Employee Relations: Importance, Employment Laws, Rights and Duties

This article discusses the importance of maintaining positive employee relations, fundamental employment laws, and the rights and duties of employees and employers. It also provides recommendations for improving the efficiency of employee relations strategy.

Employee Relations

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Employee relations- Importance and value to the organization...................................................4
Fundamentals of employment laws.............................................................................................6
Rights and duties of employees and employers...........................................................................7
Recommendations for improving efficiency of employee relations strategy............................10
Determining appropriate advice relating to rights, duties and obligations of the employment
relationship.................................................................................................................................11
Analysing how stakeholder engagement can support positive employment relationships........13
Examining different stakeholder perspectives to support positive employment relationships..15
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Human resource is one of the essential pillar of an organization who plays a vital role in
achieving goals and objectives of organization. The success and failure of an organization
depends upon the efforts put by its employees. Organization needs to maintain a positive relation
with their employees to know their needs and motivate them so that they can work productively.
Human resource management of an organization has the responsibility of maintaining positive
relationship with employees. Human resource management has two functions one is to
understand the problems of employees and take corrective measures to resolve their problems.
The other function of HR management is to create organizational policies that would guide
employees to create a fair work culture and to minimize the conflicts. Tesco is a British
multinational retailer company having headquarter in England. One of the reason for the growth
and development of the company is its effective and efficient human resource management. The
project highlights the importance of maintaining employee relations in Tesco along with the
rights and duties of employees and employer. Evaluation of key legislations that must be
implemented by organization. The project also includes the effective employee relations
strategies and stakeholders support for maintaining employee relations. The recommendations
that would improve the efficiency of employee relations.
MAIN BODY
Employee relations- Importance and value to the organization
Employee relations is the efforts made by the organization to create and maintain a
positive relationship with its employees by creating a friendly and healthy work culture. A
positive relationship with employees can be maintained by developing a work place policies
which would guide the employees in their work. The problems of the employees need to be
heard and resolved at the earliest. The human resource management is responsible for creating
relations with the employees. They need to handle grievances and resolve disputes among
employees and maintain peace in the organization (Arimie and Oronsaye, 2020). Significance of
employee relations in an organization:
Employee Engagement

Employee engagement refers to the extent to which employees of the organization are
willing to work i.e. the retention ratio of employees. Employee relations helps the organization to
retain its skilled and talented employees. Employee engagement can be improved by following:
 Constant review and analyse on the employee engagement
 Effective communication which would help to highlight the issues
 Organization must encourage continuous feedbacks
 Encourage employees to share their thoughts and views
Increase motivation
Healthy workplace motivates employees to put all their efforts in achieving goals and
objectives of organization. A good relation with employees enable employer to know the efforts
that employees put in the organization and give appropriate incentives to motivate them.
Motivated employees also encourage others to work hard and create a friendly work culture.
Minimize work conflicts
The employees in an organization have different behaviour and attitudes. This difference
may lead to conflicts among them due to different views. These may result into failure of
business. Employer of the organization needs to ensure that there is no conflict among
employees and this can be done only by creating a good relation with employees (Unsal and
Brodmann, 2020). There may be conflict between employee and employer and this can be
resolved only by developing good employee relation. This allows employers to be unbiased with
their employees and mitigate the conflicts.
Build trust
It is the responsibility of both employer and employees to build trust and confidence.
This can be created by effective communication between employer and employees. Employee
relations helps in developing trust and confidence in work place. This is the responsibility of
human resource management to build trust among employees by making them feel that they are
important for the organization.
Employee empowerment
Good employee relations enable the employees to involve in the decision-making
process. This boost the confidence and motivates employees to work hard for the growth and
development of the organization (Miliani, El Khazzar and Lhassan, 2022). Employee
empowerment enhance the ability in employees to take decisions to achieve their goals by

