HND Business Employee Relations: Conflict and Negotiation

This report delves into the multifaceted realm of employee relations, examining critical aspects such as conflict resolution, negotiation strategies, and the roles of key players within an organization, using Jolidon and British Airlines as case studies. It explores the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference, highlighting their impact on management approaches and employee interactions. The report analyzes various conflict resolution procedures, the significance of trade unions, and the influence of legislation on employee rights. Furthermore, it investigates the role of negotiation in collective bargaining and the impact of EU regulations on industrial democracy, alongside methods for fostering employee participation. The report concludes by assessing the influence of human resource management on employee relations, offering a comprehensive overview of the dynamics that shape workplace environments and organizational success.

EMPLOYEE RELATION
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 The unitary and pluralistic frames...............................................................................................3
1.2 Importance of employee and employer relationship....................................................................4
1.3 Roles of the main players in an organization...............................................................................5
TASK 2.................................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Procedures an organization follows to resolve the employee conflicts........................................6
2.2 Features of employees in conflict situations................................................................................8
2.3 Effectiveness of the procedures used to resolve the conflicts......................................................9
TASK 3.................................................................................................................................................9
3.1 Roles of negotiation in collective bargaining...............................................................................9
3.2 The impact of negotiation strategy.............................................................................................10
TASK 4...............................................................................................................................................10
4.1 Influence of EU on the industrial democracy in UK..................................................................10
4.2 Methods used to gain the employee participation and involvement in decision making............11
4.3 Impact of human resource management on employee relations.................................................11
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................13
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INTRODUCTION
The relationship between employee and employer in good and positive terms which
will help the organization to improve its productivity by their contribution (Underthun and
et.al., 2015). It also helps to motivate the employees which makes them focus on the aims to
eliminate problems and issues related to the work, which are impossible for them to resolve
on their own is employee relation. The company taken here is Jolidon which is a private
company and deals in manufacturing of swim suit and other men and women apparels. The
company is located in Romania, headquarter at Cluj-Napoca was found in 1993. The
organization has 2000 employees with revenue of € 80 million in year 2008. In the present
report the term employee relation, its importance and roles of employees in an organization
will be discussed. The unitary and pluralistic frames and the ways to resolve the conflicts and
issues will be discussed.
TASK 1
1.1 The unitary and pluralistic frames
Unitary frames: the way of thinking, assuming, attitudes, values and practices related to
the management and organizational membership is known as unitary frames. The statement is
based on the achievement of success by the employees of Jolidon organization despite of
having different roles and responsibilities to fulfil the goals, objectives and the values. Th
implementation of the unitary frames in an organization sets the mission statements and
measures the success by achieving the actual objectives. Unitary frames are the assumption
followed by the management and the managers of the organization in order to manage the
operations. The frame work helps to direct the employees to work in a team or jointly for a
common purpose or project to achieve the goals and objectives. All the employees share their
equal contribution to achieve the target which is measured by the managers by checking the
efficiency and the performance of the groups (Shekari, Monshizadeh and Ansari, 2014).
Pluralistic frame: the organization like Jolidon has the support of very strong sub groups,
each with the legal loyalty with their own objectives and managers. There are two sub groups
in the Pluralistic frame: a) management and trade unions. The role of management or the
manager is to influence and coordinate between the employees rather than enforcing and
controlling. The unions trades are demanded as the legal representatives of the employees,
these helps to solve the conflicts by using the collective bargaining method and are not
viewed as necessary and bad thing, it can lead to evolution and positive change.
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Figure 1: Frameworks
(Source: Self management, 2017)
1.2 Importance of employee and employer relationship
Trade union in the organization is used for connecting the employees with the
management and the organizational work to attend the objectives to remove the conflicts and
misunderstandings. The collection and selection of the of the employees to perform the task
to resolve the conflicts by involving and using the method called collective bargaining. The
trade clubs used the strategies to safeguard the interest of the skilled employees later the trend
related to the amalgamation and mergers were significant at the second half of the nineteenth
century. This has result to the trade unionism and other bodies like trade council for the sake
of the employees in the organization. The rise in the Shop Stewards was also observed where
the representatives of the trade unions are unpaid. Memberships for the trade union were rose
in the period from 1945 to 2005. But after that it was declined around 7.43 million in the year
2006 as per the Certification Officer Annual Report. The reason for the decline in the
membership of trade union is due to the policies of the employment, composition of the
employment terms and conditions, effects of the legislation etc.
A challenge is there for the trade union UNITES in British Airlines regarding the
unpaid overtime. Along with that the job cuts have increased the employee’s motivation and
significantly the turnover were drop down around 15%. The representatives of UNITE
communicate this matter directly to the management and they haven’t give importance. The
issues are also there in the trade union of UNITE due to the less number of members. The
reason behind the less numbers is due to the low salary and the part time employees working
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in British Airlines. The changes in the social and the economic structure are also affecting the
employee’s relationships. British Airlines also gives prime importance to the employees by
offering shares. This has influenced the employees to become stakeholders in the
organization like British Airlines. All the employees are given chances to share their opinions
which have increased their level of commitment at British Airlines. The area of the HRM has
also increased which involves the demand and the supply of the workforce, training, working
environment, performance measurement, designing the responsibilities etc. and that replaces
the Personnel Management from the organization.
