Introduction to employee relations

Employee relations has given a new meaning for industrial relations to describe the relationship between employers and employees (CIPD, 2019). Industrial relations are covering only a small portion of the employment relationship spectrum when comparing to employee relations. Employee relations will mainly cover what’s happening between management, trade unions, and officials while enabling collective agreements. It will also address collective bargaining and conflict resolution between the parties. This wider definition of employee engagement also identifies the move away from collectivism to individualism, in the ways how the employees relate to their employers (Armstrong, 2014).

There are debates and differences of view as to the meaning of both terms, employee relations, and industrial relations. Some people argue that there are recognizable differences among them, that there are substantive differences that rationalize the use and maintenance of each term, that there are substantive differences that justify the use and maintenance of each term. Whereas others argue that the concepts and phenomena outlined are interchangeable in all intents and purposes (Leat, 2007). However, Blyton and Turnbull, (2004) explain a different argument on employee relations and industrial relations to say that there is no hard and fast distinction between the two and the only difference is that tendency for each to use based on subjects that focus on different boundaries. The context of employee relations changes over time giving different outcomes and behaviors but the purpose of employee relations is to set some rules, regulations, and agreements which will regulate (Gennard and Judge, 2005).

Armstrong (2014) further explains that employee relations are strongly connected with the employment relationship and the psychological contract. This may include various methods implemented by the employers to deal with their employees either in collective mode through trade unions or separate employees individually. Due to growing demands on helping line managers to create trust-based relationships with employees, employee relations had been identified to be focusing on both individual and collective relationships in an organization (CIPD, 2019). According to Gennard and Judge (2005), priority over individual or collective relationship is decided based on management’s view of what is best for the organization or its employee relations.  Good employee relationship on both individual and collective level is important for better business results, better health, and well-being of the employees (CIPD, 2019).

Farnham (1997) describes that employee relations will come into action anywhere when work is exchanged for some sort of payment between an employer and an employee in marketplaces. Hence the core of employee relations is either paid employment or the pay-work bargain between the two parties. It is mainly concerned with the interaction between the parties who are involved with the employment relationship. Mainly three parties are involved as primary, secondary and territory. The primary parties are the once who would pay for the work and offer work in the labor market recognized as employers and employees. Further, can identify the parties who act on behalf of the primary parties such as management or trade unions, and who are also doing the negotiation and regulation of employment contracts to be the secondary party.  The third-party will be the state agencies or institutions like the European Union (EU) who will be trying to facilitate the connection between employers and employees, and employers and unions. Their main role would be to ensure stable employee relations or to facilitate a “floor” of standards that everyone will need to follow in order to make sure no one should fall below. However, it is mainly the primary and secondary parties’ interaction that will result in good employee relations practices (Farnham, 1997).

Modern classification about the employee relations talk about both individual and collective workplace relationships but it always shows the increasing individualization of the employment relationship due to the increase of individual rights and decay of trade union and its effect on employees (CIPD, 2019). According to Blyton and Turnbull, (2004), around seven-out-of-ten of the UK employees were not attached to a trade union at the time. Organizations are currently more reliant on individual employees to achieve their targets, so employers have given more attention from collective to individual relationships (CIPD, 2019).

In the 1990s-2000s, human resource management (HRM) dominated the management of employment relations. For some people, this was part of a new, all-embracing approach to employment relations. For others, HRM drove a wedge through the subject matter of employment relations that required rebuttal, as HRM was viewed to undermine the value of the core unit of past employment relations, the trade unions (Frege and Kelly, 2013). Employment relations is the study of regulating the employment relationship between employer and employee, both collectively and individually, and deciding substantive and procedural problems at the industrial, organizational and workplace levels (Rose, 2004).

References

Armstrong, M. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan Page, p.403.

Blyton, P. and Turnbull, P. (2004). The dynamics of employee relations. 3rd ed. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.8-9.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 2019, 16 May 2019, London: Employee relations: an introduction [Online], Available at:https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/employees/factsheet#6053 [Accessed on 04 October 2019].

Farnham, D. (1997). Employee relations in context. 2nd ed. London: Institute of Personnel Management, pp.3-4.