fulfilling their responsibilities towards the organization. A good employee relations and
communication is required to provide employee empowerment.
A good employee relation is beneficial for the organization. It increases the productivity,
performance and efficiency of the organization. It helps in growth and development of the
organization. Good relation leads to increase in morale of the employees which result into
employee satisfaction. This ensures employees retention as increase in employee turnover may
increase the cost of recruitment of the organization. Employee relations minimizes the conflicts
and stress in the workplace which increases connectivity and trust among employees. This
enables effective team work as team members are able to corporate with each other and share
their issues arising in completing the task. The employees who are satisfied and motivated create
a positive impact resulting into increase in revenue and profit margin.
Tesco focuses on creating a healthy work place culture for their employees which has
enabled company to increase its revenue and profit margin and to expand globally (Importance
of employee relations, 2022). Tesco ensures the development of company as well as their
employees by creating opportunities for employees for career development by providing training
and enabling them to learn new skills. The company provides time to time rewards and
incentives to their employees which increase their motivation. As there are diverse employees
working in the company Tesco ensures that all the grievances are handles and resolved to avoid
conflicts. All this is possible only by creating a good employee relations.
Fundamentals of employment laws
The fundamental of employment laws are imposed to ensure the protection of both
employees and employer. The key legislations that need to be complied by an organization are:
Equality Act
Discrimination in work place is equal to unfair treatment of employees in the
organization. Discrimination can be on sex, race, religion, age, etc. (Ross, 2018). Equality act
protect the employees from discrimination and to create a friendly environment. Tesco has
employed employees from diverse culture and background and the culture of company
encourages equality in all aspects.
Employment Right Act

This act covers all the rights of employees regarding the employment contract, unfair
dismissal, maternity leave, etc. Employees in Tesco are provided with paid leaves and casual
sick leaves. The female staff of company are given maternity leave. Company has also provides
break or rest time for employees during working hours.
National Minimum Wage Act
This act reflects the minimum wages for the employees and this is constantly reviewed by
the Government to keep it in line with inflation. The salary of employees in Tesco are given in
accordance to their roles and qualification in company.
Health & Safety at Work Act
In this act employers need to ensure that they provide a safe and healthy environment to
the employees (Dadwal and Dadwal, 2020). This includes providing training to staff, assessment
of risk, taking safety measures to protect their employees and providing adequate safety
equipments to employees. Tesco is strictly complying with health and safety act and providing
safety equipments to its employees were required and conducts regular health check ups of its
employees. The company has developed a healthy and safe work culture for its employees with
regular maintenance of machines and premises.
Working time regulations
Working time regulations provide direction related to working hours of the employees
which is enforced by health and safety executives. Some key requirements are maximum
working hours of employees, limit of night work, rest time, annual leave, etc. The working hours
of Tesco is according to working time regulations with overtime payment. Company provides
extra pay for employees at night shifts.
Data Protection Act
There are many personal informations of employees with the employer that needs to be
protected (Wang, 2022). This act provides guidelines to protect the data of the employees in an
organization. The act provides key data protection principles that must be complied by employer.
Tesco has implemented good software in its computers and data base to protect information and
data of its employees and these informations are not accessible to everyone in company.
All the fundamental employment laws need to be complied by the company to ensure
smooth functioning of business. Human resource management of Tesco are given training to
make them aware of all the employment acts and it is duty of them to comply with all the acts.

Rights and duties of employees and employers
Rights of employees at workplace
Rights of employees in UK depends on the employment status of the employees. The
types of employment status are: worker, employee, self-employed, director and office holders.
All the employees are workers but workers are not employees. That's why employees have all the
rights of workers and additional rights. The rights of the employees are:
Employment contract
The employees have right to receive employment contract according to the Employment
right act. The written contract must include all the terms and conditions of employment. The
details that are mentioned in the contract are job title, working hours, salary, annual leaves,
minimum notice period, etc.
Wage equality
Employers are not bound to pay equal salary to all its employees but according to
National minimum wages act employer needs to pay same wage to employees who are engaged
in same tasks (Werhane and Radin, 2019). Employees have also right to receive over time wages
for working more than hours mentioned in contract.
No discrimination
Employees should not be discriminated on the basis of gender, religion, race, age, etc. As
per Equality act employees have right of equality in work place.
No sexual harassment
Any kind of sexual harassment in work place is illegal and labour law protect the
employees against the sexual harassment. Employees have right to complain against any sexual
harassment at work place.
Safe and healthy work environment
The work place of the organization must be safe and healthy. Employees have right to
work at place which is safe and secure. Organization must provide adequate safety equipments to
employees to ensure their safety.
Annual leave and rest time
Employees have right to receive annual leave and female employees must receive
maternity leave and maternity leave to be provided to male employees. Eligible employees have

