Employee Relations Report: Sainsbury's Case Study Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of employee relations, focusing on conflict resolution, trade unionism, and negotiation strategies within an organizational context, using Sainsbury's as a case study. The report delves into the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference, exploring how these frameworks influence employee management and conflict handling. It examines the impact of trade unionism, key players in employee relations, and procedures for solving conflict situations, including intra-group conflicts. Furthermore, the report investigates negotiation roles in collective bargaining, the influence of the EU on industrial democracy, methods for employee involvement, and the impact of HRM on employee relations. The analysis offers insights into maintaining positive workplace dynamics, resolving conflicts, and fostering effective communication between employees and management to achieve organizational goals.

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1.1 Unitary and pluralistic frames of references.......................................................................1
P1.2 Changes in trade unionism affected employee relation......................................................2
P1.3 Role of key main player in employee relation....................................................................2
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................4
P2.1 procedure of solving the conflict situation in an organization............................................4
P2.2 key features of employee relation in intra group conflict situation....................................5
P2.3 Effectiveness of procedure in intra group conflict situation ..............................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P3.1 Negotiation roles in collective bargaining..........................................................................6
P3.2 Impact of negotiation strategy............................................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P4.1 EU influence on industrial democracy in UK.....................................................................8
P4.2 Methods to gain employee involvement and participation in decision making procedures
.....................................................................................................................................................9
P4.3 impact of HRM on employee relation..............................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

Illustration Index
Illustration 1: Types of conflict........................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Employee relation direct affect both the environment such as internal and external. This
firm provides effective, good quality food and grocery products to the customers. This is the
biggest retailer in the world. This report includes frames of references which is unitary and
pluralistic frames to maintain the employee relation. This also includes conflict situation, trade
union and different types of strategies to solve the problem of conflict. To maintain the employee
relation in the company they need to provide open environment, appropriate facilities, effective
resources etc. these all are the factors that will help to increase the productivity and expand the
business in the industry.
TASK 1
P1.1 Unitary and pluralistic frames of references
Those frames are used to maintain the employee relation in an organization. These frames
are used by the manager to maintain the relation between the employee. Sainsbury's company
follows this approach to control and manage the employees in the company. This firm provided
the good quality product and services to the customers such as groceries, food products etc. this
entity is the second biggest chain in the UK. They apply these two frames to improve the
employee relation (Addison Portugal and Vilares, 2015).
Unitary frame reference
In this type of frame they consider employee behaviour and attitudes. Based on these two
factor they analysis it and then improve them. This frame starts from the values and assumption
said that the workplace conflict is not expected behave or the relation between employee and the
manager. This firm follows this approach to maintain the employee relation and also increase the
productivity of the product in the market. This entity manager follows this approach to create
good and efficient relationship between the employee and employer.
Pluralistic frame of reference
In this type of frame the organization divides the firm into two parts such as powerful and
different sub groups. Each group has the own rules and characteristics to manage their work in
the entity. Main two groups are management and trade union. Each team has different values in
which they have various responsibilities to achieve the desired goal. It is more flexible and more
suitable approach to maintain the employee relation in the firm.
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P1.2 Changes in trade unionism affected employee relation
Trade union is the group of people in which people has the responsibilities to provide the
efficient and effective services to the company employees. This is the person that give the benefit
top the worker in the form of wages, incentives, high salary etc. in this trade union they have the
three factors that affect the employee relation first is technological second is legal, third one is
political. These ll are the factors that affect the company performance as well as the employee
relations in the organization. The firm needs this kind of team or groups to manage and handle
the employees in the firm. They provide the additional services to the customer when they have
the changes in the factors that affect the entity overall performance (Allen, Ericksen and Collins,
2013).
Basically they provide the protection to the workers who need for the appropriate training
and development for particular work. Sainsbury's provides the effective and efficient trade union
to the worker that will help to increase the productivity and also enhance the performance of the
firm. They provide higher security to the team member to maintain the relationship between the
employee and the employer. If the changes occurs in three factors then they need trade union
help to protect them for particular change because at this time of market the technologies and
tools are keep changing so that they need top update to the new techniques to maintain the
employee relations as well as the performance.
