Labour & Employee Relations, often called as Industrial Relations, which widely covers overall workforce relationship with the employer. Previously Industrial relations was associated with relationship with the labour and trade unions.
The Employee relations discipline in Human Resources department deals with management of relationship between the employer and the employee, irrespective of the fact that the employee is a part of any trade union or not.
In terms of large manufacturing organizations, the labor’s working in the factories, form a trade union which is legally acceptable by the Organization’s Human Resources department. The trade unions do have a right to place their demands or raise voice in case of any injustice to any of the member of the trade union. Therefore, the area of Employee Relations or Industrial Relations is very critical to every organization.
Employee Relations by and large includes but not restricted to
In order to have better productivity and uninterrupted work, the HR department needs to ensure rightful management of all these factors. However, with emergence of competition and growing awareness, there are lot of additions in the Employee relationship management discipline.
The organizations which are able to manage the relations well, throughout the year are reporting better productivity and growth as compared to those who mess up with these factors.
With the acceptance of automated system in HR department, a lot of organizations are using automated softwares and AI technology to manage employee relations. However, the very basic step is to lay down an organization specific Employee Relations Policy, keeping in mind Labour Laws and Acts.
The policy includes the organization’s vision, values, ethical practices statement and general rules to follow. The policy is binding on all the employees of the organization including the HR team and top management. The policy also clearly defines the consequences of non-adherence.
As cited above, with the rise of technological driven employee relations tools, it has become easier to manage employee relations on individual basis.
Given a fact that all employees are different and have career goals, it is important to maintain relations on individualist basis. The organizations thus design strategies to increase engagement with employee to understand their goals and expectations from the organization.
The employee engagement initiatives to improve relationship is to understand their level of;
Considering every employee’s expectations and personal life goals will be different depending upon their gender, age, personality, phase of life and education background, it is important to have communication on individual basis. This has become possible with tools and software’s which generate feedback from employee’s on periodic basis.
The employees are also informed to follow a level of hierarchy in case of any non-favorable work condition or if his motivation level is declining due to adverse work conditions. The employees are encouraged to open and speak about any unfavorable conditions which are hampering the productivity.
Communication with employees is the best way to identify the loopholes in the implementation of Employee Relations policies and reduce the chances of attrition.
Finally, in order to maintain a healthy work atmosphere, the efforts are required from both the ends. The employee as resources need to understand the restrictions of the organization in fulfilling unjustifiable demands, whereas the organizations need to understand the psychology behind raising such demands.
The trade unions which go on strike and end up suffering themselves are the victims of bad employee relations. In cases of disputes, it is not the employees who suffer, the more losses are on the books of the organization. Therefore, keeping in mind the losses and benefits of both the sides, the HR department should design a healthy and approachable Employee Relations policy.