Contemporary Issues in Employment Relations - Example

Name Institution Coursework Instructor Introduction Two parties are always involved in any description made on employment, and these are the employer and the employee. An employer refers to the person who offers work and responsibilities to be carried out and/ or services rendered by an employee. The services offered always forms the bases for an agreement between the two parties and in determination of the conventions that surround the whole phenomena of employing and getting employed. An employee is answerable to an employer in broad descriptions of the working conditions and responsibilities in harmony with the national, regional and international regards to labor and human resource management. The relationship between the employee and employer stands out to be the most critical aspect that affects the results of any task a portioned or responsibility assigned. Therefore, good employment relations are not just necessary but to a greater extent imperative. Employment relations Employment relations therefore, are the existence of interactions between the employer, the employee and the other bodies of human resource management or rather the organizations that mediate employment or employment issues. In the process, adequate modalities are synchronized to define how best or how logical should the employer regulate the works and responsibilities assigned to an employee within the organizational set-up or logistics. Not overlooked is the essence that an employee-to-employee relation also to a large extent contributes to the fabric of understanding employment relations. An employee’s expertise and experience is very essential in any organizational mandate, and at the same time the employer’s consideration of the employees concern and welfare is important for special purposes of achieving the objectives, goals and priorities of any organization. The output of the employee (s) rests on the employer’s level of regulation and controls that overwhelmingly distribute the energies as pertains to the satisfaction of employee’s interests and motivation. Understanding employment relations in both the negative and positive aspects helps enables employer and employee evaluate the level of their relationship as pertinent to linking actual labor processes and the desired outcome. Industrial relations The description of industrial relations has a coherent relationship with the employment relations. At first, it used to refer to what employment relations stands for today. The deviation and advancements made in economic paradigms demanded a different understanding of the concept industrial relations. Industrial relations therefore, refer to a study and an economic practice. As a study, it involves the enhanced efforts to adequately understand the operation of trade unions, labor management, the essentials in human resource management and the principle organization and mechanisms of collective bargaining. As an economic practice, it recognizes the operational significance of the aforementioned factors of trade unionism, workers or employees’ collective bargain, the relations in labor management. In Western Europe, New Zealand and Australia, not much attention was given to the effectiveness in the working place. The most significant functions of industrial relations were majorly the formation of a collective voice to help workers voice their concern and agitate for their rights. The value of labor management during this period was calculated to cushion laborers from heightened exploitation that was immense. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw many changes entrenching themselves in the workplace. Many things began to change radically. The perspectives people held about industrial relations began to change, and in fact in some countries like Britain, which was and still is one of the strongest economies, trade unionism began to find threats to extrication from the Britain’s economic framework (Howard F.G, Gill P. 1993). In south Asian part of the continent, research has shown that due to their inclination to democratic system of governance and socialism as one of their ideological philosophies, tremendous attention was given to the collective bargaining power. This was a different case in the south east Asia where trade unionism and the employees collective bargain was deemed economical threats hence several legislations were put enacted to counter the activities of trade unionism. Generally, most of the Asian governments perceived industrial relations as a way of reducing workplace conflict that could call for trade unionism. They established measures to prevent problem build up in workplaces. The growth and development of trade unions in most of the southeast governments experienced setbacks, as they were regulated and strictly controlled. They concentrated their efforts on the productivity of workers and their abilities to produce efficiently. In so doing this, little concern was meant to the protect workers and their plight and welfare in totality. Sri Lanka and India only applied measures to disorganize the agitations of workers in their workplaces. The perception that was highlighted in most of the Asian countries drew precise conclusions that trade unions and other unionization bodies presented potential obstacles in efforts to economically advance and develop. However, it became evident that industrial relations in the workplace were becoming less relevant. The cause of this was because a lot of technological advancement was slowly getting rooted into the labor economy. The significance of this advancement had profoundly turned out to be inconsequential in the labor economy due to lack of its inclusion and address in the industrial relations set up. A push or agitation for an inclusive description of the real prevailing circumstances became imperative. Employment relations then became the most preferred term in addressing the economic issues that were advancing on daily basis. A part from limiting employment relations to describe the employer and employee relationship, an interaction with their working environment and the general economic legislations needed also to be categorically analyzed to assess the general performance. Industrial relations did not consider the primary significance of addressing