employment relations essay

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• To define employment relations and describe how it operates across all levels of business and a range of disciplines
• To identify the major participants in employment relations
• To show how the balance between collective and individual employment agreements and rights has changed over time
• To examine the core principle and content of employment agreements, including the distinction between employees and contractors
• To highlight how the roles of the Employment Institutions and legal precedent have influenced the practical application of employment relations changes

Introduction

Most of us are either employed in paid or unpaid work, or employ people ourselves and, therefore, have some understanding of what employment means. Employment relations are often described as the interaction between three major groups: employers, employees, and the government. But it is more than this; employment relations are dynamic and complex and what occurs in the workplace is influenced by the wider society. Governments change employment laws from time to time, and courts interpret these laws when they rule on cases. This creates precedents – new understandings about the application of law, which essentially become new laws.

Rapid technological change has resulted in both a change in the type of jobs available, and the way that work is done. The ‘future of work’ has become a catch cry and is often associated with very positive or negative predictions about job opportunities or disappearance of jobs (see discussion in Chapter 6). Some of these changes are already detectable. Thus, the ‘standard employment relationship’ – an assumption that work is full time, stable, with set hours and unionised – is no longer the case for most New Zealanders. Many people work part time or long hours and job and income insecurity appear on the rise. Technology is disrupting boundaries between work and leisure, something that has become pronounced after the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Businesses often want the flexibility of longer operating hours and variable staff rosters and can use contracting models to better control wage and salary costs. Thus, many people work as contractors and contracting has become dominant in certain industries and occupations. Recently, contractors have started to provide services administered by various web-based platforms as part of the ‘gig economy’.

Overall, there are many influences beyond the local and national labour markets. Workers in New Zealand compete in globalised job markets as firms outsource production to countries with lower labour costs. Furthermore, government policies facilitate immigration and emigration, allowing the New Zealand workforce and its skill and education makeup to change faster than it would without international labour mobility.

This chapter defines ‘employment relations’, the different levels of employment relations and it examines the key ‘actors’ who influence employment relations. The chapter also overviews the basic elements of an employment agreement and will in subsequent chapters deal with historical and current changes to the employment agreement itself and to its key components such as pay, hours, leave and dispute resolution. The chapter will also highlight the distinction between employees and contractors and why this distinction came to be of great importance. Finally, we focus on employment institutions which deals with disagreements over employment agreements and disputes in workplaces. As there has been rapid change to employment relations – including an expansion of employee rights and less collective bargaining coverage – there has been considerable focus on court-based employment decisions.

Finally, there are major disagreements about core employment relations issues and how to interpret the above-mentioned changes and influences. How we view employment relations is contentious as we each have our own outlook (or perspective) based on our individual set of beliefs and values (as discussed in Chapter 2). Often, we tend to align ourselves with those who share our views and the various perspectives can be found in disagreements between the key parties in employment relations as well as political decisions on legislative frameworks and employee rights (see Chapters 3, 4 and 5).

What are employment relations?

The definition of employment relations has broadened over time and is still evolving. The subject of employment relations has developed an interdisciplinary approach using concepts and ideas derived from several disciplines, including sociology, economics, psychology, history and political science (see Chapter 2). Our current definition incorporates conceptual elements from both UK industrial relations and USA labour relations as well as from human resource management theory. The issue of collective disputes between workers and employers has dominated traditional definitions of employment relations, with a fixation on conflict between employers, unions and employees. As shown below, there have been considerable changes recently as employment relations has superseded the traditional concepts of industrial or labour relations and their pre-occupation with collective bargaining and industrial disputes.

Power is an important aspect of employment relations. Power refers to the ability to influence the behaviour of others to get what you want. In an employment relations context, power is important within organisations as different actors have different levels of power in that organisation. Does a low-paid employee have the same level of power when discussing workplace issues as the manager or business owner? How do these power differentials impact on relationships and outcomes? Additionally, power in the wider society is also important because different groups and interests – including government, employer groups and unions – try to negotiate policy outcomes that favour their own group or interests and reflect their values and priorities.

Traditionally, industrial/labour relations were concerned with ‘macro’ questions, including how employers and businesses are a part of the wider community and how they play an important role in society. In particular, industrial/labour relations have focused on three aspects of the employment relationship, namely: the key parties (employees, employers, and government), the processes of collective bargaining (including conflict resolution), and the outcomes of these processes (Bamber et al., 2016). In particular, the way collective conflict was regulated has received plenty of attention. Regulating industrial conflict involves the development of formal rules – such as written employment contracts and policies – and of informal rules – such as custom and practice (see Chapters 13 and 14 in Rasmussen, 2022). Thus, the focus is on structures that regulate matters of conflict arising out of the employment relationships which includes the regulation of power relationships in the workplace. Additionally, industrial/labour relations have traditionally concentrated on unionised, male, manual workers employed in large factories and have tended to ignore workers in service industries, workers in small workplaces and non-unionised employees.

The rise of Human Resource Management (HRM) since the 1980s has also had a major influence on our understanding of employment relationships. HRM emphasises a strategic approach to achieving organisational goals and involves a series of management prescriptions designed to ensure the efficiency and commitment of employees (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). The focus of HRM is, therefore, on the individual organisation and the way the individual worker can be managed in order to enhance the achievement of broader organisational objectives. As a result, HRM has been linked closely with motivation in the form of psychological and economic dependency. The emphasis is on winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the workforce in order to achieve the common goals of the organisation (Bratton & Gold, 2017; McAndrew et al., 2018).

The traditional views of both industrial/labour relations and HRM have been challenged while, at the same time, extracting the more useful aspects from the two disciplines. As a result, the distinctions between industrial/labour relations and HRM have become blurred, creating an over-arching discipline called ‘employment relations’ (Bamber et al., 2016; Kelly, 2012). This shift in definition has the advantage that it extends the boundaries of industrial/labour relations and HRM to include all aspects of the two approaches. Most important of all, it has incorporated both the ‘macro’ or broader approach adopted by industrial/labour relations and the ‘micro’ or organisational approach of HRM. It is recognised, therefore, that the employment relationship does not exist in isolation and can be found on many levels: international, national, industry, organisational and workplace levels.

Levels of employment relations

What occurs in New Zealand employment relations is often influenced by international trends and events. International trade agreements, the operations of multinationals and the pressure to conform to international labour conventions and treaties all have an impact on the way employment relations are conducted in this country. For example, multinational companies’ movement in and out of a country typically depend upon whether or not that country’s labour and compliance costs will benefit the multinational organisation financially. Concern has been expressed in New Zealand about the way multinationals influence our wages and conditions by choosing to set up their manufacturing operations in nearby poorer countries with weaker employment protection legislation, in direct competition with New Zealand manufacturers. Employment relations at a national level are also influenced by international institutions, such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), of which New Zealand was a founding member. Since its foundation in 1919, the ILO has been involved in the promotion of international labour standards (see https://www.ilo.org/global/lang–en/index.htm ). In recent years, the ILO has become more important through promotion of Decent Work principles (see Ferraro et al., 2015) which have also influenced legislative changes and public policy discussions in New Zealand.

Most decisions regarding New Zealand employment standards are taken at a national level. Employment standards are contained in national statutes that govern how people are employed, their minimum level of pay, and their conditions of work. For example, the Human Rights Act 1993 establishes anti-discrimination standards; the Minimum Wages Protection Act 1983 sets standards for minimum wages, and the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 provides guidelines for health and safety in the workplace (see Chapter 5). Economic, social and welfare policies constructed by government also have major consequences for both employers and employees throughout New Zealand. For example, the government policy decision to deregulate the automotive industry in the late 1980s and to reduce tariffs resulted in the closure of car manufacturing plants and other related businesses. Likewise, the changes to immigration rules during the Covid-19 pandemic had major labour market repercussions and created recruitment problems in several industries.

Although there is a national framework of employment relations standards (see Chapters 4 and 5), general parameters for wages and conditions are, more often than not, set at the industry level. For example, a qualified motor mechanic with three years’ experience will have a good idea of how much they should be paid by making relative comparisons with other mechanics who have the same level of qualification and experience. Wages and conditions within industries can be set either directly or more indirectly through flow-on effects. Wage rates and specific conditions can also be negotiated directly between the representatives of employers and employees at an industry level (see the discussion of Fair Pay Agreements in Chapter 4). In the last three decades, there has been a shift from collective, industry-based wages and conditions to workplace-based, individual employment agreements (see Chapters 3 and 4). This has created a much wider divergence in pay and conditions; not only between industries but also between occupations, workplaces and individual jobs within particular organisations.

Corporate decisions can have either positive or detrimental effects on an organisation’s employment relations. Strategic decisions, such as the introduction of new technology, the way the company is structured, the opening or closing of new plants and offices, or the introduction of new management practices, will affect the lives of the organisation’s employees. Decisions taken at the corporate level about redundancies, less job security, etc., are also likely to have a detrimental effect on the workforce. However, some employers have purposely adopted human resource policies and implemented corporate strategies that will enhance their employment relations as well as their public image. But as organisations change over time, so do their strategies. For example, in the past New Zealand-owned companies have had strategies that fostered harmonious employment relations and longer term commitment to their company (see Chapter 6). But as the companies changed ownership and senior managers left, new managerial strategies were implemented to reflect the new ethos of the organisation. It is at this level, too, that HRM strategies – such as good communication and innovative reward systems – are most effective in motivating the workforce and improving employee morale and satisfaction.

