Employee Relations Report: Conflict, Negotiation, and EU Influence

This report provides a detailed analysis of employee relations within the context of Primark, a multinational retail company. It begins by exploring the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference, examining their impact on employee relations. The report then delves into the effects of changes in trade unionism, the roles of key players in employee relations, and the procedures organizations should follow when dealing with conflict situations. Furthermore, it evaluates the effectiveness of conflict resolution procedures, examines the role of negotiation in collective bargaining, and analyzes the impact of negotiation strategies. The report also investigates the influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK, compares methods for employee participation, and assesses the impact of human resource management on employee relations, ultimately providing a comprehensive overview of the subject.

Employee Relations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Unitary and pluralistic frames of reference ..........................................................................1
1.2 Impact of changes in trade unionism on employee relations................................................2
1.3 The role of the main players in employee relations..............................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Different procedures an organisation should follow when dealing with different conflict
situations.....................................................................................................................................4
2.3 Evaluate the effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation.....................6
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................6
3.1 Role of negotiation in collective bargaining.........................................................................6
3.2 Impact of negotiation strategy ..............................................................................................7
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................7
4.1 Influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK ......................................................7
4.2 Compare methods to be used to gain employee participation and involvement in the
decision making process in organisations...................................................................................8
4.3 Assessment of human resource management impact on employee relations .......................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Employee relation is the organisation efforts to maintain the relationship between its
employees. Effective relation among employees gives fair behaviour to all the team members
which helps them to become loyal to their organisation. Employee relation policies define the
company's policies, rules and procedures for indicating workers related matters and solving
problems in the organisation (Alfes and et.al., 2013). Primark is an international company which
contains the subsidiary of Associated British foods. It is headquartered in Dublin. It was founded
by Arthur Rayan in the year 1962. In this report the main tasks are to understand the context of
employee relations against a changing background. Next task is to understand the nature of
industrial conflict and its resolution. Further, it includes the concept of employee participation
and involvement. Moreover, it includes the development of good working relations against a
changing background.
Task 1
1.1 Unitary and pluralistic frames of reference
There are two main frames of employee relationship are unitary and pluralistic frame of
references. Unitary perspective includes different main components. Firstly, the organization has
single authority which is the management and opposition leaders. Additionally, the major role of
the organization is to promote the loyalty and commitment to the employees. Next is that the
company consists of team which work together without creating any conflicts between manager
and workers. Unitary perspective believes that employees can join the organisation for common
interest, objectives and values.
Next category of unitary perspective includes that the management of Primark company
is to build the strong leadership to fulfil the firm's objectives (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
Further, the trade community are not considered as important part to the management objectives.
Moreover, it states that conflicts in the company are given negative response as they result in
disloyalty and hence impairing the well being of the firm. Additionally,, it focuses on the state
which is autonomous and responsible for shaping the industrial relation system in the Primark.
In Pluralistic frame of reference, the organisation contains different beliefs, sets, values,
behaviour, culture etc. The role of the management authority in Primark is to bring competitive
interest among the team members. The employee relation stability among the employees can be
achieved through negotiation between employees and managers. Conflicts arises because there
1