Employees can take advantages from the trade union in the form of training and
development, salary, wages, welfare etc. these all are the facilities that they are provided to the
worker in the company. This firm follows the appropriate policies and contract of trade union.
They take many advantages from them to improve the efficiency and maintain the relationship
between the employees (Balliet and Van Lange, 2013).
The firm need to create appropriate open environment to the team members for work
together. The trade union provide effective protection to the workers to improve the performance
of the entity.
P1.3 Role of key main player in employee relation
The company has many types of key players that have the various responsibilities to
handle and manage the employee. They have the roles and the responsibilities to maintain the
relationship in the organization. There are three levels of the management in the firm they also
have the role to manage the employee relation. Many key players have in the firm and each has
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different responsibilities. First one is top level management in which the CEO has the
responsibilities to manage the employee.
 To provide the open environment to the employees.
 Provide efficient resources.
 Give effective salary.
 Provide free environment to give their suggestion.
In the middle level management, all the mangers are coming they also have the
responsibilities such as
 Provide guidelines to appropriate problem.
 Provide freedom to manage their work and they can discuss their problems with the
leaders (Fisher, Kelman and Nan, 2013).
 Give the essential resources to the employees.
 Provide instruction for the work so that they can give contribution to the work.
 Involvement of employee
In lower level management, the employees also has the responsibilities to maintain the
relationship between them.
 Effective communication
 Helping nature and capability to listen other employee opinion or suggestions.
 Decision making system.
These all are the main player of the company that only manage the employee relations.
The firm provides the efficient and effective environment to the workers in which help to
maintain employee relation. The manager and the leader takes the appropriate decisions for the
workers. They provide the open environment which help to achieve the desired goal and also
provide effective services to the member. Sainsbury's firm manager give the appropriate
environment in which every employee can give their own opinions to the manager and then they
take the efficient decision for the firm (Gallie and et.al., 2012).
They provide the good quality product because they have the good and effective
employee relation in the company. They maintain the relationship between them to work
together and they can get the desired objective of the organization.
This firm provides good products and the services to the customer to increase the
performance of the company in the market and expand the business in the world. This entity
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already the biggest retailer in the world because they maintain the products quality as well as
employee relation because if the employee relation is not well managed in the firm then they
cannot achieve the desired goal.
TASK 2
P2.1 procedure of solving the conflict situation in an organization
The company has many types of conflicts in which they have different characteristics and
features that affect the overall company performance. There are basically four types of conflicts
that is intergroup, intra group, interpersonal and intra personal. These all are the types of
conflicts they affect the employee relation in the firm. This organization has the intra group
conflict in which team members have the misunderstanding and incompatibilities with each
other. They have different personalities and view. Sainsbury's firm has this type of conflict in the
company in which in marketing department they have the various teams so that they have the
conflict and misunderstanding between them. Each team member has the different ideas to
promote the product in the market to increase the productivity but sometimes the thoughts are
not matched with the other employee so that it creates the difficult situation to maintain the
employee relation (Green, 2012). These conflicts affect the employee relation and if relations is
not maintained by the employees in the entity then they cannot achieve the desired goal. Hey
also not complete the desired target.
All different members of the team have various ideas to market the product and promote
the products and services in the market. Each have the different innovative ideas to increase the
productivity of the product. They need to follow the appropriate steps for the effective and
efficient solution that employee can easily get the desired objective. This company follows this
steps to solve the conflict in the firm:
1. Clarify what the disagreement is: The manager needs to find out the actual issues with
the employees. First they need to get both parties opinion and issues that will help to
handle and re solve them efficiently. They need to take view and issues to both the
employees and based on the problems they must creates the appropriate solutions. This
firm follows this approach to handle the situation (Halperin, 2014).
2. Establish a common objective for both parties: Firm manager have the capability and
responsibilities to manage the employee relation in the company. In this second step they
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create the common goal for both the parties and then employees need to agree with other
employee opinion.