Frege, C. and Kelly, J. (2013). Comparative Employment Relations in the Global Economy. 1st ed. London: Routledge, p. 1 of chapter 6.

Gennard, J. and Judge, G. (2005). Employee relations. 4th ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, p.11

Leat, M. (2007). Exploring employee relations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, p.4.

Rose, E. (2004). Employment relations. 2nd ed. London: Pearson Education, p.8.

Employees’ and employers’ expectations

As Armstrong (2014) notes, employees mainly expect a ‘fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ and they want a say in their terms and conditions of the employment plus how the work is organized for them. Other expectations included but not limited to employment security, good working environments, health and safety of the workplace and the possibility to raise and resolve conflicts (Armstrong, 2014). Gennard and Judge (2005) state that employees always lookout for the best available package of monetary and non-monetary conditions available in the market.

Accordingly, the monetary components include,

• Salary rates
• Hours of work
• Paid holidays
• Pension schemes
• Sick pay arrangements
• Incentive schemes
• Childcare facilities and flexible working arrangement opportunities

According to Gennard and Judge (2005), the non-monetary elements include items such as,

• The employment safety
• The ability to work in a friendly environment with good coworkers
• Possibility for career progression and promotions
• Opportunities to upgrade skills and gain new skills through training and development
• Being treated by the employers as a human being, not merely as a commodity
• The level of control over the job and job satisfaction in related to job design
• Employment policies that are family-friendly and allow work-life balance
• Fair and steady treatment by managers comparative to other employees
• Being able to make an influence on the day-to-day operations at the workplace and at policy level

As per my own experience over the past few years in interviewing people for various posts, people tend to ask questions about both monetary and non-monetary topics. However, I noted most of the junior people are more concerned about monetary questions, but more experienced people always check about the non-monetary aspects as well.

In terms of employers’ expectations, it’s basically the employers want employees to perform what they are being advised without costing too much for them. Also, employers usually define their own terms for how they want engagement and commitment to be with employees (Armstrong, 2014). For example, the company I work for is an Australian based IT company and we always issue clear instructions about what’s been expected from an employee in their appointment letters. Also, there are common guidelines and terms defined for everyone in the office which is accessible through our company intranet portal.

Further, Gennard and Judge (2005) explain employers expect their employees to provide below in return depending on their talent and nature of the job,

• Flexibility between their work tasks
• Minimum standards of capability in the task for which they are being hired (as expressed in qualifications, training received and employee’s experience)
• A willingness to change in terms of aptitude and adaptability
• Capability to work as a member in a team environment
• A capability to show inventiveness with work when needed
• Ability to give discretionary effort
• A provable commitment to the organization’s objectives

According to Mullich (2019), employers and employees are regularly on different pages when it comes to workplace expectations. Employees are much less overwhelmed by the efforts they put in while employers believe they are doing a good job managing that. For example, only about a third of workers in the United States give their employers high marks for career development (Mullich, 2019).

Mullich (2019), further explains that HR professionals can tighten employer-employee relationships by leaving a one-size-fits-all method used to manage talent, this approach could humanize the real work experience. For example, large multinational companies can adapt talent management based on the needs of their local/regional workforce. Also, they highlight the fact that they need to stress why employee’s work matters which will also help close the gap. One other important thing is keeping your hiring promises (Mullich, 2019). For instance, salary or rewards will concern the employees to a certain level where they will need to find better tools or resources to understand what’s been offered in the market. However, when it comes to attracting and retaining exciting talent, money won’t be the only factor because organizations also need to recognize the importance of work done by the employees as well as the relationship with direct managers (Mullich, 2019).

Xesha et al. (2014), described the factors affecting job satisfaction vary from day to day and from one employee to another, but include the following,

• The nature of the job (the activities involved, and the work creates excitement and challenge)
• The compensation levels
• The perceived equality of the company's promotional system
• Working conditions quality
• The style of management
• Workplace social relationships 

In addition to contributing to a general sense of personal well-being, job satisfaction is perceived to be associated with a positive attitude towards work and increased productivity (Xesha et al., 2014).In a country that makes up its culture, the powerful values and beliefs are also considerable influences on the expectations and behavior of both employees and management. Such assumptions influence the nature of the psychological contract and the employment relationship and some management strategies will be considered legitimate in this context while others are not (Leat, 2007).

