Pluralism and Unitarism in Employment Relationship within Organization - Essay Example

Evaluating Human Resource Management: Pluralism and Unitarism in Employment Relationship within Organizations An observable distinguishing characteristic of workplaces today, particularly in highly developed countries like the US, is the increasingly diverse composition of the workforce in terms of race and ethnicity, generational differences, gender diversity, and sexual orientation. Such diversity is becoming more complex as the present world continuously globalize that pluralism is unsurprising in the workplace – the place which Adigun and Igwilo (2010, p. 16) described as the ‘avenue for the pursuit of common good and for the maintenance of the economic life of society’. This new phenomenon poses a more challenging situation to HR managers today, as to how employment relationships within a highly diverse organization be developed harmoniously towards common organizational goal. It is in this context that the statement, ‘pluralism is how things are; unitarism is how HR managers would like things to be’, shall be evaluated in this essay.  I. Pluralism and Unitarianism and Their Implications for HR Managers Every individual is unique. This uniqueness distinguishes one from others; thus when various individuals come together, diversity must be expected. In business organizations, this diversity certainly implies a well-balanced consideration of varied and most probably competing interests. It is this kind of coordination that actually defines human resource management (Adigun & Igwilo 2010, p. 17), because as defined HRM is the ‘productive use of people in achieving the organization’s strategic business objectives and the satisfaction of individual employee needs’ (Stone 1998, p. 4). Thus the utmost task of HR managers is to bring an organization of highly diverse workers to its utmost productivity; to do so; the creation of an astute balance between conflicting interests is paramount. Here lies the great challenge for HR managers. This essentially is what the statement, ‘pluralism is how things are; unitarism is how HR Managers would like things to be’, means – The increasing diversity of the workforce is an objective reality in organizations today that organizations have to deal with everyday. The task of HR managers is to develop this highly diverse workforce into a unified team that will work cooperatively towards the achievement of the goals of the company – an objective commonly perceived by employees to be exploitative of the workforce. Given this seemingly irreconcilable reality and HRM objective, two basic yet contending views – pluralism and unitarism – generally explain employment relationships within organizations (Armstrong 2006, p. 758). These two contending perspectives offer varying implications specifically with regard to employment relationships, of which HR managers can utilize in realizing their task effectively. Pluralism and Its Implications for HR Managers The term itself, pluralism, already denotes diversity. This perspective recognizes organizations to be composed of various stakeholders with legitimate yet varying interests and values that should be respected (Cyert & March 1963, cited in Armstrong 2006, p. 208). Meaning, managers have to deal with different individuals in achieving the goals of the organization and that the organization is naturally divided into two conflicting interest groups – the management and labor; it is on this reality that the role of HR manager comes into play – to bring this two conflicting interests united into one common goal in which both interests are satisfied. Grounded on this perception, pluralists assume that there exist different sources of authority; therefore, the inevitability of conflict is expected in any workplace (Abbott 2006, p. 192). More than this, Budd and Bhave (2006, pp. 23-24) underscored the core of pluralism – the critical view that an individual employee is not simply an economic agent neither a commodity owned by the employer by virtue of employment contract but a human being that deserves fair treatment and respect. It is this perception of employees that pluralist HR managers exploit in achieving the unity the organization needs to bring about maximum productivity. Budd and Bhave furthered that based on this assumption come two important sets of pluralists beliefs regarding employment relationships. One is that employees have the right to equal treatment and to have voice in the employment relationship – In this regard, Edgar and Geare (2005, p. 364) suggested that by giving voices to employees, HRM policies can be made more relevant and accurate. The second is the belief that the state is responsible in promoting equitable outcomes by seeing to it that unions and mandated labor standards will level the playing field. Thus employment relationships from a pluralist’s perspective are viewed to be characterized by a bargaining relationship between employees and employers with multiple and most of the time conflicting interests in the context of an imperfect market, as other studies on HRM (Clegg 1975; Fox 1974) did explain. An example these studies had given pertaining to the common conflict between employers and employees are issues on wage and labor cost – Employees demand for higher wages but employers need to lower labor cost to cope with the recession; while the common issues they noted wherein employers and employees may generally agree are issues of productivity, profitability, and quality products (cited in Budd & Bhave 2006, p. 23), perhaps because these will benefit them both. Though the diversity of workforce implies variations of interest within itself and between it and the employer, the fact that this workforce is organized under a common, single company also denotes one single identity and goal. Various implications for HR managers are offered by pluralist perspective. The immediate implication is the difficulty of uniting a highly diverse workforce. Just like in a puzzle game, the more pieces of puzzle one has to piece together, the harder it is to form a single picture; but once this difficult task is achieved, organizational success must be greater. For example, one study (Adigun & Igwilo 2010, p. 20) explained that since individual employees bring to the work place their culture, understanding the incommensurability of cultures is a paramount need in order to understand the workplace and be able to manage