both external and internal issues and problems of enterprise. It made very big oversight on the basic conditions and problems that had profound effects on employment in relation to every individual employer’s decision (Howard F.G, Gill P. 1993). Additionally, it made huge references and emphasis on the regulation of employment and labor management from outside an enterprise or a particular workplace. In so doing this, industrial relations, failed to appreciate the workplace as the central point bearing hefty effects on the productivity of employees. In addition, it did not comprehend the parameters of a quality industrial relations system and failed to apply for assessing the practicality and workability (Howard F.G, Gill P. 1993). By focusing much attention to the regulation from outside workplace, it lacks proper identification and analysis relations that could be generated from within any organization. The need to pressurize employers to acknowledge negotiations with employees within the workplace capacity remained unattended to by the industrial relations. The efficacy of industrial relations in understanding workplace problems and relations was seriously hampered in some countries because the formation of unions were limited, government took a centre stage in the moderation of the union activities and where the government presented stringent rules and regulations that largely controlled the actions of the trade unions. Given this analysis, it therefore became apparent that the concept industrial relations were demanding a review and revision, all at the same time. The term ‘e employment relations’ was deemed satisfactory in understanding the problems of the workplace. It became necessary to be inclusive of the internal issues that affected any organization’s operation. The psychology of groups and the behavioral studies have continued to shape the understanding of the workplace relations. The relationship among individual employees within an organization is understood through organizational psychology. The significance of social sciences in understanding workplace psychology enables employees to comprehend and accept the individual behaviors and perspectives. Through this, it brings a different attention to the internal organizational concerns, problems and relations that were not initially the concerns of the concept of industrial relations. IR (industrial Relations) emphasized more on the external issues affecting the organization. The main attention of the employment relations that has made it more pragmatic in understanding in understanding work place problems is the recognition of globalization as an important aspect in labor economy. Globalization has led to substantial changes on the approach of working adopted within an organization. Enterprise management has also significantly improved. Globalization in the general concept of employment relations covers a wide range of aspects that have recently continued to influence the way workplace management is taking place. This has greatly changed the perception of workplace relations from being merely being subject to collective bargaining to workplace competitiveness and production efficiency. The initial responsibilities of agitating for better remuneration and use of natural resources have changed to exhibit a more pro-active approach to creativity and innovation, the productivity and specialized and multi-skills. In the process, more emphasis is laid on increasing the production quality, and at the same time reducing the production costs. For the acquisition of skills whether specialized or multi-skills, the employment relation is established on the background of good and quality training. Well-trained employees have high standards of production abilities, mostly in specialized cases. This increases work efficiency and production quality. The accessibility of adequate training in the acquisition of multi-skills increases employees’ flexibility, which would enable them handle various tasks expanding, thus expanding their employability prospects. This is important in coping up with the developing trends and issues in the market economy, and enhancing their adaptability to the changes prevalent in the markets. Technological advancement has taken labor and market economy at great heights of sophistication and complexity. The viability of technology in the workplace is dependent upon the employees’ acquired skills and abilities to integrate different technological skills in human resource management and enterprise productivity. The influences of technology in workplaces have either increased or expanded the scope of job opportunities or contributed to redundancy in various sectors of economy. Whichever is the case, employment relations covers the understanding and interpretation of any issue stemming from this concern. It further acknowledges the advent of technology which has led the replacement of traditional tasks with some other job opportunities created for employees with the desired skills to operate in such capacities. Information technology in the work place has contributed significantly in the changes on the communication and other management systems. The structural components of organizations are increasingly changing in the accommodation of the recent information technology in the organizational set up. Subsequently, there has been a reduction in supervisory activities and workplace leadership command. The most significant of this is an improved cooperation because of efficient communication, information sharing and human resource management strategies employed altogether. Performance of tasks outside the organizational confines has also been achieved. This explains why industrial relation was not sufficient to cover the effect of external performance of organizational internal tasks. High education levels have put a difference between the nature of the current workplace situations, and that, which existed prior to or after early 1980. The current employees in different workplaces boast of high education credentials as contrasted to the situations in early 1980. The management of this kind of employees requires a different approach from which was used in the 1980s. Their intellectual advancement has demanded a better way, different from what the industrial relations adopted, in the general