Employee relations become more important in today's globalised economy, as organizations come across with different new behaviours and attitudes of workforce
Employee Relations And Law
HRM
Employee Relations
Any organization's internal operations can only be run smoothly if that organizations management has the exact knowledge about different issues which its workforce is facing. Employee relations become more important in today's globalised economy, as organizations come across with different new behaviours and attitudes of workforce. Another important factor is the change in workforce demographics. Socio-economic situation of working class people has changed a lot in last 20 years or so, this also brings new issues at workplace. Organization has to have knowledge and system to deal with individuals. Employee relations is mainly HR's responsibility but at the same time its the responsibility of middle managers and higher management to have good understanding of the issues which their workforce might be facing.
According to Lewis et al (2003) Employee relationship is an economic, social, and political relationship in which employees provide manual and mental labour in exchange for rewards allotted for employees. Bennett (1997) mentions that employee relation is a far wider subject than conventional industrial relations. Industrial relation is the systems of rules, practices and conventions associated with collective bargaining and the avoidance and resolution of industrial disputes. According to Bennett employee relation deals with all the formal and informal relationships of an interpersonal nature that arise from management/employee interactions in working situations. The term industrial relations is no longer widely used by employers but summons up a set of employment relationships that no longer widely exist, except in specific sectors and, even there, in modified form. (www.cipd.co.uk). Gennard and Judge(2002) says that while some people see employee relations as being about the trade union behavior, colective bargainig , industrial dispute and uk govt's relationship with trade unions. But in recent history the instituation of trade union and procdure of collective bargaining and strikes have declined steadly,Gennard and Judge (2002) argued that in employee relation activities many players are involved. The principal players are individual employers, individual employees, employee representation bodies (staff association, trade unions, works councils, etc) employers associations, private companies, public bodies and voluntary organizations. These players operate in a labour market in which they attempt to protect and advance their respective economic interest's relative each other. Although employees in the labour market have interest that are different from the employers. Employers want more profit, highly quality service, and survival of enterprise. While employees wants more wages and condition of service, permanent income stream and security of employment. Both employees and employers also have a common interest in the survival of the employing enterprise. Even though they may disagree on some issues .They have a mutual interest in resolving this problem because not to do so will result in mutual destruction. Common interests means reconciliation by means of processes leading to agreements that reflect the balance of bargaining power between employers and employees as influenced by the economic and legal policies of government and the implementation of technological change .
Gennard and Judge (2002) further mentioned that there are also different interests among employees. In a workforce different types of employees (technical, clerical, administrative, craft manual, semi skilled and unskilled etc.) are employed and have different interests from each other. It is important that organization ensured that these different interests are reconciled. If employers fail to reconcile their different interests with their employees a number of cost arise. according to Gennard and Judge "Employee relations is a study of the rules, regulations and agreements by which the employees are managed both as individuals and as a group. Employee relations is also about ensuring that organizational change is accepted and the implemented".(Gennard and Judge 2002.p17) The employee relation players also have expectations of how each will behave towards the other. This is referred to as the psychological contract which has been described by schein (1978) mentioned by Gennard and Judge (2002) as a set of unwritten, reciprocal expectations between an individual employees and the organization. It is based on the notion that in addition to the formal employment contract. Employees develop a set of informal unwritten assumptions about and expectations from their employing organization. These are said to be depend on employee trust, perceptions of fairness and reliable delivery of the deal over a range of issues such as job satisfaction, career progression, reward, relationship with mangers etc.CIPD defines psychological contract as the perceptions of employee and employer about their mutual obligations towards each other. Legal contract on the other hand is a written contract between two parties and it describes what both parties are aggreing upon but in many cases legal contract has little to do with actual employee behaviour and expectations.(change agenda.what is employee relations.Cipd).Guest et al (2000) describes it as a it is concerned with assumpetins which form and govern behaviour. If the psychlogical cntract is breached although it may not have any legal implication for the parties but as far as employees are concerned, breach of psychological contract by the management has a negative effect on job satisfaction and commitment and on the psychological contract as a whole.