are competing interest among the staff members. On the other hand, conflicts can be proved to be
helpful if they were identified within the company responses. Decision making power of the
workers is improved with the help of trade unions who are the representative of them which have
positive nature to look the matters. The effective IR intervention of the Primark helps in
resolving the conflicts and disputes (Bal, Kooij and De Jong, 2013). The pluralistic perspective
give the wider range of employee relationship policies. It makes use of effective conflict
management approaches to engage team which are in conflict in order to find solution of the
conflicts among the team members.
1.2 Impact of changes in trade unionism on employee relations
Trade union has maintained the interest of the businessman of Primark. Trade union
become very powerful and has given the proper rights to the employee. The company has trade
union which deal with the problems faced by workers. The problem may be related to any nature
such as those concerning the payment, improper rules, timings of the organisation etc. The union
of the Primark is responsible for maintaining discipline among the workers. The main purpose of
trade union is to maintain the effective relationship between management and the employees. It
also takes actions against the team members who misbehaves, disturbs the peace and harmony in
the organisation to maintain the employee's effective relations.
The trade union is pluralistic in outlook, it covers the relationship between employees and
unions. The trade union allowed the employees of Primark to raise the issue of wages above
competitive levels which results in harmful economic activities (Campbell and O'Leary, 2015).
Trade union has slowed down the employment growth and leads to workplace closure . The
comprehensive bargaining agenda have affected the employment which directly affects the
employee and company relationships. This union has affected the pay levels of the company.
The pay setting arrangements has covered 70 percent of employees in the organisation. Payment
of the employees of the company has raised to 9 percent as compared to non-union workplace.
The union bargaining has directly affected the employees at the bottom end of the pay
distribution.
The employees whose pay is between £5 and £10 per hour are majorly affected by the
union bargaining. Over 15 percent of the employees of Primark whose income is between £10 an
hour or more has directly impacted from this agenda as they are benefited the spill over from the
bargaining. The union bargaining strength is improved by the percentage of all employees which
2

leads to a more union payment premium (Caputo and Ayoko, 2016). Trade union's success in
raising the wages can be improved if the price relaxation of demand products are decreased. This
in turn gives the facility to the employees to meet their additional costs from the normal benefits.
1.3 The role of the main players in employee relations
The human resource manager, employee trainee, financial manager, CEO plays vital role
in managing the employee relationship. The human resource manager handles the recruitment
and selection process of the employees, plans the workplace etc. The manager plans all the
organization welfare activities in order to increase respect, responsibility which helps in
developing the effective employee relationship. Employee trainee provides the training and
seminars which helps the workers to understand the work culture of the Primark company.
Financial manger provides the knowledge about the need of relationship in finance. CEO has to
consider the skills and hidden talent of the employee to achieve high performance of the Primark.
Employee relationship is dynamic concept, it changes with changing environment and
structure. It grows or decays along with the economic and social institution (D. Waters, R.,
Sevick Bortree and Tindall, 2013). Therefore, the CEO has to take care of its institution policies
which directly impacts the employee's. On the other hand Human resource manager deals with
executive policies and activities. Whereas, the employer- employee relations are mainly focused
on employee-employer relationship. Employer relationship is an integral part of social relation
and hence the human resource manager has to handle all the activities related to the workers. All
this functions will help in maintaining the overall relationship between CEO and employees.
The individual and collective relationship is part of employee. Collective relation
include the relation with all the members of the company. The employees are the main asses of
the Primark company. Therefore, the team leader and manager plays an important role in
managing the healthy atmosphere among the workers (Dundon and Dobbins, 2015). The
manager helps in guiding his followers about the goals and objectives of the organisation. They
also motivate and inspire their employees to enhance performance. They conduct meetings and
allows their followers to lead the meetings which increases the confidence of the workers. The
give rewards and encourages the employees on their best performance and let their employees to
feel that their contribution to the organisation helps them to achieve the success of the company.
The encouragement and inspirational thoughts of the company helps the employees to increase
their participation in different activities of Primark.
3

Task 2
2.1 Different procedures an organisation should follow when dealing with different conflict
situations
Conflict arises when different opinions and views come. The organization has to resolve
the conflict effectively without preventing the disagreements. Primark has followed different
procedure to resolve the conflicts of the employees and its customers. Some of them are defined
as below:1. Identify the safe place and time to talk: The issue must be resolved in the safe place that
is in the private room whose location is separate from the institution so that one can take
risk for honest communication about the issue. The amount of time for the meeting is
appropriate for all the teams (Jennings, McCarthy and Undy, 2017). Time limitation must
be taken care so that complex as well as simple issues can be resolved on fixed date and
time.2. Clarify the perception of every member to involved in the conflict: The Primark gives
the opportunity to every member to express its perception. The issue cannot be solved if
the employee statement is unclear about the problem. The organisation solves the issue
by sorting the parts of the conflicts.3. Practice taking an active and emphatic listening stance: The authority have strong
listening power which can give chance to others to speak. The other person mentality can
be known to team members by identifying his thoughts or feelings and have capacity to
understand the others point of view. The team member have to take listening stance into
negotiation process.4. Generate options with the criteria of win-win result: Win-win strategy is the process
whose main purpose is to accommodate all the members and take out from the sense of
fairness. The Primark has to resolve its issue by taking one concern at a time (Johnstone
and Ackers, 2015). The organisation has to generate different solutions of the problem by
focusing on the new ideas. The criteria must be cleared for which the team is using for
checking options.
5. Develop an agreement that works for all: All the suggestion and ideas given by the team
must be summarized and put them in writing so that effective solution can be made from
it. Relate all the advices back to each other in order to ensure that all members are agreed
4

