Discussing the Issues Concerning the Employment Relationship - Assignment Example

ANSWER SIX QUESTIONS Why has trade union membership declined over the past twenty years Do you think that it will decline further Employees turn to trade union membership to safeguard their right and privileges. A decline in trade union membership then must mean that employees feel secure in their jobs already. There could be many other reasons for this. In the UK, this density has been going down since 1980. unions still focus on the benefits of the workers. Despite this focus, membership has declined. According to the Labour Force Survey, trade union membership was 7.38 million in 2003, which is only 25.6% of all employees in the UK. (British Journal of Industrial Relations, n.d.) According to BBC News, the basic reason for its decline is the decrease in male industrial unskilled workers and more female workers in the tertiary sector. Changes in economy have led to this employment structure. Other than that, changes in the labour market such as increased part time work, more females in the workplace and also more self-employed people has also led to a decline in trade union memberships (BBC News, 2000) Other than this, BBC reports that because the UK economy is shifting to the services sector from the manufacturing sector, it is growing. Despite this growth, jobs are being lost in the manufacturing sector because of which membership is decreasing (BBC News, 2000). Another important reason for this decline is Government policy. In 1979, during the 'Winter of Discontent', an opinion poll showed that 82% of the UK population thought that the unions had a lot of power (Ruysseveldt & Visser, 1996). It was almost a threat. To take down this power of the unions, the Government introduced legislations that ultimately resulted in theTrade Union Reform and Employment Rights Acts 1993. Due to this, till 1992, membership density fell by a significant percentage. I think that trade union membership will decline further because like earlier reasons, the labour market structure keeps changing its shape. Also not many businessmen recognize trade unions especially in the retail and tertiary sectors of the economy. 2. How can a redundancy exercise be managed without causing any damage to the employment relationship In simple words, redundancy is the process of firing employees. This sounds unpleasant and is likely to cause damage to management-employee relations and also has in the past. Employees need to feel secure in their jobs. This is expected to increase their motivation and commitment to the organisation. And when this commitment is threatened (due to redundancies) and when employees are scared of losing jobs, they must be talked to using the best possible medium. Today, because of technology, managers use media such as email or text messaging to fire people (Gennard, J., Judge, G., 2005). Stunts like these cause damage to the employment relationship. Redundancies are usually made because they are crucial to the profitability and hence, the success of an organisation. However, when it happens, the employees that already work in the organisation feel insecure. To avoid any damage to the employment relationship of these employees, they must be told exactly why the redundancy had to be made, what its result for the organisation will be and how it will benefit the employees that work in that organisation. In other words, proper communication has to take place in a situation like this and that too, through face-to-face. And not through some text message that would threaten workers even more and make them feel alienated. Even workers that are being fired must be explained properly why the action is compulsory for the firm. Any compensation that can be made must be made by the management and if employees need appropriate assistance in the future, they will be given it . Employees should be assured of this. A redundancy program that is inadequately managed leaves the organisation to costly employment board claims and they can damage this organisation's reputation in the business society. A badly reputed company can further dent employee relations because nobody wants to work in a firm that is not appreciated in the business world. Therefore, the key to avoid all of this is a well-organized redundancy plan that involves and emphasizes on healthy communication. 3. Is it true that rewarding employees on an individual basis means that team work can never be truly successful The definitive cause, as well as the outcome, of rewarding employees is an increase in productivity. This productivity will increase even more if a whole team of employees is being rewarded and therefore this is what the management should aim for. The last thing the management wants is to discourage teamwork. It is important for the management of any organisation to make it clear to the employees that rewards will be based on their performances. If one employee is doing better than the other, he will, thus, be rewarded more than the others. But will this cause resentment amongst the other team members It probably will. There is no definite answer to this. It could cause bitterness but there is an equal chance that it would encourage efficiency due to increased competition. It really all depends on the kind of human resource a company employs. If they are competitive and team-oriented by nature, it is likely that the rise of one employee could push the others to come up to that level by working hard in groups. If, however, they are insecure, they will probably be offended by the success of a team member. In this case, rewarding employees on an individual basis will cut down on the productivity of several others with an increase in just one employee's productivity. Deming (1986, quoted in Lewin, D. et al, 1948) seconds this as he opposes rewarding workers individually. He feels that the individual performance is principally dependent on numerous "system" factors such as management that are further than the control of these individuals. Therefore, it is both foolish and unjust to assess individual performance. Secondly, he thinks that an individual focus always discourages teamwork because he says that everyone moves themselves forward for their own good and the organization is the usual loser. (Lewin, D. et al, 1948). Oden (1999) also says in his book that traditional compensation systems fail in comparison to newer ones because they fail to recognize teamwork. Under this system individuals are forced to compete with each other rather than help each other increase their salaries (Oden H.W., 1999). 