Vodafone Employee Relations: Strategies, Impact and Legislation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of employee relations within Vodafone, a UK-based telecom company. It begins by defining employee relations and highlighting its impact on organizational success, emphasizing the importance of communication, management skills, and a positive organizational culture. The report discusses key aspects such as individual decision-making, teamwork, motivation, conflict resolution, absenteeism, employee retention, value leadership, communication effectiveness, and trust-building. Furthermore, it delves into relevant employee legislation, including the Employment Right Act 1996, National Minimum Wage Act 1998, Employee Relation Act 1999, and others, outlining employer and employee rights, duties, and obligations. The report also examines employee relation strategies and provides a stakeholder analysis of Vodafone, offering recommendations for improving employee relations and achieving organizational goals. The document concludes by reinforcing the significance of fostering healthy employee relations for the overall success and sustainability of Vodafone.

Employee Relation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Employee relation and its impact.................................................................................................3
Employee legislation....................................................................................................................5
Employer's rights, duties and obligations ...................................................................................7
Employee’s rights, duties and obligations:..................................................................................8
Employee relation strategies........................................................................................................9
Stakeholder analysis of Vodafone:............................................................................................11
Recommendations......................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
The report covers the information of employee relation in organisation. Vodafone is the
UK based telecom company with headquarter in Berkshire, England. It has 9584 employees all
over UK with net sales of 8.43 billion euros (O'Dea, 2021). Vision of Vodafone is to be a
communication leader in the connected world. Mission is to connect with the people all over the
world and bring changes and bright future in society. The purpose is to reach a better future and
creates a positive image towards change in society. The core value of the organization is trust
and integrity towards customers in developing seamless digital experience. The report covers the
meaning of employee relation its importance and impact on organization and shareholders. The
legislation that impact the relation among employees. Strategies required to make successful
relations and goal completion of organization.
MAIN BODY
Employee relation and its impact
Employee relation is about creating and maintaining proper relationship among
employees and organization. It acts an antidote for communication, better management skills in
business which helps in overcoming the problems of Vodafone. Important part for relationships
is its culture and extent to which the organization can resolve the problems among employees.
The people in organization develops proper standards and policies in developing good culture
which are applicable with legislation and are fair and transparent in nature. The people who
create the policies should have proper understanding labour laws and culture of organization.
This will advise the managers to create the best outcome from individual and business. When a
relation breaks, it is specialist duty to deal with problem with law or just by communication.
Importance
Individual decision-making:
Individual needs guidance on several issues to make proper decisions. Sometimes it is
possible to lose important points, fellow workers can cover up those points and create brilliant
idea to solve the problem and reach the target. On implementing a plan it is good to check pros
and cons, and outsider can only verify it. On individual level, one will never able to know where

project is going wrong or more people are required who can act as critic and give corrective
directions wherever it is going wrong.
Easy to complete:
A healthy relation among employees would ease the workload and increase the
productivity of all individuals. One cannot solve all projects so it is distributed among group to
solve it in proper time frame.
Increases motivation:
Employee engagement creates feel about security and confidence among employees
which delivers the best of employee towards work. Sense of trust between employee makes more
motivated towards completion of goal.
Reduce Conflicts:
Trust among employees makes one adjust easily and stop in finding faults in each other.
Individuals won't waste time on conflicts and disputes rather than concentrate on work and work
hard to perform better.
Absenteeism:
Healthy relationship makes individual more serious towards work and feel like coming to
office daily. Employees stop complaining, do not take frequent leaves and start enjoying the
work.
Retain Employees:
When a Vodafone loose an employee, and they join with competitor, it will create a
devastating situation for business. Employees who do not have good relationship with their
employers are more likely to leave. But when an employee feels comfortable and appreciated
among each other, then they are more likely to remain loyal. Businesses that encourages positive
relationships among employees and managers are generally more successful, and since it creates
employees more likely to stick around each other, business do not have to spend much on
recruiting, hiring and training of new workers.
Value
Leadership:
Healthy relationships create trust between employees and employees are desperate to be
inspired from others. If leader makes healthy relationships' employee will develop the habit of