However, it is at the workplace level that the employment relationship is most keenly felt. The day-to-day activities and how they are managed will often determine the quality of the relationship between supervisors and staff. For example, as a result of the replacement of complex organisational hierarchies with team-based organisational structures, some employees can have a large degree of autonomy over how they work. This influences aspects, such as the allocation of tasks, the design of the job, the allocation of overtime, and so on. The move toward team-based structures has also produced a change in titles – the terms ‘supervisor’ and ‘staff’ have been replaced with ‘team leader’ and ‘team members’ – but the question is: has it changed hierarchical divisions? The devolvement of responsibilities to the workplace level in the last decades has had a significant impact not only on how we work but also on our employment relationships in general. Likewise, greater employment flexibility and atypical employment arrangements have also impacted on employment relationships and this is, in part, why there is such a debate about the potential influences from various ‘future of work’ scenarios.

Employment relations can be studied, therefore, at the international, national, industry, corporate and workplace levels, and can be affected by external factors, such as technological change, market conditions, societal and political power shifts. It is clear, therefore, that the nature of employment relations can only be fully understood in the context of, and in relation to, wider socio-economic, political and legal structures.

Interest groups

The subject of employment relations is also concerned with the study of how individuals, groups or organisations desire their interests to be represented (collectively or individually), and what these interests are; for example, the amount of pay, hours worked, or production output. Interest groups are organised groups of people – who are not political parties – who come together to influence laws and policies.

As mentioned above, employment relations laws and policies are not created in a vacuum. There are many competing interest groups who aim to influence how employment regulations are enacted and implemented. Indeed, some argue that national decisions concerning the creation of employment regulations are essentially a compromise between the wishes of powerful interest groups and those of the government (see CIPD, 2017). According to this view, the government is to be regarded as serving primarily the interests of those whom it regulates, namely the employers and employees. At the corporate level, employers and employees are in competition with one another for power and control over the decision-making process, knowledge, information and technology, though more power and control normally rest with management.

The government

Historically, the government has played a central role in New Zealand’s employment relations, although the nature of its activity has varied from direct, centralised government control to a more hands-off approach whereby markets are left to organise employment relations with less state intervention. Irrespective of the extent of government involvement in employment relations, it is a critical player, creating the framework within which employers and employees interact. This framework influences the balance of power between employer and employee interest groups and provides structures for conflict resolution. This relationship is bound by conventions developed over the last century with the government establishing an employment relations framework through legislation and legal institutions (see Chapter 3).

Government departments have the responsibility for regulating and promoting compliance with the raft of employment legislation that deals with issues like working conditions and minimum wages (for example, through the Labour Inspectorate in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [MBIE]). During the 19th century, concerns about the working conditions of women and children, as documented in the 1890 Sweating Commission, led to the establishment of a system of statutory minimum conditions contained in the Factories Act 1891 and later the Industrial and Conciliation Act 1894.

Subsequently throughout the 20th century, legislation was updated with some Acts being amended and others replaced. Like Australia, New Zealand had adopted an award system. Under the award system, different award documents contained occupation- and industry-specific minimum wages and conditions, including, the level of pay, hours of work, special rates for overtime, dangerous or piece work, etc. However, the system ceased with the enactment of the Employment Contracts Act 1991 and, as a consequence, employment relations statutes, such as the Minimum Wage Act and the Holidays Act, have become more important as they now provide the minimum standards.

The current legislative framework, the Employment Relations Act (ERA) 2000, therefore, is supported by other legislation that sits alongside and stipulates, for example, adult and youth minimum wage rates, paid annual leave requirements and personal grievance and disputes procedures. The statutory minimum standards contained in these supportive employment relations statutes are regulated by MBIE’s Labour Inspectorate while employment or ‘personal’ grievances are enforced through the Employment Institutions. Personal grievances and employee rights are discussed later this chapter.

New Zealand employment laws and procedures are also formed and defined by the country’s legal system. Under the ERA 2000, employment matters are handled by the MBIE’s Employment Mediation Services, the Employment Relations Authority and Employment Court. The government continues to separate out employment matters from other legal issues as a way of ensuring that it retains a role in the regulation of employment relationships and that employees have direct access to procedures which allow them to seek redress for employer actions (McAndrew, 2010; Rasmussen & Greenwood, 2014).

However, periodically, there has been pressure both inside and outside the New Zealand Parliament to abolish specialist employment law institutions (Rasmussen, 2009, pp. 83-84). The desire to discontinue a separate employment legal system was based, to a large extent, on the employers’ criticism of the Employment Court’s decisions. In particular, such criticism was levelled at the Court’s firm intention to uphold the notion of ‘procedural fairness’, its recognition of and accessibility to employee representatives, its opposition to harsh and oppressive contracts, and its views on home workers’ contractual status (Anderson & Hughes, 2014; Simpkin, 2006).

It should also be remembered that the government is, itself, not only a regulator and arbitrator, but also a substantial employer. Many of its employees work in essential service areas such as policing, defence, health, education and welfare. The government is also an indirect employer through its procurement practices (Ravenswood & Kaine, 2015). Many New Zealanders are employed in either privately-owned companies or non-governmental agencies that receive substantial funding from the government. People working in both private and public sectors are covered by the ERA 2000 but public servants are also covered by the State Sector Act 1988. The latter Act follows public sector legal tradition by making provision for a separate negotiating body, the State Services Commission.

Since 1988, the employment practices of the public sector have fallen more in line with those of the private sector. Chief executives of government departments now have the freedom to employ, dismiss, promote and discipline staff – with the exception of senior executives. Most government departments have expert employment relations advisers to ensure good practices and that the departments meet the requirement of being a ‘good employer’ as set out in the State Sector Act.

There are many groups that represent a range of employers’ interests. For example, there are Chambers of Commerce, industry and trade associations, and employer groups such as Business New Zealand that specialise in employment matters. In the 1980s and 1990s, employer lobby groups placed increasing pressure on the Labour and National governments to enact radical labour market reforms. At the heart of their argument for labour market reforms was the notion that the traditional protection of trade unions and centralised collective bargaining was, in fact, diminishing the rights of both employers and employees, undermining business competitiveness and creating unemployment (Harbridge, 1993).

One of the more effective employer lobby groups in New Zealand was the Business Roundtable (NZBRT). Founded in 1985, membership of the Roundtable was by invitation only and restricted to the chief executives of New Zealand’s largest companies. The NZBRT promoted a consistent view of employment relations, in line with ‘right-wing’ or libertarian ideology (Harris & Twiname, 1998; Kelsey, 1997). This included vocal support to end compulsory trade union membership and promotion of more individualised employment relations. The NZBRT had considerable influence on public policy during the 1985-1996 period. However, it lost the ear of governments from the late 1990s onwards. In 2012, they merged with the New Zealand Institute to form a new think-tank, The New Zealand Initiative.

However, far more representative of employers’ interests are the employers’ and manufacturers’ associations situated in the main regions. Business New Zealand was created after a merger of the Employers’ Federation and the Manufacturer’s Federation in 2001, and has specialist divisions for representing, at a national level, the interests of exporters, manufacturers, and its Major Companies Group. The employers’ and manufacturers’ associations also provide a range of services – from training to legal representation – for their members. However, like the trade unions, they have had to adjust to the deregulated economy and rapidly changing employment environment of the last decades.

The other significant representative of employers’ interests is the Chambers of Commerce. Established over 160 years ago the branches are also located in the main New Zealand regions. Like the employers’ and manufacturers’ associations, they offer a range of employment relations/HRM services. Finally, there are business groups that have been formed to respond to a particular issue, for example, the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum. Launched in 2010, the Forum is a coalition of business and government leaders representing about 300 private and public sector organisations with the aim of improving the performance of workplace health and safety in New Zealand.

Trade unions

Trade unions have represented the interests of New Zealand employees in one form or another since the 19th century. Their role was supported and aided by earlier government legislation which ensured compulsory union membership and access to disputes procedures. However, the Employment Contracts Act 1991 abolished the unions’ monopoly position as an employee interest group. As a result, there was an immediate decline in trade union membership. The loss of members was precipitated by the move to individual employment contracts, by disaffected members leaving the unions and by frequent job shifts by employees. From May 1991 to December 1999, union membership fell by more than 50% to 302 405, and union density (the number of union members as a percentage of the workforce) declined from 41.5% to 17.0%, although the number of trade unions stayed roughly the same (see Chapter 3).

This decline severely weakened the power base of the two major employee associations that represent a consortium of trade unions, namely the Trade Union Federation (TUF) and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU). The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) was the larger of the two and, in 2000, represented 21 affiliated trade unions and more than 240 000 employees. By 2001, a merger of the CTU and TUF had brought state and private-sector unions under a single umbrella grouping. Mergers of unions have continued and, in 2016, the CTU represented 31 unions and more than 320 000 employees.