on the both intend of the solution. When the conversation comes to an end, leave the
session with commitment to execute the plans which are created by the authority team.
2.2 Key features of employee relations in a selected conflict situation
The role of conflict management is to overcome the misunderstanding between the
employer and employee. The conflict may arise between different people of the organization
like employee and employer, different employee's and customer employee. The employer-
employee conflict takes place when there are different opinions are in light for a particular
matter. Other reason for the conflict arisen may be due to different personalities and
perspectives. The employer-employee relation is the result of the employment relation in the
industry (Lamba and Choudhary, 2013). Any small misunderstanding can create the conflicts
and disputes among them. There are some key feature which helps in resolving the conflict of
employer-employee in the Primark which are described as follows: Open mentality feature must be developed: The open opinion approach helps in clearing
the problem on the same time without leading to misunderstandings. This helps the team
member and leader to solve their problem at that moment only which prevents to large
fault of the project. The organisation must be safe and secure: The policies and strategies of the Primark
must be strong enough such that no external force can affect the welfare and success of
the company. The Primark's safety and security will increase the confidence of its
workers by ensuring them that they are safe in the organisation in which they are
working (Meijerink, Bondarouk and Lepak, 2016.). Employees problems must be listened carefully: The problems of the workers must be
listened carefully in order to find out the effective solution of the problem. Interpersonal
communication among the employer and employee must help them to solve the issue at
their end. Employer-Employee's recommendation must be taken: The employee's recommendation
and suggestion must be taken regularly so that company can resolve the problems and
avail the necessary resources to its employees. Regular feedback and advice from the
employee about the problems of the projects helps the organisation to improve its lacking
area.
5

 The employees must be given opportunities to develop: The employees and employer
must be given chance to find the creative solution of the problem related task together so
that motivation level of the employees must be increased. This will in turn results in
better performance and relationships. The team members must be given different
opportunities to develop so that they can feel that are working for correct organisation
which gives them chance to grow their skills (Mercer and et.al., 2017).
2.3 Evaluate the effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation
The open opinion feature, employer-employee recommendation, listening to the problems
etc. are the given solutions which helps in making effective relationships between employer and
employees. These key factors are very important in solving the conflicts in Primark. The
manager of Primark has to understand the reason behind theconflict (Pamela, 2010). Conflict
among employer-employee was arisen due to different views, perspectives, personality and
culture of them. The different mentality of the workers in the organization sometimes proves to
be beneficial. It may give some simple ways to solve the task given to them.
The manager needs to determine the effect of conflict on the Primark. The manager has to
find out the best way of dealing with the conflict. Various opportunities and offers helps to
increase the motivation among the employer and employee's which in turn results in better
relationship atmosphere in the organisation (Moed and et.al., 2015). In addition, the interpersonal
communication also helps to resolve the problems efficiently by discussing the difficulties' from
face to face.
Task 3
3.1 Role of negotiation in collective bargaining
Collective bargaining refers to the negotiations relating to the terms of employment and
situation of work between worker and the organisation employees. The collective bargaining has
some special terms which need to be fulfilled in Primark. This system includes the freedom of
the Primark and labour law system. Negotiation and bargaining occurs between the employer and
employees of the organisation. Negotiation takes place in the background of continuing
relationship among the employees which encourages them to resolve the specific issues. It is
based on special terms and condition of the work based on the payment of the employee's in
Primark. Negotiation helps in maintaining the responsibility and responses among employee and
trade union of the Primark. Negotiation also increases the performance of the employees
6