listing to manger and follow their thoughts. This will guide a employee in proper way in
increasing their motivation and achieve Vodafone objective.
Communication:
Good employee relation will communicate capabilities of employee towards their work to
supervisors. This will create trust among employees and the heads will show the right path to
complete the goal. This will also eliminate the fake news about the Vodafone as work will
automatically communicate the right progress of employees.
Culture:
Relation and trust depends on the culture of organization. A positive corporate culture
will result in happy employees who want to come to work every day. Better the culture, happier
the employees will be. It will lead to increase the morale and faster achieving of Vodafone
objective.
Improves Trust:
Maintaining trust and confidence at workplace requires a lot of efforts by both employee
and employer. Good employee relation will sow the seed of trust in workplace. Good relation
can keep the organization efforts on track. The degree of trust will make the progress of business.
Employee engagement;
Employee engagement is used to define the efforts of an employer to manage their
employee on the job. Good relation can exhibit better results and efficient workflow in
Vodafone. When employees participate and share their views openly, employers can take proper
step to improve the performance of employees. It makes better employee engagement and
ultimately result in growth of business.
Employee legislation
Employee relation is the body of laws and standards that regulates the relationship
between supervisors and employees. It deals with the rights of employees and all the
responsibilities of supervisors. Without legislation on workplace will result in unfavourable
treatments of problems of employees by employers and Vodafone will have no way in
remedying the situation. Vodafone has to regularly remind the laws and responsibilities to
employees, which will reduce them breaking any law inadvertently.
These legislations are:

Employment Right Act 1996:
This act protects the employees from the situations like unfair dismissals, redundancy,
paternity and maternity leaves. This act tells employees their statutory rights regarding disclosure
and detriment which means that employee should not disclose any Vodafone confidential
information to other party. An employee has a right to receive paid leaves for public duties and
responsibilities and employees has to give a reasonable notice for termination of contract (Aylott,
2018).
National Minimum Wage Act 1998:
This acts states that employer or worker is entitled to get a minimum amount of pay per
hour. This act was introduced to protect the low paid workers without hurting other jobs and
economy (Hafner, and et.al., 2017).
Employee Relation Act 1999
This act protects the relationship among employees and trade unions at workplace. This
act was introduced to promote fairness, partnerships and family friendly practices at workplace.
Act also states companies to increase the maximum compensation present for unfair dismissals.
This act provides right to workers on proper grievance hearing and disciplinary actions taken by
employers.
The Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999:
This act states the employees have right to take leaves during their paternity or maternity
period. Employers have to grant employees leaves to take care of their dependents. Employee
has the right to take 18 weeks of leaves of work to take care of dependent under 18 years of age.
They can take leaves with minimum of 6 months when a new dependent is born (Parental leave
entitlement, 2021).
Part-Time Workers Regulations 2000:
Act states to treat part-time contract workers same as people who do same job on full
time contracts. Part time workers are allowed to take same number of leaves as their full time
ones (Wheatley, Lawton and Hardill, 2018).
Agency Workers Regulation 2010:
This act aims to protect agency workers from any kind of discrimination with other
employees. It ensures that the workers will get the same amount of leaves and pay as other

employees. Employer has to treat and provide safe working conditions like others (Hünefeld,
Gerstenberg and Hüffmeier, 2020).
Transfer of Undertakings 2006:
It is the set of regulations that protects employees rights during acquisition or transfer of
business. It states to transfer existing employees and their liabilities to new Vodafone by
preventing any sort of dismissals. It covers all sort of claims, pay or leaves to be transferred to
new business (McMullen, 2019).
Equality Act 2010:
This act prevents any sort of discrimination among employees at workplace and during
recruitment process. It sates that employer should treat employees equally irrespective of their
gender, religion or during pregnancy or marriage (Fell and Dyban, 2017).
Working Time Regulation Act 1998:
This act protects the employees from any sort of discrimination related to their working
hours. All employees should be treated equally with same working hours for same job
irrespective of their gender or religion.
Bribery Act 2010:
It is an act that protects employees from criminal activities related to bribery. It protects
the employees from doing any sort of illegal activities to give employment or take favours to
perform particular activity (Kim, Rees and Sila, 2020).
Data Protection Act 2018:
This act protects the employees and customers data. It controls how personal information
is to be used by organizations or businesses. People should use this data fairly and transparently
with following proper law procedures (Lim, 2018).
Vodafone adheres to all legislations made by UK government to run their business and
protecting their employees.
Employer's rights, duties and obligations
Rights
The Vodafone has the right to hire the employee. While hiring, the employer can set the
criteria of employment within the firm. The company can set qualification requirement and
experience of the employee that they are going to hire, according to the work culture of the

