Employer-Employee Relationship - Assignment Example

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS al Affiliation) Introduction An employee relation is the manner in which the employer-employee relationship is managed. An organization that practices good employee relations provides fair and consistent treatment to all employees thus making them become loyal and committed to their jobs. In addition, happy employees are productive employees therefore leading to more productivity and growth of the business. Successful organizations know how to manage relationships to build a strong and lasting relationship and employee satisfaction. Moreover, it is important for organizations to know that employees are the greatest assets and no company can function without them. Organizations need to prevent and resolve problems that arise while working. Every organization should ensure that they have an employee relations program that helps in increasing good morale and employee satisfaction. Additionally, one of the most effective ways of ensuring good employee relations is adopting a strategy that values employees as stakeholders in the business (Gennard & Judge, 1999). Discussion The post-war consensus took place between 1945 and 1979. Laws were created that gave legal rights at work to employees. The employer’s obligation towards workers was also specified. In addition, disputes were resolves through mediation and social unions agreed to provide assistance to governments in resolving the economic problems of the country. However, industrial relations declined there was unemployment and wage demand and inflation continued to rise. In addition, unions improved through legislation and to achieve flexibility in the workplace, negotiations and social compromise was used rather than being imposed by employers. Consequently, the Keynesian economic objective was designed to manage the demand of the economy through achieving full employment as well as an economy that is stable. It was believed that through Keynesians, the level of unemployment depended on government policy and that the state was able to achieve a low unemployment rate by accepting a high but steady rate of inflation. A tribunal system was established in the UK to deliver the recommendations of the Donovan Commission by coming up with a system that was fast, easily to access, informal and not expensive. However, this has not been successful, as it never met the standards of the tribunal. Employers view the use of employment legislation disparagingly. In addition, employment law formalized the ideologies of natural justice whereby whichever action an employer took towards an employee was measured just as highly. The growth of the trade unions took place in the 1970’s, contributing to changes in the employment practices. New types of unions emerged and the biggest and longest long term change took place in the union movement where there has been a rise in the public sector unions and the membership has not been affected much by the economic difficulties. Moreover, there was a new outlook as their bargaining power weakened, the unions looked for other sources of influence thus looking for partnership with employees rather than confrontation. In addition, the unions have tried to regain some of their influence within the labour party but as much as they can win votes at party conferences, they cannot necessarily change any policies. Consequently, there was an industrial decline, as The UK was known to be best in the manufacturing of coal, docks and engineering. However, millions of people lost their jobs during this period. Neo-liberal conservative of 1980s was among the first political economic practice that allows human beings to be liberated and to be free entrepreneurs as well as apply their skills within an institutional framework that is characterized by powerful private property rights, free markets as well as free trade. It is the government’s role to create and preserve appropriate frameworks to such practices. It was also the role of the state to guarantee quality money. In addition, the state was mandated to set up the security including the military, police, defence and legal structures to provide security to the private property rights and guarantee proper functioning markets. The transformation of industrial relations has been an influential in the employee relations’ field. Its importance is to provide an organizational and theoretical context for employee relations’ research that reflects the changes in employee relations. In 1960, the personnel function emerged and the key factors include the growth in government regulations, the types of management for employees and the role of unions in the organization. The Human Resource Management is a new approach that organizations are using to manage people. In this approach, people are considered the key resource and the activities that fall under the HRM include their acquisition, motivation and rewarding, development of skills among others. This has led to a change in the management of employees and has repackaged the old functions of the personnel management. By the year 1980, increased levels of competition were felt from emerging countries. Therefore, in order to compete with the global market place that increased significantly, the western capital leaders understood the need to improve the productivity of employees as well as the levels of innovations. The new labour government policies are the way new labour modernizers have put emphasis on the moral rather than the economic arguments for socialism. In addition, they involved an extensive government intervention in the economic life of people. Moreover, new labour policies have emphasized on the need to fulfil an individual’s potential and focus on the opportunities that allow individuals to participate in the society and access the labour market. In addition, the new policies are more concerned with individuals fulfilling what they are capable of doing. The current state of the employee relation is the direct relationship between the employer and the employee. Some of the main changes include creating and upholding