Employee Relation System in Britain - Case Study Example

Running head: EMPLOYEE RELATION SYSTEM Employee Relation System [Writer’s name] [Institution’s name] Employee Relation System Introduction: Companies provide strategies to ensure the progress and development of the business. There are many ways to do such intention. One is to start at the work force, to the persons that are involved in the operation of the business. According to Adler, N. J. & Ghadar, F. (1990 p 45), the employees of the company are the foundation of the business. They have a vital part in the operation of the business if the employee fails the business fails. So it is recommended to shift functions to provide opportunity for all staff to improve their job performance, raise productivity, quality and customer service in pursuit of continuous improvement. This will promote equality of access to training and development for all staff. While other, retain function to improve where the persons involve is good at. His expertise match to certain function of the company and will generate good operation as a result of his/her contribution. Developing new function is important in order to increase employee potential to convene their personal aspirations for vocation development and job satisfaction where these can logically be accommodated in provisions of cost and time. Employment relationship is an economical exchange of labour capacity in return for the production of goods and services. It is very important to understand the implications of all the aspects of employment relations. High levels of collaboration between the workforce and management are likely to be consistent with greater reliability of production and quality of output, which in turn would bolster the organization's market position. Thus, employment relation is one of the most significant areas that need to be invested (Rollinson 1993 p 78). The state (all levels of government) plays a crucial role in employment relations, both directly and indirectly. The roles undertaken by governments may be categorized into five components including maintaining protective standards; establishing rules for the interaction between the parties; ensuring that the results of such interaction were consistent with the apparent needs of economy; providing services for labour and management such as advice, conciliation, arbitration and training; and as a major employer. After World War II, it indicates that many governments adopt a more active role in regard to employment relations (Bamber et al. 2004 p 23). Employee Relation System in Britain According to the Answers.com (2005), Britain is a country of Western Europe comprising England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Until July 2003, the British population is 60,094,648. At the height of its power in the 19th century it ruled an empire that spanned the globe (www.answers.com/topic/united-kingdom). It is the leading industrial as well as maritime power of the 19th century, played an important part in developing legislative democracy. In the 20 century Britain lost a lot of his powers. The second half of the 20th century was spent in rebuilding Britain. Furthermore it is a foremost trading power and financial centre. The British industrial relations system has a long history and has undergone much change in recent years. There are three phases in the evolution of employee relations since the end of the World War II, the third one being the partnership approach. Until 1979 (date of the election of the Conservative Party), work relations were based on collective bargaining and collective agreement aiming to determine and regulate, in varying degrees, the terms on which individuals will be employed (Flanders 1968), with a strong voluntarism encouraged massively and informally. The trade unions (basically, it is an association of wage earners, totally independent of employer's pressure, who struggle to improve work conditions) had a lot of power and everything was negotiated through deals. In fact, a Trade Union, through collective bargaining can force employers to deal with labour as a collective identity, rather than isolated individuals and so, secure better the terms and condition of employment. However, when the conservative party was elected in 1979, everything changed. The new government introduced a lot measures to limit the role of trade unions. In addition, it introduced an enterprise culture in which individuals and organisations, rather than government, were to be held responsible for economic performance. Thus, as well as rejecting the maintenance of full employment as a major policy objective, they in effect abandoned the commitment of their predecessors to voluntary collective bargaining as the most effective method of determining pay and conditions. Then, there was a total break with the old work patterns but an explanation of this will be the economical context. In fact, after the war, there was a period of reconstruction that engendered a lot of work; manufacturing was the backbone of the economy, it was a period of full employment. After that, there was a wave of privatisation, many companies became multinationals, and there was an internationalisation of business. In any study of the alteration of Britain's employment relations system the altering nature of work cannot be ignored. The impact of technological innovation, work reformation and job redesign are each and every one of the helping to redesign shop floor attitudes amongst managers, unions and workers. The underlying