3. Discuss ways to meet the common objective: This step consider all suggestions from
the employees and then they take the efficient suggestion to promote the product in the
market. Main goal of the employees must be increase the productivity and provide good
quality of the product.
4. Define responsibilities of each party: To maintain the employee relation leader need to
create the efficient environment in which they can discuss their opinions and suggestions
to create appropriate innovative product.
P2.2 key features of employee relation in intra group conflict situation
The conflict situation is affect the company performance and decrease the productivity of
the product in the market. To maintain the employee relation company manager needs to give
appropriate environment to the employee that they can share their own views, suggestions to
other team members. Sainsbury's organization follows this appropriate steps to resolve the
conflict situation. Marketing team members has the issues such as different views, various
suggestions etc. each member has different views to handle the situation. This entity has the
problem that they need to promote the innovative product in the market. Each team member has
different ideas for promotion so that they cannot take appropriate decisions to promote the
products and services in the industry (Hu and et.al., 2012). There are basically four types of
conflicts in which they choose intra group conflict for this scenario.
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The manager needs to take different strategies that will help to achieve the desired goal.
All team members have different strategies, approaches and ideas to promote the new product.
So that manager needs to find good decision and also maintain the employee relation. This
conflicts affect the employee relation because of different thoughts, ideas, various suggestions
etc. some key feature of employee relation in intra group conflict as follows:
1. Employees not satisfied with manager: The employees are not satisfied with manager
because they have the responsibilities to manager the employee relation in the company.
They have the responsibilities to maintain the effective and efficient relationship between
eh employee and employer. Sainsbury's manager has good enough to manage the relation
in marketing teams.
2. Dissatisfied with internal environment: Employees are dissatisfied with the internal
environment because the leader and the manger not provide the appropriate facilities and
environment to maintain employee relation. Some key factors improve the employee
relation and also increase the performance of the company such as open environment,
freedom, provide facilities, effective policies etc. these all factors help to maintain the
employee relation in the firm (Jimeno and Thomas, 2013).
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Illustration 1: Types of conflict
Source:Intra-Group Conflict

P2.3 Effectiveness of procedure in intra group conflict situation
To maintain the employee relation in the firm they need to provide appropriate
environment to the workers so that they can easily share their own ideas with other team
members. This company follows this steps to resolve the conflict. This firm has intra group
conflict in which they have the misunderstanding with other team members. They also have the
incompatibilities with them. To solve and maintain the employee relation the manager needs to
develop effective environment and follows the efficient approaches and steps. This will help to
achieve the desired objective of the entity.
To improve the productivity and to expand the business in the industry they need to solve
the conflict situation and improve the efficiency of the employee in the firm. This company
follows structured procedure to solve the conflict. HR gives the policies and the contract to the
employee in the entity for work together. They are the one who has the responsibilities to
maintain the employee relation. Sainsbury's follows different types of strategies and approaches
to solve the appropriate problems.
The manger of this company provide efficient environment to the employees to work
together. So that they can easily get the desired objective and easily improve the efficiency of the
organization. They apply some strategy which help to maintain the employee relation and also
help to reduce the complexity of conflict. Smoothing and compromising is the main and effective
strategies to solve the conflict and improve the efficiency of the firm in the market (Kalemci
Tuzun and Arzu Kalemci, 2012).
TASK 3
P3.1 Negotiation roles in collective bargaining
Negotiation is the procedure in which the manager discuss something with the employees
or leader to create effective and efficient policies for the workers. They discuss terms and
condition to create good agreement for the employee in the company. Collective bargaining is
the procedure between management and the employee or worker. They provide good and
effective way to take good decisions for the firm. This agreement is more profitable to grow in
the industry. This will help to increase the efficiency and improve the productivity in the market.
There is many factors that affect he companies performance. Negotiation is also the
factor that affect the firm efficiency because they are only responsible for creating the terms and
condition agreement for the employees (Long, Perumal and Ajagbe, 2012). To maintain the
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employee relation the agreement also should be good enough. Collective bargaining is helpful to
maintain the employee relation because this is done between the employee and the management
of the organization. Some roles of negotiation in collective bargaining:
 Improve the performance.
