Chapter 7: Employer-Employee Relationship
7.1 What is Employee Relations?
• Human beings need smooth relationship, they are nonliving objects.Thus,
maintaining good relationship is important to the orgn and emoloyees.
• An employee relation is the interactions between the employer
(represented by management) and the work-force (represented by trade
unions).
• This is the mgt should support employees to be satisfied with job and
employees have to be committed to the success of the orgn.
• In general emmployee relation is related to:
Maintaining good relationship with trade unions
Sharing information with employees & participate in decision making
affecting them.
Creating and transmiting valuable information to employees.
bargain with management about pay, working hours, conditions of
employment and to make a joint decisions with management on
matters affecting their members' well being. Objectives
• The objectives include:
Create trust, respect, and Cooperation among employees & Mgt.
Provide a suitable work environment
Help Mgt to solve employee problems mutally
It is also important to employees
Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining
Trade Unions
• is an organization of workers, maintain interest of members.
• Trade unions make collective voice to make known their wishes to the Mgt.
• They bargain with management about pay, working hours, conditions of
employment and to make a joint decisions with management on matters
affecting their members' well being.
Employer-Employee..Con'd
• In general trade unions have the ff objectives.
Improve economic status and thereby improve living standard of members
To create individual security against fluctuations such as market, technologies,
and Mgt decisions.
To protect members agaist arbitrary & capricious policies.
Collective Bargaining
• It is is basic to labour- management relations
• It is contractual agreement where trade union and Mgt negotiate to establish pay
and conditions of employment. This reduces conflict and help employees and Mgt
to make attention towards achieving orgnal objectives.
• To have effective collective bargaining:
Employees must prpare to act collectively, identify common interest
Mgt should reconize trade unions, free to organize, and should be state or
employer interference.
Employer-Employee..Con'd
• Collective bargaining is a means to reach negotiable agreements, and has two outcomes.
1. Substantive agreements: these are agreements on pay, working hours, holidays, overtime regulations,
flexibility arrangements, and allowance.
2. Procedural agreements: agreed on equal opportunities, recruitment, redundancy, & discipline.
• Bargaining is carried out via negotiation, distributive and integrative approaches are available.
Distributive bargaining: parties negotiate to take limited resource at the expense of the other.
Integrative bargaining: seeks mutual gains,
Stage of Negotiation
A. Preparation:
Set objectives
The basic minimum requirement that must be achieved, -
The desirable requirements that the negotiator would like to achieve,
The optimum requirement or best level of achievement;
B. Negotiation
Exchange information; - Listen to the other party's position; - Signal likely compromise points - Propose
ways forward.
C. Closing
Summarize positions; - Propose a final offer, which meets the needs of both parties; - Reach agreement.
Employer-Employee..Con'd
• If there are disputes can be solved using conciliation, mediation or arbitration.
Employee Relations Practices
• Communication: It involves the sharing of ideas, plans and targets, it is crucial to
communicate all the necessary information that affect employee's interests.
• Managers have various roles:
Interpersonal roles: act as a figurehead and leader, & interacting with subordinates, customers,
suppliers, and peers
Informational roles: seek information from peers, subordinates about anything that may
affect their job and responsibilities.
Decisional roles: implement new projects, handle disturbances, and allocate resources to their
unit's members and departments.
Counseling Service
• is a discussion of a problem with an employee, Family troubles, stress, financial and other
personal problems are likely to affect employee's performance.
Discipline;
• rules and regulations must be communicated to all employees
• Two ways to handle disciplinary cases:
A. Preventive discipline: encourage self-discipline
B. Corrective discipline: follows a rule infraction
five steps discipline employees:
1. Informal talk or counseling
2. Oral reprimand or warning
3. Written reprimand or warning
4. Suspension or disciplinary layoff (1-30 days)
5. Discharge: It is drastic & separates the employee from the job.
Employee Participation
• Management approach should be participative and aim:
Generate commitment of all employees to the success of the organization -
Enable the organization better to meet the needs of its customers -
Help the organization to improve performance and productivity -
Improve the satisfaction employees get from their work -
Provide all employees with the opportunity to influence and be decisions,
7.2 Employee Safety and Health
Physical Injury Prevention Checklist
Train employees regularly
use of personal protective equipment and clothing provided
Make sure worksites are clean and orderly, walking surfaces properly repaired
Conduct regular inspections of your workplace
Have an easily accessible first aid kit etc.
Psychological Injury Prevention Checklist
Express genuine empathy and concern for the health of your employees.
Hold regularly scheduled meetings with each employee
Understand your employees' behaviors well enough to notice changes.
Communicate to your staff when new policies affect the employees
Ask for ideas from your staff and make sure they know their input will be received
openly
Encourage employees to talk about workplace problems
7.3 Grievance and Grievance Handling
• Dissatisfaction: anything that disturbs an employee
• Complaint: a spoken or written dissatisfaction brought to the attention of the
supervisor
• Grievance: a complaint which has been formally presented to a management
representative or union
• A grievance is a formal dispute between an employee and management on the
conditions of employment
• Features of grievance:
Discontent or dissatisfaction with any aspect of the organization.
The dissatisfaction must arise out of employment and not due to personal or family
problems
The discontent can arise out of real or imaginary reasons
The discontent may be voiced or unvoiced. But it must find expression in some form
A grievance is traceable to perceived non-fulfillment of one’s expectations from the
organization.
Cont'd...
Forms of Grievances
• Factual: legitimate needs of employees remain unfulfilled
• Imaginary: dissatisfaction is not because of any valid reason
• Disguised: dissatisfaction for reasons that are unknown to him/her
Causes of Grievances
Economic: wage fixation, overtime, bonus, wage revision
Work environment: poor physical conditions of work place, tight production
norms
Supervision: bias, favoritism, nepotism, caste affiliations, regional feelings,
Work group: unable to adjust with his/her colleagues, suffers from feelings
of neglect, victimization
Miscellaneous: promotions, safety methods, transfer, disciplinary rules,
granting leave, medical facilities, etc
The Discovery of Grievances
• Gossip and grapevine offer vital clues about employee grievances. Various ways to discover:
• Observation
• Grievance procedure
• Gripe box
• Open-door policy
• Exit interview
• Opinion survey
Grievance Handling Procedure
• objectives
To enable the employee to air his/her grievance.
To clarify the nature of the grievance.
To investigate the reasons for dissatisfaction.
To obtain, where possible, a speedy resolution to the problem.
To take appropriate actions and ensure that promises are kept.
Benefits of grievance handling procedure
• It encourages employees to raise concerns without fear of reprisal.
• It provides a fair and speedy means of dealing with complaints.
• It prevents minor disagreements developing into more serious disputes.
• It saves employers time and money as solutions are found for workplace problems.
• It helps to build an organizational climate based on openness and trust.
Processing of Grievance: Four stages
The level at which grievance occurs: resolve it at the level at which it occurs is
the best.
Intermediate stage: if not solved at supervisor’s level, referred to the head of the
concerned department
Organization level: refered to top Mgt
Third party mediation: solve either via conciliation, arbitration or adjudication