Research report done on Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement by (SHRM, 2017) is listed below in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement

Source: (SHRM, 2017)

As per the research report, employees believe “respectful treatment of all employees at all levels” is 65% very important but compensation/pay is only 61% very important. 

References

Armstrong, M. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan Page, p.406.

Gennard, J. and Judge, G. (2005). Employee relations. 4th ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, pp.14-16.

Leat, M. (2007). Exploring employee relations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, pp.309-310.

Mullich, J. (2019). ADP BrandVoice: How To Close The Gap Between Employer And Employee Expectations. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adp/2018/03/27/how-to-close-the-gap-between-employer-and-employee-expectations/#6dec207f20cf [Accessed 02 October 2019].

Shrm.org. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Documents/2017-Employee-Job-Satisfaction-and-Engagement-Executive-Summary.pdf  [Accessed 02 October 2019].

Xesha, D., Iwu, C., Slabbert, A. and Nduna, J. (2014). The Impact of Employer-Employee Relationships on Business Growth. Journal of Economics, [online] 5(3), pp.315-316. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271849361_The_Impact_of_Employer-Employee_Relationships_on_Business_Growth [Accessed 3 Oct. 2019].

Employee relations policies and approaches

Employee relations policies describe what type of relationships between management and employees are needed and how the pay-work bargain should be managed based on the philosophy of the organization (Armstrong, 2010). Creating and maintaining a positive, productive, corporative and trusting climate of employee relations should be the main objective of employee relation policies (Armstrong, 2010).

The areas that can be covered according to Armstrong (2010) are,

• The employment relationship: the level to which terms and conditions of employment should be administered by using collective agreements or using individual contracts of employment. This can also be described as collectivism vs individualism.
• Trade union recognition: recognition or derecognition of trade unions, which are the preferred trade union or unions to the organization to deal with, and the decision on whether it's desirable to recognize one union for collective bargaining and/or employee representation.
• Collective bargaining: this describes the scope of areas to be covered under collective bargaining if unions are recognized with negotiating rights.
• Managing workplace conflict: explains how disputes are resolved and grievances should be settled.
• Participation and involvement: how much the organization is prepared to give the employee a voice on matters that concern them.
• Partnership: how much a partnership method is believed to be desirable.
• Synchronization of terms and conditions of employment for staff and other manual workers.
• Working arrangements: the level of right which management used to determine the working arrangements without reference to employees or trade unions if they are recognized.

The Unitary view:

Characteristically management holds the unitary view, they also see its purposes as that of directing and controlling the workforce to achieve economic and growth objectives. The main idea is that management finds it as a rule-making authority and they have a habit of seeing the enterprise as a unitary system with one source of authority. “Management’s right to manage” is sometimes how this expressed in arguments and this is basically falling under autocratic and authoritarian views (Armstrong, 2010).

Gennard and Judge (2002), describes that the unitary method understands organizations as harmonious and integrated in such a way that all employees share the organizational goals and work as a member of one team. A focus on mutual partnerships at work characterizes the unitary viewpoint. It rejects the assumption that there is a fundamental antagonism between employers and employees; conflict is largely caused by external agitators, trade unions, whose interference disrupts the harmonious state or otherwise existing relationships (Williams and Adam-Smith, 2010). As indicated by the lack of open conflict behavior, the unitarists are likely to see peace as proof of good employee relations. They are also likely to see the lack of alternative sources of employee loyalty inside the organization as proof of good control/prerogative management relationships, lack of alternative sources of employee loyalty within the company and efficient labor use as indicated by increased productivity and reduced unit costs (Leat, 2007).

The Pluralist View:

As described by Fox (1966), Industrial organization is considered as a plural society that is comprising many distinct but interconnected interests and objectives that must be maintained in some sort of a balance. In this view, management has to accept the presence of rival sources of leadership and attachment, in place of corporate unity, reflected in a single focus of authority and loyalty. This view certainly respects the workforce as being characterized by ‘an opposition that does not seek to govern’ (Armstrong, 2010).

