Employment Relationship - Assignment Example

EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP Insert name: Insert course code: Instructor’s name: 6 December, 2010. Introduction Workers are only willing to perform while employers only willing to utilize labour under some particular settings showing a broad variety of concerns such as wages as well as supplementary service conditions and terms, operational hours, work autonomy, chances for promotion along with employee participation in corporation strategy -creation. Such concerns emerge in the constant exchange linking both parties engaged in the service relation. They don’t control all facets of service affiliation, but there is as well the discussion and concession connecting the institutes that represent their interests like the trade unions and employers’ association. In other words, no modern society has ever accepted a purely individualistic determination of the employment relationship. In fact, most societies have developed an entire series of labour market institutions, varying from social custom and moral codes to labour law and collective agreements (the outcome of collective bargaining at an average level which lies above the private level linking employer to worker). Between the two wars, especially after the Second World War, most Western capitalist economies developed institutions to regulate the employment relationship. These institutions did not develop at the same pace and in a comparable manner in all nations. However, there was a general process of collectivization and institutionalization of the employment relationship that was initiated. Employment terms and conditions were gradually subject to a form of collective regulation involving the trade unions, normally at the industry or national level, but in some cases at the company level as well (Ruysseveldt, Huiskamp, & Hoof, 1995 p. 2). The process of collectivization was accompanied by the gradual standardization of employment terms. Between the Second Word War and the 1980s, the terms of employment within industries and companies converged more and more. This paper discusses the concepts of employment relationship and employee involvement. The employment relationship Every time an executive and worker wish to enter into a work relationship, an exchange takes place. The employer is only prepared to hire labour under certain conditions and in the same way, the worker is only willing to apply his or her labour in the production process under certain settings. It is extremely unusual to come across the employer and the employee agreeing immediately on these conditions. Most of the time, it calls for negotiations so that the two parties can settle on promises and offers, use their position of power to obtain the best possible conditions and ultimately reach agreement or decide not to enter into exchange at all. The term employment relationship refers to the circumstances beneath which the manager makes a decision to employ human resource while the worker chooses to vend his manpower to the manager. These conditions are related to the particular features which differentiate exchange on labour market from that which occurs on other markets in terms of: the setting of the exchange, the position (of power) of the parties to the exchange; and the regulation of the exchange. The employment relationship covers all facets of labour, either implicitly or explicitly. Apart from wages, the employer offers an individual way of dealing with people and the quality of the work to be done. That is the monotony or variation of work, the measure of employee’s responsibility in addition to the safety of the work. Nevertheless, the employee has a major input, for instance, the employee’s educational background, training, and experience as well as specialist know-how. Furthermore, the worker contributes enthusiasm and involvement in his or her work. The overview of employee involvement in Britain and emergence of individualism In the past twenty years, we have experienced an extensive growth of individualism in employment processes in most of the industrialized countries. Payment structures have gradually been restructured to reward individual performance. There has been redesigning of management channels of communication to bypass trade unions and put more emphasis on the subject of product or customer service information, as well as a series of new methods have been developed to evaluate personal to motivation and attitudes to work. This has resulted to contraction on the purpose of trade unions along with the practice of collective bargaining. Furthermore, government intervention in the institutional and legal aspects of labour relations has resulted to the wearing away in the regulatory function of industrial tribunals and in the application of collective norms to the employment relationship. Britain went through the first as well as the swiftest expansion of individualism as succeeding conservative administrations in the 1980s and 1990s vigorously confronted the legitimacy of trade unions by eliminating many of the constitutional as well as managerial supports for communal negotiations. From 1980 to 1998, the density of trade union, calculated as a percentage of the workforce, dropped from 52 per cent to 36 per cent in Britain. To further understand the employee involvement in Britain, we are going to discuss some of the factors that have led to rise of individualism in employment relations in Britain. Increased individualization in Britain has been correlated with de-recognition of trade unions as well as the resulting decline in influence of collective bargaining. Individualistic forms of employee participation and communications