conflict effectively. Confronted with a highly diverse workplace, this implies that HR managers must be multi-culturally aware and respectful, and that they should understand that cultural superiority and discrimination have no place in workplaces today. As Herriot (p. 141) strongly stated: ‘In the era of globalisation (sic), the employer who fails to appreciate the importance of culture as a determinant of the success of the employment relationship is doomed’. On the other hand, Huiskamp and Kluytmans (2004, p. 381) summarized the four fundamental sources of tensions in an employment relationship. The primary source of tension is the labor, itself – the vital production factor, which is inseparable from its performer. This means that management has no choice but also to consider the interest of employees to be reciprocated of satisfactory performance. The second source of tension is the relationship of time, qualifications and performance as against employee’s effort and long-term labor capacity. Specific issues concerning this pertain to the working time required by the organization as against the normal time by which employees can recover to work again, the qualifications required for the job as against the actual qualification of employees, and the evaluation of employee’s performance as against the actual effort the employee put on the job. The implications of these specific issues can be surmised as follows respectively: The number of working hours a day and the length of allowable break times, the necessity for management to provide employee training to cope with production development needs, and the fair evaluation and recognition of employee’s effort for the job. The third source of tension pertains to the fast-changing preferences, needs and wishes of parties involved. To avoid conflict and to cope with these fast-changing employment exchange demands, the management must ensure clear communication and dialogue with employees. The fourth source of tension pertains to the different and oftentimes conflicting attitudes that management uses at various dimensions – in the exchange dimension, managers interact in a businesslike attitude; in interacting with employees, managers interact in a cooperative attitude; but when interacting with employers, managers in a subordinate attitude. What is being criticized here is the common practice of intensive use of authority which most oftentimes compromises the productive capacity of employees. Essentially so, these sources of tension only validate the necessity for HR managers to understand and consider the varying needs and predicaments of employees and consequentially find ways by which to regulate these sources of tensions that are inherent in employment relationships. The ultimate objective of these efforts, Torka (2004, p. 324) explained, is for HR managers to develop in employees the needed organizational commitment, which according to Mellor et al. (2001, p. 171) is key to organizational effectiveness. Why this is so? To this question, Guest (1998, p. 42) said that at the heart of HRM is the belief that by increasing the level of employee’s commitment to the organization other positive outcomes will surely follow. However, other studies (Fox 1966; Clegg 1975) also noted that for pluralists, cognizance of a diverse workforce with its competing sources of authority actually also offers benefits. But such can only be realized if HR managers learn to deal with employment relation issues on a collective basis. (Cited in Abbott 2006, p. 193) Once again, it is emphasized that employment relations issues can be dealt with at best if all concerned parties are given due respect and opportunity to be heard. To further expound, Abbott (2006, p. 193) said that for pluralists, the best way to institutionalize employment rules and minimize organizational conflict is for the management to give employees equal voice by respecting the right of employees to collective bargaining and trade unions. In this way, interests of both sides could be given due consideration and results would be fairer. In fact fairer results do not only command easy compliance from employees but also provide good public image to the company. Either which way, it can be argued that fostering democratic relationships in the workplace can be beneficial both to management and employees, and ultimately to the whole organization. And so to avoid conflict, Armstrong (2006, p. 758) reiterated Fox’s (1966) suggestion that management has to balance the related yet separate interests and objectives of the organization’s stakeholders, because whether they like it or not, HR managers have to face the fact that a business enterprise is multifaceted. To Drucker’s (1951) description it is a triple personality: An economic personality, because it is meant to produce and distribute incomes; a political personality, because it has its own system of governance by which it controls employees aside from the fact that managers themselves are caught in an intricate web of political relationships; and a social institution personality, because the business enterprise is a community of workers that interact daily, sharing various interests, sentiments, belief and values (cited in Armstrong 2006, p. 758). What pluralists are saying is that, for HR managers to be effective, they should operate based on the objective realities of the workplace. It is only in fully appreciating the intricacies of the plurality of the workplace that HR managers can formulate relevant and useful HR policies and innovations to bring forth a united productive workforce. To make an analogy, HR managers must be like stone carvers, who feel and hear the stone to enable them form the stone in its natural beauty. They knew they cannot impose on the stone the shape they wanted because doing so will just break the stone. Unitarism and Its Implications for HR Managers If pluralism recognizes conflict as intrinsic in organizations; on the contrary, unitarism assumes organizations as harmonious with all its members unified as a team working to attain defined organizational goals (Gennard & Judge 1997, cited in Armstrong 2006, p. 207). Thus unitarists do not see conflict to be inherent in organizations. Instead, they see conflict as simple aberrations that naturally occur in any human relationships from time to time. These aberrations are attributed to problems in the selection process, promotion systems, poor communication or individual deviance; to