However, trade unions had already started to consolidate their position at the end of the 1990s and, with the introduction of the ERA 2000, they have managed to stabilise their membership numbers, though with private sector unions facing an uphill battle (see Tables 3.1 and 4.1). In addition, there have been a number of mergers creating ‘super unions’. For example, in 1996, the Engineers Union merged with the remnant of the Communication and Energy Workers Union and the Print, Packaging and Media Union. This created the largest private-sector union, the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), with nearly 60 000 members. In 2015, EPMU further merged, with the Service and Food Workers’ Union, to create E tū. In 2011, the FIRST Union was created through an amalgamation of the National Distribution Union (organising primarily workers in the transport and warehousing industries) and Finsec (organising workers in the bank and finance industries). Finally, the Public Service Association (PSA) has sustained a strong presence in the public sector as has other public sector unions, such as the teachers’ unions, the nurses’ union and the doctors’ unions.

There have also been new union organising strategies, of which the Living Wage Campaign is one noteworthy example. The Living Wage Campaign is a response to the phenomena of working poor, in which working full-time on a minimum wage is not enough to meet living costs, but also is not enough to live with dignity and to be an active citizen in New Zealand communities (Carr et al., 2018). By approaching and working with community groups including churches, the Service and Food Workers’ Union (now part of E tū)  campaign had, by 2016, managed to get about 60 accredited employers to pay 19.80 NZD per hour (compared with the minimum wage of 15.25 NZD per hour.)

In summary , the interests of the three main groups can be represented on a continuum. At one end are the employers who want to ensure that they are not unreasonably impeded from managing their businesses and making profits. At the other end are the employees who desire fair wages and conditions and some say in the way they work. The government lies somewhere in between these two groups, providing a buffer for the employees and attempting to control the extremes of the employers. In reality, however, the employers’ and employees’ representatives do not restrict themselves just to workplace matters but endeavour to influence government policies on a wide range of issues – from paying fire service levies to social welfare and benefit payments.

Employee versus contractor?

Another key feature of employment relations is the distinction between contracts of service and contracts for service . This distinction has evolved over centuries and has been carried through to the current legislative framework. Contracts of service or employment contracts cover employees working for wages or salaries; that is, employees in factories, shops, offices or professional occupations. Contracts for services cover self-employed contractors, who work for others under contract to provide distinct jobs or services. This involves tradespeople, taxi-drivers and many professionals such as lawyers and doctors. That is, the contractor may do the same tasks as an employee, but their legal status is different from that of an employee: contractors are not covered by the employment relations legislative framework in New Zealand. Contractors are, therefore, not entitled to receive the so-called ‘minimum code’ of statutory protections, such as holidays and other types of paid leave, minimum wages or equal pay. Certain implied terms that are present in every New Zealand employment agreement by statute or common law are not present in ordinary contracts for service (Lamare et al., 2014).

With new forms of jobs and individualised employment and working arrangements, more and more employment situations have arisen where it is difficult to distinguish between employees and contractors. This is often the result of new organisational strategies (in particular, the search for labour flexibility), attempts to reduce income taxation or attempts to avoid the statutory employee protection stipulated by the ERA 2000 and its associated Acts. Determining whether a worker is a contractor or an employee can also be difficult but there are some basic distinctions, as presented in Table 1.1.

Sources: Rasmussen & Lamm, 2002, p. 55; Lamare et al., 2014

Different courts have also decided whether a worker is a contractor or an employee, but the rulings can be conflicting. For example, in the New Zealand case Bryson v Three Foot Six Ltd. (2003, 2005), the Employment Relations Authority decided Mr. Bryson was a contractor but the Employment Court and the Supreme Court decided Mr. Bryson was an employee (see the Special Issue of the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations , 2011, 36(3), for a more detailed discussion of these decisions and the so-called ‘Hobbit’ legislation in 2010).

Notwithstanding the different legal decisions, the courts have developed a number of tests over the years in order to establish whether a person is working under an employment contract or under a contract for services (Anderson & Hughes, 2014). There are basically four such tests:

• the control test
• the organisation test
• the business test
• the composite test (involving all of the previous three tests).

These tests are important because they indicate key characteristics of an employment relationship. The control test, for example, indicates that the employment relationship is a power and authority relationship. This authority is often referred to as ‘managerial prerogative’ – that is, the ability to manage other people and to issue demands. However, some employees can have a significant amount of discretion in how they do their work and as a result the control aspects become less clear-cut. This is the case, for example, with many highly skilled employees such as computer specialists, academics, legal or financial specialists.

This discretion is important in the organisation test which asks whether the employee is part of an organisation or whether the work the employee does is central to the organisation. The business test attempts to establish whether the person is running a business or whether the person is dependent on an organisation. Finally, the composite test is an assessment of the employment status that takes the three previous tests into account. This test is probably the way that court decisions are moving as the distinction between being an employee or a self-employed contractor becomes more and more blurred. However, in particular cases, the court will place greater emphasis on one or another of the tests, as appropriate.

In summary, while contractors retain rights and protections under general contract law, these rights, however, do not equate to those defined by employment laws designed to protect employees from what the ERA 2000 calls ‘the inherent inequality of bargaining power in employment relationships’. In the next section, we will explore employee rights, employee agreements and institutions in more detail.

Employee rights and the Employment Institutions

Under the conciliation and arbitrations system (1894-1990), the legislative framework had a focus on collective bargaining and collective agreements while individual agreements were dealt with under common law. This meant that many employees had no access to pursue employee rights through the Employment Institutions. This changed with the ECA 1991 where all employees had an employment contract/agreement and their employee rights could be pursued through the Employment Institutions (see Chapter 3). This is still the case under the ERA 2000, though this Act uses the term employment agreements (and so will this book) and is more prescriptive about the types of agreements allowed and their content.

Generally, employment agreements are made up of different components. The key components of an employment agreement are:

• the agreement itself (whether verbal or written)
• statutory entitlements
• customs and practice
• implied terms.

The employment agreement often consists of more than one document. It could include a separate job description or the so-called ‘House Rules’. The House Rules specify the workplace culture and particular ways of behaving in the workplace and can also provide detailed information regarding aspects such as use of equipment, company cars and the corporate wardrobe.

The agreement has to be in keeping with the statutory entitlements of employees, which are currently prescribed partly in the ERA 2000 and partly in a number of other Acts relating to industry, workplace and work practices (see, for example, the discussion of occupational health and safety in chapter 5). Customs and practice relate to workplace practices that, over time, have become a norm and that both employers and employees take for granted. For example, some workplaces may close early for Christmas or the organisation may be closed for the whole of Anzac Day. While such norms are important in creating a positive workplace culture and in running the day-to-day affairs of an organisation, problems can arise because of a lack of clarity and because they do not provide clear guidelines in respect of accountability.

Implied terms are norms that have become accepted as minima through many years of legal precedent. They concern certain basic rights and obligations with which employers and employees will have to comply. These include employee obligations such as turning up for work, following the employer’s directions, and looking after the organisation’s property and other employees’ well-being. On the employer’s side, it includes obligations to provide a safe workplace, to deal honestly with employees and to pay them the agreed wages. Thus, the rights and obligations often relate to behaviour that most people would regard as a matter of common sense (for more detail see Anderson & Hughes, 2014).

What could an employee expect to find in an employment agreement? The content of such agreements varies according to the job, the organisational culture and existing contractual arrangements. While some employees have a verbal employment agreement, most employers and employees prefer a written agreement as this clarifies the rights and obligations of the two parties. A written employment agreement has been prescribed as the norm under the ERA 2000 (see Chapter 4). Presented below are a number of items that are often found in employment agreements. The absence of some of these items from an employment agreement may have important implications.

Employment agreements are governed by statutory entitlements, customs and practice, and implied terms. This means that there are certain entitlements which cannot be undercut by any employment agreement. The statutory entitlements are mentioned in the ERA 2000 (see Chapter 4). There are, for example, existing default personal grievance procedures that will come into play if no such procedures are specifically included in an agreement. Likewise, there are minimum leave entitlements and statutory minimum wages both for adult and youth workers. Finally, inherent in the implied terms is that the employment agreement can cover only legal arrangements. Thus, in respect of employment, civil and criminal law, the agreement must not include any unlawful stipulations.

This means that such unlawful conditions or conditions below statutory minimum conditions, even if agreed to in an agreement, cannot be upheld. In other words, even if an employer and an employee have agreed on a wage below the statutory minimum wage, it would nonetheless be possible for the employee to seek a back payment from the employer, equal to the difference between the agreed and the statutory minimum wage for the period of employment. Thus, having an employment agreement provides significant protection and this makes the distinction between an employee and a contractor/self-employed person very important.