have been used to undermine and ultimately remove the role of trade unions in collective bargaining (Cully, 1999 p. 179). Organizations now have several motivations such as economic considerations for eliminating trade union participation in the resolution of salary as well as operational conditions. Enhanced chances to connect pay with individual performance in the absence of trade unions have already been seen as a major objective for employers to eliminate the practice of collective bargaining. Currently, the capability of trade unions to limit organizational and managerial changes has been greatly reduced. Most of trade unions have bee forced to concede established working practices so as to compete with non-union firms. Factors influencing the rise of individualism in employment relations There are several factors that have attributed to growth of individualism in employment relations. The first one relates to the more aggressive allegation of administrative rights that has taken place in most industrialized countries like Britain during the 1980s and 1990s. This took place simultaneously with a period of rapid economic restructuring. More competitive product markets along with buoyant labour market conditions have offered both the incentive and the opportunity for employers to press for wider discretion to manage and direct the performance of work. The pursuit of labour flexibility has invariably offered a rationale for greater unilateralism. The second factor that has contributed to the growth of individualism in industrial relations has been the presence of a more facilitative political climate in the 1980s and 1990s. Both conservative and democratic parties I Europe have adopted far more free-market and deregulatory approaches to government policy-making. Particularly, this relates to industrial relations, where governments have acted to deinstitutionalize the determination of wages and working conditions and generally offer employers with greater discretion over employment matters. There has been clear political objective in Britain to introduce greater flexibility into their systems of labour market regulation and to remove alleged rigidities which have been seen as efficiency and productivity. This has invariably involved greater decentralized bargaining and extended chances for individualized employment plans. A third factor that has played a role in facilitating individualism in employment relations has been the rhetoric and language of human resource management (HRM) that has sought to build a corporate culture of individual responsibility and enlightened self-interest. There have been individualistic employment policies that have been designed to replace collective labour organizations. The individualization of the employment relationship is founded on an underlying presumption that management ought to develop closer links with its employees rather than accepting an indirect relationship that is mediated by representatives. It has been viewed that individualism increases organizational commitment in addition to enhancing work performance (Deery & Mitchell, 1999 p. 3). The Law and individualization The government carried out an important responsibility in promoting and enabling the growth of individualization in Britain. The emergence of the new industrial relations was considerably featured with the active and wide ranging recasting of labour law in Britain. During the 1980s, there was a considerable shift in the balance of power in favor of employers, as well as a pronounced managerial emphasis on both the individualization of employment relations and on flexibility of employment practices. This was as a result of a combination of economic pressures along with administrative responses. However, the state’s role has legally promoted and even generated this trend. The British government considered collectivism as an inflexible as well as a technical approach to the service affiliation while trade unions were viewed as an unhelpful structure of external interference. Consequently, the long-lasting goal of British employment rule and business association strategy during the 1980s, and beyond reasserted the predominance of the personal affiliation more than the communal. This goal was pursued by the British Government through a series of statutory changes to labour law which had the effect of greatly reducing the freedom of trade unions to organize, to take industrial action as well as to promote other industrial campaigns through sympathetic or coordinated secondary industrial action. Impact of individualism The employee involvement has been greatly reduced by the concept of individualism. The main reason as to why companies shifted from collective to individualized employment plans was to attain augmented flexibility over pay, grading structures as well as working practices. The removal of collective bargaining facilitated the management to make its preferred alterations unilaterally without having to consult the union. The most significant of these changes was the replacement of the annual pay round with a system of individual appraisal. There was also the establishment of broad flexibility clauses where the employer simply reserved the right to vary the terms and conditions of employment at will. The individualized employment contracts that replaced the collective agreements did not result from individual bargaining but were solely determined by the employer. Contracts were not formed through negotiations between employers and employees, rather the contract terms were frequently dictated to employees (Herriot p. 75). High performance working High performance functioning entails the expansion of several inter-related