 A negotiation outlook is effective with every from customers to employees.
 Efficient negotiation improve the bottom line of the company.
 High productivity.
These all are the roles of the negation in which they help to improve the performance and
increase the efficiency of employee relation in the organization. The manager needs to create
good negotiation to maintain the employee relation in the firm (Mahal, 2012).
P3.2 Impact of negotiation strategy
The negotiation strategy is the way to provide efficient and effective planning and
agreement to the employees in the company. This firm provides food products and grocery items
to the customers in the market. This is the biggest retailer in the world. This has many branches
in the UK as well as in the world. All the products and the services has good quality because they
manage their employee efficiently. By apply negotiation strategy firm can easily get the desired
goal and also can achieve the effective agreement for the employee. There are several types of
negotiation strategies in which they provide appropriate plans and policies for the best outcome.
Some of negotiation strategies are as follows:
1. Problem solving: In this type of strategy both the parties determine and discuss issues
that affect the long term agreement. This firm follows this strategy to improve the
efficiency and maintain employee relation.
2. Yielding: This approach consider a point which is not suitable for the one employee but
that is important to the other employee.
3. Compromising: they set the appropriate outcome that is suitable and comfortable with
each associate in the firm.
4. Inaction: They take all the proposal and collect the information or take effective decision
for the next tactics and plan. This firm follows this approach for the negotiation this will
help to improve the employee relation in the company.
These all are the negotiation strategy. Different companies follows various strategy to
improve the relation of workers. Impact of the negotiation approaches is positive on the firm
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because they help to get the desired goal efficiently (Marchington and Kynighou, 2012). They
provide appropriate methods to create good quality agreement that will help to manage and
handle employees in the entity. This company follows inaction and problem solving strategy to
maintain the employee relation. This appropriate approaches provide the good way to create
effective policies that must be valuable for the employee in the entity. Some of impact of
negotiation strategy:
 Separate the people or employee from the problem.
 Focus on the interest not on the positions.
 Creates a different type of options before settling on an agreement.
 Provide effective agreement on goal criteria.
TASK 4
P4.1 EU influence on industrial democracy in UK
All companies have the industrial democracy in which they affect the company
performance. This has many factors that directly influence EU on the industrial democracy in the
UK. This democracy involves employees share the opinions, responsibilities authority and
decision making system in the firm. In European countries there is no structure for industrial
democracy so that they do not have the efficient employee relation in the organization. They
have good place for work but they do not have the appropriate structure for industrial democracy.
In British companies the relation between the manager and employee is good enough and
effective.
In European countries they used partner based relationship in which unions and the
management work together to achieve the desired objective (McKersie and Walton, 2015). To
maintain the employee relation in the company they need to provide efficient environment to the
workers. Manager of the firm should provide open environment, facilities, effective policies,
freedom to give suggestions for particular problem so that the employees can maintain relation
between each other.
In UK there are some companies they follow the schemes to enhance the performance of
the company and also maintain good relationship between the manager and the employee. The
relation should be maintained properly because they directly affect the firm objective if the
relationship is not well managed then the entity cannot achieve the desired goal. This firm
manage the employee relation in the firm that will help to get the appropriate objective. This
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entity used different types of strategy and approaches that will help to maintain employee
relation. To create a good relationship between the employees they need to provide additional
incentives such as effective security, bonus, open environment, include employee in decision
making system, motivate the employee etc.
P4.2 Methods to gain employee involvement and participation in decision making procedures
All different companies use the various types of strategies in which they provide an
appropriate way to involve the employees in decision making system that will make sure that
they are also part of the company and they will also motivate (Sensoy and et.al., 2013). To
maintain the relationship between the employee manager needs to provide additional facilities,
involve in decision making system etc. there are any methods to involve the employees in
procedure such as survey, questionnaire, interviews etc. these all are the ways to involve workers
in the decisions. Employees has right to give suggestion, opinions, views and ideas for the
particular problem.
