A Study on Employment Relationship: Perceptions of Younger Managers to Older Subordinate Regarding Judgment of Performance and Productivity

The research paper aims to find out the nuances of employment relationship in the organizations of New Zealand by addressing the issue of the perceptions of the younger managers regarding the performance and productivity judgment of the older employees of the organization. The researcher will be conducting the research by taking a case study company in New Zealand and conducting a survey to collect primary data relevant to research topic. The response data will be analyzed qualitatively to reach to a logical conclusion.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Employment Relationship
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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A study on Employment Relationship
Research Question
“What are the perceptions of younger managers to older subordinate regarding the judgment of
performance and productivity?”
Abstract/Summary 116
Employment relationship refers to the legal connection between the employees and the
employers. When an individual works under certain legal and organizational conditions in
exchange for remuneration, an employment relationship is generated in the organization (Ilo.org,
2018). The research paper aims to find out the nuances of employment relationship in the
organizations of New Zealand by addressing the issue of the perceptions of the younger
managers regarding the performance and productivity judgment of the older employees of the
organization. The researcher will be conducting the research by taking a case study company in
New Zealand and conducting a survey to collect primary data relevant to research topic. The
response data will be analyzed qualitatively to reach to a logical conclusion.
Literature review
Employment relationship
Employment relationship is an essential part of the organizational culture. It is the
fundamental step of employer and employee relationship. This relationship starts as soon as an
employer hires a new employee. The success of a business depends much on this relationship, as

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a good relationship can lead to employee happiness, motivation, job satisfaction and increased
productivity. Mutual respect and mutual reliance are very important for creating the employment
relationship (Rosenbloom, 2014). The building of this relationship requires many HR policies to
be implemented. Most importantly, the employers must create an environment where the
employees can feel comfortable and trust the employers and build a relationship. However, there
are many boundaries in such employment relationship, such as, there should not be very close
relationship between the employer and employee, which can hamper the productivity or results
in favoritism or unfairness (Latorre et al., 2016).
As stated by Sobral, Chambel & Castanheira (2016), the agreement between the
employer and the employees on the conditions of working together creates the employment
relationship. The employees agree to work under the supervision, monitoring and control of the
employers or managers in exchange for the remuneration and other benefits. Apart from the
regulations, bounded by the employment legislations of the nation, there are rights and
responsibilities in an employment relationship, enjoyed by both the parties. The aspects of
employment, such as, working hours, tangible and non tangible benefits, holidays, career growth
opportunities all determine the development as well as improvement of the employment
relationship (Tyosuojelu.fi, 2018).
According to the Labor Laws of ILO, employment relationship helps in creating the
reciprocal rights and obligations between the employers and employees. This is the medium
through which, the employees gain access to the rights and benefits of the employment. The
relationship also determines the implementation of the social security and labor law provisions
for the employees. It also provides the primary point of reference to determine the extent and
nature of the employer’s rights and the obligations towards the employees (Ilo.org, 2018).

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Types of employment relationship
Employment relationship can be of various types. In organization, all types of
relationships among the employers and the employees fall under the different categories of
employment relationship. In terms of wages or salaries, the employment relationships are
categorized as permanent or fixed term and temporary or part time. Various positions, such as,
trainees, contractual apprenticeship, employees with disabilities and employees with promotion
subsidies, all have different terms and conditions, which determine the dimensions of
employment relationship in an organization (Stat.fi, 2018). All these categories have different
parameters of rule and regulations, bounded by the law.
Management of employment relationship
Positive employment relationship ensures high degree of employee engagement and leads
to greater and improved business outcomes and better well-being. Management of employment
relationship is very much crucial as that helps in establishing a healthy relationship in an
organization. The management process involves many elements, such as, psychological contract,
employee communication, employee engagement, conflict and meditation, management for
absenteeism, dispute resolution, resolving gender pay gap, flexible working practices and
workplace diversity (Rumbles & Scott, 2016). According to CIPD (2018), the employers must
formulate and implement the policies regarding all the above mentioned factors to establish good
employment relationships. For example, a trust should be built between the employees and the
employer through transparent internal communication. The employees must be informed about
the growth strategies and business development, so that they feel engaged with the organization.
This requires an efficient internal communication system. The effective communication strategy
includes the social media, role of the line managers and two-way or the multidirectional