(Ntalianis, Dyer and Vandenberghe, 2015). The Primark find it easy to resolve the issue at
bargaining level rather than to take complaints of the individual employee.
Collective bargaining strengthens the trade union movement. It also used in preventing
the industrial issues. The main objective of negotiation is to reach the agreement of the Primark
employees. Negotiation helps the employer to build the satisfaction among its employees. The
collective bargaining distinguishes the negotiation from normal negotiation. In normal
negotiation, the employee's take their task elsewhere as they may be in stronger position.
Preparation, opening, trading and agreement are the four negotiation stages which helps
the employers to influence the employees. By preparing the task which the Primark company has
to achieve must be planned properly in order to clarify it to the employees (Osman-Gani, Hashim
and Ismail, 2013). Openness helps the employer-employee to make strong relationship between
them. Trading negotiation is based on contract which states that if the employee is agreed to
work properly then employer will reward them. The relationship between employers and
employees can be improved with the help of negotiating attitude of both of them.
3.2 Impact of negotiation strategy
The success and failure of the Primark company depends on the impact of negotiation.
The employee of the organisation are not satisfied with their payment. The workers are not given
wages according to their work. They are not happy with their job roles as they were given high
work load and they were not given any extra wages for that. All this leads to the pressure and
disputes. Negotiation plays an important role in solving such problems. The conflicts are mainly
due to low payment and safety issues in the organisation. With the help of negotiation the
employees and management reach to the solution of common interest.
The employees problems can be solved if the authority of Primark and employees
negotiate by finding the solution of the problem (Park, 2015). They can manage the problem by
resolving the issues and bringing the common solution on which both can be agreed to do it.
Effective decision can be made from the negotiation which can be proved beneficial in achieving
the goals and long term objectives of the Primark.
Task 4
4.1 Influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK
The design structure of industrial democracy do not fit in the aggressive relationship
which exists between the manager and union. European legislation motivates the workers for the
7

prominent role in the organisation decision making process. The union helps in making the best
decision by educating the management and employees of the Primark company (Sanish, 2017).
This has made positive impact on the employee's performance and improved their contribution to
the growth of the company.
The main role of works council is to achieve the firm's objectives by discussing them and
strengthen the strategies for enhancing the future goal of the business. The chances of growth for
workers stakeholder and workers partners as they have staked in the ownership of the company.
Shareholders of the firm are inspired by the use of share option and saving schemes of the
system. All these approaches helps in gaining the success and growth of the Primark (Seeck and
Diehl, 2017). This helps in emphasising the employees to have stacked in the business. These
approaches helps in maintaining the growth and development of the organization. UK has
developed the union council to enhance the performance of its employees and to achieve the
objectives of the company. Primark is positively affected by the industrial democracy of the
country.
The industrial democracy of the workers are affected by EU policies. The degree of
freedom of the Primark is governed by Trade union which is another derivative of the EU policy.
The industrial freedom is measured by the another policy of EU which consists of safety and
healthy environment (Siegel and Bleier, 2017). EU policies affected the UK employee freedom
as the employs get more democratic rights. Impact of UN policies in the UK are as shown below:
 It protects Primark .
 EU polices protects vulnerable industries of UK.
 Industrial freedom of the workers are managed by EU policies.
 It influences the democratic system of the employee's.
 EU policies helps in maintaining the safety and healthy environment in the workplace.
4.2 Compare methods to be used to gain employee participation and involvement in the decision
making process in organisations
Employees interest towards the work can be increased by involving them in the decision
making. The essential factor of human resource management of Primark is employee's
involvement. Participation of employee gives them the power and duty to work with satisfaction.
The involvement of the team members in decision making increases the productivity as the
employees are actively participating in different aspects and willing to see their efforts to
8

