Development of Trade Unions in the UK - Essay Example

Human Resource Management Introduction The purpose of the essay is to analyze the history of labour management in the United Kingdom and to evaluate the influence of employment laws on employee relations in current times. The features of the labour management prevalent in the different stages of development and the formation and decline of trade unions has also been discussed. History of Labour Management in the U.K. The history of labour management began with the evolution of factories in the U.K. Development of the industries and the employer-employee relations significantly changed the approach towards work in the 18th century. Earlier, the factory owners employed labourers who used to work for 14 hours a day (Bratton and Gold, 2003). Many industrialists then started realizing that satisfied workers are more efficient than the employees who are unsatisfied with the working conditions (Bratton and Gold, 2003). As a result, employers stated introducing voluntary programmes for the employees in order to provide them with a comfortable environment. Moreover, government started introducing basic human rights laws to protect the interests of the workers. The industries need to implement the laws regarding the safety of worker in the work places (Bratton and Gold, 2003). The factories introduced basic skills training programs to enhance the capability to work, schools at the workplaces to educate them sufficiently and also introduce voluntary social programmes for them (Kelly, 2012). Human Resource Management started as a social care within an organization and developed as a personnel management function in the 20th century. Towards the end of the 20th century, personnel management emerged as a strategy to compete in the market (Kelly, 2012). Competition in the market increased intensely and employers started reducing the number of employees and concentrated more on enhancing their efficiency through successful human resource management. Thus, the organizations changed their approach towards human resource management to gain competitive advantage in the age of rising competitors. In the first half of the 20th century, organizations started prioritizing human resource management as personnel management departments where introduced within the enterprises. Trade Unions emerged in the companies and strict work safety laws were implemented. The focus of the employers changed from the number of working hours of the employees to the productivity of workers and they concentrated on hard skills training. Industrial relations were highly criticized during the 1960’s on both employers as well as unions. In the report by Lord Donovan in 1968, who chaired the “Donovan Commission” observed that human resource managers lack negotiation skills and fail to employ personnel management strategies in the organizations. According to Lord Donovan, this was the result of lack of priority of the top management given to human resource management (Kelly, 2012). After the 1960’s, employment started to change in a significant manner as specialized techniques and theories of personnel management started to evolve. The theories of organizational behaviour and motivation, various effective techniques for selection of new recruits were developed. Management training expanded and was established as specialized stream in the professional field. In the mid-80s, the term, “Human Resource Management” was introduced in the USA and it states that employees are also assets to the organization such as other machines and capital equipments. However, human resource also tends to concentrate on motivation and commitment of employees towards the organization (Caker, Bititic and MacBryde, 2003). . From the 1990s, employment relations have been changing dramatically due to the shift in employment from the manufacturing to the services sector and also due to the increasing rate of participation of women in the workforce. Development of soft skills, talent improvement, leadership, innovation, diversity and outsourcing are some of the features of human resource management in the current years. Development and the Current Situation of Trade Unions An organization created to protect and advance the interests of the employees on pay and work conditions through negotiations with the employers is called a trade union (Blyton and Turnbull, 1998). The group of employees for whom the trade unions negotiate are called the ‘bargaining unit’ and once the negotiation starts taking place, the trade union is recognised within an organization. The intervention of the trade unions on pay and work conditions with the employers is known as collective bargaining. Union representatives can be appointed for promoting and enabling training and learning, ensuring health and safety in the workplace and also as information and consultation representatives. A decline in the coverage of collective bargaining and in trade union membership has been observed in the recent years (Blyton and Turnbull, 1998). Hard and Soft Human Resource Management The approach towards human resource management has changed dramatically over the years. Earlier, personnel management was characterized by hard skills training but in the recent years, it has changed to training and development of soft skills. Hard skills development is characterized by fixed term contracts, limited delegation of authority, external recruitment, minimum wage levels. The appraisal system in the hard approach towards human resource management is judgemental (Legge, 1995). The organizations practicing the hard approach were considered to have tall structure within the enterprises. In these enterprises, as the business expands, the number of management levels increases and each controls a very small area of operation. The hard approach is associated with the strategies of cost minimization and thus focuses on the minimum wages, close supervision and monitoring, minimum training and focuses on reducing the production level through intensification (Beardwell