In recent years treadtional psychlogical contract which was employee's commitment in response to employer's providing job security has some what changed, Now a days employers can no longer offer job for lafe in many cases and they are replacing the idea of job for life with fair pay and treatment, plus opportunities for training and development. This situation has caused some damage to employees' cometment, but if we look at overall situation we can see that this fact that no job is a job for life is becoming more and more acceptable among employees. And employers have came ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
In recent years treadtional psychlogical contract which was employee's commitment in response to employer's providing job security has some what changed, Now a days employers can no longer offer job for lafe in many cases and they are replacing the idea of job for life with fair pay and treatment, plus opportunities for training and development. This situation has caused some damage to employees' cometment, but if we look at overall situation we can see that this fact that no job is a job for life is becoming more and more acceptable among employees. And employers have came up with the idea of employabilty.
Hard apporch of HRM is about reduction of workers cost as any other cost where as soft HRM sees people as fix cost and try to get more out of them through training and equiping them with new skills through which they will become more cost effective for orgainzation. Mcloughlin (1996)says that "HRM techniques can be conceptualised as a combination of interdependent policies which are designed to secure the behaviourial and attitudinal Commetment of employees to the organization and engender high-quality organizational performance through flexabilty and innovation. These polices themselves exhibit stratigic intigration". In changing envoirnment of business its even more important for employers to know what employees expect from their work. HRM practioner has many roles and another role which he/she can chose to perform is of an Employees' Champion (dave Ulrich 1997) employee champion means that HRM takes the responsibility of advocating employee's case at managerial level. We see decline in unions strength and it is a golden oppertunity for HRM to become an honest broker between management and employees , but practicaly speaking this role of employee champion might be very diffcult for many HR practioners to adopt as it requires a major change in our management style itself.
The three Perspectives of employment relationship are unitary, pluralist and radical (marx).
Unitary:
Hollinshead et all (1999) argued that In any executive work which involves the co-operation of two different men or parties, where both parties have anything like equal power or voice in its direction, there is almost sure to be a certain amount of bickering, quarrelling, and vacillation, and the success of the enterprise suffers accordingly, if however either one of the parties has the
entire direction , the enterprise will progress consistently and probably harmoniously , even although the wrong one of the two parties may be in control. In essence the unitary theory portrays the employment relationship as harmonious, with employer and employed working together to achieve success. It assumes a common set of values which bind the two parties together and ensure there is no potential source of conflict. Although this is the earliest theory used to describe the employment relationship.
Bennett(1995)adds that Unitarians belief that management and labour have identical interests and hence may be expected to pull together towards the same objectives. Hence management expects workers to act as a team and to assist the firm achieve its objective.
But the other hands Hollinshead et all (1999) mentioned that it fails to recognise the existence of differing interests between management and labour. The assumption is made that mangers decisions are rational and contain within them the interests of all employees.
Hollinshead et all (1999) further mentioned It's originally linked to a type of nineteenth century employment that seems to reflect employers managerial interests reflect than those of the employees. It is based on a kind of idealized relationship at work which suits the management and which if put into practice would ensure that management could usually achieve all its objectives at the expense of employees.
Bennett (1995) also adds that it cannot comprehend the motives of individuals who do not regard everyone in the organization as being in the same boat. It also can impair the efficient resolution of disputes.
Pluralist:
Hollinshead et all (1999) mentioned that the increasing size and complexity of work organizations shifts in the power of relations within politics and industry, changes in social values, rising aspiration, weakening of traditional attitudes towards officially constituted governance. These are among the factors which are sometimes said to require mangers to develop a new ideology and new sources of legislation if they are to maintain effective control. Bennett(1995) adds that the best way to achieve consensus and long term stability in management / workers relations is for management to recognize conflicting interests , to negotiate compromises, and to balance the demands of various groups. Idea of pluralism basically recognises the different interests group working together for archiving their goals. While on the other hands Hollinshead et all (1999) further mentioned that pluralism assumes a roughly even balance of power between various interests groups. This fails to recognize that in many employee relations situation there is a dominant participant possessing the power to impose its will on the other side.
Radical(Marx):
This approach condemns pluralism for incorporating labours into the capitalist system. It also examines the social structures and the causes of conflicts rather than measures for containing them. According to the Marx under capitalism the employee relation is founded upon inequality. Its does not believe in a consensus based upon shared interests. In employee relation this is represented by the opposing interests of labour and management. Conflict is there fore endemic in the workforce and is hidden only by active programmes of obscuring the realities of gross inequalities of power, control, and reward.
