MGT 674 Employee Relations Management

1
MGT 674 Employee Relations Management
Ajaya Mishra
2
About Faculty

• Professional Experiences
• 5 years in banking (MBL and Prudential)
• 6 years in media (NTV and ATV)
• 5 years in INGOs (UNDP/PLAN International)
• 5 Years in Government (MOE / CTEVT)
• Academics
• M. Phil. in Management (Leadership)
• MBA (E) in Human Resource Management
• Leadership Program (ISB, Hyderabad)
• International Board and Management Program

3

• Research and Publications
• M. Phil. Thesis on Understanding of Leadership
  and Factors Associate with Leadership Success,
  Nepalese Perspective.
• Research paper presented in South Asian
  Management Forum on Leadership Styles and
  Employees Commitment to Organizational Change on
  Organizational Performance A Study in a Nepali
  Technology Based Organization.
• Training Manual for Institutionalisation of
  Project Activities, Cooperative Management, Micro
  Credit and Enterprise Development.
• Research Papers on Media industry, human resource
  development practices in public service
  organizations, etc.

4
Employee Relations
Overview
5
What is Employee Relations?

• Employee relations refers to the
  interrelationships, both formal and informal
  between managers and those whom they manage.
• How are we managed? how we would like to be
  managed? how and why conflicts arise? and how
  these can be resolved at work? These are the
  basic concern of employee relations.

6
Traditional and newer concerns

• Traditional focus on actors like managers,
  employees, government, unions.
• Until recently looked at person, unions,
  manufacturing, manual work.
• Today, increasing interest in new actors
  customers, families, other interest groups - and
  in service sector, women and complexity of
  employment arrangements.
• Widening focus has broadened scope of employee
  relations concerns

7
Why are Employee Relations worth studying?

• For many people work is central in terms of time,
  money, identity, status, social relations
• Most of us experience work as employees we have
  an employment relationship between ourselves
  and those who employ us, and an employment status
• However many different interests at work
  (stakeholders) owners, shareholders,
  managers, employees, customers all exert
  pressure on employment relationship

8

• For employers the labour question a central
  one
• Need labour to produce output
• Need to ensure labour does what employers want
• Need for control of labour costs and activities
  - and need for welfare
• Tension control v commitment

9
The Employment Relationship

• It follows that the employment relationship is
  a central feature of work but it is dynamic.
• It is also complex has many dimensions and
  levels economic, legal, social, psychological
  and political
• Shaped by historical experiences
• Employment relationship now seen as core to the
  study of employee relations
• Many employment relationships, many employee
  relations

10
The Employment Relationship
Parties to Relationship

• Substance
• Individual reward, job, career
• Collective joint agreements

• Operation
• Level
• Process
• Style

Employment Relationship

• Structure
• Formal rules
• Informal understandings

Source Kessler and Undy 1997
11
The Course and Evaluation

• 12 Sessions direct contact on Tuesday.
• Focus on case study analysis and presentation,
  Group discussion and Group work.
• Evaluation Criteria
• Class Participation and Attendance 10
• Case Analysis and Presentation 15
• Group Work (Brief Research work) 20
• Mid Term Exam 15
• Final Exam 40
• Case analysis, group work and assignments should
  be submitted on time.
• Absent during case presentation will be graded
  F in internal evaluation.

12
Article Critiquing Framework

• Issues the author is trying to address
• The Significance of the study or issue
• Basic Assumptions
• Theoretical Framework / Concepts
• Methodology used
• Contribution of the study
• Practical and managerial implication of study
• Conclusion of the study

13
Group Work

• Method Qualitative
• Framework
• Understanding of Employee relations practices
• Importance given to employee relations
• Strategies adopted
• Existence of union and their role
• Collecting bargaining and grievances handling
  practices.
• Employees perspective Vs Organizational
  perspective
• Impact on Organizational performance and employee
  satisfaction
• Others specific, if any.