and Claydon, 2007). On the other hand, the soft skills approach towards the management of human resource is characterized by training and development opportunities, internal promotion to the employees, developmental appraisal system. The enterprises adopting the soft approach have a flat organizational structure with small number of levels in the management and each level monitoring a large area of operation. The flat structure facilitates employee empowerment through autonomy and self direction. It also attempts to tap the creative talents within the organization and try to solve problems through collaboration (Caker, Bititic and MacBryde, 2003). The concept underlying the soft approach towards personnel management is to develop a committed relationship between the employer and the workers in order to meet the overall organizational objectives. This can be achieved by the four C’s of commitment of the employees, congruence between the targets and goals of the employees and the organization, competence within the employees and cost effectiveness of the approach applied towards personnel management (Beer, et al, 1999). Employment Law and Employment Relations The employment law governs the duties and rights between the employers and the employees. It is also referred as the labour law and it is mainly designed to protect the health and safety of the employees and also the interests of the employers. It makes sure that the employees are treated fairly and they are based on legislations, administrative rules and federal and state constitutions and court opinions. The employment relations are guided by the employment contract. The employment contract is a legal agreement between the employee and the employer describing the details of pay, benefit, dismissal, etc. Employment relations are a complex range of interactions between the employers, workers and the government employees. The employment laws set rules regarding the safety of workers, holidays, working hours, wage rates, collective agreements and company policy manuals. Employment laws also govern the grievance processes, methods of recruitment and selection practiced by companies and also the arbitration and conciliation procedures (Boxall and Purcell, 2003). The British employment relations involve the unions, collective bargaining and the employers and thus the pluralist approach towards the employee relation is practiced in the U.K. In the pluralist viewpoint, the managers empower their employees with full freedom and allow them to choose their informal leaders. The managers work towards integrating the groups, encouraging and motivating employees to participate and coordinating their work efforts. The underlying concept behind the pluralist approach in employment relations is that when workers take part in the decision–making process and in solving the problems arising in the work place, they become more committed and gets involved in the work they are doing and thus leads to the fulfilment of successful outcomes (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004). Power Relations It is believed that there is a significant imbalance of power between the employer and the employees. Employee relation specialists believe that the employers have more power than the employees and they can drive the wages of the workers at subsistence level. Empirically, it has been observed that that the real wages of workers have been raising over the years. Most profit maximising enterprises are predicted to exercise the power and exploitation of workers is inevitable in this situation. The fact that employers have the power to make employees undertake the work they want is the evidence that they have stronger bargaining power. According to modern researchers, wages and other terms of the labour contract are traded in the market just like any other goods or services and are determined by the forces of demand and supply (Blyton and Turnbull, 1998). The trade unions have the power to extract more wages than the employer would have given through collective bargaining. If the trade unions try to exert monopoly power, the management can also adopt steps that could be against the interest of the union members (Kelly, 2012). Thus, it can be stated that in the current situation, there is no imbalance of power between the employers and the employees. The employees’ interest against the stronger bargaining power of the employers is protected by the employment laws of the nation. Conclusion The labour management system started as a social care program before the 20th century and developed into a part of the business strategy in the 1960s. The power of trade unions and the coverage of the collective bargaining have also decreased over the years. Enterprise now concentrates on the development of soft skills in their employees rather than developing hard skills. It has been observed that there is no imbalance of power between the employers and the employees in the recent times. Reference List Beardwell, J and Claydon, T., 2007. Human resource management: A contemporary approach. Pearson Education Limited, England. Beer, M., Spector, B., Lawrence, P.R., Mills, D.O. and Walton, R.E., 1999. A Conceptual overview of HRM in Poole (ED). Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, 1, pp. 30-51. Blyton, P. and Turnbull, P. 1998. The Dynamics of employee relations. London: Macmillan Business. Boxall, P. and Purcell, J., 2003. Strategy and human resource management. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2003. Introduction to human resource management: Theory and practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A., 2004. Organisational behaviour. Harlow: FT/Prentice Hall. Caker, F., Bititic, U.S. and MacBryde, J., 2003. A Business Approach to Human Resource Management. Business Process Management Journal, 9 (2), pp. 190-207. Kelly, J., 2012. Rethinking industrial relations: Mobilisation, collectivism and long waves. London: Routledge. Legge, K., 1995. HRM: Rhetorics and realities. 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