Employer and employee relations

Collective bargaining
1. the situation when the management team and workers have representatives who negotiate on the terms and conditions of employment is collective bargaining
2. large organisations don’t have the time to negotiate with individuals employers
3. for both workers and mangers, having employer and employee representatives to negotiate is better
4. sometimes the collective bargaining system may not work and an industrial dispute can happen
5. a common way for workers to taken action is to have a strike, it is when employers stop working to fore an employer to meet their demands.
Sources of conflict
1. Change- driven by either internal or external factors:
2. Different values- individuals see the world differently. Lack of acceptance and understanding of these differences can cause conflict.
3. The primary cause of conflict between workers and the management team in the workplace includes:
4. Different interests- workers in certain respects have a lesser stake in business than managers or the shareholders, focus on their individual goals:
5. External factors: any number of external factors can disrupt the workplace: change in the economic environment
6. Poor performance: sometimes people do not do their jobs properly, a situation that can happen at levels of an organisation.
7. Poor communication: sometimes managers and workers clash because lack of communication has created misunderstanding.
8. Insufficient resources: no organisation has unlimited resources. Managers must decide how resources are allocated.
Approaches to conflict resolution
1. Conciliation and arbitration
  1. sometimes the employer and employee representatives will seek help from a third party to resolve a dispute.
  2. this process is often referred to as conciliation and arbitration.
  3. the aim of conciliation is to bring together the groups in dispute and help them to find a resolution
  4. an independent third party is usually called in to conciliate on the dispute
2. Employee participation and industrial democracy
  1. in industrial democracies often partial or complete participation by the workforce in the running of an organisation occurs
  2. industrial democracy implies workers control over industry
3. No strike agreement
  1. a no strike agreement occurs when a trade union has agreed not to undertake industrial action unless procedural steps have first been undertaken.
  2. unions usually agree not to strike when the management team has agreed to certain conditions
  3. it can also mean that a union has agreed to rule out any possibility of taking industrial action
4. Single-union agreement
  1. one union is recognised as the only representative of employees, it is called a single-union agreement
  2. this situation saves managers the difficulties of negotiating with several unions and reduces competition between the unions to get a higher pay increase than rival unions
  3. it helps to avoid the disruption to the organisation if only one of several unions is in dispute with managers.
  4. when there is more than one union involved, one union can disrupt the production process for the whole organisation
Reasons for resistance to change
1. for many reasons, employees may resist change in the workplace
2. change is typically ‘forced’ on them by mangers because of changes in the internal or external environments
3. Discomfort- employees are often happy with the current situation and want to maintain the status quo
4. Fear- changes often makes employees afraid simply because they do not know what will happen
5. Insufficient reward- employees often perceive that implementing the change requires them to do more work for no increase in compensation.
6. Lack of job skills- employees may not have the skills necessary to perform in the change of work environment
7. Loss of control- when managers insist on change, employees feel that they do not have control over their lives
8. Mistrust- employees sometimes do not trust managers
9. Poor communication- employees do not know why the business needs to change
10. Poor timing- change is brought about for the needs of the organisation but might occur at a time that for either professional or personal reasons may fir poorly with the need of employees
11. Prior experience- an employee may have had a bad experience with change in an another organisation
12. Social support- an employee who works with a group of people who resist change may choose to resist for the sake of maintaining social relationships
HR strategies to reduce the impact of change
1. Develop a vision for the change process and desired outcomes
2. involve employees in the change process from the outset so that employees are not surprised and so that they do not feel powerless.
3. forecast an allocate the necessary resources to implement the change
4. regularly communicate to all appropriate stakeholders how the change process in unfolding
5. train employees in advance of those changes that affect them directly, which should allow them to see the benefits of change immediately.
6. be aware of the stress that change can cause and support employees as much as possible
7. routinely communicate the benefits of the changes

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	Created by Nathalia Maria Veit almost 9 years ago