succeed in the Primark (Simmons-Mackie, 2013). It benefits Primark overall growth plus helps
in giving job training to the employees. The skills, traits of the employees are increases with the
increase in their responsibility and prepares them for additional future responsibilities.
Several methods are used to gain the staff member participation and involvement in
decision making process. Some of them are as follows:
 Delegation: In delegation process, the work is delegated to the work is done from senior
to their workers. The team leader gives the responsibility to their members to do work by
properly managing it. Delegation helps in giving roles and responsibilities to the
subordinates. These employees make relationship with the concerned team members
which helps in sharing of load. This method is effective only when the work load of the
company is very high and the company is under pressure to complete the task in very
short time. This impacts the employee relationships.
 Proper information method: The information method includes the proper supply of
information about the company's manager which give power to the workers. In this
method, the staff member can access the company's information. This method is effective
than above method as proper communication of information helps the employees to
enhance their performance. It also helps in building the good relationship among the team
members.
 Power given to employees : All the employees of the company wishes to be a member of
the authority. The employee's motivation increases by giving power to them. This method
is effective than the other two methods because this method helps to improve the
performance of the company. Giving power to the employee's increases their involvement
and helps to make better decisions.
Team member involvement in making decision not only helps in finding the solution fast but it
also helps in making innovative decision which can make the work enjoyable. Involving the
team member in key decisions gives managers to access the unique skills of its followers (Yang,
and Guan, 2015). The three different methods used above are proved to very useful in gain
workers participation in decision making. Their participation in decision making can results in
increased job satisfaction, employee's motivation, firm's commitment and job performance.
9

4.3 Assessment of human resource management impact on employee relations
The employee's relations are influenced by human resource management activities. It
helps in driving performance of employees. It focuses on quality and competition rather cost.
The employee training and development affects the employees relations. HRM is the important
factor for achieving the Primark success and growth.
Providing training to employees helps in making the positive environment and better
employee's relationship. The competitive advantage and high performance of the staff members
can be achieved by their skills, abilities, commitment, motivation, job satisfaction. Primark has
considered the employees as the essential resource that helps in achieving the organisation's long
term objectives and goals (Stark, 2017). Human resource management functions which asses the
impact by the following ways:
Motivation helps employees to enhance their performance. Motivating staff members and
other workers helps them to make healthy relations between them. Motivated employees can
create innovative ideas to solve their and organisational problems. Motivated employees take
active participation in the events and other activities of the organisation which also helps in
creating effective relationships among them.
Organisation's planning affects the team members strong bonding. Safety and healthy
workplace of Primark helps its workers to build up the strong relationship between them. Finding
solution together and combine work helps the employee to build the better relationship with them
The employees good health and faith towards their organisation helps the Primark to achieve
desired results (Chand, 2016).
The selection procedure of the Primark is very strong and it is managed by the human
resource management. The HRM always tried to select the talented candidates who have loyal
behaviour towards the organisation culture. This helps the new candidates to cope up with the
organisation work. These function helps to maintain the effective relationship among their
employee's.
CONCLUSION
From this report, it can be concluded that the employee relationship can be ensured by
managing the conflicts, collective bargaining and negotiation process. The unitary and pluralistic
perspectives are taken to build the strong leadership to achieve the long term objectives. Primark
has maintained successful relationship between employer and employee by allowing employee
10

participation and involvement which also act as a key factor in increasing the growth of the
business organisation. Assessment of changes in trade union is done to accomplish effective
relationship at Primark.
CEO, finance manager, human resource manager, employee trainee are the main players
in building the successful relationship among workers. Different conflict procedures are adopted
by the Primark to resolve the conflicts and disputes. Open mentality, focus on team members
problems, workers recommendation etc. are some key feature which helps in conflict resolution.
Various EU policies are adopted to protect the organisation as well as the employee's. Several
methods like which affects the employee's relation are selection, training programs etc.
relationship.
11