company (Liu, 2021). Employer can make assessment of the candidate to evaluate if the
applicant fits into the firm like Vodafone.
It is in employer's right to fire any employee for any reason but there are terms and
conditions for ending any employment. If any employee walks out of Vodafone without any
prior notice, then they have certain rights, for example if employee leaves the job they can make
the employee ineligible to get new job.
Vodafone has the right to distribute the job roles to their employees. They can impose
rules on their employees to follow the company protocol and policies during work hours to
follow the professionalism. The company provides electronic devices for performing tasks to
their working staff (Unsal, 2019). They have the right to monitor their employees. Vodafone can
demand from their workers to work hard for better results.
Duties
Vodafone should train, provide information and supervision to their employees to work
efficiently. They should provide their new employees a proper introduction to help them become
familiar with the work place. Boosting their employees when their performance is good. It is
essential for the company to provide enough facility to the workers (Chang and et.al., 2021).
Obligations
The employer, like Vodafone, must treat their employees equally regardless of their
caste, creed, colour and origin. They must know about the laws and contracts. They should
ensure that the employees at the workplace is safe and there is no risk to their health.
Employee’s rights, duties and obligations:
Rights
The employee of Vodafone is authorized to get a written agreement before joining them.
It can prevent any foreseen legal dispute between the employer and employee (Ahmed and et.al.,
2017). The worker is entitled to get fixed leaves and holidays decided by the HR policy of
Vodafone. They have right to get monthly salary. In case, if the employer wants to terminate the
relationship between employee and the company, then a notice should be sent to the employee to
make them ready to end the work with Vodafone.
Duties

It is a job holder’s duty to perform the task efficiently which they were hired to do. They
should do their work seriously and carefully. It is worker's responsibility that they complete their
task in given time period. They should always remember that they are not putting themselves and
the firm in any danger (Jennings and et.al., 2017). Employee should follow the instructions given
by Vodafone. It is necessarily important for the working member of the company to take care of
the devices provided by the Vodafone. Being an ethical employee, they should use the Vodafone
fund given to them for company use only.
Obligations
An employee should always follow the instructions given by the Vodafone based on the contract.
The working staff is obliged to inform the employer about the acts that can harm the reputation
of the Firm (Mohanty, 2018). They should understand and follow the work pattern and working
hours in the company. Also, they should always maintain the privacy of Vodafone.
Employee relation strategies
To perform better it is important for organization that employees feel comfortable with
each other, and they together with good coordination to achieve the objective. They will be
motivated and feel responsible to perform good quality work and enjoy it rather than taking as
burden. To do that it is important to promote healthy employees relationships at workplace.
Competition is necessary to promote positiveness among employees to climb on their stairs of
problems. These are the following strategies required for good employee relation at workplace.
Sharing of power:
Employee should feel important and indispensable part of Vodafone. An individual
should be give authority and power to make decision on aspects within its team, This will make
employees accept challenges and not feel that work is imposed on them. When power is given to
employees they feel part of organization, and they feel like owners which will increase there
morale towards completion of objective. If not the employee won't feel a happier environment
and will leave the organization.
Sharing values will create conducive work culture:
Vodafone has to encourage individuals to share their values for performing task with
each other. This will increase the talking of employees among them and lead to increase in
comfort level at workplace. Encourage workers to work together and taking decisions will lead

