Employment Law and Labour Market - Essay Example

?Employment Law and Labour Market ‘’The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is committed to championing better work and working lives, for the benefit of individuals, businesses, economies and society,’’ (CIPD Megatrends Report 2013:1). Section 1: Why this goal is important for different parties to employment relationships such as employees, organisations, trade unions and the UK government. The goal of better work and working lives is very important for the different parties. To begin with, this goal is important to employees due to several reasons. One of the ways through which the CIPD is championing for better work and working lives for the employees is through requesting the employers to allow the employees work for more hours (CIPD, Megatrends: The trends shaping work and working lives, 2013). This would mean that the employees would walk home with better pay for the extra hours they were allowed to work. This factor goes a long way in changing the lives of the employees for the better. On the other side, these organisations that allow the employees to work for more or extra hours also stand a chance to receive a greater productivity. It will mean that the organisations will remain open for longer hours than the normal hours of operation, hence being more productive (JOOS, 2008). The Labour Market Outlook spring 2013 report has suggested that the pattern of employment in the UK would continue during the second quarter of 2013. The spring quarter net employment balance-which measure the difference between the proportion of employers who would like to increase their staff levels and the proportion of employers who would like to reduce their staff levels-as recently risen. This proportion has risen to +9 from +5 according to that report. This, to the employees would mean better lives as many unemployed individuals will get employment hence making their working lives better. It is also important for the employers to add more employees to their organisations in order not to overwork the current employees they have (NIGELWR, 2011). When the number of employees in an organisation is large, the employees tend to enjoy working in the organisation since the working conditions are normally improved. There would be leaves, offs and shifts in the working calendar, something that is not found in most of the organisations. Once the working conditions are improved, the employees will be motivated to work better. Motivated employees would work better both for the benefits of themselves and that of the organization (Van Wanrooy, et al., 2012). There would be qualitative and quantitative increase in the organisation’s level of productivity. There would be many employees joining the trade unions which would then be made stronger or reinforced to continue fighting for the labour rights of the employees. The strengths of the labour or trade unions lie in the numbers of their members. It would then mean that several trade unions would emerge to champion for the labour rights of their employees and those of the organisations or employers concerned. This therefore would mean that the UK economy at large would grow for the better due to better working lives for the entire employees in the UK. A country with a happy and motivated workforce is one that is championed towards greater achievements in its growth and development as far as economic, political, demographic, and other forms of development are concerned. The 2013 spring LMO report also noted that slack labour market creates battlegrounds for the job seekers. It is therefore important that the CIPD champions for better work and work lives so the rate of jobseekers can reduce by reducing the slackness in the labour market. Although the recent report indicates the edging number of job seekers, it also indicates the challenges faced by the jobseekers that lie behind the unemployment figures, especially those job seekers who seek for unskilled or low-skilled roles (CLEMENTS, 2012). Better work and working lives through the use of technological advances in order to make work easier has its own advantages to the parties. To the employees, work will be made easier hence they need not to strain or waste a lot of time in accomplishing a simple task. To the organizations, their levels of production will grow faster hence the whole economy of the UK would grow by double units. People would live better lives, the rate of work increase per working hour and less time wastage. The trade unions however, would have a lot of work to do concerning their advocacy for the employees (Williams & Adam-Smith, 2010). It is quite vividly clear that technological advancement replaces most employees at work stations since the work that could have been done by ten people in one month, can now be accomplished by one machine in one week, monitored by one person. However, the CIPD’s work to champion for better work and working lives would ensure that technology is adopted and employees are also retained in the workplaces (UKCS, 2010). This goal therefore, enables employees to be motivated at workplaces due to good working conditions. It also champions for better wages for the employees which means the employees would live better lives. On the other hand, motivated employees will work well to enable the organizations to achieve their goals. The organizations will be able to maximize their production levels or even double them. This will enable them to make more profit and realize their objectives. This then reciprocates to the government of the UK which will then experience economic growth in totality from the revenues that the organizations and the employees pay to the government. This ensures that the government of UK pays their employees and engages in the national developmental projects that would benefit every individual in the UK (UKCS, Scaling the youth employment challenge: Wath upon Dearne, 2013). SECTION 2 How organizations and other parties try to achieve the goal of better work and working lives. Options for Organisations: Organisations should think deeply about the role and access routes of every employee in the organisation. Organizations are faced with several options of those things that they can do for them to achieve the goal of better work and working lives. To begin with, organizations are encouraged to create more opportunities for the employees. Organizations can achieve this by striving to expand their sizes to be able to accommodate more workers (YEATON, 2008). By expanding their sizes, it would mean that several workstations would be created to be able to accommodate more workers. After creating such positions, the organizations would then have the responsibility to sustain them by making them be more modest with favourable conditions. The organizations should also try to provide better trainings to their employees so as to increase the confidence of their employees at work. This would ensure that the employees are enriched by the work that they do, hence achieving the goal of better work and working lives (CIPD, Labour Market outlook, 2013). The organisations should also engage in providing better ways of doing work to increase work efficiency as well as work productivity. This may include better communication channels, technological advancements as well as adopting emerging trends in the workplace. Apart from these, the organisatons need to engage its workers in the efforts to providing better work and working lives. This can be achieved by empowering the workers through motivations and improving working conditions (Suff, 2012). Good employee relations should be encouraged as well as being given time to interact and learn from within as well as outside the organizations. This will ensure that employees are able to identify their strengths and weaknesses as well as identify their talents that can help them make the working lives even better (Searle, 2006). Employees should be allowed and encouraged to attend workshops and seminars to enable them acquire knowledge about how to improve their working conditions and feel better at workplaces. This will also encourage the innovativeness of the employees who