Solution
CIPD Level 7 7HR01 Strategic Employment Relations
Question 1 Assessment Criterion 1.4
Define ‘good employment relations’; critically reviewing how this can be achieved in organisations.
Response
Adopting the definition in Bulińska-Stangrecka and Bagieńska (2021) the employee relations identify the relationship of employers and employees. This concept is interpreted in the context of individual and collective workplace relations. This is by reflecting on increasing individualisation of employment relations as a result of the increased individual workplace rights. To evidence the importance of this concept, CIPD (2022) which is a CIPD research highlighted that 87% of the respondents identified the relations of managers and employees as “very good” or “good” with only 3% identifying this as poor or very poor. The need for good employee relations has particularly been redefined due to COVID-19 and global economic crisis. According to Gavin et al. (2022) as a result of COVID-19 and slowed economic growth, the research identified on occurrence of loss working hours, unemployment and job insecurity, business closure, inflation and supply chain disruption. All these issues have contributed to emergence of new ways of working in remote working which has altered the achievement of good employee relations. In Arabian Industries for instance, employee relations as a specialist knowledge category in the CIPD HR professional map is constantly reviewed. This is through ensuring that the relationship of organisation and their people are appropriately managed transparently and appropriate legislations (CIPD, 2022a).
As a best practice of implementing the employee relations, it is relevant to consider the different perspectives/theories which are available. These include;
Utilitarianism
According to Kaufman et al. (2021) this theory is informed by the assumption that the workplace conflicts represent a common occurrence in the managers and employees relations. This is an evident that there exist a possibility of conflicts in workplaces emerging amongst the stakeholders. Considering Arabian Industries company, these conflicts are occurring due to personality differences, ineffective resourcing and employees promotion strategies, deviance dissidents and miscommunication. To create good employee relations, Signoretti (2020) argue on the necessity for organisations to ensure they promote high-quality resourcing and succession planning for embracing fairness and equitability. This is at the same time initiating holistic communication systems to alert their employees based on their while mitigating personality conflicts.
Pluralism
This theory of employee relations is different from utilitarianism as the latter focuses on making decisions informed by greater good for the larger number of people. This is with pluralism which is informed by the fact that there prevail distinct groups of individuals in the same society with varying beliefs and opinions. Hence, as part of evaluating the employee relations, Van Buren et al. (2021) argue that a consideration of the fact that organisations are made of complex social constructions of different interest groups. For example, for Arabian Industries, by use of the pluralism theory in its focus, management and employees represent two varying groups with different factory system and subscribe to different values and objectives. In this case, any type of conflict which would affect the employee relations would supersede job functions allocated and also rewards offered to the employees. According to Ackers (2021) through a recognition of the relevance of the inevitability of the workplace conflict, this offers an appropriate background of handling the employees grievances. This is by improving the overall health and wellbeing of an organisation in their operations. Also, being the most appropriate strategy, Radoynovska et al. (2020) argue that the management in modern entities pursue innovative strategies for handling conflicts in a way that elicit maximum results. This is while collaboratively prioritising on trade unions and stewardship offering the prioritisation of handling the industrial relations in a collective manner.
Marxism
This theory of employee relations establish a unique concept or practice noted as capitalistic in the contemporary society. The outcome of this entail unequal distribution of wealth and skewed ownership of the approaches of production. According to Parkin (2019) the effectiveness of using the Marxism theory is informed by the fact that the inequality cases impact on scope of competitiveness. Taking an immense hours of productivity in employment relations. This theory is relevant in contemporary workplace as it is found influencing the level of social conflicts lead to natural results of capitalism. This is with the outcome being progressive to struggle in competing social classes. Further, the industrial conflicts are viewed as important to reflect on the struggles influenced in their workplaces. In Arabian Industries for example, by use of this theory, the emergence of conflicts in the organisation is not abasically due to recalcitrant behaviours of individuals or inappropriate management selection and promotions as evidenced in the Unitarianism theory. Besides, this is not an output of competing groups interests in contemporary workplace as supported by pluralistic views. Besides, the theory highlight the factors as being informed by integration of capitalist industrial growth environment.
Therefore, in Arabian Industries, the best practice would transition from the partnership with the trade unions and employers. This is by focusing on the collaboration and mutuality of working. This is with the unions and employees working collaboratively and initiating long-term positive relations focusing on the future of the organisation. This is at the same time improving work-life for employees.
Hence, from the evaluation of theories of employment relations, the best practice of creating good employee relations would include;
Initiating multiple and complementary approaches for employee voice– As evidenced in Ashiru et al. (2022), these include the direct methods with people and indirect methods for a collective voice through an increased employee representation.
