Cooperative and partnership aspects of employment relations
Introduction
Employee or employee relationship is concerned with the maintenance of employment relationship and managing employees. The same involves handling pay work bargain, dealing with the practices of employees and communicating with the employees.
It comprises of the approaches and the methods taken to deal with employees who are collectively or individually facing a conflicting situation. The term employee relations include industrial relations that are about relationships between management and trade unions and other collective agreements and disputes and dealing with the same (Johnstone and Wilkinson 2016). The aim of the paper is to discuss the aspects that encourage employment relations in a positive manner.
Employee relations basis
Employee relationship includes the pay and work bargain or the agreement that is made between the employers and the employer in which the employee takes care of the work done by the employee. Most importantly, employers simply want their employees to do what they are told to do without incurring too much cost. They expect both commitment and engagement. In comparison, employees want a say in how much they are being awarded in it and the terms, conditions of employment especially in the way in which they work. They expect proper working conditions and security of their employment. Conflicts of interests often take place between the employer and the employee on the issues and the conflicts are resolved only with the help and use of employee relations process (Valizade et al. 2016).
Elements of employee relations:
The following are the important elements of employee relations:
- The formal and the informal practices of employment within the organization
- The application, negotiation, and development of the procedures of collective bargaining, managing disputes and forming employment is an important element of employment relations.
- Policies and procedures for communication and voice of the employee
- The informal and the formal process that takes shape of a long-lasting interaction between the managers and the team leaders on one hand and the employees, on the other hand, shall help in building a positive relationship between the working groups.
The HRM model of employee relations:
The philosophy of human resource management has been translated into the following model of employee relations:
- Drive for commitment: This means winning the hearts of the employees so that they can identify with the organization and exert themselves more and remain with the organization for a longer period of time.
- Mutuality: This includes spreading the message that we all are in this together and that the interests of the management and employees should not coincide with each other
- The organization should promote other forms of communication such as traditional collective bargaining, briefings and other employees who directly reach the groups or people instead of simply sending their representatives.
- A paradigm shift from collective bargaining to contracts at an individual level
- The use of employee involvement techniques such as improvement groups
- Continuous pressure on quality and total quality management
- Increased flexibility in working arrangements such as multi-skilling and to provide more effective use of human resources in work processes
- Emphasis on teamwork
- Harmonization of all the employees and terms and conditions of the employment contract
Most importantly, employers simply want their employees to do what they are told to do without incurring too much cost. They expect both commitment and engagement. In comparison, employees want a say in how much they are being awarded in it and the terms, conditions of employment especially in the way in which they work. They expect proper working conditions and security of their employment. Conflicts of interests often take place between the employer and the employee on the issues and the conflicts are resolved only with the help and use of employee relations process (Williams 2016).
Conclusion:
The members of HR provide advice and help however, they cannot do the jobs of line managers for them. Nonetheless, they may be the main channel with which the management deals with their representatives. They are many times responsible for maintaining their involvement process in employee communication management. They should play a major role in forming employee relation policies. The governments, trade unions and other employee representatives are considered as parties to the employee relation dispute and management. They play an important role in forming a positive change within the organization and building positive relations with the employees. The organization also becomes successful with the growth of positive relations between both the parties.
References:
Behrens, M. and Helfen, M., 2016. The foundations of social partnership. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 54(2), pp.334-357.
Johnstone, S. and Wilkinson, A., 2016. Developing Positive Employment Relations: International Experiences of Labour–Management Partnership. In Developing Positive Employment Relations (pp. 3-24). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Kaufman, B.E., Beaumont, R.A. and Helfgott, R.B., 2016. Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc.: Its history and significance. In Industrial relations to human resources and beyond: The evolving process of employee relations management (pp. 43-124). Routledge.
Valizade, D., Ogbonnaya, C., Tregaskis, O. and Forde, C., 2016. A mutual gains perspective on workplace partnership: Employee outcomes and the mediating role of the employment relations climate. Human Resource Management Journal, 26(3), pp.351-368.
Williams, R.C., 2016. The cooperative movement: Globalization from below. Routledge.