procedures that collectively influence how an organization performs with the help of its employee in sections like output, excellence, intensity of client employment development, earnings as well as eventually the liberation of augmented investor value (Cook, 2009 p. 10). This may be attained via the enhancement of the expertise in addition to the involvement of the enthusiasm of employees. The major influences of this concept are: decentralized, delegated resolution making done by those flanking to the client with an aim of constantly renewing and improving the tender to clientele; growth of group’s abilities in the course of education at every rank, with specific importance on self-supervision as well as group abilities to facilitate and promote performance development along with organizational prospective; practice, working as well as group supervision processes associated with organizational goals to enhance confidence, interest as well as being loyal to the course that the organization takes; in addition to being fair to those who resign form the organization as it revolutionizes, and commitment to the requirements of the society surrounding the organization – a significant element of confidence and loyalty based relationship both inside and around the organization. Excellent practice management actions entail thorough staffing and assortment processes, wide and applicable training as well as management improvement actions, incentives salary structures as well as performance supervision processes (Armstrong p. 122). Excellent performance operational practices comprise of novel habits of arranging labor, recompensing performance as well as engaging workers in the process of making resolutions in the workplace. The practices entail proactive groups, performance related pay, 360-degree appraisal, individual growth tactics, work alternation, worker participation in resolution-making as well as promotion of performance (teaching along with growth). The mixture of these steps is comparatively inventive and brings about an operational setting which offers the prospective for escalating the character of the employee, in addition to elevating the efficiency of the association. The introduction of elevated performance functioning practices advances the performance of associations. It is only the integration of all the approaches that have been seen to yield good fruits. The use of one practice is unlikely to have a significant effect and at times may become detrimental by reducing the productivity of an organization. The combinations of these practices have formed good performance job organizations apart from increasing production and income for organizations. The workers also benefit from it by gaining skills that can raise their income. Devolving responsibility means that workers have more challenges and learning opportunities, making their work more satisfying. To be successful, high-performance organizations require dealing with these four main areas: Job design ought to employ all practical and intellectual skills of the employees in self managed teams and in decision making. There should be dissemination of knowledge via meetings, briefings so that workers understand the business environment. Workers ought to be offer learning opportunities through training, mentoring, coaching and appraisal as well as practice. Employees ought to be rewarded financially, through the learning process and recognition by co-workers and managers (Wilson, 2005 p. 39). However, there are other companies which use high performance working practices (HPWPs) for administration only as well as executive staff in the central labour force. The use of part-time workers, semi-permanent employees as well as subcontractors produces more flexibility. On the contrary, if HPWPs applies for the whole staff, both full time and part time, workers can reap more benefits. The reason as to why they are not applied to all workers is that the process calls for time to put into practice and a first-class understanding of the association on the branch of human resources to allow them to have a say efficiently to the analytical and managerial actions of the job group (Storey, 2008 p. 116). Reasons why more companies are not using HPWPs 1. Additional company plans can produce improved income and efficiency temporarily There are additional policies that can be utilized to bring improved income in the short term. There are such four strategies that have been implemented by corporations in UK pharmaceutical as well as aerospace businesses. The primary is the capability of organizations to generate considerable investments by decreasing the provisions and circumstances of the less fundamental employees or subcontracting fabrication as well as service functions like cookery and clean-up. Secondly, novel knowledge is utilized to minimize the quantity of workers in addition to de-skilling them, thus minimizing expenses. This at times entails the mechanization of work to regulate the labor procedure, minimize the abilities needed and guarantee quicker throughput. The third approach is paying comparatively more salary and remuneration as the core instrument for employing, rousing as well as teaching workers. Fro temporary employment, the above strategies are cheaper alternatives instead of bringing in HPWPs. The last strategy is where amalgamations and attainments are utilized to sustain competitiveness. These facilitate corporations to purchase new goods, boost the economies of scale and penetrate to novel markets along with critically cutting staff costs. 