Source: Rasmussen & Lamm, 2002, p. 54

Employment institutions and personal grievances

The establishment of specific Employment Institutions became a major feature of New Zealand employment relations with the introduction of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894, and they are still a major feature under the ERA 2000. Unsurprisingly, the names, roles and specific functions of the Employment Institutions have changed considerably over time. The current Employment Institutions are the Mediation Service, the Employment Authority and the Employment Court and their roles and functions are discussed in Chapter 4. The personal grievance has been a crucial employee right since the Employment Contracts Act 1991 extended access to the personal grievance procedure to all employees. Since then, legislation has afforded employees the opportunity to decide themselves whether they would lodge a personal grievance claim, whereas previously, the claims procedure had been conducted through unions. This led, as was expected, to a rise in personal grievance claims (see Chapter 3). Since the mid-1990s, the Employment Institutions have had to deal with several thousand cases a year and most of these cases are personal grievance cases.

The personal grievance right has been controversial and it has often generated very critical employer evaluations (Walker & Hamilton, 2011). Some employer associations have pointed to some employees developing an ‘American litigation’ mind-set, especially when some employee representatives have an outcome-based fee structure whereby the employee only paid the representative if the case was won. The employee has, therefore, little financial risk in pursuing a personal grievance claim (Burton, 2004; 2010).

Another frequent employer complaint has been the emphasis on procedural fairness by the Employment Institutions (see below). Such employer advocacy has been criticised as exaggerating the lopsidedness and levels of payments associated with the personal grievance right, and instead personal grievance is seen as a useful constraint on the employer prerogative and promoting better conflict management (McAndrew, 2010). However, the 2008–2017 National-led Governments abolished the automatic personal grievance right of new employees – it was now up for negotiation (the so-called 90-day trial period) – which have influenced employment norms amongst young and low-paid employees (see Table 2 in Foster & Rasmussen, 2017, p. 102). While the post 2017 Labour-led Government has reversed several of the 2008–2017 changes, it is noticeable that it has kept the 90-day trial period for organisations with less than 20 staff.

Most of the personal grievance claims concerned unjustifiable dismissals. This probably suggests that a better understanding of the dismissal procedures by employees and employers alike was necessary. There are three types of dismissals (Anderson & Hughes, 2014, pp. 359-370):

• the standard, general type of dismissal
• summary dismissals
• constructive dismissals.

We will concentrate on the standard, general type of dismissal and only briefly describe the two other types. Summary dismissals occur when the employee is dismissed instantly and without any notice. This is a very drastic action that should only occur very rarely and only when the employee is guilty of serious misbehaviour. What constitutes ‘serious misbehaviour’ will alter over time but the term is normally associated with stealing, fighting, deliberately disobeying the employer’s requests, and with a disregard for other persons’ safety and health. Constructive dismissals occur in situations where the employee feels under pressure to resign. This can include situations in which a manager has ‘leaned’ heavily on an employee through constant criticism, allocating inconvenient rosters, or through publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the work performance. It can also include a situation in which the employee is given the choice of resigning or being dismissed.

A dismissal is only justifiable if it is fair and reasonable. This implies that there must be adequate justification (due cause) and a fair process . Adequate justification would include misconduct, dishonesty or lack of punctuality on the part of the employee. However, dismissals are often associated with so-called ‘performance problems’, where the performance of the employee has fallen short of the expectations or standards set by the employer. In the case of performance problems, the following elements are important: the expected standards must be clear and the employee must be aware of the standards; these standards may not have suddenly changed, and the employee must have received adequate training and supervision to meet the expected standards.

Under the Employment Contracts Act 1991, the idea of a fair process, also known as procedural fairness , received a lot of attention (Anderson & Hughes, 2014, pp. 344-359). Key elements of a fair process are a discussion of the issues at stake between employer and employee and issue clarity . These key elements are important as each party should understand the other’s position and also what changes and outcomes are sought. Procedural fairness includes giving the employee the opportunity to rectify the problem and making sure the employee understands that he/she could be dismissed if the problem is not solved. The employee should, in other words, be aware of exactly what the problem is and should know what to do in order to rectify it. The employee should also be given adequate time to rectify the problem and a clear warning must be issued that his/her employment could be terminated if the problem is not rectified.

If the warnings do not bring about the changes sought, then it may be necessary for an employer to consider terminating the employment relationship. In such situations, procedural fairness is important and Fryer and Oldfield (1994, p. 71) have recommended the following steps:

• ‘give a proper explanation to the worker of the reasons that dismissal is being considered, including details of alleged wrongdoing;
• give the worker the opportunity to put their side of the story – defenses, explanations, any mitigating factors;
• make a full investigation of the situation before coming to a final decision. This includes taking into account the worker’s explanation, interviewing other staff members where necessary, etc.’

Despite these relatively simple guidelines, many employers have complained about the complexity surrounding personal grievances and how decisions in the Employment Institutions can negatively influence employing and managing people. While these are controversial and contested positions, the changes in employment regulations have featured strongly in political debates (see Rasmussen, 2009, pp. 11-15).

A particular problem has been the crucial importance of legal precedent – that is, court decisions on key legal issues – in formulating precise guidelines for bargaining and workplace behaviours (Caisley, 2004). This can be a long-winded process and it can lead to shifting legal interpretations which can be difficult to understand for the average employer and employee. While the ERA 2000 has tried to limit the importance of legal precedent by having a prescriptive legal framework, there are continuously new challenges to the precise interpretation of legislative principles and their practical application (Greenwood, 2016).

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Burton, B. (2010). Employment relations 2000-2008: an employer view. In E. Rasmussen (Ed.). Employment Relationships: Workers, Unions and Employers in New Zealand (pp. 94-115). Auckland University Press.

Caisley, A. (2004). The law moves in mysterious ways. In E. Rasmussen (Ed). Employment Relationships. New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act (pp. 59-76). Auckland University Press.

Carr, S., Parker, J., Arrowsmith, J., Yao, C. & Harr, J. (2018). The Living Wage in New Zealand and its Implications for Human Resource Management and Employment Relations. In J. Parker & M. Baird, M (Eds.). Big Issues in Employment (pp. 95-108). CCH New Zealand.

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McAndrew, I. (2010). The employment institutions. In E. Rasmussen (Ed.). Employment Relationships: Workers, Unions and Employers in New Zealand (pp. 74-93). Auckland University Press.

McAndrew, I., Edgar, F., & Jerrard, M. (2018). Human Resource Management and Employment Relations Paradigms in Australia and New Zealand. In J. Parker & M. Baird (Eds.). Big Issues in Employment (pp. 1-19). CCH New Zealand.

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Introduction and overview of employment relations Copyright © 2022 by Erling Rasmussen; Felicity Lamm; and Julienne Molineaux is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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A Short Essay on International and Comparative Employment Relations

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Essay on Employment Relations

Introduction.

An employment relationship refers to a contractual relationship between an employer and an employee providing details concerning an employee’s duties and the employer’s obligations to the employee in terms of compensation and the provision of a satisfactory working environment. The Employment relationship has undergone an evolutionary process in response to or in line with the evolution of HRM as a strategic activity within the organisation. This essay aims to critically discuss the argument that the employment relationship (ER) has transformed from a collective relationship to an individualised relationship whereby a positive association between a manager and the employee leads employees to be more committed to organisations and deliver superior performance. Several theories are applied in this discussion, including the matching model, the Harvard model, the pluralist theory, the Marxist theory of employee relationships and the contextual model of human resource management. The essay begins with an introduction. The introduction section precedes a critical discussion of the shift in employment relationships from collective to individual. The third section presents a conclusion of the essay, whereas the fourth section outlines the practical implications of the essay findings.

A critique of the shift in employment relationship from a collective to an individual relationship

A shift in employment relations is being motivated by the transformation in human resource management..

According to Chang and Andreoni (2020), there has been a shift in employment relationships from a collective relationship to individual relationship. This shift has occurred because of a shift in the human resources approach whereby organisations initially paid attention to personnel management. However, recently, management has focused on human resource management rather than personnel management. Personnel management was concerned with maintaining a collectivist approach to managing employees. Likewise, personnel management was concerned with creating and maintaining indirect communication between the management and employees and a sociological approach towards handling the relationship between management and the organisation.

On the contrary, human resource management shifted focus from collectivism to individualism with regard to the relationship between management and employees. Additionally, under human resource management, the management adopts direct communication with employees rather than indirect communication using representatives. Further, under human resource management, organisations mainly focus on the psychological relationship between the management and employees. In this regard, human resource management is perceived as a strategic unit within the organisation which is applied to bring forth improvement in the organisation’s performance. According to Stone et al. (2020), in 2017, IBM replaced its collective bargaining approach in the form of annual performance reviews with individualised feedback systems whereby the management engages individuals to understand their performance and determine their appropriate reward. As opposed to the personnel management approach, which focuses on collective bargaining, human resource management entails individual employees maintaining personal relationships with their management to achieve higher benefits from their employment relationship. The above views echo the viewpoints of Monks et al. (2012), who observed that there had been a significant transformation in employment relationships with the focus shifting from collective bargaining to individual relationships between management and employees, whereby the maintenance of good relationships between the management and employee bear superior performance.