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Alfes and et.al., 2013. The relationship between line manager behavior, perceived HRM
practices, and individual performance: Examining the mediating role of
engagement. Human resource management. 52(6). pp.839-859.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bal, P. M., Kooij, D. T. and De Jong, S. B., 2013. How do developmental and accommodative
HRM enhance employee engagement and commitment? The role of psychological contract
and SOC strategies. Journal of Management Studies. 50(4). pp.545-572.
Campbell, K. and O'Leary, R., 2015. Big Ideas for Big Problems: Lessons from Conflict
Resolution for Public Administration. Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 33(S1). pp.S107-
S119.
Caputo, A. and Ayoko, O. B., 2016, August. The role of cultural intelligence in negotiation and
conflict management: a conceptual model. In Academy of Management Conference.
Waters, R., Sevick Bortree, D. and Tindall, N., 2013. Can public relations improve the
workplace? Measuring the impact of stewardship on the employer-employee
relationship. Employee relations. 35(6). pp.613-629.
Dundon, T. and Dobbins, T., 2015. Militant partnership: a radical pluralist analysis of workforce
dialectics. Work, employment and society. 29(6). pp.912-931.
Jennings, C., McCarthy, W. E. J. and Undy, R., 2017. Employee relations audits. Taylor &
Francis.
Johnstone, S. and Ackers, P. eds., 2015. Finding a voice at work?: new perspectives on
employment relations. OUP Oxford.
Lamba, S. and Choudhary, N., 2013. Impact of HRM practices on organizational commitment of
employees. International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology. 2(4).
pp.407-423.
Meijerink, J. G., Bondarouk, T. and Lepak, D. P., 2016. Employees as Active Consumers of
HRM: Linking Employees’ HRM Competences with Their Perceptions of HRM Service
Value. Human resource management. 55(2). pp.219-240.
12

Mercer and et.al., 2017. How Important Is Conflict Detection to the Conflict Resolution Task?.
In Advances in Human Aspects of Transportation (pp. 103-115). Springer International
Publishing.
Moed and et.al., 2015. Parent–adolescent conflict as sequences of reciprocal negative emotion:
Links with conflict resolution and adolescents’ behavior problems. Journal of youth and
adolescence. 44(8). pp.1607-1622.
Ntalianis, F., Dyer, L. and Vandenberghe, C., 2015. Owner-employee relations in small
firms. Journal of Managerial Psychology. 30(7). pp.832-846.
Osman-Gani, A. M., Hashim, J. and Ismail, Y., 2013. Establishing linkages between religiosity
and spirituality on employee performance. Employee relations. 35(4). pp.360-376.
Park, R., 2015. Employee participation and outcomes: organizational strategy does
matter. Employee Relations. 37(5). pp.604-622.
Seeck, H. and Diehl, M. R., 2017. A literature review on HRM and innovation–taking stock and
future directions. The International Journal of Human Resource Management. 28(6).
pp.913-944.
Siegel, A. M. and Bleier, H. R., 2017. The Role of Negotiation in Consultation-Liaison
Psychiatry. Psychosomatics. 58(2). pp.187-190.
Simmons-Mackie, N., 2013. Social Role Negotiation in Aphasia Therapy:
Competence. Constructing (in) competence: Disabling evaluations in clinical and social
interaction, p.313.
Yang, F. and Guan, Y., 2015, August. Graph model for conflict resolution analysis based on
interval grey number preference. In Grey Systems and Intelligent Services (GSIS), 2015
IEEE International Conference on (pp. 49-53). IEEE.
Online
Chand, S. 2016. 11 Essential Features of Employer-Employee Relations. [Online]. Available
through: <http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/hrm/11-essential-features-of-employer-
employee-relations/27999/>. [Accessed on 14th June 2017].
Pamela, 2010. FIVE STEPS TO MANAGE & RESOLVE CONFLICT IN THE WORKPLACE.
[Online]. Available through: <https://experiential.sg/five-steps-to-manage-resolve-
conflict-in-the-workplace/>. [Accessed on 14th June 2017].
13

Sanish, A., 2017. Influence of the Eu on Industrial Democracy in the Uk. [Online]. Available
through: <https://www.termpaperwarehouse.com/essay-on/Influence-of-the-Eu-on-
Industrial-Democracy-in-the-Uk/245737>. [Accessed on 14th June 2017].
Stark P. B., 2017. 6 Reasons to Involve Employees in Decision Making. [Online]. Available
through: <https://www.peterstark.com/key-to-engagement/#>. [Accessed on 14th June
2017].
14