Government policies and HRM
Gennard and judge (2002) argued that the government's economic and legal policies have major implications for the outcome of employee relations activities. If economic policies are directed towards the creation of full employment and the maximizing of economic growth , this weakness the bargaining power of the employer relative to that of the employees. In an expending economy the demand for labour services increases, causing the price of those labour services rise. On the other hand if macro economic policies are directed at restraining economic growth the demand for labour services falls resulting perhaps in redundancies and rising unemployment in such circumstances the balance of bargaining power of the employer strengthened relative to that of the employees .
If government introduces legislation favourable to employer's interest for example by restricting the circumstances in which trade unions trade may instruct their members to undertake strike action with out employers being able to seek redress through the court. In this sense the bargaining power of employers relative to employees is also strengthened. Similarly if government introduces legislation favourable to the interest of individual employees and trade unions the bargaining power of employees relative to employers increased. The implementations of technologies also have impacts on the relative bargaining power of employees and employers.
Management styles
there are three major schools of thought about management styles, classical, human relation , and contingency each has got its own particular implication for the procedure of employees relations. The classical school has macro and micro dimensions. The leading writer on the latter micro dimensions of the classical approach was F.W. Taylor (1857-1917).According to Taylor managers should plan, standardise, direct, and closely supervise all the workers' efforts, leaving little discretion for individual operatives to exercise discretion. Job specification should be clear, simple, precise, and logical. As the application of scientific management methods was expected to raise workers incomes to high levels, its advocates did not believe there could be any fundamental conflicts of interests between management and labour. The workers it was assumed would willingly accept the system. Workers are given the opportunity to earn high wages which are assumed to constitute the employee motivator. Taylor believed that management and labour would have to recognize the existence of common interests in achieving higher productivity, and thus not engaged in quarrels and industrial disputes over relative returns to capital and labour.
While on the other hand there are many problems in this approach.
Bennett (1995) mentioned that in fact organized labour and many individual workers did not share this view and many serious industrial disputes followed introduction of Taylorisam especially in Briton and USA. Traditional work organization practices where employees themselves determined how work should be completed were abandoned. Also Attention is focused on efficiency at the workforce rather than at higher levels within organization. Bennett (1995) mentioned that at macro dimension of classical approach there is Formal rules and procedure and a tall hierarchy crated by narrow spans of control. Also a clear line of authority running from the top of the organization to its base, Unity of command and management decision based on the expert advice received. Employees of an organization of this classical approach are expected to adopt a passive attitude, to do as they are told and consciously to fit in with the system .management seeks to provide security of employment which is a paternalistic way can improve employee relation. Organization charts, precise job description and formal rules regulation moreover can encourage parochial attitude among employees and discourage flexibility. Ritualistic work routines may be accepted by employees' representatives but the detailed minutiae of these routines can become ends in themselves and discourage workers from exercising initiatives and wanted to become fully involved in the work of the enterprise
Possibly the classic approach which is unitarist in perspective was suitable for the nineteenth and early twenty centuries but is not suitable for today complex and fast growing business world especially wherever interpersonal relation and possible conflicts of interest are involved.
Human relations approach
Bennett(1995) argued that by this approach organization should be constructed to accommodate the social and human needs of employees rather than expecting individuals to fit into a predetermined organization form.
He further mentioned flexible organization structures with overlapping responsibilities, employee participation in decision making, and joint determination by manger and subordinate of the later target.
The implication of the HR approach for employees relations are obvious worker participation in management decision, sound employee communication within enterprise, team work and so on.
While on the other hand Bennett(1995) mentioned that this approach have been attacked for failing to recognized the inevitability of conflicts of interests in business affair and also overestimates the motivation , the desire to participate in decision making and the occupational self awareness of many employees. Also this approach has little concerned about the influence of trade unions on employee attitudes and behaviour.
Contingency approach
This asserts that any attempt to apply exactly the same approached to the solution of all employees' relations problems regardless of the particular situation surrounding each issue is doomed to fail. Each set of circumstances is unique so that according to this approach need to be adjusted as situations change.
Examples of factors that might underline specific employee's relations situation include the nature of the work undertaken by employees whether it is repetitive or interesting, skilled or unskilled. Whether employees have similar backgrounds, attitudes and abilities. Also the degree of confidence of the work force in management competence and concern for employee's welfare and technological environments. (Bennett1995)
While on the other hand Bennett (1995) also mentioned that a certain style is adopted in one situation but different styles in others management may appear inconsistent in this approach. Also he mentioned that Individual managers may dislike altering their approaches and modes of behaviour as circumstances changes. Also sometime a technology or set of working conditions make its impossible to use something other than a single approach.
