06. EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

 

WHAT IS AN EMPLOYEE RELATION?

Employee relations are the effort of an organization to maintain positive relationships with employees. The goals of good employee relations include inspiring employee loyalty, increasing engagement, reducing turnover, and creating a positive company culture. It emphasizes a mixture of individual, team-level and collective, company-wide policies and practices to address employee problems and improve overall morale. The Employment relationship has undergone an evolutionary process in response to the evolution of HRM as a strategic activity within the organization.

COMMON EMPLOYEE RELATIONS ISSUES

• Pay Rise - Probably the most challenging conversation in a workplace revolves around pay rise requests.
  
  
• Working Hours and Wage Issues
  
  
• Interpersonal Conflicts 
  
  
• Leave & Attendance issues - leaves & attendance issues are another delicate issue that can end up in disputes & can negatively impact your business.
  
  

BENEFITS OF GOOD EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

Experiential results are made clear that employee satisfaction is extremely valuable. A good HR employee relations policy and a culture that values the worker provide numerous benefits in terms of turnover, performance and overall efficiency.

High Employee Morale

It increases the morale and job satisfaction of the workforce positively affects factors such as employee turnover and workflow disruptions. In all, high employee morale is a powerful asset that will help you grow your business.

Reduce turnover

High employee turnover isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s extremely expensive and can easily become fatal to any business. Good Employee relations is a powerful fortification against turnover.

Foster loyalty

If your company gives employees a reason to be loyal, then they will be. And employee loyalty is a valuable quality that’s worth fostering, for reasons as diverse as reduced turnover and more employee referrals. Building employee loyalty is the only way to earn the exemplary performance that lies behind the high productivity.

Strengthen workplace bonds and company culture

Efficient work is not a matter of just coming in and doing what your contract says. It takes a cooperative spirit and open-mindedness. Working to improve employee relations is one of the only ways to reduce these relatively intangible obstacles to smooth business operations.

Reduce costs and increase productivity

Engaged, satisfied employees work harder and are a lower turnover risk. Each employee becomes an ambassador for for the company, which can help you in recruitment to. 

HOW TO IMPROVE EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

Change your outlook on the workforce

By seeking out the problems that afflict your employees and working to resolve them, you’ll be able to improve employee satisfaction and morale.

Encourage Enthusiasm

HR should seek to capitalize on the optimism of team by providing an engaging, energetic and streamlined process.

Praise and Reward good Performance

Making people feel appreciated and seen by their managers and leaders has a profound impact on their job satisfaction. When an employee reaches an important milestone, achieves a high level of performance or otherwise contributes to the success of your company, it’s important to recognize the accomplishment. A verbal acknowledgement or a handwritten letter of recognition doesn’t cost anything, but it can have a substantial effect on employee relations. You should also consider material rewards for particularly noteworthy achievements.

Increase communication and leadership visibility

It’s important to create a rapport across lines of authority and convey that leadership cares about the average employee.
 

CONCLUSION 

Employee relations are an essential aspect of any company or organization if it wants to have long-term success. A company without a good employee relations infrastructure will struggle to handle any of these subjects, with predictably disastrous consequences.

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.

Maintaining a positive relationship between an employee and the management has increasingly become a key driver in improving employee commitment and performance. Specifically, management must invest in employee engagement to create good relationships with employees and enhance their performance

REFERENCES

• Ackers, P., (2012) ‘Re-thinking the employment relationship: a neo-pluralist critique of British industrial relations orthodoxy’, The International Journal of HRM,  
  
  
• Engagedly (2022) Companieswith the best performance management practices. Available at: https://engagedly.com/8-top-companies-redefined-their-performance-management-systems/
  
  
• https://www.coursera.org/articles/employee-relations
  
  
• https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/employee-relations-guide
  
  
• https://leaveboard.com/employee-relations/
  
  
• What Is Employee Relations? By Chauncey Crail, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/what-is-employee-relations/