Recognizing that different groups exist within an organization and that conflict can, and does, exist between employer and employees is the pluralist approach described by Gennard and Judge (2002).

From a pluralist viewpoint, the solution was not to resist the intervention of the unions as a way of reaffirming managerial authority, as the owners of unitary views, would argue; instead, better-negotiated ties between employers and unions should be promoted, given the advantages of establishing robust and efficient containment or institutionalization procedures, conflict through shared organizational control. Thus, until the 1980s, the pluralist perspective exerted a significant influence on both public policy and management attitudes towards employment relations, though not at the expense of the fundamental unitary convictions of the latter (Williams and Adam-Smith, 2010). As evidence of good employee relationships, the pluralist is likely to focus on the presence of active processes for conflict resolution. These mechanisms should be common, demonstrating the recognition and the willingness of management to resolve conflicts by shared decision making and compromise. It is also possible that employees with this perspective would point to the presence and recognition of successful trade unions as additional criteria to be fulfilled if workplace relationships are to be deemed good (Leat, 2007).

Below are the four approaches to employee relations according to Armstrong (2014),

1. Adversarial: In this approach, the organization makes the decision about what it really wants to do expect the employees to fit in. Employees can only exercise power by refusing to cooperate with those organization decisions.
2. Traditional: this is rationally a good everyday working relationship but still management makes the proposes. Workforce reacts through its selected elected representatives if there are any. If there are no elected representatives, they just accept the situation or walk.
3. Partnership: Employees get involved by the organization in both the drawing up and execution of policy phases in this method. However, the organization retains the right to manage.
4. Power Sharing: In this method, employees are involved in both everyday and strategic level decision-making processes.

The below chart describes how the organization's component parts are put together in terms of resources, processes people and their skills to form a strategic structure that will definitely provide the overall strategic direction.

Figure 2: Strategic employee relations management: an overview

(Gennard and Judge, 2005)

In Figure 2 above, they illustrate how employee relations strategies are developed – the business strategy drives the HRM strategy which drives employee relations strategies in turn, and the practices and policies that affect employment relationships are extracted from this process. Having reached this level of operational strategy, it is crucial that the various functions pay attention to how they organize themselves, not only to accomplish their goals but also to ensure synergy with the rest of the business (Gennard and Judge, 2005).

References

Armstrong, M. (2010). Armstrong's essential human resource management practice. 1st ed. London: Kogan Page, pp.297,298,299,309.

Armstrong, M. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan Page, p.406.

Gennard, J. and Judge, G. (2002). Employee relations. 3rd ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, p.208.

Gennard, J. and Judge, G. (2005). Employee relations. 4th ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, p.48.

Leat, M. (2007). Exploring employee relations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, p.23.

Williams, S. and Adam-Smith, D. (2010). Contemporary employment relations. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.12-14.

Nature of the psychological contract

Stephen and Timothy (2002) explain the psychological contract as an unwritten agreement that exists between employees and employers. This agreement will define the mutual expectations, what management expects from workers and what workers will expect from the management. Also, management is usually expected to treat employees justly, provide acceptable working conditions, clearly communicate what is a fair day’s work, and finally give feedback on how well an employee is doing. Whereas employees are expected to respond by demonstrating a good attitude, following directions and showing loyalty to the organization (Stephen and Timothy, 2002). 

The current 'psychological contract' concept attempts to capture the idea of employees' explicit and implicit expectations about what their work will deliver (Edwards, 2003).The analysis of this definition of a psychological contract often emphasizes the importance of principles in and in the relationship of employment Equity, justice, dignity, and confidence are among the values that are often argued to be fundamental to the effectiveness of the employment relationship and the accomplishment of the goals of the organizations (Leat, 2007).

According to Rousseau (1989), the psychological contract can be defined as relations between organizations and their members that derive from two forms of unwritten contracts. Further, these are individual beliefs in a reciprocal obligation between the individual and the organization. The definition 'psychological contract' discusses many areas such as subjective expectations, beliefs and obligations and finally as perceived by the employer and the worker. This is the core to understanding employment relationship and this concept first emerged in the early 1960s. The concept of psychological contract has been primarily studied from the viewpoint of the employee through the notion describes the expectations of both employers and individual workers (CIPD, 2019).