then assist their organizations in creating new products and opportunities in the organization. The employees who are innovative increase their entrepreneurial skills hence they will forever enjoy working in an organization as well as the working lives in the organization (Hasluck, 1998). Options for the government The government will have the mandate to formulate, make and set policies that would be implemented by both the organizations and the employees in order to facilitate better work and working lives. Such policies may be in form of pieces of legislation that are formulated and amended by the legislative part of the government, mostly the Congress. These laws include laws that protect the employees from exploitation by their employers that are enforced by the government (Broughton, Foley, Ledermaier, & Cox, 2013). They also include the laws that are protect the organizations from being exploited by their employees as well as those through which the organizations are formed. The government also needs oversee how the employers go about the employment recruitment process to ensure that it is free and fair without any form of irregularities. The government can be able to do this by setting certain guidelines for recruitment that are supposed to be followed and met by all the employers and the employees as well. By doing this, the government is making efforts to ensure that everyone who is ready for the job market is either employed by an organization or self employed. This will ensure that everyone has equal opportunity to getting employed be it the physically challenged, youth or adults. The government also has its own guidelines of the standard requirement of working conditions in every organization. This helps in achieving the goal of better work and working lives in that the conditions make it better for the workers or employees to enjoy their work in the organizations, hence greater achievements for the organization as far as output is concerned. as the government is also mandated to issue licenses to organizations in order for the organization to enter the market, the same way the government has the powers to withdraw the license from the organization in case it does not follow the laid down rules and regulations that are in support of better work and working lives. Through such efforts therefore, the government thrives to achieve this goal by putting in place the legislation to guide the organizational activities that are in promotion to the better work and working lives. Options for Trade Unions: Trade unions are usually formed with the purpose of aiding in bargaining between the employers and employees. There are benefits that both sides would like to achieve during their working contracts. These are sometimes better negotiated by a third party who will not take sides but instead ensures that both the party’s conditions are well negotiated and met if possible. This is always for the betterment of the mutual relationship that exists between these two parties. The trade unions will ensure that the goal of better work and working lives is met or achieved by ensuring that better terms of work are proposed by the employers to the employees. The unions will ensure that the employees are not exploited and their rights infringed by the employers. The trade unions will advocate for better pay, improved working conditions, good allowances, leave and offs provided, maternity leaves as well as sick leaves are also awarded to the workers. On the other side, the trade unions will also ensure that the employers achieve their goals by putting in place the guidelines that should be followed by the employees when they are at their work places. Section 3 Problems in the current labour market for the organizations trying to achieve this goal For the organization that may be striving to achieve this goal, some encounter several problems as they try to do so. These are problems that are majorly created by the conditions that are found in the current labour markets. The conditions in the current labour market are majorly characterised by youth unemployment, deskilling, recession as well as precarious employment. The high rise in the number of youths who are not employed, characterized by the fact that the youths are considered inexperienced, and unskilled, make it difficult for organizations to achieve the goal of better work and working lives. There is a mismatch that exists in the labour market as far as youth and employment is concerned. The youth’s expectation after their education is to get employed and fulfill their dreams. On the other side, the employers consider the youth to be inexperience and cannot be able to give better results than the old who are experienced. This means that most of the youth will end up being unemployed for a long time, hence the goal of better work will be hard to achieve. Every employer, anyway, say they would want to employ many young people, though this wish normally is never fulfilled during recruitment (CIPD, 2013). Through the CIPD’s report about their work with young people during their mentoring programs, they got to understand how the young people feel to be locked out of the labour market. This is a fact that does not help in achieving the goal to a better work and working lives. Young people are also considered to lack knowledge about career pathways, occupation and the breath of the available opportunities. The research by CIPD indicates that young people have a chance of 3.5 times more likely not to be employed as compared to an adult. This, instead of striving to achieve the goal of better work and working live, it risks high negative consequences for individuals, societies and organizations who might need such skills in the future. If the youth are not employed, there will not be experienced or high skilled adults in the future. This means that the future will tend to work even harder in order to achieve this goal. Due to economic recession, efforts to meet or achieve the goal of better work and working lives by the organizations become very futile. This is because one would be employed but due to bad economic conditions, the wages paid would not be commensurate to the living standards of the person. This would be because money would lose its value and the living standards would also be high. Precarious employment on the other side makes the labour market to be seasonal and unpredictable. This makes (Ellis, 2012) the employees not to be sure of when their contracts would be terminated and when next they expect to be employed. This makes it very hard for the organizations to achieve the goal of better work and working lives (Budd, 2011). Looking at deskilling, it becomes very hard for this goal to be achieved when organizations and trade unions involve in reducing the number of skills required for a particular job. This can happen due to the introduction of advanced technological innovations to replace human skills. Many people will be laid out and left jobless. The organizations will therefore rely on the priorities they have other than the youths to employ since these-adults-work better than the young people due to their skills. There are better priorities by the organizations given to better job outputs from more experienced employees which makes some of the less experienced but knowledgeable job seekers be left out of during recruitment. Different resource acquisition by different organizations also make them be in a position to either employ or not employ employees and provide them with either good or bad working conditions. Therefore, this becomes a barrier to achieving the goal of better work and working lives. Bibliography Broughton, A., Foley, B., Ledermaier, S., & Cox, A. (2013). The use of social media in the recruitment process. Acas research paper. . London: Acas. Budd, J. (2011). The Thought of Work. New York: Cornell University Press. CIPD. (2013). ‘Employers are from Mars, Young People are from Venus: Addressing the young people / jobs mismatch’ . London: CIPD. CIPD. (2013). Labour Market outlook. London: CIPD. CIPD. (2013). Megatrends: The trends shaping work and working lives. London: CIPD. 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