right to receive statutory leave. As per Working time regulations employees are entitled to
receive break in between the working hours.
Duties of employees
It is the duty of employees to complete the task assigned by employers and to give their
contribution to accomplish the goals and objectives of the organization. The employees need to
ensure the compliance of all the rules and policies of the organization. It is the duty of employees
to improve their productivity and give positive outcomes of trainings provided by the
organization (Eliyana and Fauzan, 2018). Employees must effectively participate in team work
and share their ideas and views with others which would be beneficial for the organization. It is
the responsibility of employees to provide feed back to the employer and build trust and
confidence with employer. Employees need to maintain discipline to ensure smooth working of
operations in the organization. Employees must ensure that they have completed the work
effectively and efficiently and are accountable to employer for their work. They must be loyal
and honest to their employer and organization and put all their efforts according to their skills
and capabilities towards accomplishment of organization's goals and objectives. The
accomplishment of organizational objective will ultimately enable employees to achieve their
goals and help in career development.
Rights of employers in work place
Right to hire and fire employees
The employers of the organization has right to hire capable employees according to the
demand in the organization. However, they can't discriminate their employees on the basis of
gender, age, race, etc. Employer also has right to fire employees who violet the rules and
regulations of organization (Ash and et.al., 2020). They have the right to suspend, transfer or
dismiss any employee if they think that it is beneficial for the organization.
Right to confidentiality
Employer has the right to not disclose the details of their employees and clients to others.
The client information and trade details can be accessed by senior management who are
responsible to make decisions.
Right to make policies
Employers are entitled to make and implement policies for the organization according to
the company's requirements. Employer can define the code of conduct, salary, working hours,

etc. of employees but must also comply with all the acts and policies imposed by the
Government.
Right to receive notice for resignation and leave
It is the right of employer to receive notice of resignation from employees before they
leave the organization and must be notified by employees if they are taking any leave.
Duties of employers
It is the duty of employer to create a healthy and safe work environment for its
employees. This can be ensured by imposing policies and rules according to the organization's
requirement which will help in smooth functioning of organization's activities. Employer needs
to hire adequate and capable employees in the organization according to the demand. They need
to provide training to its employees so that they can learn new skills and know each other. This
will ensure corporation and coordination among employees and effectively and efficiently
accomplishment of tasks (Egdell and et.al., 2021). Employer must create and develop a strong
employee relations by satisfying their employees. This will lead to retention of employees and
reduction in cost of hiring and training new employees. Employers are responsible for the
compliance of all rules and policies imposed by the Government to protect the rights of
employees. It is the duty of employer to encourage employees for feedback and involving them
in decision- making process.
Recommendations for improving efficiency of employee relations strategy
Creating and developing employee relation is very essential for the growth and
development of organization. Poor employee relations may impact negatively in the performance
of the organization as it will affect the functioning of organization. Following are the
recommendations to be followed by organization to increase the efficiency of employee
relations:
Encourage feedback
Continuous evaluation of performance of employees is not just to determine the quantity
of incentives and rewards but also to give feedback to its employees that how reliable are they at
work place. This would motivate employees as it is also the best means of motivation. This will
improve the relationship of employer and employee as employee would feel that their work are
being evaluated, and they would try to improve their performance.