CIPD (2019) further explains the legal contract of employment offers only a limited representation of the employment relationship on its own, mainly because workers contributing little to its terms beyond accepting them. In this logic, the psychological contract may be more influential as it explains the insights of the relationship between employers and workers and it influences how people behave from day to day. Everyday actions and statements made by one party – and how they are perceived and interpreted by the other is the core of how psychological contract is built on. Unlike the legal contract of employment signed by employers and workers, the psychological contract is intangible by nature (CIPD, 2019).

Armstrong (2014) defines the psychological contract as the expectations that exist between individual employees and their employers which is a set of reciprocals but unwritten.

The psychological contract is more than just a transaction regulated by a legal contract, it emphasizes that the relationship between employers and workers are much more. Like in any relationship, the length, and quality of their relationship can be significantly affected since both parties have informal expectations of each other that are even unwritten (CIPD, 2019). From my experience working for many local and multinational companies, most of these unwritten promises were fulfilled unless there is an organizational change that’s limiting the ability to do so.

Irrespective of the expectations of an individual worker, employers should be transparent about what they offer, and consult with the current and future workforce on the employee value proposition in order to manage the psychological contract effectively. Also, in order to understand and adjust the perceived balance of what employees contribute and what they get back, they should also strengthen the capability of line managers (CIPD, 2019).

Below are some general aspects that psychological contract may cover the employment relationship:

• Job security
• Career prospects
• Training and development
• Perceived fairness of pay and benefits
• Manager support
• Employer’s reputation and the impact on society

(CIPD, 2019)

Psychological contract provides a powerful foundation for the employers to pay attention to the ’human’ side of the employment relationship, such as individuals’ values, motivations, and ambitions. However, this varies across time and individuals. For example, job security is not something everyone desires these days and it is rarely the main offer of the modern employment relationship. But the availability of training and development like opportunities might be more attractive (CIPD, 2019). This is proven to be a fact-based on our company data gathered during initial job interviews because people these days are more keen to know about their career progression opportunities available and other training provided rather than asking about job security related questions.

As per Rousseau (1989), typically the development, maintenance, and violation of psychological and implied contracts are described along with their organizational implications. So, what would happen if management is derelict in keeping its part of the bargain is that it will then have negative effects on employee performance and satisfaction. According to a study done on restaurant managers, they have found that psychological contract violations were related to greater intentions to quit the job, another study conducted on a variety of different industries found they were associated with lower levels of productivity, higher levels of theft, and greater work withdrawal (Stephen and Timothy, 2002). One good example I can bring in from the organization I work for is that people who initially joined the company when its first launched in Sri Lanka, expected promotions or growth within a shorter time period and employers initially acknowledged but couldn’t cope up with that later mainly due to lack of results and growth of the company. Eventually, these employees left the company mainly due to this reason of the violation of the psychological contract.

References

Armstrong, M. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan Page, p.210.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 2019, 12^th February 2019, London: The Psychological Contract [Online], Available https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/employees/psychological-factsheet#6110 [Accessed 13 September 2019].

Edwards, P. (2003). Industrial relations. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, p.15.

Leat, M. (2007). Exploring employee relations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, p.9.

Rousseau, D. (1989). Psychological and implied contracts in organizations. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, [online] 2(2), pp.121-139. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226857215_Psychological_and_Implied_Contracts_in_Organisations [Accessed 12 September 2019].

Stephen, P. and Timothy, A. (2013). Organizational Behavior. 15th ed. Boston: Pearson, p.278.

Employee relations methods

Trade Union recognition

According to Kelly (2002), a trade union is an external organization with respect to a business enterprise. Further, it’s a separate social system which isn’t part of its organizational social system, however the membership of the two can overlap. Farnham (1997) further explains that trade union strategy should point the ways in which unions adapt their policies and objectives and in response to changing economic and social factors, employer initiatives and the framework of public policy within which employers and unions operate, they should adjust their means and methods.