to happier environment, and they feel as part of organization. A team leader should intervene
only in extreme cases of conflicts and rest to be solved by themselves. On the other have
employees who do not share many values among each other will lack in good communication
and employees may leave organization to find good environment.
Effective communication:
It has been seen that poor communication leads to misunderstandings and confusions
among employees while performing task. The communication should appropriate and relevant.
Manager has to specifically tell employees about expectation regarding their work. If a task is
given, employees may face problems. They should voice their opinions and resolve it to reduce
the conflicts among them and worker will know what exactly they have to do to achieve the
objective. This will lead to improve relation among employees and do not want to leave
organization (Udejinta, 2018).
Continuous coaching and mentoring:
Many employees feel difficulties with their skills to perform the given task which will
affect Vodafone in loosing time and money. By giving mentoring session s and continuous
coaching will help the staff to improve their performance and resolve the productivity challenges
they face while doing work. Coaching employees is needed because of the pace of changing
working environment. In modern days employees easily become stress and overwhelmed
whereas they are expected to do more and more to survive the competitions. Coaching will fill
the gaps by overcoming the hurdles and develop new skills and knowledge to face situation.
When someone is at their side help in developing their strengths will motivate workers to
achieve objective faster (Pagdonsolan and et.al., 2020).
Sharing Culture:
Organization who give projects to whole team are expected to get good returns. This will
make employees to work in a team by sharing their different cultures which will encourage them
to work properly and understand different cultures which will result in increase in relationship
among fellow members. Each employee will have the liberty to express their ideas and unique
things about their cultures which will result in working together to find something beneficial for
all. In absence of sharing culture employees will feel demotivated and feel to be seated among
strangers. This creates a fear among each other and won't be able to perform quality work, even

leave the Vodafone. This will act as stoppage in order to achieve Vodafone objective (Nikitenko,
and et.al., 2017).
Stakeholder analysis of Vodafone:
Stakeholder Analysis is the useful technique for Vodafone in identifying and prioritizing
stakeholder who influence or impact the working of business (Bendtsen, Clausen and Hansen,
2021). It identifies the people before any project begins grouping them according to their level of
interest and determine how in the best way they can be utilized to achieve the Vodafone goal.
The stakeholders for Vodafone are:
Internal Stakeholders
Stakeholders that are present internally of the company and have direct impact of
operations done achieving organization goal. These are:
Owners:
People who own the Vodafone or have the shares of Vodafone. These people supply the
capital or equity to business and have the power to say what is to run or what changes are to be
done to promote the Vodafone.
Employees:
People who work inside the organization. They perform the manufacturing of telecom
products and sell them in market. They are the people who face the customer and earn money.
Employees carry out managerial or other functions of Vodafone and in return they expect
benefits like incentives and career growth. If they leave businesses won't have sales and can lead
to loss.
External Stakeholders:
External Stakeholders are people outside the business or who don't work inside the
business but are affected by the actions of organization. These stakeholders are:
Suppliers:
Suppliers are people who sell stuffs to company and rely on business to get revenue from
the sale of goods. Vodafone's suppliers are handset manufactures like Samsung, and Sony and
network equipment manufactures like Ericsson and Alcatel- Lucent. The bargaining power of the
suppliers have fallen due to entry of Chinese mobile operators.

Customers:
Customers are people who buy the business stuffs. The Vodafone cannot exist without its
customers. To be in market business neds to make continuous efforts to meet customer needs.
The customers are price sensitive in nature and organization has take care of this factor to
improve sales.
Media:
Every business needs publication relationship to promote their products. Vodafone has to
make interaction with media people to make announcements and advertise products. Media takes
money from business to promote products, if failed the company can loose its reputation.
Government:
Government is a major consideration for Vodafone for formulation and implementing of
strategies for different countries. As each country has different interest rates that can give a rise
in pricing of products. Businesses have to take care of legal and regulatory measures on use of
frequency spectrum in different countries.
Competitors:
Vodafone has geographic footprint in more than 70 countries which ensures that
company has diversified revenue base to cope up with losses and fight rivals. It has competition
with France telecom orange and Deutsch telecom T-mobile in UK. Business have to deal with
them or customers will go to other operators.
Creditors:
Creditors are the people who lend money to business to gain some interest in return.
Creditors are paid back from the sale of products. These creditors can be banks or bondholders.
Vodafone has taken loan from banks to expand their business and to improve their quality of
products. They are the liabilities of Vodafone to pay them with interest.
Communities:
The community in business are considered as important stakeholders of business. Both
the party community and Vodafone is beneficial in different ways. If company promotes health
and safety at workplace will motivate employees to do more work and get more sales for
company. If company creates more job opportunities, community will have more employed
people and Vodafone will have more number of employees representing company which will
lead to economic development.