14
Employee Relations
15
Employee Relations Content, History, Analysis

• Industrial Relations, Employee Relations and
  Employment Relations
• IR traditionally concerned with the institutions
  of job regulation (Flanders and Clegg 1954) and
  the generation of employment rules
• Led to a focus on trade unions and collective
  bargaining CB pivot of industrial relations
• High point of traditional IR in Britain 1970s
  collectivist, concern with reform of collective
  bargaining 55 of the workforce were trade
  union members, 75 covered by collective
  agreements

16
Historical Perspectives

• Event-driven
• Government change
• Technological change
• Demographic change
• Management change
• Changes in ownership and organisation
• Unique events and conditions - linear

• Structure-driven
• Economic trends
• Political trends
• Changes to social institutions
• Regular, patterned, repetitive - circular

17
Historical Perspectives

• In practice history reveals patterns of both
  change and continuity
• Change may be abrupt but may still be affected by
  path-dependency
• Short-term and long-term change
• Significance in employee relations for how
  history is experienced, how it shapes the present
  often casts a long shadow
• History in culture stories, rituals, rules
• Employee relations today the outcome of past
  struggles defeats, victories
• Importance of history in custom practice

18
Traditional Concerns of IR

• Theoretical origins of industrial
  relations/employee relations focused on order and
  stability within a developed system
• Influence of US writers, particularly Dunlop
  (1958)
• Such a system in Britain and other western
  economies based on collective bargaining seen
  as democratic and most effective form of
  regulation
• Copied by many other countries
• Outputs of the system earnings, productivity
  and minimising of conflict

19
Industrial Relations

• IR is concerned with the systems, rules and
  procedures used by unions and employers to
  determine the reward for effort and other
  conditions of employment, to protect the
  interests of the employed and their employers and
  to regulate the way in which employers treat
  their employees.
• K. Aswathappa

20
Coverage of IR

• Collective bargaining
• Role of management, unions, government
• Machinery for resolution of industrial disputes
• Individual grievances and disciplinary policies
  and
• practices.
• Labor legislation
• Industrial relations training.

21
John Dunlop and an Industrial Relations System
CONTEXTS ACTORS PROCESSES OUTCOMES Economic Emplo
yers Managerial Reg Pay and Social Managers Coll
ective Conditions Legal Trade Unions Bargaining I
nc Productivity Political Employees Legal
Reg. Conflict Techno Customers CP Less
Conflict Logical Shareholders Feedback
Shared Ideology
22
IR to ER

• Employee relations is more comprehensive and
  includes all aspects of HRM where employees are
  dealt with collectively.
• It covers
• Participative management
• Employee welfare
• Employee development
• Employee remuneration, safety, welfare, etc.

23
Challenges to the system - crisis and
re-regulation

• Post 1979 Thatcherism
• Public policy lack of support for old
  adversarial IR system, trade unions, failure of
  collective bargaining
• Moves to regulate IR through legal means
  restrictive labour law to curb the power of
  trade unions
• Re-establishment of managerial prerogative
• Re-regulation of industrial relations against a
  backdrop of high unemployment and weakened TU
  bargaining power

24
Is talk of a system still useful?

• Can we still talk about national systems?
• Often more diversity within as between countries
  (Marchington 1995)
• Argued that if we can still talk about a system
  it is now organisation-based Purcell (1989)
• Greater diversity in employee relations as
  managers have sought to re-regulate employment
  and employment relationships

25
Changing Focus Managerial agenda

• Today management-employee relations in Britain
  more about involvement, engagement, participation
  and partnership rather than collective bargaining
  and conflict resolution
• Employee involvement and high performance work
  systems, employee engagement.
• The role of management choice in shaping employee
  relations and employee relations strategy

26
Employment Relations and HRM

• HRM and the individualisation of employment
  relations
• Focus on the individual worker and relationship
  with management
• Mainstream HRM concern with involvement and
  commitment and relationship to business
  performance (Guest et al. 2000)
• Business-model of HR dominant

27
And Now.

• Increased concern with both individual and
  collective aspects of employment
• Re-focusing on how the employment relationship is
  regulated.
• Theoretically, this marks a return to a focus on
  power and authority relations in employment

28
Main Parties Engaged in ER
Managers
Individual Employees
Employer Employee Relations
Employers Association Representative
Trade Union Representative
Courts and tribunes
Government
29
Different Perspectives of Employee Relations
30
Managers perspective

• Creating and maintaining employee motivation
• Obtaining commitment from the workforce
• Establishing mutually beneficial channels of
  communication
• Achieving high level of efficiency

31

• Negotiating terms and conditions of employment
• Sharing decision making with employees
• Engaging in power struggle with trade unions

32
Trade unions perspective

• Collective bargaining about terms and conditions
  of employment
• Representing individuals in conflict with
  management
• Improving abilities of employees to influence
  events in the workplace
• Regulating relations with trade unions.

33
Individual employees perspective

• Improve their conditions of employment
• Voice and grievances
• Exchange views and ideas of management
• Share in decision making

34
Third Parties' perspective

• Creating and maintaining harmony at work
• Creating a framework of rules for fair conduct in
  relationships
• Establishing a peace making arrangements
• Achieving a prosperous society with justice

35
?