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communication and finally implementing the communication strategy to enhance the
employment relationship.
New Zealand Employment Relations Act 2000
There is New Zealand Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA) introduced by the
Parliament of New Zealand in October 2000. All the employees of all the organizations in the
country are covered under this Act. It specifically includes the homeworkers, that is, those
workers who purchases raw materials from the suppliers and work at their homes and sell back
the products to the providers. However, the Act does not cover the volunteers, armed forces,
some sections of the police, judges, NZ SIS, and relationship between the employer and the
contractor or between contractors and the sub-contractors. The Act has outlined some of the
duties and obligations of the employers and the employees to ensure an establishment of positive
employment relationship in every organization. It has also mentioned the terms for breach of the
duties and penalties for that (Legislation.govt.nz, 2018).
Role of perceptions in employment relationship
It is a very common scenario in every organization that the managers supervise and
measure the employees’ performance and productivity. Perceptions in the employment
relationship management are as significant as the reality. The behavior of the employers as well
as the employees is a reflection of their perceptions. The beliefs and knowledge about any
particular scenario helps in shaping the perceptions of the individuals and that guide them to act
in a particular manner (Vidyarthi, Anand & Liden, 2014). These perceptions should not be
ignored. The perceptions might be wrong but the organizations must try to understand the
reasons and issues and address those to change the perceptions. Both the employees and the

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managers must understand the power of perceptions and act accordingly to channelize the
positive aspects and amend the loopholes in the system (Downey et al., 2015).
Research design/plan of the study
The researcher plans to conduct the research using qualitative methods of research. This
depicts the plan of the researcher about conducting the research in the most appropriate manner
and getting the most rational conclusion to the research problem.
The research topic revolves around the perceptions of the younger managers about the
productivity and performance of the older subordinates in an organization. Hence, this requires
perception analysis process to be applied for analysis of the data. The researcher will be adopting
the interpretivism research paradigm as it allows the researcher to apply the interpretation
skills to analyze the topic of the research. It mainly deals with small sample size (Cowling,
2016).
Following this philosophy, the researcher will adopt the deduction approach of
research. In this approach, the researcher draws the inferences from the gathered data to answer
the research questions. In this process, the research phenomenon is tested against established
theories and the researcher does not have to generate new theories like the induction approach or
choose one potential solution from a set of solutions like in the abduction approach (Sekaran &
Bougie, 2016).
The researcher will adopt the case study research design to address the research issue.
Since, it requires first hand information about the perceptions of the managers about the older
subordinates; it will be easier to collect the data and analyze to get the insights from some

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individuals who have relevant experience. Hence, case study research design will be most
suitable in this case. Bank of New Zealand is one of the biggest banks of New Zealand, with over
5000 employees in 180 branches across the country (Bnz.co.nz, 2018). It is chosen as the case
study company due to the reason that, in the banks, such circumstances are common where many
older subordinates work under the younger managers. Hence, it is assumed that collection of
primary data would be easier.
In the given research, the researcher will follow the interview strategy. It helps in
gaining the first hand and in-depth insight about the research topic (Brinkmann, 2014). Since,
perception analysis needs to be done, interview strategy is the best option to gather knowledge
about the managers’ perceptions on the older employees’ performances. It will be done on 3
managers of Bank of New Zealand.
Primary data will be collected for this research. To collect the data, the researcher will
conduct an interview on 3 managers of the Bank of New Zealand, containing questions focusing
on the topic of the research. 5 questions will be framed in way that would address the dimensions
and nuances of employment relationship in the bank, especially, the managers’ perceptions about
the performances of the older subordinates. Since, interpretivism philosophy is chosen for
conducting the study; the sample size cannot be large because that would create much
complexity in the data analysis. Therefore, small sample size is chosen by applying purposive
sampling technique under non-probability sampling. 3 managers will be chosen from one
branch of the bank and the researcher will visit the branch personally to conduct the interviews.
The researcher will be applying qualitative data analysis method to conduct the
perception analysis on the response data. The analysis will be based on the interpretation skills of

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the researcher and thematic analysis will be done. The results of the perception analysis will be
presented via graphs, charts and tables for visual representation and explained accordingly as per
the themes of the analysis.
Ethics
There are few ethical considerations in this research. Firstly, since the research topic will
address the dimension of the employment relationship between the younger managers and older
subordinates, data needs to be collected on the productivity and performance judgment by the
managers about the older employees. Hence, informed consent must be needed from the
participants of the survey. Secondly, the data must be used for educational purpose only and the
respondents should be informed about that. Thirdly, plagiarism is a serious offence in the
educational world. Hence, the researcher must maintain the originality of the paper by citing all
the information correctly.