Increase communication with employees
Enhancing effective communication with employees will help in bringing the issues that
they are facing and employer would be able to take corrective measures to resolve the issues.
This would also help in resolving any conflicts between employees and employer (Pitafi, Liu and
Cai, 2018). Effective communication would develop trust and confidence between employer and
employees and ensure strong employee relations.
Provide training and development opportunities
Training would help the employees in developing their career and improve productivity.
This would ensure employee satisfaction, boost employees morale and reduce employee turnover
ratio. Employees would feel that they are valued and motivate them to put all their efforts
towards achieving goals and objectives of organization.
Create healthy work culture
Effective communication with the employees and opening up with them about the
accomplishments and anxieties of organization would create a culture of transparency (Beltrán-
Martín and Bou-Llusar, 2018). Employer needs to create a work environment where employees
are welcomed to share their ideas and experiences will help them to know their team members.
This will build trust among employees, and they will cooperate and coordinate with each other to
accomplish the common goal. This will help employer to build a strong and efficient employee
relations.
Analyse performance and give rewards
Analysing the performance of employees and rewarding them would significantly help
employer in creating and improving employee relations and creating a cooperative culture. This
would make employees feel that their performance are analysed and are rewarded. Employees
need to guided to improve their performance if there is any lacking.
Determining appropriate advice relating to rights, duties and obligations of the employment
relationship
Having the good employee relations are very good for the organization as it helps in
achievement of various goals in most efficient manner. Moreover, there are certain things that
need to be kept in mind by the Tesco managers so that right kind of roles and responsibilities
might be assigned to it various employees and also long term relationships are maintained. Thus,
strong employee relationships helps in gaining success and assures excellence in very field of

working. However, there are certain advice that will help the firm to grow efficiently over the
years. One of the advice is that it should focus on maintaining the positive company culture so
that it is able to make sure that new employees are able to easily fit into the organization rules
and procedures. Furthermore, it is very important for any firm to provide the ongoing support to
the existing employees' so that they are able to work confidently and also able to deliver the
highest productivity to the organization in the future. For instance : Tesco new reward programs
would allow each employee working at different level to remain motivated and achieve certain
things in right manner.
Moreover, it is duty of the employers to ensure that proper feedback channels are
developed within the workplace so that employees are able to share all kind so relative
information and queries with their managers without thinking much. Thus, in this way both
employers and employees would be able to remain updated with company information in most
efficient manner. For example : Goggle is known for maintaining the best employee relationship
and thus it can be said that providing such kind of work balance has helped in maintaining the
brand image of company in various markets. Also, in the current times after the hit of pandemic
most of the companies that are ensuring the best employee relationship are providing flexible
working hours so that there are no problems faced while carrying out various activities of
business. Furthermore, it is advisable that best employee relations could also be maintained by
developing the best performance measures within the workplace so that all the employees are
able to analyse the mistakes and develop better bonds with them in long term.
Also, the most appropriate advice that Tesco plc need to take into consideration is that it
should have proper establishment of the conflict resolution centre where it would ensure that
different employees that are working in various regions do not enter into any kind of dispute
during certain period. For example : Tesco plc could develop team of professionals that would
hear the problems of the parties in conflicts and provide the best solution so that same problem
does not repeatedly occur in the future. Furthermore, this would help in ensuring the
transparency in working and develop greater employee loyalty for the future. Moreover, it can be
said that if employer and employee work together as team it would ensure more positive
outcome for Tesco in the future rather than in comparison to those firm that adopt the
autorotative leadership style where the duties are strictly imposed on to others forcefully.

