Improving employer-employee relations

The relations between bosses and workers will be effective if communications are good and there is a sensible amount of give-and-take between them. They will be bad if there is a lack of trust, leading to restricted communications and the tendancy to make demands rather than conduct conversations. 

There are three main areas to consider within the heading 'effective employer-employee relations':

• good communications
• methods of employee involvement 
• the causes and solutions to industrial disputes. 

The importance of effective communication 

Effecive comms is essential for organisations. Without it, employees may not know what to do,why they are supposed to do it, how to do it or when to do it by. Similarly, managers have little ides of how the business is performing, what people are actually doing or what its customers think. Communication links the activities of all the various parts of the organisation. When it's effective it ensures everyone is working towards a common goal and enables feedback on performance. This could help staff feel they have a real input into key business decisions. 

Effective communication is also vital for sucessful decision-making. To make good decisions, managers need high-quality information. If they do not know what their shop floor staff know about customers and competitors, their decision-making will be faulty. Good communication provides managers with the information they need, in a form they can use, when they need it.

Good quality information should be:

• easily accessable
• up to date
• cost efffective.

How to manage & improve employer-employee communications and relations

The overall business leader can do many things to help:

• Talk to every new member of staff (unlikely in a large business).
• Take regular initiatives to meet with staff
• If staff know that their complaints or suggestions are being agressed, they will be happy to keep contributing their thoughts. Most staff will want their workplace to be efficient, to allow them to do as good a job as possible; inefficiency is frustrating for all. 

In addition to the importance of effective engagement and good communications, employer-employee relations are influenced by:

• The underlying demand conditions faced by the business. If revenue is growing strongly it's easy for the whole staff to feel optmistic about job security and promotion prospects. Staff will know that the employers will have a shared view of the optomistic prospects for the business and therefore its staff.
• The level of skill required by the producers of the product or service being sold. There can be a risk of a 'them and us' divide opening up if the management see the workforce as low-skilled. 
• Conditions in the broader labour market. If the economy is booming, demand for labour can be high enough to make staff push hard for perhaps overly-abmitious improvements to their pay and conditions of service, At such time faultlines can appear between empoyers and employees. 

Good relation are valuable because staff & management have to get along in the long term for the business to do well. As changing external market conditions can force change (inc redundancy) on a business, a degree of tust is hugely valuable. 

Staff will accept a difficult short-term if they believe that staff and management are headed in the right direction. That is why it can be so disruptive to have senior executives paying themselves huge salaries and bonuses. Good employer-employee relations needs to be based on the belief that 'we're all in it together'.

Intellegent bosses realise that success depends on the full participation of as many staff as possible.

Small firms may have an informal group consisting of one person from each department; monthly meetings are used as a way to raise issues and problems, and discuss future plans.  

In larger firms, more formal methods are used to ensure that there is a structure to allow an element of workplace democracy. Alternatively the organisation's staff may be represented by a trades union.

A trades union is an organisation that employees pay to join in order to gain greater power and security at work. 

Traditionally, unions concerned themselves soley with obtaining satisfactory rates of pay for a fair amount of work in reasonable and safe working conditions. Today the most important aspect of the work of a union is protecting workers' rights under the law. Far more time is spent on health and safety, discrimination and bullying, on unfair dismissal and other legal matters than on pay negotiations and pensions. 

Union recognition  - Recognition is fundamental to the legal position of a trades union. Managers must recognise a union's right to bargain on behalf of its members. Without recognition, any actions taken by the union would be deemed illegal.

• It's helpful for managers to have a small representative group to consult & negotiate with. Collective bargaining removes the need to bargain with every employee individually. 
• On issues such as relocation, unions can be consulted. Gives workforce confidence that management are acting properly. Promotes consultation rather than conflict.
• Unions provide a channel of upward communication that has not been filtered by middle managers. Senior managers can expect straight talking about worker's opinions. 

Works council 

A works council is a committee of employer and employee representatives that meets to discuss company wide issues. They are not popular in the UK. EU legistation requires a company operating in 2 or more european countries to have a Europe-wide council. Councils will discuss issues such as training, investment and working practices. They will not cover issues such as pay, which are generally dealt with in discussions with trades union representatives. 

Employee groups 

Organised by the business with representatives elected by its staff. They lack credability - made by business. Staff ay suspect that management frown upon those who raise critical issues. 

Employee co-operatives

Range from huge organisations (John Lewis) to small (Suma). Because all staff are part owners of the busienss, all have the right to make their decisions heard in decision-making.