A shift in employment relations with employment relations being a subset of HRM

Research by Ackers (2012) also shows that there has been a shift in human resource management whereby rather than being an equal partner to human resource management, employment relationships are currently being taken as a subset of human resource management. Therefore, management applies employment relationships to get maximum input from employees. Likewise, according to Chris et al. (2013), the shift to human resource management has led to a shift in employment relationship management. Management is concerned with getting maximum input from employees. Therefore, the main goal of maintaining employee relationships within the organisation is to ensure that the relationship between employees and management yields maximum benefit to the organisation in terms of higher productivity levels. In Marginson (2015) opinion, a positive relationship between an employer and the employees is an integral factor that improves employee commitment and performance. For instance, maintaining good employer-employee relationships in Virgin Atlantic has helped the company achieve high levels of employee commitment, reduced turnover and improved productivity and business performance. According to Mistry (2017), through the employee-come-first policy, Virgin Atlantic has maintained touch with human capital considering employees as core to their success. The positive relationship between employees and the employer is a crucial strategic goal that managers pursue to enhance employee commitment and performance. Therefore, the organisation pursues a strong, close and positive relationship between the management and employees to bring forth stronger performance. Indeed, pursuing a positive relationship between the manager and employees is important as it communicates to the employees that employers value their employees, thereby winning employee commitment and strong performance.

Employee relations as a key driver to employee commitment and performance

There has been a shift in employment relationships from a collective to an individual relationship between the employer and the employee, mainly because of an increasingly competitive business environment (Piore and Safford, 2006). Increased competition in the business landscape has seen organisations perceive an employee as a crucial strategic asset. Therefore, attracting and maintaining highly effective talented employees is crucial to the firm’s long-term success. In this regard, the management perceived the maintenance of an individual and personal relationship with employees as a crucial step towards the firm’s long-term success. Therefore, firms have consistently maintained high levels of an individualised approach to human resource management in the recent past to ensure that they achieve superior performance levels. According to Townsend et al. (2014), the Harvard model of HRM, the role of HRM is to over decisions that ensure an optimal relationship between an organisation and its employees. Therefore, based on the Harvard human resource management model, the relationship between organisations is perceived from a long-term perspective whereby employees are considered an important asset (Guest, 1987). Therefore, according to the Harvard human resource management model, management needs to maintain an individualised and personal relationship with employees. This strategy is effective in the sense that it brings forth improvement in the level of employee commitment and, subsequently, their performance. In the past, employment relations were mainly based on collective representation, whereby trade unions were responsible for representing employees’ issues to management. This was witnessed in the case of Southern Rail when the organisation tried to introduce a new operational mechanism in which the driver was to be in charge of the opening and closing of the door, with conductors only being charged with handling passengers. The trade unions, namely RMT and ASLEF, considered this move as a strategy aimed at reducing the effectiveness of their role because conductors’ strikes would not be felt in the future, thus leading to massive strikes. This case illustrates the importance of collective bargaining as opposed to an individualised approach to managing employment relationships.

Employment relations shift from collectivist to individualist due to the effectiveness of employee voice.

There has been an increase in the shift from collective representation to the individualised relationship between management and employees. An increase has influenced this shift from collective bargaining to individual bargains in the desire by employees to have a direct conversation with the management about matters affecting their welfare. The decreasing popularity and influence of trade unions have further evidenced this shift. Indeed, trade unions’ role and influence have decreased over time in the UK and other countries worldwide (Brunetto et al., 2011). An increasing number of employees are considering the need to maintain a personal relationship and communication with management to ensure that their welfare is well cared for. Likewise, the management perceives a shift to an individualised relationship with employees as effective in yielding higher commitment and performance. For instance, in 2017, General Electric replaced its collective performance rating of employees with an individualised assessment of employees and management of individual relationships with employees (Engagedly, 2022). This move evidences a shift from a collectivist approach to employment relationships to a more personalised and individual approach associated with higher commitment and superior performance. Employees consistently believe that when they deal with the management directly, they are not only listened to but also their issues are addressed accordingly and in a timely manner; the shift from collective representation to individual bargaining between employers and employees has improved the employer-employee relationship and subsequently improved employee commitment and performance.

According to Kai and Brown (2013), there has been an increase in the shift from representation to employee voice. Under-representation, employees rely on collective bargaining and trade unions to ensure that employers address their issues. On the contrary, employees are more critical in managing their relationships with employers under the employee voice. In this case, employees seek to ensure that their issues are heard and that the management adheres to their demands. This move has occurred because of the declining popularity of trade unions. As a result, employers have increasingly sought to have influence rather than priding themselves on union membership. This has been the case because employees believe that the mere fact of being a member of a particular trade union fails to guarantee effectiveness in ensuring that employees’ matters are addressed.

For this reason, employees have sought to use a more effective approach to addressing their issues. This approach entails engaging directly with the management through employee voice and employee engagement. This move has further shown that, indeed, the maintenance of a positive relationship between the management and employees contributes towards improvement in the overall level of employee commitment and, subsequently, their performance in an organisational setting.

However, other researchers like Kai (2014) hold a contrary opinion asserting that the collectivist approach to employment relations remains relevant and needs to be replaced with an individualistic approach. Accordingly, collective bargaining as an approach towards maintaining good employer-employee relationships and securing the welfare of employees remains effective in the contemporary workplace. The collectivist approach to employment relationships can better be emphasised using the pluralist employee relationship model. Organisations have different interest groups according to the pluralist approach to employee relationships. On the one hand, employers are interested in getting maximum output from employees.

On the other hand, employees are interested in getting maximum compensation and a good working environment from employers, which is an expense to employers. Even though some interests may coincide, most interests between employers conflict, as such conflict in the workplace is inevitable. Based on the Marxist model of employment relationships, employees’ interests and employers’ interests are on opposing sides, and as such, there is a need for collaboration among team members to promote improved commitment. For this reason, employees pursue collectivist measures to improve representation (Gong et al. , 2010). Despite the waning influence of trade unions, employees of Coca-Cola persisted with trade unions as main representatives of their issues, as in the case of Coca-Cola employees in the Philippines, whose trade unions prevented Coca-Cola from using the pretext of Covid Union to lay off workers and dismiss trade union leaders (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2020). Therefore, employees need an organisation representing their interests to the employers to ensure they get their part of the bargain. According to Gong et al. (2010), it is only through collectivist approaches to employment relationships, such as trade unions, that employees can have their interest care of. In the same manner, the author argues that maintaining a positive relationship between employers and employees cannot be achieved solely through the individual relationship between the two parties but rather through some form of representation, such as trade unions. Therefore, employees must form and sustain trade unions to take care of their interests before the management.

Conclusion and implication for practice

In conclusion, there has been a huge debate as to whether there has been a transition from a collectivist to an individualistic ER with respect to employment relationships. Most past studies indicate that there has been a shift from collective to individual relationships. Evidence for this trend is the decline in the membership of trade unions in the recent past. Employees are increasingly losing interest in trade unions, with most pursuing employee voice rather than being represented. This move has occurred due to employees’ desire to use more influential means rather than trade unions, which are not influential in bringing forth desirable outcomes in the workplace. Additionally, research shows that the maintenance of a positive relationship between employers and employees serves to enhance improvement in commitment and performance. Nevertheless, some studies show that trade unions and collective approaches towards maintaining employee relationships remain relevant in today’s workplace. In conclusion, employee relationships are shifting with a significant transition from collective to individual relationships between employees and their employers. This shift has occurred because of employees’ desire to maintain an influential and persuasive relationship with employers, thereby improving their welfare in the workplace.

Employment relationships have shifted in the recent past from a collective relationship to an individual relationship between an employee and the manager. Maintaining a positive relationship between an employee and the manager has increasingly become a key driver in improving employee commitment and performance(Gong et al., 2010). This shift has specific managerial implications, particularly with regard to enhancing the performance of the employee’s performance. Specifically, management must invest in employee engagement to create good relationships with employees and enhance their performance (Kai, 2014). In the same manner, management needs to develop effective human resource management strategies to ensure that employees’ welfare is well catered to, which would bring forth improvement in their commitment and performance.

The second managerial implication of a shift from collective to individual approaches to employment relationships is the need for management to invest in employee voice policies. Specifically, the management needs to develop human resource management policies and practices that encourage employees to easily voice their opinions and views on matters affecting the firm and their welfare (Chang and Andreoni, 2020). Improvement in employee voice is important as it will ensure that the company can achieve higher levels of employee commitment. Additionally, improvement in employee voice will encourage employees to feel listened to within the organisation, which further leads to improvement in employee commitment to the organisation and overall performance (Brunetto et al., 2011). In this regard, the management needs to invest in such human resource management measures as suggestion boxes for employees, employee meetings in which employee welfare is discussed and feedback from employees concerning the organisation and how it takes care of their needs.

Ackers, P., (2012) ‘Re-thinking the employment relationship: a neo-pluralist critique of British industrial relations orthodoxy’ , The International Journal of HRM , 25(18), pp.2608-2625

Brunetto, Y., Farr-Wharton, R., & Shacklock, K. (2011) ‘Using the Harvard HRM model to conceptualise the impact of changes to supervision upon HRM outcomes for different types of Australian public sector employees,  The International Journal of Human Resource Management ,  22 (03), pp. 553-573

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (2020)  Coca Cola’s response. Available at: https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/coca-colas-response-2/ (Accessed 19 th  April 2023).

