Practical and Legal Challenges in Managing the Employment Relationship

This presentation discusses the practical and legal challenges that organizations face in managing the employment relationship. It explores issues such as time and attendance, leave disputes, managing conflicts, salary issues, lack of effective communication, long working hours, and unclear policies. The presentation also provides recommendations to address these challenges and improve the overall employment relationship.

BSC (Hons) Business
Management (Top-up)
BMP6005 Work and the Employment
Relationship

Assessment 2: Individual Presentation
Practical and legal challenges that organisations experience in
managing the employment relationship
Name:
ID:

Contents
 Introduction
 Practical and Legal challenges in employment relationship
 Recommendations to a set of employment relations issues
 Conclusion
 References

Introduction
Employment relationship can be defined as a link between employers and employees and
exist when a person performs work in return for a salary under certain conditions. Both
employer as well as employee agree to perform work wherein the employer supervises
the performance of an employee. If employees will share a healthy and strong relationship
with their employer, it is not only beneficial for them but the whole company (Audenaert,
George and Decramer, 2019). This is because there will be a reduction in work-related
conflicts, increase in overall morale of the staff which and an enhanced productivity.

Cont…
TJ Maxx is a department store chain based in America, which was founded in the year
1976. The company sells products at cheaper prices as compared to other stores that sell
similar products. The company not only has nearly 1,000 stores across the nation but it also
sells products online. The founder of TJ Maxx is Bernard Cammarata and a wide range of
fashionable apparel products for men women and children. Some of the products of TJ
Maxx are apparel, shoes, bath and beauty, accessories etc.

Practical And Legal Challenges In
Employment Relationship
There are various practical as well as legal challenges in employment relationship, that
can affect the overall productivity as well as performance of the company. Some of the
challenges that TJ Maxx might face are explained below -
• Time and Attendance – There should be simple and understandable attendance
policies within the company in order to improve the overall productivity. If the employees
are regularly late to work, take leaves without approval, leave early without completing
working hours etc., the company will lose out on profits and the business functions of
the company will also not be able to operate effectively (Audenaert, Vanderstraeten and
Buyens, 2017).

Cont…
• Leave Disputes – This is another challenge that the company can face because if the
employees of the company are not aware of the leave policy, there can be leave disputes.
Therefore, it is important for TJ Maxx to install the right technology by using appropriate
tools. This will prove to be highly beneficial because it will allow the management of the
company to develop a clear policy without any kind of chances of misinterpretation. Also,
the policy should be communicated clearly to the employees so that they become aware
of the same (Are You Tracking These Common Employee Relations Issues?, 2020).

Cont…
• Managing Conflicts– Conflicts within the company should be managed effectively
because this is one of the most crucial things to do while dealing with challenges relating
to employee issues. It is known that disagreements or conflicts cannot be avoided, so the
company should have procedures or plans to deal with the same in an effective manner.
The management of respective company, TJ Maxx should clearly communicate its
expectations to the employees (Behling, 2018).

Cont…
• Salary Issues – This is one of the most common employee relations challenge that a
company can come across. Employees can complain about the rate of their salary,
specially when one of their co-workers receive a raise in their pay (Cruz, Hardy and
Sanders, 2017). TJ Maxx should have set procedures and policies for giving raises to the
employees based on their performance. This will help the employees in knowing how can
they qualify for a pay raise. This challenge can also come up if two employees, doing the
same job receive different wages.

Cont…
• Lack of effective communication – This is one of the biggest challenges that the
company can face because sometimes, employees might face difficulty in communicating
with each other. This can either happen through a lack of efficient communication sources
or even through misinterpretation of the message across departments (Dieuaide and
Azaïs, 2020). Therefore, it is important for the company to provide effective
communication channels so that there is no problem.

Cont…
• Long working hours – If the employees of TJ Maxx will not have scheduled working
hours on a regular basis, they will get exhausted and tired. Due to his, their overall
performance and productivity levels will get affected and they will not feel like coming to
work every day (Dieuaide, 2018). This can also happen if the same employees are asked
to worked on night shifts regularly. The reason behind this is that long working hours can
be tough on the employees, affect their overall performance as well as lead to various
other employee relations issues. . This can not only affect their overall performance but
individual health as well. This will further lead to an increase in the levels of absenteeism
and error rates among the employees which is not beneficial for the company.

Cont…
• Unclear and ambiguous policies – If the company will not have policies that clearly
explain the rules and regulations and are ambiguous, the employees will feel lost. They
will have no idea as to what is expected of them or about the goals towards which they
are working (Dumas and Houdré, 2016). This can affect their overall performance and
can lead to confusion among employees of different departments within the company.
The different policies within the company can include leave policies, code of conduct,
increase in wages, harassment, privacy and email policies etc.