They may participate in the making of internal rules either separately or jointly with management as spokesmen of workgroups in the enterprise. Also, they have a responsibility for enforcing its rules or the agreement that it has entered into with employers as representatives of their union (Kelly, 2002). Two main reasons why unions can fail to attract members are either because they don’t deliver the goods and services that workers expect, or they are unable to uphold the norm or social custom, which, in the absence of coercion, assures that a sufficient number of workers share in the cost of producing these goods and services (Visser, 2002). As per my own working experience, I have only been included once in a trade union out of six places I have worked so far and most of these new companies don’t have a trade union recognition as they are more focused on individual needs. 

Below chart is taken from the annual report done by Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy of UK Government on trade union statistics in the year 2019,

Figure 3: Trade union density by sector, 1995 to 2018

(GOV.UK, 2019)

According to this chart, there is a clear decline of trade union membership over the years in both the private and public sectors.    

                             

Collective bargaining

Collective bargaining will regulate the industrial relations system, as explained by Flanders (1970) as a social process that ‘continually turns disagreements into agreements in an orderly fashion’.Trade unions had steady growth through the first part of the twentieth century along with employer recognition of trade unions and public policy support for collective bargaining. Donovan Commission (1968:50) had a conclusion that ‘collective bargaining is the best method of conducting industrial relations’. Further, it is noted that multi-employer, industry-wide bargaining was not capable of imposing its decisions on the participants. Therefore, they recommended taking the initiative and responsibility for reforming collective bargain at company and plant levels by that management (Farnham,1997). My own experience is those collective bargaining methods are far more suitable for both employers and employees to come to certain agreements and works well being able to achieve expected results. Collective bargaining, and particularly multi-employer bargaining persisted throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in an almost inexorable decline. Further, according to WERS98, multi-employer bar-gaining influenced the wages of some or all workers in 34% of recognized trade union workplaces in 1998, compared to 68% in 1980 and 60% in 1990 (Rose, 2004).

Ultimately, HRM has been viewed as an open anti-union management strategy or as increasing the satisfaction of workers to reduce their need for unions. Besides, its beneficial effects on organizational performance should ensure that wage increases and other non-pecuniary gains are received by workers (Frege and Kelly, 2013). The employment relationship is concerned in part with groups of employees represented by trade unions. Therefore, the character of this representation is collective. Further, Employees who are collectively represented by trade unions may have greater power to influence decisions, such as pay levels and working conditions, than employees who are not members of trade unions (Rose, 2004).

References

Farnham, D. (1997). Employee relations in context. 2nd ed. London: Institute of Personnel Management, pp.33,287.

Flanders, A. (1970). Management and unions. London: Faber.

Frege, C. and Kelly, J. (2013). Comparative Employment Relations in the Global Economy. 1st ed. London: Routledge, p. 1 of chapter 6.

GOV.UK. (2019). Trade union statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/trade-union-statistics [Accessed 10 Sep. 2019].

Kelly, J. (2002). Industrial relations. 1st ed. London: Routledge, p.46.

Rose, E. (2004). Employment relations. 2nd ed. London: Pearson Education, pp.4-667.

Visser, J. (2002). Why Fewer Workers Join Unions in Europe: A Social Custom Explanation of Membership Trends. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 40(3), pp.403-430.

Current developments in employee relations - Discussion Videos

Video 01: Current developments in employee relations

(Source : Ellis and Taylor, 2017)

In this video, CIPD Chief Examiner Stephen Taylor talks Employee Relations with Cecillia Ellis the Senior Human Resource Management Lecturer from Manchester Metropolitan University. They discuss the 3 most important current developments in employee relations. The first one they identify as employee voice. They have identified this as one of the key drivers in employee relations. As the second point, they are highlighting the area of conflict. Here they talk about both collective and individual conflicts and how they can affect. The third key area they talk about is around trust. They talk about the implications that could occur around attitude and behavior changes on employees and organizations. One of the challenges they highlight would be for organizations is to regain trust.

