Introduction
 Human resource ?
 Employee relations a term that relatively
recent years become commonly used to
indicate a particular area of subject matter
DNK@FBM 1

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What is employee relations /
industrial relations?
?
Arguments!

Blyton and Turnbull [1994]
Why they have chosen to use the term employee as
opposed to industrial
Industrial relations Employee relations
•Became associated with trade unions,
collective bargaining and industrial
action
•Encompass the dominant service
sector which in many countries
employs more than 70% of the
workforce such as more women
working and more part-time,
temporary and fixed term contracts
•Had too strong a tendency to view
the world of work as synonymous with
the heavy extractive and
manufacturing sectors of employment,
sectors which were dominated by
male manual workers working full time
•Include non-union as well as union
scenarios and relationships
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Marchington and Wilkinson [1996]
Discuss this differences and suggest term
employee relations has emerge for 3 reasons:
– Usage, fashion and slippage
– It is increasingly used by personnel practitioners to
describe that part of personnel and development
concerned with the regulations [collective and
individual] between employer and employee
– There are actual and real differences of focus, with
employee relations tending to focus upon
management and issues alone
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Definition
 Employee Relations involves the body of work concerned
with maintaining employer-employee relationships that
contribute to satisfactory productivity, motivation, and
morale. Essentially, Employee Relations is concerned
with preventing and resolving problems involving
individuals which arise out of or affect work situations.
 Employee relations consist of all those areas of human
resource management that involve relationships with
employees-directly or through collective agreements
where trade unions are recognised
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Concepts of employee relations
 Relationship will be concerned with the
agreement of terms and conditions of
employment and with issues arising from
employment.
 Employee relations practices include
formal processes, procedures and
channels of communication
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The HRM approaches to employee
relations
 A drive for commitment
 An emphasis on mutuality
 The organisation of complementary forms of communication, such
as team briefing, alongside traditional collective bargaining
 A shift from collective bargaining to individual contracts
 The use of employee involvement techniques such as quality circles
or improvements groups
 Continuous pressure on quality-TQM
 Increased flexibility in working arrangements
 Emphasis on teamwork's
 Harmonisation of terms and conditions for all employees
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Elements of employee relations
 The formal and informal employment policies and practices of the
organisation
 The development, negotiation and application of formal systems,
rules and procedures for collective bargaining, handling disputes
and regulating employment
 Policies and practices for employee involvement and
communications
 The philosophies and policies of the major players in the industrial
relations scene: the government of the day, management and
through trade unions
 The legal framework
 The number of institutions such as the Advisory, arbitration service
and the employment tribunals
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Advantages of maintaining good
employee relations
 Reduced absenteeism
 Improved morale and motivation
 Harmony in organization
 Attract good talent
 Lesser attrition-reduced cost on training, less
cost of retention
 Responsible for increase in productivity
 Open to organizational changes
 Shared learning and continues improvement
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Significance of good employee
relations
 Employee attitudes and commitment are
strongly associated with orgn performance
 And managers see employee voice as
contributing to performance via better employee
contributions and productivity gains
 The informal climate of involvement and
consultation appears to be more strongly
associated with employee satisfaction and
commitment .

DNK@FBM 11
cont
 Mechanisms use for employee voice ---2
way communication, project teams and
joint consultation
 The major constraints on employee voice
are lack of skills and enthusiasm by mgrs
and employees
 The psychological contract ---employees
trust , fairly treated etc…

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How is employee relations
organised?
?

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What do people with employee
relations responsibilities need to know?
 Understanding collective labor law
 Knowing how representative structures
work
 Awareness of general employment law
 Facilitation and communication skills
 Negotiation skills
 Understanding how to develop trust and
respect

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cont
 Personal qualities- objectivity, robustness,
confidence to tell senior people what they
think
 Awareness of employee attitudes
 Business knowledge

Management relationship to
employee relations
Organizations are collective bodies of
individuals engaged in a common purpose
through individual and group efforts.
Channelizing human energies in a
predetermined desirable direction is not
possible unless harmonious relations are
maintained among organizational members.

Management relationship to
employee relations …Contd.
Relationship among employees provides the
context in which organizational roles
assigned to members are performed, team
spirit inculcated, expectations clarified,
conflicts resolved and shared norms of
behaviour developed.

Management relationship to employee
relations …Contd.
Maintenance of harmonious relationship
among employees across the vertical and
horizontal levels of the organization is thus a
necessary condition for enabling
organizations to move towards excellence.
Despite the significance of healthy employee
relations, there are occasions in the life of
every organization when relationships are
strained, particularly between the
management and the individual employee.

Management relationship to
employee relations …Contd.
The management has certain expectations
of the employees in terms of standards of
behaviour and performance, code of
conduct, desirable actions and behaviour
which are made known to the employees
through formal or informal, written or verbal
means.
Failure to meet these expectations or
deviations from the laid down norms of
behaviour on the part of the employees
leads to the problem of indiscipline.

Management relationship to
employee relations …Contd.
In such situations, the management must
initiate action to ensure that an employee’s
behaviour is in conformity with their
expectations.
Likewise, the employees also have certain
expectations of the management in terms of
their conditions of service, working
environment, satisfaction of their variety of
needs, freedom of expression and operation
and equitable, just and fair treatment which
are often made known to the management
through various means of upward
communication.

Management relationship to
employee relations …Contd.
In such situations, the management must initiate
action to ensure that an employee’s behaviour is in
conformity with their expectations.
Likewise, the employees also have certain
expectations of the management in terms of their
conditions of service, working environment,
satisfaction of their variety of needs, freedom of
expression and operation and equitable, just and
fair treatment which are often made known to the
management through various means of upward
communication.

Management relationship to
employee relations …Contd.
Failure on the part of the management to meet
those expectations leads to what is called
employee grievance.
Thus both the problems of discipline and of
employee grievance are two sides of the same
coin. They result from the mismatch of the
expectations of the management and the
employees and failure of one group to meet the
expectations of the other. If the problems relating
to discipline and employee grievance are not
properly managed, the relationship is strained and
harmony disturbed.

Management relationship to employee
relations …Contd.
The strained relationship affects adversely the
productivity, efficiency and effectiveness of the
total organization.
Yet another set of factors leading to strained
relationship is the stress that employees
experience in carrying out their day-to-day affairs.
Failure to meet one’s own expectations in terms of
career goal, achievement and challenge, life goals,
and self-esteem may lead to stress among the
individuals.

Management relationship to employee
relations …Contd.
The stress can be caused by several factors some
of which are extra organizational in nature while
others arise from organizational policies and
structures, work pressures, group pressures,
quality of interpersonal relationship and nature of
job. Stress leads to anxiety and tension which in
turn affects relationship among employees.
Productive capacities of individuals under stress
and their ability to establish meaningful
relationship with others are considerably reduced.

Management relationship to employee
relations …Contd.
The problems relating to discipline, grievance and
stress are of continuing nature in the life of any
organization. Moreover, being basically human
problems, they are complex in nature in that they
cannot easily be predicted and controlled by
conventional managerial actions or by legal-judicial
process. What is required is a new set of skills-
counselling skills-the use of which can go a long
way in resolving those issues on a continuing
basis. Counselling then becomes an important
managerial and personnel function.

Your Task
 Group Presentation
– 1. Employee relations impact on business performance
[Aslinda & Zuhair]
– 2. Is employee relations in practice more reactive or proactive?
[Nik & Wan]
– 3. Employee relations practitioner is an employee champion
[Arlina & Adi]
– 4. The role of social values in employee relations – the concept
of fairness
[Nurliyana, Syezreen & Fauziah]
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