shifts in labour markets with the modest but considerable relative increase in the quantity employees who work part-time, short-term as well as contract work are also helping to determine the development of our employment relations in recent ways (Marchington etal 2004 p298). The Future of Work Research Programme indicates that an indisputably innovative type of employment relations across a widening variety of private sector companies based on main beliefs of industrial partnership comes into being. The use of this term of partnership is a relatively recent political phenomenon. Some people affirm that it is just a term used by the Government to attract popular support because nobody can be against 'Partnership. Some others, more optimistic, see in this term a new pluralist approach to industrial relations. This concept comes from the idea that enterprises should recognise the interests of each stakeholder, namely employees, employers and their representatives, in order to satisfy each party. The aim of this approach is to find a common interest of management and labour, through trust and mutual involvement, instilling a sense of belonging and involvement. The Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) has recognized six important values : a joint commitment to the success of venture, with support for complete flexibility and the alternative of adversarial relations; a acknowledgment that interests of the partners might logically be different; employment security, as well as measures to progress the employability of employees as well as restrict the use of necessary dismissal; a focal point on the excellence of working life; a obligation to transparency, with a real contribution of hard, open information, an openness to discussing strategies for the upcoming period , authentic consultation and attentiveness to listen to the business case meant for different strategies; adding together value - the characteristic of an effectual partnership is that it taps into sources of commitment as well as resources that were not accessed through preceding planning. For the New Labour government, 'partnership' at work becomes an important objective. The partnership is between individual employer and individual employee and their representatives but the latter partner is weak in the new work relation. The partnership approach is more focused on individual relationships than a collective one, like in the past. Indeed, New Labour insists on individual choice. For them, it is not an obligation to integrate a working union. It emphasises that individuals are the best judges of their own individual interests. That is to say that the individual has the choice of whether or not to join a trade union and whether or not to take part in the coverage by collective agreement. It might mean the government is not really in favour of the trade unions. In fact, some people think that a trade union would be an enemy of the partnership approach in the sense that trade unions defend the workers' interests and they always have a confrontational relationship with the employers. Then, how can a partnership are formed if one of the partners does not make an effort to find a common agreement? In this way, the trade unions' role has to be redefined. They have to play a co-operative role with employers in order to find some common interests. Employee Relation System in Australia The political agenda of the present federal Coalition Government was to deregulate and decentralise the industrial relations system. In 1996, the new Coalition Government introduced the Workplace Relations Act, which reflected this agenda. The new legislation was premised on the notion of little or no third party involvement in industrial matters. This paved the way for employers to negotiate conditions of employment and workplace decisions at the workplace level, aiming to provide employers with the flexibility to develop working arrangements that specifically related to the needs of the enterprise. Thus decentralisation had a significant impact on employee relations. The process of decentralising industrial relations is clearly apparent in the various wage setting systems currently used by employers. In any given workplace, the contract of employment between employer and employee is predicated on common law, industrial awards and agreements. The wage setting system in Australia has traditionally been by industrial awards in either the federal or individual state jurisdictions. Awards are the most centralised form of wage setting, and contain conditions of employment that have been negotiated by unions and employers or employer groups and then approved by either the Federal or a State Industrial Commission. The award system is complex; however an award may cover all of the employees in a particular industry or occupational grouping. In the state systems, there is no restriction on the conditions of employment that may be contained in an award. In the federal system however, the Workplace Relations Act 1996, restricts the matters that can be contained in an award to ‘20 allowable matters’. They are, therefore, minimal conditions awards. Enterprise bargaining agreements (EBA) are less centralised than awards because they apply only to a single enterprise or bargaining unit. Enterprise agreements may be negotiated between the employer and the relevant union, or, as in many cases between the employer and the employees themselves. Enterprise agreements are negotiated to either supplement or replace an award. Individual agreements