Chang, H.J. & Andreoni, A., (2020) ‘Industrial policy in the 21st century’,  Development and Change ,  51 (2), pp.324-351

Chris, R., Kerstin, A. & Mark, G. (2013) ‘Employee voice and engagement: connections and consequences’,  The International Journal of Human Resource Management , 24(14), pp. 2780-2798

Engagedly (2022)  Companies with the best performance management practices. Available at:  https://engagedly.com/8-top-companies-redefined-their-performance-management-systems/ (Accessed 19 th  April 2023).

Gong, Y., Chang, S., & Cheung, S. Y. (2010) ‘High performance work system and collective OCB: A collective social exchange perspective’,  Human Resource Management Journal ,  20 (2), pp. 119-137

Guest, D. E. (1987) ‘Human resource management and industrial relations,  Journal of management Studies ,  24 (5), pp. 503-521

Kai, C. (2014) ‘The collective transformation of labor relations and improvement of the government’s labor policy,  Social sciences in China ,  35 (3), pp. 82-99

Kai, C., & Brown, W. (2013) ‘The transition from individual to collective labour relations in China,  Industrial Relations Journal ,  44 (2), pp. 102-121

Marginson, P. (2015) ‘The changing nature of collective employment relations’,  Employee Relations , 4(5), pp. 45-93

Mistry, P. (2017)  Richard Branson: ‘clients do not come first. Employees come first.’ Available at: https://www.thehrdigest.com/richard-branson-clients-do-not-come-first-employees-come-first/ (Accessed 19 th  April 2023).

Monks, K., Kelly, G., Conway, E., Flood, P., Truss, K. & Hannon E., (2012) ‘Understanding how HR systems work: the role of HR philosophy and HR processes’,  Human Resource Management Journal,  23(4), pp.379-395

Piore, M. J., & Safford, S. (2006) ‘Changing regimes of workplace governance, shifting axes of social mobilisation, and the challenge to industrial relations theory’,  Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society ,  45 (3), pp. 299-325

Stone, R. J., Cox, A., & Gavin, M. (2020)  Human resource management  West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Townsend, K., Wilkinson, A., & Burgess, J. (2014) ‘Routes to partial success: Collaborative employment relations and employee engagement,  The International Journal of Human Resource Management ,  25 (6), pp. 915-930

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Employee relations (a.k.a. employee relationship management) have a direct influence on employee satisfaction and engagement. Therefore, many companies today invest more resources to improve employee relations and keep their workplaces healthy. 

In this blog, we will define employee relations, explain the difference between employee relations and employee relationship management, and describe why they are important for organizational success .

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Employee relations is a term used to describe relations between employers and employees. Today’s organizations are striving to become more agile, faster, and transparent. For that reason, the focus on employee communications is bigger than ever before.

The main goal of every employee relations strategy is to improve relationships and collaboration in the workplace .

Good leadership is ranked as one of the most important factors that attract new candidates and keep existing employees. In that sense, employee relations often focus on helping line managers truly connect with their employees .

Strengthen employee relations with proper internal comms.

Employee relations vs. employee relationship management (erm).

While employee relations is a term used to describe employee relationships within an organization, employee relationship management is used to describe the process of creating good relations in the workplace.

Employee relationship management happens when an employer manages the relationship between all employees in the company. It covers the entire employee journey – it starts from an employee’s first day and lasts until they leave the company.

Good employee relationship management goes far beyond whether or not you and your employees get along. Proper employee relationship management must include effective communication, employee engagement initiatives , a structured employee experience plan , and the implementation of the right tools and technology.

📹 Before we dig deeper into the importance of employee relations, check out our Masterclass about why every organization needs a proper internal communications strategy. 

7 Reasons Why Employee Relations Are Important

Companies with good employee relationships enjoy many benefits. In general, it is easier for them to engage, motivate, understand and keep their employees .

Here are just a few benefits of building a positive employee relations workplace.

Employee engagement

According to research about employee engagement , 90% of leaders understand how important employee engagement is. However, only 50% of them know how to address this issue .

Here, employee relations play a crucial role. It has been proven that companies with better employee communications have much higher rates of employee engagement .

Here are a few tips to improve employee communications to drive better employee engagement include :

• Share, review and update employee expectations.
• Encourage open communication to identify obstacles and issues.
• Don’t neglect consistent feedback and recognition.
• Encourage discussion and sharing of thoughts.

Why should you care about employee engagement at your workplace, you may ask?

Employee satisfaction

Employee engagement is often related to employee satisfaction. Less engaged employees are less satisfied. Poor employee relations can be one of the main causes for that.

Moreover, 65% of US employees say that communications by their employer impact job satisfaction . 45% of them say that their employer does not do a good job communicating with employees.

Employee productivity

Employee satisfaction and engagement boost employee productivity . Companies with well-structured employee relations enjoy higher productivity, revenues, and profits . Moreover, organizations with highly engaged employees have an average 3-year projected revenue growth that is 2.3 times greater than companies with less engaged teams.

If your employees know exactly what their goals are and if you give them constant feedback on their work, they will work harder towards achieving their goals.

Check out these 5 tips to improve employee productivity with better communications .

Employee retention

High employee turnover is one of the biggest problems companies face today . The cost of an employee leaving is significant. Therefore, many employees try to avoid that expense.

Employee retention can be improved in many ways. Employee relationship management is one of them.

Employees who feel like they don’t know what is going on in the company feel frustrated and isolated . As a result, they feel insecure and often consider new job opportunities.

Employee advocacy

Employee advocacy is a benefit many companies are trying to achieve . The ability to reach employees’ connections and use your company’s social capital to its full potential can have a big impact on the company’s visibility, brand awareness and productivity .

In order to achieve employee advocacy , employers have to be ready to improve employee relations. They need to keep employees in the loop and share important content .

Employee experience

Similar to employee satisfaction, good employee experience is one of the biggest proofs of healthy workplace culture .

To deliver a good employee experience, employers need to be ready to improve the way they communicate with employees. Open and transparent communication helps employees feel involved, which often leads to higher employee engagement.

In contrast, poor employee communications lead to insecurity, lack of engagement, and honesty in the workplace.

Employee empowerment

Millennials and younger generations want to be involved in many aspects of a business. They want to have a certain level of decision-making power.

This is called employee empowerment . It involves giving employees responsibility and autonomy to manage their own work and make decisions to achieve their own goals.

In order to empower your employees, you need to have good employee relations and communications strategies.

For employees to feel empowered, they need to understand clearly what your company’s mission and vision are . Also, they have to be able to understand how their work contributes to the overall business success.

Trust is crucial for successful employee empowerment. Managers who trust their employees and communicate the company’s strategy and goals regularly often have no problems giving more power to their employees.

How to Implement an Employee Relations Plan

The very first step towards planning and implementing a successful employee relations strategy is to have a set of clearly written policies .

Employee relations policies should describe the employer’s philosophy, rules, and procedures for handling employee-related matters and resolving issues in the workplace.

In addition, it is important to understand that employee relationship management programs are not one-size-fits-all solutions.

What works in a company with 100 employees in the United States may not work for a company of 5000 employees in China. In other words, employee relations programs vary based on company size, location, industry, culture, and many other factors .

However, there are a few characteristics of every good employee relations plan :

• Help employees understand your mission and vision
• Show them how their job aligns with your mission and vision
• Communicate with employees frequently
• Give employees feedback
• Reward them for good work

What Do Employee Relations Professionals Do

Having an Employee Relations Professional, especially in large companies, is critical for better employee communications .

These professionals are either a part of communications or HR departments. Their main job is to keep employees informed and to ensure that company policies and procedures are followed.

Employee Relations Specialist Duties and Responsibilities

Here are some of the most important duties and responsibilities of Employee Relations/Relationship Managers and Specialists:

• Manage employee files
• Share company news
• Share policies and procedures updates
• Monitor compliance with policies and procedures
• Recruit employees
• Assist in the hiring processes
• Encourage employees for advocacy
• Manage relationships between employer and employees
• Collaborate in employee exit processes
• Assist in writing employee handbook

How to Improve Employee Relations at Your Company?

Using digital solutions to improve your employee relations efforts has become a must.

These solutions can help you significantly to better communicate with your employees and make them more engaged and productive.

Check out our report on the key drivers of employee engagement

Recommended Reading

Improve Your Company Culture with These 7 Steps

The Power of Internal Storytelling In Internal Communications

10 Ways to Foster a Sense of Community In the Workplace

Get your free demo now!

Improve internal communications and employee experience in your company.