Recommendations To A Set Of Employment
Relations Issues
From the points stated above, it is seen that effective employment relations play a very
crucial role within a company. This because they ensure that the business operations take
place smoothly and also that the company is profitable. Some recommendations relating to
the same for TJ Maxx are explained below –
• In order to monitor daily attendance of the employees, TJ Maxx is recommended to
implement technology and software that helps the employees to keep a track of their
attendance and issues relating to them (Glover and Branine, 2017). There should also be
an option on the intranet where they can apply or request for leaves to the managers and
get them approved.

Cont…
• In order to avoid or eliminate any kind of leave disputes within the workplace, the
respective company is recommended to consider implementing a leave management
software. The software will help the company in developing an effective legal leave policy
which will significantly reduce disputes relating to leaves among the employees (Greene,
2017).
• As far as conflicts within the workplace are concerned, management of the company is
recommended to encourage effective communication in the workplace. Various team-
building opportunities should be provided to the employees wherein they can build, grow
their network and at the same time get comfortable with working together as part of a
team (Kunapatarawong and Martínez-Ros, 2016).

Cont…
• In order to avoid salary issues, the management of TJ Maxx is recommended to observe
the market trends while developing the salaries of employees (Lopes, 2018). The
company can even implement a self-service timekeeping software so they can keep a
track on their daily schedules. If any of the employees comes up with a concern relating
to their salary, the managers should gather acts like whom did the employee speak to
regarding this previously or how much has their career progressed so far.

Cont…
• In order to overcome the challenge of ineffective communication, the company should
encourage clear and effective communication within the workplace. Use of complex
words should be avoided at all times in order to make sure that the employees
understand their tasks in a proper manner (Marginson, 2016).
• TJ Maxx is also recommended to fix the working hours of the employees and this can be
done by scheduling effective working hours. This can help in maintaining the productivity
of the employees and they should be allowed to take short breaks (Pohler and Schmidt,
2016). This will help them in performing in a better way.

Cont…
• Lastly, the company should set policies and procedures that clear and understandable to
the employees. Different policies should not be mixed with each other and kept different.
Also, it is recommended that the policies should be communicated to the employees in a
effective manner. Standard procedures should be set so that the employees know what is
expected of them in the company (Sappideen, O'Grady and Riley, 2016).

Conclusion
From the above presentation, it can be concluded that employment relationship is one of
the most important components within an organization. Strong employment relations help in
creating a healthy atmosphere at the workplace and also enhances the overall productivity
of the employees. They feel more motivated and confident about their work which can be
seen in the output. There is a reduction in conflicts among the employees and they feel
comfortable in working with each other. Not only this, creating a working environment that is
productive and healthy impacts the overall loyalty of employees to the company as well as
their jobs.

Reference List
• Audenaert, M., George, B. and Decramer, A., 2019. How a demanding employment relationship relates to
affective commitment in public organizations: A multilevel analysis. Public Administration. 97(1). pp.11-27.
• Audenaert, M., Vanderstraeten, A. and Buyens, D., 2017. When affective well-being is empowered: The joint role
of leader-member exchange and the employment relationship. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management. 28(15). pp.2208-2227.
• Behling, F., 2018. Welfare beyond the welfare state: The employment relationship in Britain and Germany.
Springer.
• Cruz, K., Hardy, K. and Sanders, T., 2017. False Self‐Employment, Autonomy and Regulating for Decent Work:
Improving Working Conditions in the UK Stripping Industry. British Journal of Industrial Relations. 55(2). pp.274-
294.
• Dieuaide, P. and Azaïs, C., 2020. Platforms of Work, Labour, and Employment Relationship: The Grey Zones of a
Digital Governance. Frontiers in Sociology. 5(2).

Cont…
• Dieuaide, P., 2018. Grey zones and triangulation of the employment relationship in globalisation: a business
policy approach. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research. 24(3). pp.297-315.
• Dumas, C. and Houdré, C., 2016. Non-standard forms of employment in Uganda and Ghana. ILO.
• Glover, I. and Branine, M. eds., 2017. Ageism in work and employment. Routledge.
• Greene, A. M., 2017. Voices from the shop floor: Dramas of the employment relationship. Routledge.
• Kunapatarawong, R. and Martínez-Ros, E., 2016. Towards green growth: How does green innovation affect
employment?. Research Policy. 45(6). pp.1218-1232.
• Lopes, H., 2018. The moral dimensions of the employment relationship: institutional implications. Journal of
Institutional Economics. 14(1). pp.103-125.
• Marginson, P., 2016. Governing work and employment relations in an internationalized economy: the institutional
challenge. ILR Review. 69(5). pp.1033-1055.

Cont…
• Pohler, D. and Schmidt, J. A., 2016. Does pay‐for‐performance strain the employment relationship? The effect of
manager bonus eligibility on nonmanagement employee turnover. Personnel Psychology. 69(2). pp.395-429.
• Sappideen, C., O'Grady, P. and Riley, J., 2016. Macken's Law of Employment.
• Thompson, P. and Smith, C. eds., 2017. Working life: renewing labour process analysis. Palgrave Macmillan.

Questions?

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