. High Profits, Fast Growth, & Family Ties
            4. Employment Security
            5. Promotion from Within
            6. Influential Personnel Departments
            7. Competitive Pay & Benefits
            8. Managements that Listen
            9. Careful Grooming of Managers

Further readings of the article: https://hbr.org/1981/09/how-top-nonunion-companies-manage-employees.

Effective communication helps in order to build up successful employee relations and it makes a platform to identify needs and expectations of employees as well as convince them the organisation’s expectations.

According to Tony et al (2005) upward problem-solving is the dominant form of employee voice in non-union organisations which he has studied. Upward problem solving and formal two- way communication are most favoured by mangers and electronic means two – way communication also were favoured. More than half of the sample were used suggestion schemes. Employee attitude surveys were conducted only in large organisations while significant majority were used project teams used as a channel for employee voice.

Today’s trend in building strong employee relations without involvement of the trade unions by organisation through effective communication has significantly affected the decreasing union membership. Therefore, as far as organisations approach employee relations like partnership and power sharing and strongly consider participation and involvement of employees when making employee relation policies, those organisations will be able to acquire more competitive advantage. In this context, organisation’s HR policy should recognize the psychological contract, which is the expectation of employee and the expectations of employer and allow employee voice and encourages employee engagement.

Reference

Armstrong, M and Tylor, S (2014) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human resource management practice. 14th edition .Kogan page limited: United Kingdom.

Dias, L (2011) Human resources management. Available at: http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=71 (Accessed: 30 March 2018).

Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/trade-union-statistics-2016. (Accessed: 01 April 2018).

Dundon, T., Wilkinson, A., Marchington, M. and Ackers, P. (2005) The management of voice in non-union organisations: managers perspectives. Available at: https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10379/2082/Employee%20Voice%20in%20Non-Union%20Organisations.pdf?sequence=1. (Accessed: 30 March 2018).

Foulkes, F. K.(1981) How Top Nonunion Companies Manage Employees. Available at: https://hbr.org/1981/09/how-top-nonunion-companies-manage-employees. (Accessed: 30 March 2018).

Gennard, J. and Judge, G. (2005) Employee relations. CIPD Publishing. Available at:https://books.google.lk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FuUmIixUldwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=Gennard+%26+Judge,+2005&ots=HcZMbepgmX&sig=BpfnXR9dEI8o9no7h4FDToDNm6Y&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Gennard%20%26%20Judge%2C%202005&f=false.(Accessed:30 March 2018).