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Moscow, like other international urban areas , is decentralizing, despite considerable barriers. The expansion will lead to even more decentralization, which is likely to lead to less time "stuck in traffic" and more comfortable lifestyles. Let's hope that Russia's urban development policies, along with its plans to restore population growth, will lead to higher household incomes and much improved economic performance.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “ War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life ”

Note 1: The 23 ward (ku) area of Tokyo is the geography of the former city of Tokyo, which was abolished in the 1940s. There is considerable confusion about the geography of Tokyo. For example, the 23 ward area is a part of the prefecture of Tokyo, which is also called the Tokyo Metropolis, which has led some analysts to think of it as the Tokyo metropolitan area (labor market area). In fact, the Tokyo metropolitan area, variously defined, includes, at a minimum the prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama with some municipalities in Gunma, Ibaraki and Tochigi. The metropolitan area contains nearly three times the population of the "Tokyo Metropolis."

Note 2: The expansion area (556 square miles or 1,440 square kilometers) has a current population of 250,000.

Note 3: Includes all residents in suburban districts with at least part of their population in the urban area.

Note 4: Urban area data not yet available.

Photo: St. Basil's Cathedral (all photos by author)

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Road in city area.

The roads and ways of the city areas are very clumsy and many accidents are happening due to the short road. But you need to maintain the driving properly otherwise you may face accident. So now the government decided to expand the road which may put the positive effect on automobile sector. I think it is a helpful service for the society people. If you have a BMW car and you have faced any problem then better to repair it at BMW Repair Spring, TX for the best service.

Transit & transportation

Transit and transportation services are quite impressive in most of the urban cities; therefore people were getting better benefits from suitable transportation service. Urban cities like Moscow, Washington, New York and Tokyo; we have found high margin of transportation system that helps to build a better communication network in these cities. I hope through the help of modern transportation system we are able to bring revolutionary change in automobile industries; in this above article we have also found the same concepts to develop transportation system. Mercedes repair in Torrance

Moscow is bursting Noblesse

Moscow is bursting Noblesse at the seams. The core city covers more than 420 square miles (1,090 kilometers), and has a population of approximately 11.5 million people. With 27,300 residents per square mile (10,500 per square kilometer), Moscow is one percent more dense than the bleach anime watch city of New York, though Moscow covers 30 percent more land. The 23 ward area of Tokyo (see Note) is at least a third more dense, though Moscow's land area is at least half again as large as Tokyo. All three core areas rely

Belgravia Villas is a new

Belgravia Villas is a new and upcoming cluster housing located in the Ang Mo Kio area, nested right in the Ang Mo Kio landed area. It is within a short drive to Little India, Orchard and city area. With expected completion in mid 2016, it comprises of 118 units in total with 100 units of terrace and 18 units of Semi-D. belgravia villas

Russians seeing the light while Western elites are bickering?

What an extremely interesting analysis - well done, Wendell.

It is also extremely interesting that the Russian leadership is reasonably pragmatic about urban form, in contrast to the "planners" of the post-rational West.

An acquaintance recently sent me an article from "The New Yorker", re Moscow's traffic problems.

The article "abstract" is HERE (but access to the full article requires subscription)

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gessen

One classic quote worth taking from it, is: "People will endure all manner of humiliation to keep driving".

I do find it odd that the "New Yorker" article author says nothing at all about the rail transit system Moscow had, on which everyone was obliged to travel, under Communism. It can't surely have vaporised into thin air?

Moscow is a classic illustration of just how outmoded rails are, and how important "automobility" is, when the auto supplants rails so rapidly than even when everybody did travel on rails up to a certain date, and the road network dates to that era, when nobody was allowed to own a car; an article written just 2 decades later does not even mention the rail transit system, other than to criticise the mayor for "failing to invest in a transit system".......!!!!!!!!

This is also a give-away of "The New Yorker's" inability to shake off the modern PC ideology on rails vs cars.

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2023 saw some of the biggest, hardest-fought labor disputes in recent decades

The nearly four-month actors’ strike against major Hollywood production studios in 2023 was the second-largest labor dispute in the United States in at least three decades, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of federal data through Nov. 30.

By the time the strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) ended on Nov. 8, it had idled 160,000 workers for 82 workdays. That resulted in 13,120,000 “days idle,” a metric that the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) uses to describe the impact of work stoppages.

Given the spate of high-profile labor disputes in 2023 and what’s been reported as unions’ greater willingness to confront management , we wanted to take a closer look at the history of labor actions in the United States.

Our source for this analysis was the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics’ database of “major work stoppages,” which has summary figures starting in 1947 and detailed monthly information about individual stoppages since 1993. The agency defines as “major” any work stoppage that involves at least 1,000 workers and lasts at least one full shift during the work week. (The term “work stoppage” encompasses both strikes by workers and lockouts by management. The workers involved may or may not be unionized.)

Unless the context indicates otherwise, all of the analyses in this post are based on stoppages beginning in a given calendar year, rather than all stoppages in effect during a calendar year.

When calculating total days idled, the BLS counts only days that employees are normally scheduled to work (Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays) but don’t work due to a stoppage. The agency adjusts its calculations if the number of workers involved changes during a stoppage.

Since 1993, when the BLS began keeping detailed monthly statistics on major work stoppages, the only labor dispute to have a greater impact was a strike over actors’ pay for appearing in commercials by the then-separate SAG and AFTRA in 2000. (The two unions merged in 2012.) That strike, against the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers, lasted nearly six months, resulting in 17.3 million days idle and, reportedly, considerable bitterness and division among union members .

Beyond the SAG-AFTRA strike, 2023 was the most active year overall for major labor disputes in more than two decades, according to our analysis of BLS data on major work stoppages. The BLS defines major stoppages as those involving 1,000 or more workers and lasting at least one full shift during the Monday-Friday work week.

Through the end of November, 30 major stoppages had begun in 2023 – the most of any year since 2000. The 2023 stoppages involved a total of 464,410 workers, the second-most since 1986. And several of last year’s stoppages lasted long enough to generate 16.7 million total days idle, more than any year since 2000.

Besides the SAG-AFTRA strike, other significant stoppages last year included:

• The Writers Guild strike against the same group of production companies (11,500 workers idled for 102 workdays; 1,173,000 days idle)
• The United Auto Workers strike against Ford, General Motors, Mack Trucks and Stellantis (53,700 workers, 43 workdays, 925,900 days idle)
• A strike by a coalition of unions against health care company Kaiser Permanente (75,600 workers, three workdays, 226,800 days idle)

While 2023 stands out against the past few decades for its labor strife, it appears less turbulent if one goes back further in U.S. history.

From 1947, the earliest year for which the BLS provides comparable annual data on major work stoppages, through the 1970s, the U.S. routinely experienced hundreds of stoppages a year. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of workers were involved.

The peak was arguably in 1952, when there were 470 major work stoppages involving more than 2.7 million workers. Those stoppages created 48.8 million days idle, the third-most on record. (The top year for days idle was 1959, with 60.9 million, but there were fewer major stoppages that year and fewer workers were involved.)

Whether measured by raw numbers, workers involved or days idle, major work stoppages generally became less common after about 1980 – though not without occasional upsurges. The U.S. economy grew away from its heavily unionized manufacturing sectors , and the federal government under then-President Ronald Reagan turned hostile to organized labor . In 2009, for instance, only five major work stoppages took place, involving a total of just 12,500 workers.

In more recent years, relatively few major stoppages have occurred in traditional manufacturing sectors. From January 2018 through November 2023, just 13 out of 122 major stoppages (11%) involved manufacturing. That compares with 77 out of 176 (44%) between 1993 and 1997.

Instead, major work stoppages in recent years have tended to occurr in two service sectors: education and health care. Nearly two-thirds (65%, or 79 out of 122) of all major stoppages that began between January 2018 and November 2023 were in those two sectors.

The information sector has also seen notable labor actions in recent years. For instance, before the SAG-AFTRA strikes, there was a six-week strike against Verizon in 2016 (36,500 workers involved, 1.2 million days idle) and a strike by 1,800 electrical workers against cable-television giant Charter Communications that started in 2017 and lasted over five years .

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A look at small businesses in the U.S.

Majorities of adults see decline of union membership as bad for the u.s. and working people, a look at black-owned businesses in the u.s., from businesses and banks to colleges and churches: americans’ views of u.s. institutions, older workers are growing in number and earning higher wages, most popular.

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Paychecks, Drafts and Firings: The Possible Future of College Sports

National Labor Relations Board testimony, now in the hands of a judge, could have wide-ranging consequences — positive and negative — for athletes and their institutions.

By Billy Witz

Reporting from Los Angeles

As Elijah Higgins sat on a witness stand last week, he detailed the similarities between his experience last season as a rookie tight end for the Arizona Cardinals and the four years he had spent playing football at Stanford University.

Five or six days a week at each level of play, he was immersed in football activities: lifting weights, practice, film study, physical therapy and playing games. There is travel on charter jets. Free tickets for friends and relatives. Robust coaching staffs setting rules.

There are some differences, Higgins allowed. In the National Football League, there are no classes to attend, though at Stanford, he said, academics took a back seat to football, which is why he still has a few classes to take before earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology.

The only other distinction is that, in contrast to Stanford, he now earns a paycheck. The minimum salary in the N.F.L. last season was $750,000.