employment relations that increase flexibility and choice and ensure is a fair balance between employers and employees. The unitary perspective of employment relations considers that there should only be a single source of authority in an organization that is liable for all the authoritative decision making process. In addition, a proper working environment should be provided to employees without any conflict. Moreover, the role of the leaders is to promote and commitment and loyalty among workers. Consequently, organizations are seen to have teams where the employees should work together to meet the objectives of the organization and the management should provide strong leadership to meet the organizational goals. A major strength in this approach is the fact that it openly integrates the interest of both the employer and employee. The greatest weakness in this approach is that there is inequality in power distribution that may lead to the inefficiency in the organization. Pluralism approach can be considered an effective approach of employee relations, as the employee is more competitive. This is because it is believed that the workplace is a place where a set of diverse beliefs, attitudes and behaviours take place. In addition, conflicts are inevitable because of the various competing interests and the management is expected to mediate among the competing interests. Trade unions represent employees and this is why they help employees practice their decision making power. One of the strength in pluralist is the way conflict is not overlooked but managed effectively and the stakeholders are called to participate. One of the weaknesses is the inclination that allows employees to dwell on the rules and procedures and disregard the processes that contribute to solve conflicts. The systems theory is an approach that involves the planning and managing of organizations. In addition, it is about how employee relations are best regarded as a sub-system of the wider social system. The system allows work to be governed by a formal and informal rule that cover details of employment like performance, recruitment, and holidays. Additionally, there four elements that make up the system of industrial relations and include the industrial actors, the environment context, the rules that govern the employment relationships and the common beliefs that allow the system to operate. The Marxism theory is about how employee relations are viewed as a natural outcome of capitalism, which is the competition between the two social classes, and the on-going struggle that is reflected in the workplace. A good example of the Marxist theory is the feminist theory that frames their analysis by been keen on the role of the patriarchy in the capitalists’ mode of economic organization. The common characteristic in the two theories is the way men act to confine women to the inferior positions. In addition, liberal feminist theory seeks to equalize both men and women. Comparative and Post modernist theory argues the assumptions and values about the truth and reality of people is problematic. In addition, it also argues that if a certain type of disclosure influences employees then they start to think on their conditions and the way they think of themselves and their work experience. In addition, the thinking and linking of employees to the way people begin to understand their own personal identities and notions of work have been possible using techniques used by HRM (Noe, 2006). These techniques are more focused in developing language and cultures as a way of manipulating the behaviour and thinking capacity of employees. There has been a significant shift in managing employee relations since 1980. The focus is to integrate the frameworks based on employee commitment as well as shared workforce interests between the employer and employee. Therefore, the application of human resource management theory is important as it points out the reasons why employees are not happy with the existing work practices. This may lead to the changes in the organizational work ethics to improve the workplace satisfaction of customers. It is important to note that theory and practice may concur but the casual influences may not be those flagged by the theories. In addition theories tend to provide some way of organizing situations in some workable sense even if none of them had the capacity to explain the fully. The role of the employer is to ensure that the health and safety of the employee is protected while at work. This means that employees are protected from anything that may cause harm to them. In addition, employers should provide information about the risks that may occur in the workplace as well as train employees on how to deal with the risks. Employers should also maintain a safe workplace with safe entry and safe exit as well as provide and maintain systems of work that are safe. They should also ensure they pay the employees in good time and rewarding them without bias. The managers are involved in the planning and mapping of the goals to be achieved. They also decide on which steps to take to achieve the goals. They are also involved in organizing the team and materials necessary for achieving the set objectives. In addition, managers are involved in the staffing process and they recruit, select, train and develop employees. It is also the responsibility of managers to lead employees by communicating, guiding, motivating and encouraging employees. They also control and keep truck of the results against the goals set. Trade unions check and protect employees from the unfair practices by the employers. They also ensure that employers comply with the law and can make appeals if they do not respect the decisions made by the board. They also lobby for the creation of laws and disseminate the information to employees. Unions also fight for better terms and conditions and interest for workers. Traditionally, the unions were able to set the terms and conditions for pay for workers. They have also secured a variety of benefits for works including higher wages and work life balance through the provision of reasonable work schedules. In