are the least centralised of all wage setting systems because they may only involve direct negotiations between an individual employee and his or her employer. Many employees are employed on a contract of employment under common law and may not be covered by either an award or an enterprise agreement. There is also provision in the Workplace Relations Act 1996 for individual agreements called Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). The introduction of these agreements again reflected the Coalition Government policy of decentralising the industrial relations system. With individual agreements it is possible for employees doing the same work in an organisation to be on different wage rates. Employees in Australia frequently engage in further study or training of their own initiative for a variety of reasons such as desire to change occupations, develop new skills or for interest sake alone. Nevertheless in a lot of occupations, particularly those requiring formal qualifications, employers demand that skills are constantly updated and employees have to engage in forms of reaccreditation to remain qualified. When additional education and training is conducted outside usual working hour’s employee relations can extend to the provision of study leave arrangements, flexible start and or finish times or even part-time work to manage work and study commitments. As more and more women enter the workforce in Australia and embark on careers, the labour market to the private home is also becoming prevalent. Paid parental leave, and in particular maternity leave, following the birth or adoption of a child is one of the most significant family friendly arrangements to be considered in employee relations. But other family friendly practices can support parents throughout the child raising years. Such practices include part-time employment, sick leave for when children are ill, employer supported child care arrangements and tele-working from home. Despite the increasing need for employee relations to consider such arrangements only 14 percent of all enterprise agreements in 2002 made provision for any form of family friendly arrangements and just 7 percent provided paid maternity leave. In total only 23 percent of all organizations in Australia have paid maternity leave arrangements (Leisink 2004). These human resource practices and a lack of consideration to the issue of an aging workforce in employee relations means that a growing proportion of older employees are finding themselves forced from the labour market into unemployment or early retirement. Once forced out of the labour market, people over the age of 45 generally find it difficult to gain full-time employment again. As a consequence many are forced to seek out part-time employment or other forms of precarious work where available. Employee Relations in essence concerns the interaction between employers and employees. In practice, employee relations inevitably centre on the differences arising between managers and their employees and between employees themselves. Often, differences that may arise in the workplace necessitates the involvement of third parties such as representatives of either management, such as employer associations, or employees, such as trade unions, and the involvement of industrial tribunals such as the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. Conclusion: There are several reasons, why it is important to study analyzing different ER systems and how they are managed (adopting an international comparative approach). Firstly, studying comparative employment relations may use that knowledge for comparative purposes with a view to applying the lessons of other systems to improve of the effectiveness and efficiency of Australian and British system. Secondly, an understanding of some of the complexities of each one of the individual employment relations systems will be gained. Thirdly, the uniqueness of a particular system and the direction of its likely future development can be argued in a reasoned way. Also, it can help to reach the conclusions on the importance of historical and cultural factors in the establishment and development of each system, as well as the likelihood of all employment relations systems converging over time. Furthermore, it enables the discussion an informed way the future of the employment relations perspective of the question: 'what constitutes a good employment relations system?' and its relationship with the rest of society within the national context, and the rest of the human race, within an international context (Stewart 2005 p 34). References www.answers.com/topic/united-kingdom retrieved on May 8 2007 Adler, N. J. & Ghadar, F. (1990), Strategic Human Resource Management: A Global Perspective, in Pieper, R. (ed.), Human Resource Management: An International Comparison, Berlin: de Gruyterp 45 Rollinson, D 1993, Understanding employee relations: a behavioural approach, Addison-Wesley, Boston p 23 Bamber, GJ, Lansbury, RD & Wailes, N (eds) 2004, International and comparative employment relations: globalization and the developed market economics, 4th edn, Allen & Unwin, Crown Nest. p 78 Stewart, G 2005, Study Guide: Managing the Employment Relationship, CQU, Brisbane p 34 Marchington, M; Wilkinson, A., Dundon, T., and Ackers, P. (2004) Changing Patterns of Employee Voice, Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 298-322. Leisink, P 2004; (ed) Globalization and labour relations Edward Elgar, London Reference Collections shelfmark p 23 Read More