Higgins said that at Stanford, in an environment where critical thinking was encouraged, he had begun to consider how money drove what he called the college football “system,” where even at an elite university like Stanford, the pursuit of academics was encouraged only so long as it did not interfere with football.

“I do agree with the fact that college football players are employees without status,” he said.

Higgins was the last of about two dozen witnesses who had testified over the last five months in a National Labor Relations Board hearing that bears wide-ranging consequences for a narrow question: Should football players, and basketball players, at the University of Southern California be classified as employees?

The case may not be decided for many months. But it will almost certainly end up in an appeals court, which is why there is such a voluminous record: 3,040 pages of transcripts from 21 days of testimony, along with more than 150 exhibits.

The record is so enormous that Eleanor Laws, the presiding administrative law judge who will determine how the National Labor Act applies to those players, granted lawyers an additional nine weeks to file their closing written arguments, which will now be due by July 31.

The charges have been brought by the N.L.R.B.’s general counsel on behalf of Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association, which advocates for college athletes’ rights. The defendants are U.S.C. along with the Pac-12 Conference and the N.C.A.A., which may have to classify athletes at member universities as employees even though the board has jurisdiction only over private institutions.

The testimony was often dry, and the hearing, which closed on Thursday, drew little attention as rafts of lawyers — as many as 16 at times — haggled over picayune details of control and compensation and whether athletes had actually been given the U.S.C. student-athlete handbook. (Though U.S.C. generated $212 million in athletic department revenue in the 2022-23 fiscal year, that is not relevant to the case, only that there is compensation and control.)

At times, the elasticity of reasonable arguments was tested.

For example, Jacob Vogel, the U.S.C. marching band director, spent more than three hours discussing with boundless enthusiasm the intricate details of his program, including how band members got dressed before football games.

The argument that playing football was little different from playing the tuba then came under cross-examination from Amanda Laufer, the lead lawyer for the general counsel, who asked how many of the 300 band members had no prior musical experience.

“About 10 to 15,” Vogel said.

“No further questions,” Laufer said, satisfied that she had provided a distinction with the football team.

The case is one of several fronts in the assault on the amateur model of college athletics. Emboldened state attorneys general have chipped away at the N.C.A.A.’s rule-making authority. Antitrust lawsuits that could force universities to pay out billions in damages are working their way through the courts. And last month, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to unionize after winning the right to be classified as employees, a decision the college is appealing.

The N.C.A.A. is looking for relief from Congress, but any hope for an antitrust exemption is unlikely to come until after the presidential election — if at all.

The arguments before Judge Laws lay out contrasting visions of what college sports might look like if athletes were employees.

One is apocalyptic. The other is sanguine.

Teresa Gould, the newly appointed commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, which is losing 10 of its member universities to other conferences by August, including U.S.C., which is leaving for the Big Ten, testified that high school football stars could be subject to a draft. She also argued that poor play — say a point guard who committed too many turnovers — might lead not to the player’s being benched but to his or her being fired.

Sonja Stills, the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, testified that her collection of historically Black — and historically underfunded — colleges and universities “can’t afford paying out students,” who in turn wouldn’t be able to afford college if their scholarships were taxed as income. She expected Olympic sports to be axed if money had to be redirected to athletes. Women’s sports could also be imperiled, she said.

And Anastasios Kaburakis, the founder of a company that helps international athletes find opportunities to play at American colleges, described how many of those athletes would be shut out by having to obtain work visas in the United States.

Those cataclysmic assessments were waved away by another witness: Liam Anderson, a distance runner at Stanford, who characterized them as “fear mongering.” He said that not every athlete should be considered an employee and that universities would adjust — much as they have as market forces have affected big-time college sports through so-called name, image and likeness payments that are often made through booster-funded collectives .

And if college football players and players in men’s and women’s basketball could be paid as employees?

“I’d celebrate that outcome,” said Anderson, who served two years as co-president of Stanford’s student-athlete advisory committee.

Anderson’s testimony was among the more compelling during the hearing, which took place in a conference room in a nondescript office building in West Los Angeles.

Anderson described staying at the same Las Vegas hotel last year during the N.C.A.A. tournament as the Arkansas men’s basketball team. A security guard told Anderson his job was to ensure that players did not leave their rooms — a sign of control that buttressed testimony from former U.S.C. football players, who said they had been required to check in for meals with fingerprint scans and to text photos to anonymous attendance checkers to prove they were in class.

A loophole in the board’s byzantine rules allowed Anderson and Higgins, neither of whom attended U.S.C., to testify — even after the general counsel had exhausted its list of witnesses. Because the N.C.A.A. had called upon athletes from other universities to testify, the general counsel was able to call rebuttal witnesses who also did not attend U.S.C.

Opposing lawyers did not know who would be testifying until a witness took the stand, a procedure that protects witnesses in fair labor cases from intimidation. This often set off a flurry of computer searches by lawyers with sometimes only 30 minutes or so before cross-examination.

In the case of Anderson, that led to his being pressed by Daniel Nash, the lead lawyer for the Pac-12, to explain statements he had made in The Stanford Daily that were at odds with his testimony, including an instance in which he had called the idea of paying college athletes an “obvious financial impossibility” in a 2021 op-ed piece .

“My views on this have evolved,” Anderson said.

Lauren Herstik contributed reporting.

Human Resource Management and Employment Relations Essay

Human Resource Management (HRM) is defined as an approach that stresses the connections between an organization and its employees, and outlooks labour management as a considered variable that has a significant influence on the performance of the organization (Balnave, Brown, Maconachie, and Stone 22).

In simple terms, HR is also referred to people management because in practice it handles various issues influencing individual employees.

HR is very significant and influential in achieving the best performance. Although, HRM transpires in the organization, external factors and forces also play a significant role in understanding internal decision-making.

HRM has developed over the past few decades. Policies and specialists in the field have emerged with common objectives of integrating cost effectiveness with business strategy, promoting quality of goods and services, promoting flexibility; adapting to changing environments and circumstances and promoting commitment by lowering absenteeism and increasing turnover.

To achieve these objectives, HR managers have to formulate a framework of systems, practices, and policies that influence employees’ attitudes, performance, and behavior (Balnave, Brown, Maconachie, and Stone 25).

HRM deals with employee management in numerous issues that include rewards and payments; HRM rewards employees for good performance and pays them even for overtime or gives them bonus based on the organization’s policies or guidelines.

In addition, employees get performance appraisals and development to promote commitment and dedication thus boosting overall performance of the organization. Moreover, HRM offers recruitment, selection, and training in order to boost employee competence in their fields of work (Balnave, Brown, Maconachie, and Stone 26).

Furthermore, HRM undertakes the legal obligations of employees, resolves conflicts among them and handles stakeholders. Internally, HRM may work hand in hand with other departments within the organization and may be externally involved in trade unions.

In HRM, the work involved is categorized into various levels including operational, managerial, and strategic ones.

In the operational level, work involved includes administration, payroll, leave, and superannuation. The second one, the managerial level, involves promotion, recruitment and selection, performance administration systems, development and training programs (Balnave, Brown, Maconachie, and Stone 29).

On the other hand, the strategic level handles workforce planning, corporate culture, corporate strategy, and organizational advancement.

With HRM, organizations seek to gain their strategic goals and planning, with the main aspect being to gain competitive advantage.

This is achieved by improving and supporting strategic business relations and operations from within and without through developing quality and skills, modernization, reinforcing positive corporate culture, and developing policies that support and advance business strategy. HRM aims at delivering business results by servicing the organizations.

HRM mostly deals with issues influencing individual employees because the behavior of individuals may greatly influence the culture of an organization’s personnel. To avoid such a thing from occurring, HRM is also involved in diversity and fairness, counseling, and educational growth.

Again, HR can be a place or platform for employees to turn on to when faced with individual problems, which is why HR professional are required to understand the ethical aspects of privacy and confidentiality (Banfield and Kay 45).

As much as HRM may seem very significant for an organization, it has some limitations. HRM has been disparaged for emphasizing mostly on the strategic enterprise level at the expense of other internal or external aspects (Banfield and Kay 85). Additionally, it is designed for white collar personnel, neglecting blue collar personnel with industrious links.

Employment relation is crucial in an organization and forms an integral part of the relevant factors that affect the employment relations backbone. It involves prioritizing, ordering, and understanding any intricate range of variables in any given circumstance. Employment relations are based on policies of strategic choice.

Works Cited

Balnave, Nikola, Janine Brown, Glenda Maconachie, and Raymond J. Stone. Employment Relations in Australia . Australia: John Wiley & Sons Australia, Limited, 2009. Print.

Banfield Paul and Rebecca Kay. Introduction to Human Resource Management . London: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.

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"Human Resource Management and Employment Relations." IvyPanda , 22 Mar. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/human-resource-management-and-employment-relations/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Human Resource Management and Employment Relations'. 22 March.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Human Resource Management and Employment Relations." March 22, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-resource-management-and-employment-relations/.

1. IvyPanda . "Human Resource Management and Employment Relations." March 22, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-resource-management-and-employment-relations/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Human Resource Management and Employment Relations." March 22, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/human-resource-management-and-employment-relations/.

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