Individual Report on Employee Relations for Laura Ashley Holdings

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of employee relations, focusing on the case of Laura Ashley Holdings. It begins with an introduction to employee relations, emphasizing their value and importance in fostering productivity and minimizing conflicts. The report delves into the fundamentals of employment laws, including the Employment Rights Act, Equal Opportunities Act, and Health and Safety Act, and provides recommendations for improving employee relations through motivation and clearly defined goals. The report also examines the rights, duties, and obligations of both employers and employees, offering suggestions for their respective roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, it addresses the importance of psychological support for maintaining work-life balance and explores mechanisms for effective management of employment relationships. The report includes a stakeholder analysis, categorizing stakeholders based on their power and interest, and assesses the impact of employee relations on these stakeholders, including how positive and negative relationships affect conflict avoidance and resolution. The report concludes with a summary of key findings and their implications for Laura Ashley Holdings.

Individual Report
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
Value and importance of employee relations..............................................................................3
Fundamentals of employment laws.............................................................................................4
Recommendations for improving employee relations ...............................................................5
PART 2............................................................................................................................................5
Rights, duties and obligations of employer and employee.........................................................5
Suggestions for roles and responsibilities of employer and employee.......................................6
Psychological support for maintaining work life balance of employees....................................7
Mechanism for management of employment relationships........................................................7
PART 3............................................................................................................................................7
Analysis of stakeholder of Laura Ashley Holdings....................................................................7
PART 4............................................................................................................................................8
Impact of employee relations on stakeholders............................................................................8
Positive and negative employee relationship can affect avoidance and resolution of Laura
Ashley Holdings..........................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
Employee relationship can be defined as the process of establishing relationship between
employee and employer of the organisation (Agarwal, Yadav and Acharya, 2015). The main aim
of this relationship is to formulate various strategies and policies so that coordination between
them can be improved and it will be clearly visible in the productivity. Furthermore, employee
elations keep focus on their line managers so as to help them to establish relationship and
connection with their sub ordinates. This report focuses on Laura Ashley Holdings. The
company is established in United Kingdoms by Laura Ashely and Bernard Ashley and this
company belongs to textile design industry and they are mainly dealing in home accessories,
furniture, home décor, fashion and hospitality. This report covers various concepts like
understanding the employment relationship, external and internal factors effecting the relation,
roles and responsibilities of stakeholders the influences the employment relationship. ,.x
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MAIN BODY
PART 1
Value and importance of employee relations
The strong employee relationship between employee and employer provides a strong
benefit for staff members and in turn an increase in their productivity (Curtin, 2019). In this
report, it can be determined that a healthy relationship between employee and employer helps in
increasing productivity and also ensures smooth functioning of an organisation. Employee
relation is the tool for ensuring that there is no conflict within the organisation so that company
can run their operations efficiently and effectively. In context of Laura Ashley Holdings, the
value and importance of employee relationship is described below:
 Retention of good employee: In an organisation which do not have strong employee
relations confronts various problems such as. Confusion, conflicts, etc. Due to all these
issues, survival of employees becomes difficult. Another factor that creates a problem is
due to conflicts and confusions, employees do not feel satisfied in their job role (Shields
and et.al., 2015). These all elements only contributes in increased turnover of labour.
Therefore, it becomes important to establish good relation with employees so that they
can be retained. In context of Laura Ashley Holdings, the company is focusing on
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maintaining healthy relations which helping them in retaining the skilled and local
employees (Frone, 2015).
 Increased productivity: In context of Laura Ashley Holdings, the healthy and strong
relations among the members and high authorities contributes in increasing the volume of
production and enhancing the level of productivity.
Fundamentals of employment laws
Every organisation has a separate HR department that is basically formed to manage the
human resources of organisation and the other main aim is to comply with each and every
regulating law of employment. In relation of Laura Ashley Holdings, Human Resource
department focuses on following laws related to employment:
 Employment Right Act, 1996- According to the provision of this law, it is the right of
every employee to take their own decisions and also to pur forward their thoughts and
ideas. This is the equal right of every employee to contribute in decision making process
of employer company. Laura Ashley Holdings considers employees as the part of
management and also take their recommendations seriously. This helps in satisfying
employees as their opinion matters in that organisation.
 Equal Opportunities Act, 1972: According to this law, it is the responsibility of
management of company to provide equal rights and opportunities to every employee
working in that organisation. There should be no discrimination on the basis of age, caste,
colour, gender, preferences, likes and dislikes, etc. This equality should reflect both in
financial and non financial benefits. The employees should get opportunities on the basis
of their skills and responsibilities of employees and the role should be allocated on this
ground.
 Health and safety act, 1974: According to this act, employer should arrange all required
safety measures for their employees. This is done in order to prevent any accidents and
serious hazards to employees. In context of Laura Ashley Holdings, the company is
ensuring proper safety measures at the workplace so that employees feel protected and
secure. Another important step in this matter taken by the company is health insurance of
employees so that proper treatment can be availed by employees (Tews and et.al., 2015).
For company the health and safety of its employee is important so hygiene level is
maintain so that no one get infected (King, 2016).