4. What do you think are the three most significant external factors that will impact on the employment relationship over the next two years I think that the three most significant factors that will impact on the employment relationship over the next two years are globalisation, labour market and the economy. The phenomenon of globalisation has the tendency to impact almost everything. Globalisation, or Internationalisation similarly has a strong impact on employment relationship. Firms have always struggled to maintain a balance between profitability and social equity. That is, managers have to keep stability between gaining economic efficiency by making higher profits and between maintaining relations with their employees. Globalisation has made it difficult to keep this balance. Economist Edward Lee (1996) has examined the effects of globalisation . He thinks that because of competition from abroad, unemployment grows. Unemployment grows because of this intense competition because workers that cannot keep up with this fast pace are labeled as inefficient and are eventually made redundant. This is likely to strain employment relationships in the next two years because competition from globalization is ever increasing. In addition to this, globalisation also promotes technology. An increase in technology usually tends to lay off unskilled workers that can't manage it. This is an evergrowing concern. In the next two years, technology will still grow, negatively effecting employment relations. The second factor that is likely to effect employment relationship in the next two years is the changing structure of the labour market. More females are entering the labour market and more people are becoming self -employed. The number of employed people for the three months to April 2008 was 29.55 million. This is the highest figure since 1971 (National Statistics Online, 2008). Therefore, the labour market is growing rapidly. This is likely to cause insecurity for employed workers of a firm and causes a lack of commitment. This lack of commitment effects employment relationship adversely. The UK economy is a powerful one; one of the most powerful ones in Western Europe. It is growing in terms of education, health services and housing. This increase in education has a tendency to grow over the two years. Educated workers are good for an organisation.They increase productivity and hence, profitability. This in turn is good for employment relationship. The managers are getting what they want; economic efficiency and workers are being rewarded more and more. 5. Do you think that a manager will always experience more conflict with employees than a leader Justify your answer. To say that a manager will always experience more conflict with employees than a leader is a bit of a sweeping statement. There are so many parts of this question that can be used to answer it. It depends on the manager. It depends on the staff. It depends on the issue of conflict. It depends on the leader. Firstly, whether a manager will experience more conflict with the employees or with the leader is determined by the kind of manager. If the manager is a People-oriented manager, all he will be concerned about is the individual employees and supporting them. Or if it was a Transformational manager, he will persistently inspire the employees and works with them by incorporating intense communication. This manager will probably experience less conflict with his team of employees rather than the leader. In contrast, a manager that doesn't believe in empowerment and communication will get along more with the leader. Some managers live with pass notions of what managers should be like; they should make their own decisions, they must give out orders, they must, in general, be bossy. However, participative management, in no way, violates this notion. Trusting your employees while still having responsibility for your and their actions is a mark of strength (McConnell, C.R., 2002) and this strength reduces the chance of conflict between manager and employees. Secondly, it also depends on the kind of employees that a company has. If, by McGregor's definition, they are Theory X workers and are lazy and avoid any kind of work, the manager will definitely have more conflict with them than the leader. If, however, they are Theory Y workers and are ambitious and hard working, a manager has lesser reasons to have conflicts. A manager's conflict with employees or with the leader is also largely dependent on the issue of conflict. If after examination, the employees are to be at fault, the manager will have a conflict with them. If the leader was at fault, the manager should be in argument with him/her instead. In conclusion, there is no one answer to this question as it is a function of the manager, the employees, the leader and the issue of conflict and they can all vary, changing the answer every time. 6. Employee Involvement was introduced by many organisations in the 1980s/90s. Do you think it is relevant today Justify your answer. Employee Involvement is when employees are encouraged to take part in the decision-making process and other actions that affect the way they do work. Employee Involvement was introduced by many organizations in 1980 through 1990 because during this time, trade union membership was decreasing significantly and government policies were changing. Organisations succumbed to employee involvement as a compromise to suit employee needs. (Wilkinson, 2006) (Loosemore, et al., 2003) Therefore, it basically started off to make employees happy. When employees are happy, they are motivated and committed to producing more. For this reason, it is also relevant today. The need for motivated workforce never goes down. Even today, firms look to motivate their employees so that productivity and profitability can increase. If companies show trust in their employees, they are likely to stay committed to the company's objectives. Thus, employees should be encouraged to take part in decision-making. This is a leadership philosophy that should inspire many managers today. REFERENCES 1. Lewin, D., Mitchell, O.S., Sherer, P.D. (1948). Research Frontiers in Industrial Relations and Human Resources. Cornell University Press. 2. Oden, H.W. (1999). Transforming the Organization: a Social-Technical Approach. Greenwood Publishing Group. 3. Gennard, J., Judge, G. (2005). Employee Relations. CIPD Publishing. 4. McConnell, C.R. (2002). The Effective Healthcare Supervisor. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. 5. The decline of trade union membership density since 1980. Is government policy the cause British Journal of Industrial Relations. 6. 2000. TUC: Decline and Revival [Internet]. Available from: BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/911501.stm [Accessed June 23 2008]. 7. Ruysseveldt, J. Van and Visser, J. (eds). 1996. Industrial Relations in Europe. London, Sage Publications. 8. Lee, E. (1996), "Globalization and employment", International Labour Review, Vol. 135 No.5. 9. 2008. Labour Market: Unemployment rate increases to 5.3% [Internet] Available from: National Statistics Online [Accessed June 23 2008]. 10. (2008). The World Factbook [Internet]. Available from: Central Intelligence Agency. [Accessed June 23 2008]. 11. Loosemore, M., Dainty, A., Lingard, H. (2003). Human Resource Management in Construction Projects: Strategic and Operational Approaches. Taylor and Francis 12. Wilkinson, A., Marchington M., (1996). Core Personnel and Development (People and Organisations). Hyperion Books. Read More