Establishing structures and processes for communication– As aforementioned, a core issue facing Arabian Industries is lack of effective communication. Hence, this need to be improved by improving engagement of unions and non-union representatives and staff. This is in the entire organisation levels.
Implementing a system evaluating feedback– According to Lee and Kim (2021) the rationale of this is ensuring that people feedback is integrated and listened to from the various voice channels.
Capacity development of managers– The importance of this is ensuring an improved understanding of the organisations aims and practices for information and consultation and having essential skills and knowledge for promoting a holistic employee voice. This is with the organisation integrating a holistic voice with all stakeholders inclusion.
Enhancing positive joint work ethos– According to Mubarak et al. (2021) this is supposed to be cascaded in the entire organisation. The outcome of this is the management in their entire levels strategy work relations with representatives constructively and building a high-level trust.
Word count: 1054
References
Ackers, P., 2021. Pluralisms? Social philosophy, social science and public policy in employment relations and human resource management. Journal of Industrial Relations, 63(2), pp.263-279
Ashiru, J.A., Erdil, G.E. and Oluwajana, D., 2022. The linkage between high performance work systems on organizational performance, employee voice and employee innovation. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 35(1), pp.1-17.
Bulińska-Stangrecka, H. and Bagieńska, A., 2021. The role of employee relations in shaping job satisfaction as an element promoting positive mental health at work in the era of COVID-19. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(4), p.1903.
CIPD 2022. Employee relations: an introduction. Available [Online] https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/employees/factsheet [Accessed on 24th February 2023]
CIPD 2022a. Employee relations: specialist knowledge. Available [Online] https://peopleprofession.cipd.org/profession-map/specialist-knowledge/employee-relations [Accessed on 24th February 2023]
Gavin, M., Poorhosseinzadeh, M. and Arrowsmith, J., 2022. The transformation of work and employment relations: COVID-19 and beyond. Labour and Industry, 32(1), pp.1-9
Kaufman, B.E., Barry, M., Wilkinson, A., Lomas, G. and Gomez, R., 2021. Using unitarist, pluralist, and radical frames to map the cross-section distribution of employment relations across workplaces: A four-country empirical investigation of patterns and determinants. Journal of Industrial Relations, 63(2), pp.204-234
Lee, Y. and Kim, J., 2021. Cultivating employee creativity through strategic internal communication: The role of leadership, symmetry, and feedback seeking behaviors. Public Relations Review, 47(1), p.101998
Mubarak, M.F., Tiwari, S., Petraite, M., Mubarik, M. and Raja Mohd Rasi, R.Z., 2021. How Industry 4.0 technologies and open innovation can improve green innovation performance?. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, 32(5), pp.1007-1022.
Parkin, F., 2019. Marxism and class theory: A bourgeois critique. In Social Stratification (pp. 162-177). Routledg
Radoynovska, N., Ocasio, W. and Laasch, O., 2020. The emerging logic of responsible management: Institutional pluralism, leadership, and strategizing. In Research handbook of responsible management (pp. 420-437). Edward Elgar Publishing
Signoretti, A., 2020. Overcoming the barriers to the implementation of more efficient productive strategies in small enterprises. Employee Relations: The International Journal, 42(1), pp.149-165
Van Buren, H.J., Greenwood, M., Donaghey, J. and Reinecke, J., 2021. Agonising over industrial relations: Bringing agonism and dissensus to the pluralist frames of reference. Journal of Industrial Relations, 63(2), pp.177-203.
Question 2 Assessment Criterion 2.4
Critically analyse how the changing nature of work is impacting or could impact employment relations in organisations, including at least two factors as a part of your analysis.
Response
According to Autor (2019) changing nature of work is impacted by different factors which entail the social, economic, environmental and cultural systems which substantially evolve and are uneven internationally. The result of these factors has entailed exacerbating inequality sources with new opportunities leveraged. This phenomenon has been aggravated post-COVID-19 pandemic. According to McKinsey & Company (2021) the prevalence of COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated prevalent trends in remote working, e-commerce, and automation with approximately 25% of more employees which is noted to potentially switching the different job occupations. According to Armour et al. (2020) these changes impact the employment relations owing to the issues of being laid off, furloughed and unpaid leaves. These constitute 44% of the entire job loses which also entail lacking the capacity of working due to coronavirus restrictions at 32%. Hence, it can be argued that the changing nature of work and employment has immense implications on professionals since these changes have prompted them to lack enjoyment on the benefits linked with full time working. These are the social security, healthcare, fully paid leave and fixed vacations. The factors which can be used in evaluating the changing nature of work in various parts of the economy, these include;
The growth of precarious work across the economy– In
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