2. HPWPs might be further appropriate for some produce markets than for others The other explanation why corporations don’t adopt HPWPs is that they might not be appropriate for every corporation or association. The employers who are mainly expected to take on HPWPs are those open to the elements of global rivalry. Inventive labor actions possibly will not be suitable in businesses where work return is elevated and the managers do not get back their venture in education or in companies where technologies influence the production, reducing the value-added created by investigative teams. Where managers are working in marketplaces where goods are work concentrated and low value-added in character as well as the determinant of sales, then work innovative practices would not be the best option. HPWPs are not suitable for organizations working in large manufacture, little value-added marketplaces, like cookie souk in UK. 3. System inertia System inertia could be another reason for not implementing HPWPs. This relates to the reality that after associations have developed into reputable, they can build up a strong opposition to change. It is thus a particular predicament in places where the corporation is already recognized and where managerial actions and traditions have happen to be rooted. There are three major rationales for this inertia. Firstly, firms have a tendency of getting embedded into the original choice of actions. After an organization has established a group of actions, these produce their own vested welfare. Alteration would then intimidate the welfare of one team or the other, whether they are executives or employees or all of them. Thus before such a resistance is done with, the survival of the whole organization would be threatened. The other rationale is that businesses could try out with one administrative center modernizations and when there are no developments, they may then do away with the practices as a breakdown and never apply any other change efforts. The third reason could be that the change to new job performances may as well imply assuming a whole new set of fabrication and supply skills if key developments in output are to be attained. For instance, the adoption of a modular production system in the clothing industry, the company would require investing in information as well as order-tracking skills to rationalize supply chains for them to attain considerable developments (Isles, 2010 p. 78). 4. Distrust between administration and human resources also averts beginning of HPWPs It is very difficult to introduce HPWPs in organizations where there are lofty levels of mistrust between management and workers. The most important obstacles comes up when administration apparently search for collaboration and affiliation in accessible unionized amenities whereas in the meantime engage in union evasion performance at additional sites. Downsizing as well as other measures that may weaken worker confidence may have an unfavorable influence on the establishment of HPWPs. 5. The function of unions In some cases, the administration has attempted to introduce alternatives of HPWPs to sidelining unions by not including them in transformation and looking for as an alternative of increasing express lines of contact with the human resources. Unions are involved whenever the establishment of novel functioning actions is linked with downscaling and augmented worker uncertainty. Union legislative body is extra cautious where directors intend to bring in team-working for constricted financial grounds (Ashton, & Sung, 2002 p. 64). References: Armstrong, M. 2003. “A handbook of human resource management practice”. London, Kogan Page Publishers. From http://books.google.com/books?id=2AGbuhlTXV0C&pg=PA122&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Ashton, D.N. & Sung, J. 2002. “Supporting workplace learning for high performance working”. London, International Labour Organization. From http://books.google.com/books?id=hJxWltbwSD8C&printsec=frontcover&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Cook, S. 2009. “Building a High-Performance Team”. Cambridgeshire, IT Governance Ltd. From http://books.google.com/books?id=_E0_gKCtzoC&pg=PA3&dq(accessed December 6, 2010) Cully, M. 1999. “Britain at work: as depicted by 1998 workplace employee relations survey”. UK, Routledge. From http://books.google.com/books?id=_2Bqh_Mt234C&pg=PA178&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Deery, S. & Mitchell, R. 1999. “Employment relations: individualization and union exclusion: an international study”. Annandale, Federation Press. From http://books.google.com/books?id=Fbhx70fVyQIC&pg=PA1&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Herriot, P. 2002. “The Employment Relationship: A Psychological Perspective”. London, Routledge. From http://books.google.com/books?id=VHWCNQAyglwC&pg=PA90&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Isles, N. 2010. “The Good Work Guide: How to Make Organizations Fairer and More Effective”. London, Earthscan. From http://books.google.com/books?id=pI2xAiQvDxYC&pg=PA55&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Ruysseveldt, J.V., Huiskamp, R. & Hoof, J.J.B.M. 1995. “Comparative industrial & employment relations”. London, SAGE. Viewed December 4, 2010 from http://books.google.com/books?id=7xqpORGrFMMC&printsec=frontcover&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Storey, J. 2008. “The Routledge companion to strategic human resource management”. NJ, Taylor & Francis. From http://books.google.com/books?id=KUOojoVI2TQC&pg=PA116&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Wilson, P.J. 2005. “Human resource development: learning & training for individuals & organizations”. London, Kogan Page Publishers. From http://books.google.com/books?id=zpNc_GZIiikC&pg=PA38&dq (accessed December 6, 2010) Read More