management of human resource. The traditional workplace dimensions could not accommodate the advanced arrangements in terms of production. This is as a result of the distinctive nature of workforce described as core and peripheral. This has encouraged the contraction of external specialized services. Manufacturing companies for instance, have increasingly adopted the contracting of external services changing to become firms for assemblies and that certain organizations that deal in service provision adopting brokering roles of designing linkages between product or service suppliers and the customers. Employment relations as described in understanding the workplace issues has made it more relevant than industrial relations in taking care of technological advancement and the dynamics of economic conditions. Further, it has enabled the integration of part-time and temporary employees into the employment paradigms (Richard M.L, Thomas A.K, Michael J.P (1997). This has been possible due to the expansion of various sectors of economy that has led to the increasing demand of more labor power, but which continues to face shortage of qualified workforce. The intensive efforts made in training of employees and other untrained for purposes of solving qualified workforce shortage. The encouragement of training in multidisciplinary context has enhanced job flexibility and increased the chances of employability. This is also seen as efforts to eradicate job part timing due to enough spaces to accommodate qualified persons. Competition that has been encouraged because of globalization has continued to affect employment relations in that, work has become increasingly mobile. Employment opportunities, rate of investment and the general labor productivity have been greatly determined by the advancements of training and knowledge acquisition. In the analysis of employment relations in Australia, research has indicated that the majority of the Australian employees feel that they are overworked, have very slim job securities and that they feel stressed in their work (ACIRRT, 1999). However, the employment relations in Australia operate on the basis of three major attachments to the employees’ commitment to productivity. These involve; high level of employee performance, high levels of employee commitment and high employee involvement in the production process (David L. 2006). Innovation in the workplace to enhance production efficiency has been in the upfront consideration in Australia. There have been changes between enterprise and institutional levels. Issues pertaining to workplace relations have dominated the political and economic interactions with intensive debates in Australia. Micro and macro-economic reforms have been the point of contentions, as they have been determinants of economic growth (Kitay & Lansbury, 1997). A social contract was signed in 1983 between the Labor Party and the union movement, as a formal accord with the purpose of moderating wage demands on the part of the union movement while the government was responsible of stimulating socio-economic reforms (Richard M.L, Thomas A.K, Michael J.P (1997). As a result the employment relations systems and paradigms became decentralized. Non-union agreement as a measure of introducing a number of flexibilities in labor market was integrated in the workplaces in 1990. In 1996 after the conservative liberal party took power, its hard-line policies that brought intense relationships with the union movement, led to the introduction of unilateral approach by the employers, which avoided the essence of collaborating with the union movements. This led to the emergence of fragmented flexibilities in the labor market and its consequences in as far as the employment relations are concerned, was the self-centered individual prosperity as opposed to the collective organization for workplace reform. During the reign of Hawke Labor government, a commissioned review chaired by prof. Keith Hancock wrapped up the recommendations that centralized system should be retained giving large sections of its roles to AIRC (David L. 2006). Their main argument was that income policies stood better grounds of being implemented and enforced through the centralized wage determination. In 1986, a policy discussion paper was introduced. This paper states that the government would prioritize employee participation as a powerful tool to challenge economic problems. In 1988, a structural efficiency principle was introduced in the national wage case. Its mandate was to enhance parties to strike collective understanding more so in cases of broad based classification of work and the presentation of multi-skilling in a bid to expand market flexibility. It also aimed to reduce barriers of work demarcation and broadened the labor market while at the same time conserved the traditional institutions. Conclusion From the illustrations provided, it is then important to note that employment relations has a wide and broad dynamic in describing problems and changes commonly used in the workplace relations. Industrial relations on the other hand, described the most of the important actions of the labor management and the trade unionism. Fluctuations and developments made in the workplace have led to increased efficiency and labor productivity. References Blyton P., 2008. The dynamics of employee relations. Financial times/Prentice hall David L. (2006). Contemporary Issues in Employment Relations. LERA: USA Howard F.G, Gill P. (1993). British Industrial Relations. Routledge: London Mc Cartin., 1997. Labor’s Great Wall: the struggle for industrial democracy and the origins of modern American labor relations 1912-1921. University of North Carolina press. Perrins B., Osman C. & Napier B., 1996. Harvey on industrial relations and employment: New York. LexisNexis Butterworth. Price J., 1997. Japan works: Power and Paradox in postwar industrial relations. New York: Ithaca Richard M.L, Thomas A.K, Michael J.P (1997). Employment Relations in a Changing World economy. Compset Inc: USA. Slomp H., between bargaining and politics: an introduction to European labor relations. New York: Westport. Tony D. & Rollinson D., 2000. Employment relations in non-union firms. New York: London Warner M., 2000. Changing workplace Relations in the Chinese economy. England: Basingstoke Read More