Thus, it can be said in the end that organization shared values and effective
communication helps the building the firm that is not only effective but also able to bring change
within the organization in smooth manner. Furthermore, it is advisable to Tesco plc that best
career development opportunities need to be provided to the existing employees as their right so
that they are able to improve the current competencies and skills on much efficient manner.
Moreover, if employers and employees a re happy and satisfied with job than it would simply
mean that Tesco would be able to develop various policies and strategies easily without facing
many difficulties in due course of time.
Analysing how stakeholder engagement can support positive employment relationships
A Stakeholder is one of the most essential person for the success of business, it can help
bring the important projects by firm to completion by providing valuable support. They also
provide resources and tools to achieve goals and success of business. As we all know that the
basic role of stakeholder is to help firm meet its strategic objectives and achieve goals (Korneć,
2020). For example- if employees of the company don't like the results, the project can often be
consideration a failure because employees does not show any interest to complete that particular
project. It is the duty and responsibility of company and managers to keep all the stakeholders
happy throughout their project work. If managers of the company communicate effectively with
employees then they can easily work in a timely manner (Arifin, 2020). With the help of
teamwork, employees and employers can easily build trust, loyalty and confidence among other
stakeholders and enhance working environment.
Stakeholder engagement is very important for business success, when managers involve
employees in effective decision-making process then they feel valued which can foster
connections between each other. As we all know that business is all about managing relationship
at workplace. Tesco plc employers always understand the perspective of the stakeholders such as
customers, employees, suppliers, managers and workers. When working in a team and
collaboration is maintained at workplace, potential negative risks can be identified when a
project is being discussed with group of stakeholders. Contribution of stakeholders can support
positive employment relationships and improve productivity at workplace. This can enhance
positive work culture within an organization (Kuznetsova and Kuznetsov, 2020). It has been said
that engaging with internal and external stakeholders can improve accountability within Tesco

plc. With the help of effective stakeholder engagement, Tesco plc is able to complete important
projects and achieve business goals.
Stakeholder analysis
For any complex undertaking like Tesco that is operating its business on large scale it is
very essential that properly all the stakeholder and their motives are known so based on that they
could be remained updated with the organization activities (Tebetso, 2020). Furthermore, based
on this matrix it divides various stakeholder so Tesco into four categories where each of it is
having its own power and interest level within the firm. Moreover, based on the above chart
these are explained as follows:
High power, high interest: These are stakeholders that are having very high power and
are mostly interested with each activity that is undertaking within the firm as it is directly
associated with profits in end (Stakeholder Analysis, 2022). Under this comes the company board
of directors and senior executives that are highly concern with company performance.

High power, low interest: government mainly fall into this category where they are
having the right power to control the activities of any firm but are least interested with company
working and operations (Kuznetsova and Kuznetsov, 2020)
Low power, high interest: Company workers and employees are the ones that are not
having much power within the company but are interested in working of business
Low power, low interest: Tesco daily wage workers fall into this category of
stakeholder as they do not have any right in company and nor do have interest in activities as
they are more focused on earning daily wages
Thus, based on the above analysis Tesco plc would be able to the monitor all its
stakeholders and keep them satisfied in long run. Furthermore, it will help in creating the
positive impacts through providing the relevant information timely and motivating others to give
the best performance for the growth of the company in the future.
Examining different stakeholder perspectives to support positive employment relationships.
Positive relationships with the stakeholders would ensure Tesco plc that it is able to
achieve all the short and long term gaols in timely manner (Sarhadi, Hasanzadeh and Hoseini,
2021). Furthermore, such type of relationship would help the firm through collecting the
valuable ideas that would ensure that there is greater success sin the working of business in the
future
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that employee Relations are helpful for
making firm achieve various goals in well-defined manner. Furthermore, the report had
discussed in detail about the importance of employee relations in achieving various complex
goals of the firm and overcoming various risks in most efficient manner. Also, the study had
explained about fundamentals of employment law so that Tesco Plc is able to ensure that right
practices are used within the firm to carry out various activities regarding employees that are
working at various levels. Moreover, certain examples had also been provided of various firm so
that more clear understanding might be gained.
Furthermore, different types of rights, duties and obligations had also been explained so
that Tesco Plc. is able to maintain the best employee Relations while working in various regions
around the world. Also, the study had provided the advice such as having proper feedback

channels, establishing effective communication, providing support and guidance and much more
than solution's to the cited firm so that it is able to maintain best bond with existing and new
employees. Furthermore, the stakeholder analysis had also been provided in detail under this
report. Lastly, the study had Evaluate the impact of both positive and negative relation through
providing certain list of recommendations under this report

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Online
Importance of employee relations, 2022. [Online]. Available through:
<https://impoff.com/importance-of-employee-relation/>
Stakeholder Analysis. 2022. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.productplan.com/glossary/stakeholder-analysis/>