Video 02: Employment Relations in the USA: Current Trends

(Source : Bamber and Colvin, 2018)

In this video, Professor Greg Bamber and Professor Alex Colvin here talks about the latest trends in employee relations in the USA. They talk about the decline of the labor movement in America and its current influence. Also, they talk about how other countries try to revitalize the labor movement. They highlight the fact that the rise of individual rights in United States and its impact in these modern days. Interesting thoughts shared about the new development of radical movements in USA market. Finally, they do a comparison with USA and other countries about what’s happening in terms of employee relations which is quite interesting. 

Reference

Ellis, C. and Taylor, S. (2017). CIPD - Current developments in employee relations | Cecillia Ellis & Stephen Taylor. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGWIqDglqvE [Accessed 02 September 2019].

Bamber, G. and Colvin, A. (2018). Employment Relations in the USA: Current Trends. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvlz_MfGBRU [Accessed 01 September 2019].

Modern situation of employee relations

The role of industrial relations and their significance in the political, economic and cultural framework has not been questioned throughout most of the 20th century. But, factors such as enhanced globalization, technological progress, decreases in trade union size and the decentralization of collective bargaining, however, began to have a major effect on the structures of industrial relations from the 1980s onward (Caprile et al., 2017). Deogaonkar (2013) explains that the trend in staff relations also led to standardized processes and mechanization of the job duties being done by the staff with the growing development in technological trends in Industry. This has improved the quality of the job and also enhanced efficiency at the organizational level.

In the latest years, changes in some EU Member States have accelerated some of these long-term trends as a result of the economic and financial crisis, resulting in fresh developments: declining collective bargaining coverage; de-standardizing employment relationships; reducing the size of the workforce in the public sector; and changes in welfare schemes in many nations (Caprile et al., 2017). Deogaonkar (2013) describes the recent developments in technology that have enhanced analyzability, fast exchange of data. Accordingly, employees are becoming more system-oriented and the scope for the growth of individual staff levels is also increasing. According to Ravi (2011) in his article explains that in contrast, the multiplicity of trade unions and trade union rivalry in Sri Lanka resulted in opposing labour relations. Although there have been some changes over the past two decades in labour relations between employers and trade unions, these developments have been confined to individual workplaces. Further, nothing significant has been achieved at the macro level that has modified the structure of labour relations to fit business requirements.

A mixture of technology and strategy has an effect on the relationship between employees. So, the main drawback of the evolving technological development is that employees may have very little scope of personal interaction on official issues (Deogaonkar, 2013). Evolving technologies have a profound effect on employee relations and the effect is both positive and negative. Employee relationships become clearer and more system dependent on sophisticated software systems applications. The disadvantages of technological development also affect employee relationships and can be regulated by regularly involving staff in the cross-functional communication forum and evaluating employee satisfaction. The Human Resource segment has a significant part to play in handling the effect of technology on employee relationships (Deogaonkar, 2013).

Developing the skills of employees’ in dispute resolution, participatory leadership and other soft skills generate a better environment for employee participation. Training also plays a significant role in assisting employees with the greatest possible use of collective bargaining systems involving the trade union. The trade union and the Employees' councils can coexist friendly where the management deals with both without undermining either and on an equal footing (Ranaraja, 2019). The early growth of industrial relations was linked to trade union growth itself and trade unions are largely a result of the system of factories that developed during the industrial revolution. Also, trade union development in the UK was slowed by the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, and most trade union actions were illegal until these Acts were replaced with the Combination Laws in 1825 (Rose, 2004). The volatile modern business environment has had a major impact on the traditional connection between employee and employer. The psychological contract is being redefined, and this change from the' old' to a new type of partnership is a major challenge for organizations and those involved in handling the organizational workforce (Akinyemi, 2009). The company I work for is more keen on satisfying individual needs rather than collective bargaining and this has worked well for them in the recent past.

References

Akinyemi, B. (2009). Managing the New Psychological Contract. Information Science Reference, [online] 2, p.645. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325060099 [Accessed 25 August 2019].

Caprile, M., Sanz, P., Riobóo, I., Welz, C. and Rodriguez, R. (2017). Mapping varieties of industrial relations. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, pp.2,5.

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