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Recommendations for improving employee relations
 Motivation: The most useful tool that is taken by employer in order to establish strong
relations with their employees is motivating them to perform better. Motivation helps in
ensuring that employees are satisfied with their job roles and also make them feel
accountable to perform better in the organisation. According to various theories,
motivation is identified as an effective tool for establishing strong employees (Mitchell,
2016).
 Determination of goals and objectives: The most important step of management of
human resources is directing them with respect of their roles and responsibilities. This
will help in building good employee base. These objectives are set according to skills and
responsibilities of employees so that it becomes easy for them to accomplish set goals
and objectives. This technique helps employees to work with more efficiency and
effectiveness so as to achieve common goals and objectives of organisation.
PART 2
Rights, duties and obligations of employer and employee
There are certain roles and responsibilities assigned to every employee and employer in
an organisation. In addition to these roles and responsibilities, they are also allocated with some
rights and obligations to perform (Thakur and Bhatnagar, 2017). Both employees and employers
must possess in depth knowledge of these factors so as to work with full efficiency at the
workplace. In relation of Laura Ashley Holdings, the rights and duties allocated to employees
and employers are explained below:
 Safe and healthy workplace: To ensure smooth operations of business, it is important to
provide safe and secure working environment to employees. It becomes the most
important duty of employer to provide such workplace to its employees. In return of this,
employees are obliged to make sure that they perform their roles and responsibilities with
full efficiency and effectiveness. And also another duty is to perform their tasks in a way
that it do not become a hazard for any other person in the company (Ntalianis, Dyer and
Vandenberghe, 2015).
 Fulfilment of basic needs: Basic needs like clean toilets, hygienic workplace,
availability of clean drinking water, etc. forms the right of every person in an
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organisation. It basically forms a part of rights both employees and employers of that
company.
 Right to information: All the information regarding training, safety, etc need to be
updated to all the employees on timely bases son that they should not remain unaware.
Whereas employers should have proper information about various rules and conditions of
government which may effect the functioning of company.
 Contract and agreement- Employers are obliged to provide written account of the
working conditions and work to be performed by employees. Whereas employees are
obliged to function according to the terms and conditions of agreement.
 Equality- Both employees and employers in the organisation are under obligation to treat
each other equally regardless of their nature, religion, age and many other.
Suggestions for roles and responsibilities of employer and employee
 Rights to implement a work policy: In context of Laura Ashley Holdings, management
of organisation should move forward in direction of formulating and implementing a
work policy which will be in accordance of employer's requirements.
 Right to keep copies: There should be a freedom or authority given to employees to
keep copies of all the documents that they are signing in the company. This will ensure
their future safety in context of any legal issues (Valentine, Hollingwortha nd Schultz,
2018).
 Special program: Training is the basic necessity of every new employee so that they
become familiar with the working culture. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of
employer to provide suitable training programs to new employees. Laura Ashley
Holdings should adopt this policy in order to understand environment with a better view.
 Mutual trust and confidence: Every employee should feel responsible for owning trust
and confidence of each other working on the floor. It will help in building strong relations
that will ensure better productivity and profitability of the company (Obeidat,Mitchel and
Bray, 2016).
Psychological support for maintaining work life balance of employees
This is basically a contract of relationship employees and employers of the company that
is concerned with mutual inputs and outcomes. This contract basically covers two factors and
they are contribution of employees in their job and treatment of employees by their employers.
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This will include respect, trust, fairness and other related characteristics which are applicable
beyond the employment conditions and in human inter relations and also society (Para-González,
Jiménez-Jiménez and Martínez-Lorente, 2018).
Mechanism for management of employment relationships
In context of Laura Ashley Holdings, few methods for management of employment
relationship:
 Conducive workplace culture- The management of Laura Ashley Holdings should
focus on enhancing the cultural values that is team leaders along with team should decide
what values represent the company and accordingly should take steps. This helps in
building strong relationship among the members of the company.
 Team members involvement- According to this technique, employees should feel that
they are involved in decision making process. This will help in taking effective decisions
that will assists in achieving desired goals and objectives.
PART 3
Analysis of stakeholder of Laura Ashley Holdings
It is one of the important process that successful companies utilise to strengthen the
power and interest of certain group holders. They exercise certain level of power and interest
which influences the success of an organisation. Thus, it is imperative to focus on the
stakeholder analysis of an organisation. For conducting this analysis people allocate position for
a stakeholder on the grid.
High power and highly interested people – In this quadrant of the grid, people holds
high power and interest in the functioning of a company. These stakeholders exert more
influence than others which can affect the growth of an organisation. When a company performs
their activities it affects others in a certain manner. Though, it can be positively and negatively
affect others by the actions of a company. Thus, stakeholders which appears in this quadrant
influence the growth and success of a company (Zheng and et.al., 2015). It includes owners,
directors, shareholders and top management of a company. For this an organisation must engage
these strong stakeholders and make deliberate efforts to manage closely for providing
satisfaction (Poon, 2019).