addition, unions grant employees equal bargaining power with the employers and have a greater voice in negotiating for employees. The state is responsible for intervention of the employment relations to meet the economic and social goals of the entire nation. They maintain high levels of employment as well as ensure price stability. They also maintain a balance in the payment during surplus and protection of the exchange rate. The collective bargaining is present in all fields of economic activities of a nation. It is the separation of powers in the work environment between the employer and employees. Unions usually represent workers within a given industry in negotiations with their employers. In addition, the management and the union negotiate detailed and binding labour agreements. The negotiations of the bargaining agreements determine the wages, the heath coverage of workers as well as the working hours. Decentralization is the effort of spreading the decision making in an organization and giving the lower levels on the organization with the power to make decisions. In addition, the top management makes broad and major decisions. One of the limitations of decentralization is that it is expensive as it raises administrative expenses in terms of training personnel. In addition, it brings a confusion and complexity in the management issues. It may also lead to lack of uniformity at the organizational level (Hawken, & Lovins, 1999). Some of the management styles in organizations include the autocratic style where a leader makes all decisions by themselves without consulting. There is also the permissive style where a leader involves the subordinates in decision-making and provides a degree of autonomy in the completion of routine work. Human resource management is the function that deals with managing people, the culture in the workplace and the environment. It also deals with related issues like compensation, hiring, safety and wellness. Effective human resource enables employees to work towards achieving the set goals of a company (Mathis & Jackson, 2003). Workplace discrimination occurs when an individual or a group of people are treated less favourably from the others. This could because of their gender, race or nationality. It may occur during the recruitment of staff, where selected people are offered training while some are left out, and during the transfer, promotion and retrenchment of employees. Additionally, inequality at work can be tackled by providing equal job opportunities at work, assigning more women in the management and decision making in the organization and women progressing through the organization (Hollinshead, 1999). Globalization is the way in which the world has grown so fast to thus making connectivity easier. Some describe it as a free global market for goods and services. It has been brought about by improved transport, thus making global travel easier. Technology has also enhanced globalization by making it easier for people to communicate and share information globally. In addition, the reduced tariffs have also encouraged global trade. There is also increased mobility of labour where people are willing to migrate to other countries in search of work. Multinational Corporation operates in more than one country and some of their impacts include the job creation around the world. They provide their goods and services at lower costs due to their economies of scale. In addition, they get huge profits that they use in research and development. However, their market dominance makes it difficult for small firms to thrive through and use their economies of scale to push local industries out of business. In addition, they also contribute to pollution with non-renewable resources (Tolentino, 2000). The UK joined the EU in 1973 and employers favoured because of the market benefits. The legislation of the EU influenced the UK labour law in individual employment rights and the rights of information and consultation. In addition, new rights were enacted including the working time and the right to an urgent family and parental leave as well as protection for fixed-contract workers. Conclusion The Employee relation has been an evolving process and has changed over time (Corby 2002). Both the employers and the employees need to be engaged to provide goods and services to consumers as well as meet the goals and objectives of the organization. The unions have played a big role in protecting the rights and interests of workers and are still struggling to get a clear identity as well as new roles. In addition, the European Union membership continues to influence the employee relations at the domestic level. In addition, Multinational corporations have had a great impact in the growth of the economy of nations and this seen through the job opportunities it creates. Moreover, workplace discrimination at the workplace should be avoided at all costs. Women should be given equal opportunities like the men and should be involved in the decision making in an organization. References Corby, S. 2002. Employee relations in the public services themes and issues. London: Routledge. Gennard, J., & Judge, G. 1999. Employee relations (2nd ed.). London: Institute of Personnel and Development. Hawken, P., & Lovins, A. 1999. Natural capitalism: Creating the next industrial relation. Boston: Little, Brown and. Hollinshead, G. 1999. Employee relations. London: Financial Times/Pitman Pub. Matlay, H. (n.d.). Employee relations in small firms: A micro-business perspective. Employee Relations, 285-295. Mathis, R., & Jackson, J. 2003. Human resource management (10th ed.). Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-western. Noe, R. 2006. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage (5th ed.). Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill. Society for Human Resource Management. (n.d.). Retrieved May 13, 2015, from http://www.shrm.org/pages/default.aspx Tolentino, P. 2000. Multinational corporations emergence and evolution. London: Routledge. What is Employee Relations? - Human resource management. (n.d.). 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