There are many strategies to involve the employees in this type of procedure such as
suggestion, quality circle etc. these all are the approaches to take employee views and then they
can make innovative ideas from the worker. All approaches have different characteristics to
manage the employee relation. In suggestion strategy the manager take the views, suggestion and
ideas from the employees through questionnaire, interview, meetings and they also can give the
suggestion directly to the management (Burris, 2012).
In direct participation strategy employees can directly involve in decision making
process. They can give opinion and ideas in the meeting and there is no restriction for the
employee that they cannot give their own ideas to the manager. By involving the employees in
decision making process the firm can maintain employee relation and also get the desired goal.
These all are the strategies that will help to maintain the employee relation in the firm.
This company follow direct participation strategy to create good environment and increase the
efficiency of the services. This will help to improve overall performance in the market. Manager
must involve the employee in decision making process the entity can get the positive impact such
as increase productivity, higher performance, high growth etc. they get higher growth as
compared to previous year. This strategies help to maintain employee relation and provide
effective way to create good internal environment in the entity (Shuck and Reio Jr, 2014).
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Manager should involve the employee in decision making procedure so that they can also
feel motivated and they give more effort to the work to increase the productivity and expand the
business in the industry. To maintain the relation of employees, leader should involve in decision
process so that they can also give their own ideas for the particular issues. This company
involves the employees in this process then only they get the desired goal of the firm in the
world.
P4.3 impact of HRM on employee relation
To maintain the employee relation the HRM has vital role in the company. The HR only
provide the policies and contracts to the employee that will helpful for the worker. They provide
the open and free environment to the member for work together. HR is the initial base of the
company that provide facilities and efficient policies to enhance the firm performance.
Involvement of the employees in decision making system that will help to the firm to get the
desired goal. HRM provides the appropriate policies and contract to the employees to manage
their work in the company.
They provide effective workplace, good and open environment, training and development
etc. whenever employee needs additional training and development then they give appropriate
guideline and instructions to the worker. This has the responsibilities to recruit, select, provide
training to the employees in the company. Manager and the leader has the responsibilities to
provide guideline and instruction to the worker to work together. Employee relation must be
maintained in this firm because the HRM is very good enough and efficient in the organization.
They provide appropriate resource and training to the each member whenever they needed. This
firm provides food products and grocery items to the customers (Trif, 2013). They have well
managed structure for managing the employee. They follow approaches and strategies to
improve the employee relation if the employee relation is well managed then they can achieve
the desired goal. This relation directly affect the company performance. To improve the
performance and increase the productivity they need to provide efficient resources, tools and
techniques to the worker so that they can easily produce product with new ideas.
To maintain the relation of the employee the firm should provide appropriate
environment and also give guideline for particular work. HR manager should be capable to
encourage and motivate the employee to work together. Sainsbury's manager provide the good
environment or training to the employees that factor help to improve the employee performance
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as well as the organization performance (Zartman, 2015). They provide good quality product and
they also completed the target of each year because they have good HRM and efficient
management. Relation between the employee and employer must be effective because this factor
affect the target. They follow strategies to solve the conflict in the entity. To solve the conflict
situation they follow compromising, smoothing and yielding strategies to solve the problem and
improve the performance of the entity.
CONCLUSION
Employee relation is the important factor in which it affects the overall company
performance. To maintain the brand identification in the market they need to create good
relationship between the employee and the employer. Sainsbury's firm provides the food
products and all grocery item to the customer. This is the largest retailer in the world. They
should involve the employees in decision making procedure that will helpful to get the objective.
In this firm they have intra group conflict situation but they follow step wise procedure to solve
them. To apply strategies and approaches they can easily expand the business and increases the
productivity in the market.
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Marchington, M. and Kynighou, A., 2012. The dynamics of employee involvement and
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Online
Intra-Group Conflict 2017 [Online]. Available through:
<http://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-inter--intra-group-conflict-
2658.html>. [Accessed on 10 October 2017].
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