avoid potential conflict these identified sources of problems must be addressed effectively – Therefore HR managers should see to it that employees are carefully selected and promoted through fair and equitable processes, that employees should be oriented clearly as to what would work best for them in the company, and that problem employees should be sanctioned appropriately. So, it is paramount that a single source of authority in the workplace should be established well among employees; for unitarists, any alternative source of authority is a potential source of conflict, hence the need to eliminate other sources of authority. (Abbott 2006, p. 191) As such, employment relationships in the unitarist framework do not need labor standards or labor unions to fight for employees’ interests because these are being ensured for effective management (Budd & Bhave 2006, p. 22). In fact, unitarists only see the importance of giving voice to employees if and only if this will enhance the achievement of organizational goals; aside from this, employee’s voice is irrelevant (Coats 2004, p. 23). Thus from the unitarist point of view, well-managed workplaces discourages labor unions; on the contrary workplaces not managed effectively give employees enough reasons to form labor unions. Therefore, unitarists view labor unions as manifestation of ineffective HR management. As such, unitarists managers generally treat employees on individual rather than collective basis, simply because they discourage and oppose other sources of authority. A collective always necessitates a leader and to deal with employees on a collective basis would mean recognizing another authority aside from the management. Thus if HR managers dealt with employees on a collective basis that would mean they recognized that ‘employees have a right to have their independent voice heard and to exercise legitimate power in the negotiation of their terms and conditions of employment’ (Legge 2007, p. 36) One may wonder why unitarists insist on assuming harmony in employment relationships despite the long history of the labor movement proving it otherwise. To this Fox (1966) gave three reasons: That unitarism was ‘a method of self-reassurance, an instrument of persuasion and a technique of seeking legitimation of authority’ (cited in Coats 2004, p. 24). Coats explained that unitarist managers need to believe that employment relationships are basically harmonious because believing otherwise might weaken their managerial confidence; unitarist managers also need to persuade employees that the workplace is harmonious for employees to act accordingly; and as employees are persuaded, the belief that employee’s and employer’s organizational goals are congruent is legitimized. Just like the pluralist perspective, the unitarist perspective offers both positive and negative implications to HR managers. On the positive side, unitarist perspective ensures harmony in the workplace by ensuring that employees are treated well and that employee’s needs and intrinsic desires are satisfied, believing that by integrating both interests and needs employee commitment can be enhanced thereby developing greater employee loyalty to the company. This according to Guest and Peccei (2001, p. 209) is the major strength of the unitarist perspective, which in practical sense is true because by doing so, class division in the workplace is de-emphasized, giving better chance for a cooperative employment relationship. Also, this compels HR managers to always find a win-win solution (Giles 1989, p. 131), requiring managers to be strong organizational leaders with good convincing power (Ackers & Payne 1998, p. 539). Furthermore, though pluralists are politically correct in acknowledging class-struggle within employment relationship consequently requiring collective representation, individual employees are not only political entities. Meaning, individuals have other personal needs that labor unions fail to address. And sometimes, these personal issues though seemingly trivial are decisive in the performance of individual employees. Since unitarist HR managers deal with employees on individual basis, such unspoken too personal concerns have the greater chance to be brought-up and to be considered. Therefore, in the unitarist model, as Budd and Bhave (2008, p. 17) explained, the key mechanism that HR managers see in creating a profitable organization is ensuring a well-designed human resource management practices, such as justifiable and trustworthy selection and promotion processes, relevant and equitable training and development opportunities, respectful supervision methods, more than a living-wage compensation and a satisfactory reward system, a holistic benefit and work security system, and open channels of communication. For unitarists, it is the best way by which they can align both intrinsic and extrinsic needs of employees and employers. On the negative side, this perspective fails to see that power struggle, which is a natural source of different kinds of conflicts in the workplace, is imminent in employment relationships (Kessler & Purcell 2003, p. 315). The unitarists’ systematic denial that there exists an inherent tension in employment relationships may render HR managers unprepared for possible labor conflicts that cannot be resolved by unitarist mechanisms, because the problem is structural. Related to this, the unitarists’ negative view of conflict denies the organization to undergo a maturing process, because conflicts in organizations may also result to functional outcomes, which Rahim (2011, p. 6) enumerated as follows: encouraging creativity and fostering change, improving organizational decision making processes, bringing about alternative solutions to problems, creating synergistic formula for common problems, improving performance, finding new approaches, making individuals and groups’ stances heard and clarified. Such functional outcomes are undeniably useful to enable harmonious employment relationships. Moreover, since employees and employers interests are naturally separated and are only being aligned into one common organizational goal, how to achieve this remains vague, Ackers and Payne (1998, p. 539) said. More importantly, the negative implication of this perspective is the tendency for HR managers to be authoritative because they are too consumed of the desire to create a unified workforce. And to be able to do this in an undeniably pluralist