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High power and less interested people – In this quadrant of the grid, people exercises
high power but have low interest in the functioning of a company. It includes people like
sponsors, government, customers and investors. They hold great power which can affect a
company severely. They may get less affected by the actions of a company due to less interest in
the functioning of a company . For handling this group company needs to put adequate work to
fully satisfy their needs so that they do not get offend as they hold least interest.
Low power and highly interested people – In this quadrant people holds less power in
the functioning of a company. But they are highly interested which can be beneficial in receiving
key information about the company. It includes people like employees, suppliers, media and
other interested groups. For this group keep them adequately informed and interact with them
often to ensure that no issues are emerging.
Low power and less interested people – In this quadrant, people holds less power and
less interest in the working of a company. Company can monitor this group effectively so that
they do not harm as they hold some potential. It includes people such as receptionist, guard,
cleaner etc. In this company can communicate with these group adequately for keeping the
record.
PART 4
Impact of employee relations on stakeholders
An organisation has different stakeholders that have different levels of authorities and
interests as well. These impacts the operations of business in a huge manner. There are several
stakeholders of Laura Ashley Holdings, such as, customers, employees, investors, etc. employee
relation as defined in the above part of this report, is the level of coordination between employee
and employer of the organisation. There are positive and negative relations both in an
organisation. Positive employee relationship refers to the coordination that keeps employees
happy and satisfied and also persuades them to give better productivity. On the other hand,
negative employee relation increases the level of stress and it impacts their working in the
organisation (Sahoo and Sahoo, 2019).
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Positive and negative employee relationship can affect avoidance and resolution of Laura Ashley
Holdings
Employee relation in Laura Ashley Holdings is very important as it effects the
performance of employee. This relationship holds so much importance as it has the power of
effecting the decision making process of management of this organisation. they will affect the
decisions of employees in the stores and provide experience to customers in their stores and they
will carry the similar work culture to customers (Schlechter, Thompson and Bussin, 2015). The
customers will feel important in their stores when the employees will treat them well and help
them in making purchase decisions. The employees are the most important assets to the
organisation and they should have a good relations so that they help in achieving profits. The
employers should explain the goals of Laura Ashley Holdings to employees so that they feel that
the organisation care for them and they are important to the success of the organisation. They
should take the recommendations from employees and helps them in making strategies for the
organisation. The negative relation of employees will impact the decisions of the management
and increases conflicts between the management and the employees and makes it difficult for the
management to measure their performance in the organisation.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above text that various factors inside the organisation affects
the companies relations with their employees. Every organisation frames their structure for
defining authority and responsibility relationship. It further helps in the functioning of healthy
relations between a company and its employees. Also, a company uses strategies and models for
sustaining a healthy work culture for the increase in the productivity. Due to the organizational
structure, it helps in the flow of communication smoothly. Consequently, helps in maintaining
adequate transparency in an organisation. Thus, reduces conflicts and misunderstandings
resulting in strong relations and job satisfaction in a company.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Agarwal, S., Yadav, Y.S. and Acharya, A., 2015. Impact of CSR-driven internal employee
motivation on cordiality of employee relations. In Managing in recovering markets (pp.
315-325). Springer, New Delhi.
Curtin, P.A., 2019. HOW EMPLOYEE RELATIONS SHAPED AND MAINTAINED US
CORPORATE WELFARE. Public Relations, Society and the Generative Power of
History.
Frone, M.R., 2015. Relations of negative and positive work experiences to employee alcohol
use: Testing the intervening role of negative and positive work rumination. Journal of
occupational health psychology. 20(2). p.148.
King, K.A., 2016. The talent deal and journey: understanding the employee response to talent
identification over time. Employee Relations. 38(1). pp.94-111.
Mitchell, W., 2016. Employee relations within the factory. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
Ntalianis, F., Dyer, L. and Vandenberghe, C., 2015. Owner-employee relations in small firms.
Journal of Managerial Psychology.
Obeidat, S.M., Mitchell, R. and Bray, M., 2016. The link between high performance work
practices and organizational performance. Employee Relations.
Para-González, L., Jiménez-Jiménez, D. and Martínez-Lorente, A.R., 2018. Exploring the
mediating effects between transformational leadership and organizational performance.
Employee Relations.
Poon, T.S.C., 2019. Independent workers: Growth trends, categories, and employee relations
implications in the emerging gig economy. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal.
31(1). pp.63-69.
Sahoo, R. and Sahoo, C.K., 2019. Organizational justice, conflict management and employee
relations. International Journal of Manpower.
Schlechter, A., Thompson, N.C. and Bussin, M., 2015. Attractiveness of non-financial rewards
for prospective knowledge workers. Employee Relations.
Shields, J. and et.al., 2015. Managing employee performance & reward: Concepts, practices,
strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Tews, M.J. and et.al., 2015. Workplace fun matters… but what else?. Employee Relations.
Thakur, S.J. and Bhatnagar, J., 2017. Mediator analysis of job embeddedness. Employee
Relations.
Valentine, S.R., Hollingworth, D. and Schultz, P., 2018. Data-based ethical decision making,
lateral relations, and organizational commitment. Employee Relations.
Zheng, C. and et.al., 2015. Developing individual and organisational work-life balance strategies
to improve employee health and wellbeing. Employee Relations.
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