Employment Law and HRM
From recruitment to departure , every act of employer is measured against a particular legislative standard. (Gennard and Judge 2002.P 91) employment law has evolved a lot in last 40 years and today it covers almost every aspect of employment. It is very important for a HR practioner to have knowledge about the existing employment law as well as the proposed changes in law which might become an act of parliament in near future. There are many recent changes in employment law. Employment law 2002 and employee relations act of 2004. HR practionar should also be aware of equal opportunity and race relation act of 2000 as many law suites in recent history suggest that perhaps management did not had the idea of the implications of its action neither they were aware of different issues and legislation about equal opportunity.
Legislation have included the right to request flexible working from parents with young children, extended maternity and paternity provision, new anti-discrimination laws, working time regulation, disability discrimination act, sex discrimination act, race relation act, age discrimination act, equality regulation, statutory union recognition etc.
There are two source of law one is legislation made by governing party. And legislation that's drive from EU directives. It is important to understand this that UK parliament is the source of the law with which employment relation person has to be concerned even though the actual legislation might be directed by, or influenced by EU. (garrand and Judge 2002). According to CIPD and Lovells survey report (June 2005) that majority of organization see employment law as making a positive contribution to employee relationship and increasing employees sense of fairness and trust in their employer. While on the other hand some employers have some concerned about these legislation issues. Also this survey report shows that most of the employers believe that these employment regulations have a positive impact in supporting their strategic HR and business goals. Also helps to reduce the number of employment tribunal claims also contribute to a reduction in the number of formal disciplinary and grievances cases.
But the other hand some organization believes that these legislation are unnecessary red tape. n my personal view these employment laws has certainly helped employees and employers both to actually understand their duties and role in an appropriate manner and these laws has also helped a lot to give every person a fair chance to progress. if we take example of the introduction of the right to request flexible working that majority of groups shows that this helps in improvement in staff retention, improved morale, reduction in cost and reduced employee absence.
All these changes in Law makes employee relations even more essential, Different organizations has different approach towards employee relations according to their situation and needs. There can not be one universal model which describes good employee relations practices or strategy but there are certainly theams which can be incorporated with in a business strategy itself. As employee relations also has a strong business case good practices in employee relations can help organizations to work without conflict and they are also helpful in order to retention, job satisfaction, motivation and performance of employees. Good employee relation practices can also be used as a marketing idea, as it gives organization a better public image.
Employee relations is more sort of a philosophy rather than a management tool it is a matter of concern for any organization and if we are to manage people in a fair unbiased way we need to incorporate idea of employee relations into our management style. Organizations ultimately have the right of redundancies, dismissal and other procedures but all this should be done in a manner which is transparent and fair. Employees perception of an organization has to be of a fair place to work where he/she gets the fair treatment. HRM becoming a employee advocate may not be a possibility in near future but by the advancement in technologies day to day HR work load is reduced, (though while using any technology we need to keep in mind the diversity issues as well. As most of the first generation HR Soft ware treated every one as same). Arguably HRM today can perform many tasks which was not possible few years ago and if HRM is to Evolve from traditional personal, to strategic business partner it has to be the effective voice for Human Resources in strategy making and governance, as well as on operational level HRM has to put the idea of employability into practice through training programs.
Bibliography.
. Philip Lewis , Adrian Thornhill , Mark Saunders Employee Relations: Understanding the Employment Relationship. FT Prentice Hall.
2. J. Gennard, G.Judge,2002, Employee Relations,CIPD.
3. Hollinshead, G., Nicholls, P., Tailby, S. (1999), Employee Relations, Pitman, London
4. F.W taylor Principle of Scientific management 1967 New york. Norton
5. Graham, H. and Bennett, R. (1995) Human Resource Management London: Pitman
6. David Ulrich 1997 Human Resource Champions .Harvard Business School Press
7. Michael Armstrong 2002 Employee Reward.CIPD
8. GUEST, D. and CONWAY, N. (2004) Employee well-being and the psychological contract: a report for the CIPD. London
9. data base of World bank available at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0,,pagePK:158889~piPK:146815~theSitePK:223547,00.html[accessed 12-05-07]
0. CIPD survay 2003 available at http://www.cipd.co.uk/onlineinfodocuments/atozresources.htm [Accessed 05-07-07]
1. change agenda: what is employee relations. Published by CIPD:London