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Resources and Budget
Items Amount
Arranging equipment $ 75.00
Visit to library for
literature study
$ 45.00
Designing the interview
questions
$ -
Visit to one branch of
Bank of New Zealand
conducting the interview
$ 55.00
Translations of the audio
transcripts of the interview
responses
$ -
Miscellaneous expenses
(For eg. Purchasing of a
book, journal or annual
report of Bank of New
Zealand, cost of print out,
subscription charges, etc.)
$ 250.00
Total $ 425.00
(Source: Author)

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Location
As stated earlier, Bank of New Zealand is chosen for the case study and 3 managers will
be selected as respondents for the interview. Thus, the researcher will have to visit one branch of
the bank to conduct the interview on the research topic.
Timetable for completion
Month
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Making a strategy
Making a framework
Literature review
Primary data collection
Conducting interview
Data analysis
Presenting the findings
and discussion
Providing the
conclusion
Thesis submission
(Source: Author)

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References
Bnz.co.nz. (2018). About us - BNZ. Bnz.co.nz. Retrieved 16 April 2018, from
https://www.bnz.co.nz/about-us
Brinkmann, S. (2014). Interview. In Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 1008-1010).
Springer New York.
CIPD. (2018). Employee Communication | Factsheets | CIPD. CIPD. Retrieved 16 April 2018,
from https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/communication/factsheet
Cowling, M. A. (2016). Navigating the Path Between Positivism and Interpretivism for the
Technology Academic Completing Education Research. In Constructing Methodology
for Qualitative Research (pp. 45-58). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Downey, S. N., Werff, L., Thomas, K. M., & Plaut, V. C. (2015). The role of diversity practices
and inclusion in promoting trust and employee engagement. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 45(1), 35-44.
Ilo.org. (2018). Employment Relationship. Ilo.org. Retrieved 16 April 2018, from
http://ilo.org/ifpdial/areas-of-work/labour-law/WCMS_CON_TXT_IFPDIAL_EMPREL
_EN/lang--en/index.htm
Latorre, F., Guest, D., Ramos, J., & Gracia, F. J. (2016). High commitment HR practices, the
employment relationship and job performance: A test of a mediation model. European
Management Journal, 34(4), 328-337.

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Legislation.govt.nz. (2018). Employment Relations Act 2000 No 24 (as at 28 September 2017),
Public Act Contents – New Zealand Legislation. Legislation.govt.nz. Retrieved 16 April
2018, from http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2000/0024/109.0/contents.html
Rosenbloom, D. H. (2014). Federal service and the constitution: The development of the public
employment relationship. Georgetown University Press.
Rumbles, S. D., & Scott, P. J. (2016). Managing the employment relationship. In Leading,
managing and developing people. CIPD Publications.
Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2016). Research methods for business: A skill building approach.
John Wiley & Sons.
Sobral, F., Chambel, M. J., & Castanheira, F. (2016). Managing motivation in the contact center:
The employment relationship of outsourcing and temporary agency workers. Economic
and Industrial Democracy, 0143831X16648386.
Stat.fi. (2018). Type of employment relationship | Concepts | Statistics Finland. Stat.fi. Retrieved
16 April 2018, from http://www.stat.fi/meta/kas/palvelussuhteen_en.html
Tyosuojelu.fi. (2018). Employment relationship - Occupational safety and health. Tyosuojelu.fi.
Retrieved 16 April 2018, from http://www.tyosuojelu.fi/web/en/employment-relationship
Vidyarthi, P. R., Anand, S., & Liden, R. C. (2014). Do emotionally perceptive leaders motivate
higher employee performance? The moderating role of task interdependence and power
distance. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(2), 232-244.