workforce, HR managers must be highly persuasive but should also be strong-willed in case employees deviate from the harmony that the organization requires. II. Employment Relationship and Its Importance within Organizations As defined, employment relationship pertains to the existing interconnection between employers and employees in the workplace, which may either be formal in the form of employment contracts or procedural agreements, or informal in the form of psychological contracts (Kessler & Undy 1996, cited in Armstrong 2006, p. 215). Armstrong added that employment relationships can have dual dimensions – an individual dimension as manifested in individual employment contracts and a collective dimension referring to relationships between management and organized labor. On the other hand Torka, Looise and Van Riemsdijk (2005, p. 525) enumerated the several aspects that concern employment relationships – These aspects are economic, legal, political, social, and psychological aspects. These several aspects of employment relationships can be explained as follows: Economic aspect, because employment relationships are formed due to economic need – Employers hire workers to perform an economic activity for profit while workers employ themselves to earn a living; legal aspect, because employment relationship is formed and bound by a legal contract – this contract stipulates the mutual agreement of both parties in accordance with existing laws; political aspect, because as pluralists argued, power struggle is inherent in employment relationship; social aspect, because the workplace is a community wherein people interacts horizontally and vertically within and outside the organization in accordance to set social norms that affect their performance (Bratton 2007, p. 13); and psychological aspect, because aside from the legal contract, employment relationship is implicitly bound by a psychological contract wherein both parties relate dynamically with perceived promises and obligations for each other (p. 14). Employment relationships matter. It is what organizations are made-up of. Moreover, it also determines the future of the organization. For example, in their study Lowe and Schellenberg (2001, p. xiv) found that strong employment relationship enhances job satisfaction, positively influence the development and use of skills, and develops high morale in the workplace, consequently making the quality of work life better and the performance of the organization improved. On the other hand, they furthered that weak employment relationship results to high turnover rate and perennial absenteeism; it also encourages membership in labor unions. These findings support the commonly held view that employment relationship has a profound influence on the performance of the organization; it either hastens or hampers productivity. As such, employment relationship becomes more important to employers for two reasons, 1) with capital and technology being at the employer’s disposal, human resources which continuously develop and create have become the organization’s competitive advantage today, and 2) human resources, being unique from other resources of the organization, cannot be separated from employees possessing them (Edwards 2003, pp. 2-4). In short, it is the employees that make the difference in the organization. III. HRM Mechanisms that Add Value to the Employment Relationship Though HRM may not be addressing everything that is needed to address in ensuring strong employment relationships; nonetheless, it has various mechanisms that add value to employment relationship. This perhaps may be due to the fact that HRM basically recognizes the vital importance of creating and ensuring a positive and just working environment to ensure strong employee engagement and commitment to organizational goals – that which it considers determinant to the organization’s crucial competitive advantage. Among these mechanisms worth mentioning can be clustered as follows: Training and development: This mechanism does not only help new employees acquire and current employees update their knowledge, skills, experience and expertise required for their jobs; it also assures employees that the organization recognizes their importance and potential, thereby increasing their self-efficacy, self-esteem and employer commitment (Vance 2006, pp. 13-14). Compensation: HRM fosters both compensation components that encourage employee commitment and motivate employee engagement. To do so, HRM compensation mechanisms address both the creation of a strong performance incentive system and a good retirement plan. (Vance 2006, p. 14) Performance management: HRM uses various mechanisms by which it manages employee’s performance. These according to Khurana, Khurana and Lal Sharma’s (2009, p. 9) discussions are performance appraisal – evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of HR, potential appraisal and development – provides a reservoir of key employees, feedback and counseling – promotes understanding between senior and subordinate employees, role analysis – clarifies given roles thus defining clearly areas of responsibilities, and career planning – matches employees capability and organizational need. Conclusion Strong employment relationship is an organization’s crucial competitive advantage. How to develop this in an increasingly pluralized workplace is a challenge that HR managers confront daily. Various studies however consistently support the view that increasing employees’ engagement and commitment is vital to surpass these inherent differences in the organization. Both the pluralist and the unitarist perspective essentially promote this need. However, it is the unitarist strategy that seems to fit well in the present context, as it tries to superimpose harmony in the workplace thereby downplaying power struggle. As such, the unitarist perspective provides the basic framework for HRM. And though HRM’s mechanisms may not be sufficient to address all employment issues, these nevertheless address the key concerns in making a diverse organization perform at its best – gearing up employees towards a common goal by treating employees equally and with respect and by making employees a natural part of the whole organization. Reference List Abbott, K 2006, ‘A review of employment relation theories and their application’, Problems and Perspectives in Management, vol. 1, pp. 187-199. 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