1.3 Roles of the main players in an organization
The players are the bodies or the groups who plays an important part in enhancing the
employee’s relations. The activities of those players are significant and that influence the
employee’s relation. The main players involved in the employee’s relation are as follows:
Employer: The role of the employer like British Airlines in respect of the employee’s
relation is to become a great employer by giving employment opportunities and to assure a
pay structure that will support their requirements. The employer used to identify the issues of
the employees and assure to resolve them as fast as possible. The training and development
session is organized by the employer like British Airlines in order to clear all the doubts of
the employees and share important information in order to remain updated. Health and safety
is also given focus which aims to provide safe and secure working environment at
organization. An employer is a person who employs workers in an organization and pays
those wages or salaries and delegates duties and responsibilities to them. He expects that the
workers should follow his orders and makes all the important decisions in an organization.
Employers have more power and authority over their workers however if the workers are
members of a trade union then there can be certain disputes. An employer’s aim is for the
growth and establishment of the organization in a profitable way, this may lead to a conflict if
workers demand for high wages regularly. If they feel like they are not fairly treated and they
do not feel safe in their jobs, then there can be certain consequences which can damage the
interest of the business for example poor production, absenteeism and strikes.
1. Employees: It is the employee’s bonding which results to strengthen the employee’s
relations. The groups are there in British Airlines which are formed in order to
achieve the departmental targets. The employees follow all the rules and the
regulations for maintaining a positive relationship among them. The employees are
the strategy implementer of the organizations and they must understand their roles and
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responsibilities in order to achieve the group targets. Thus, it is the employees who
form a base towards the employee’s relations. They play a significant role in
employee relations, they are people who are hired by employers and are paid in the
form of wages for the tasks and duties delegated to them, if they feel that their
interests are not protected or if their demands are not fulfilled they approach to the
trade unions who bring pressure to the employers in an organization. Trade Unions
are group of workers who join together to ensure that their interests of workers are not
harmed because of the organization, they help in improving the working environment
and conditions of their members through collective bargaining and other different
methods in order to protect the right of the workers employed in an organization.
2. Trade Union: The trade union are the group of members who collectively negotiate
with the employer or the management for the protection of the right (Muñoz-Pascua
and et.al., 2017). UNITE is the trade union present in British Airlines who used to
communicate with the management about the issues faced by the members. The
management of British Airlines also considers UNITE to be the important part of the
organization in order to increase the motivation and satisfaction level of the
employees.
3. Legislation: The Employees Relation Act 1999 gives focus to the individual, family
and the collective rights of the employees in order to bring fairness in the
organization. National Minimum Wage 1999 fixes the minimum wage rate of the
employees working in the organizations. Amendment was made in the Employees
Relation Act 2004 where the revision to the trade union’s recognition and allocation
of the funds to make the trade union more effective modern are focused which will
strengthen the area related to the employee’s relation. ACAS and the employment
tribunal is also there which gives a clear guideline for the employers. The
governments obligation is to maintain price fluctuations and a surplus on the balance
of payment. They monitor the organizational activities, pass laws for them and issue
policies to protect the right of workers and consumers in a country, and to maintain an
overall balance in the economic activities to create further jobs for the citizens in the
country.
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TASK 2
2.1 Procedures an organization follows to resolve the employee conflicts
Both the positive and negative aspects are attributed to conflicts at the workplace as
ongoing conflicts are bad and detrimental to organization. Conflicts are a part of working in
almost all the organizations as there are conflicting interests of two or more parties in one
decision making situation and can be interpersonal or between individuals, intrapersonal
relating to individual, structural or related to departmental structures in organization and
strategic conflicts related to objectives set by the organization. The various conflict resolution
methods used in the organization include:
(a) Avoiding as conflict leads to unpleasant feelings at workplace so they may be avoided
through policies and structures in the organization
(b) Compromising is the process to take a decision where none of the parties get exactly what
they wanted but somehow a median point is reached among the conflicting interests of parties
(c) Forcing is where a higher authority or manager decided what would the decision be and
forces the parties or individuals to end up any conflict directly
(d) Resolving or conflict resolution is the process of listening to both the parties, reaching
the agreed upon way to satisfy both the parties and maintaining the benefits of both the
groups in conflict resolution. This is time consuming and tough process but somehow very
effective.
A business house is surrounded by numerous people who work in the organization to
fulfill their personal objective by accomplishing organization objectives. It is not necessary
that all individual has same interest. People mostly work in the company to get higher
monetary benefit so that they can satisfy their livelihood whereas some other people work for
status, power and recognitions. So, it is very complex for the management to deal with
different people and their different needs and requirements. Generally, management tries to
fulfill the basic needs of all employees but many of times it happens that the interest of
management and workers doesn’t matches. This unparalleled aspect brings out conflict of
interest between them which ultimately takes the shape of outsized dispute between the
workers and management.
In Romania, the process which usually used for the settlement of industrial disputes is
explained in below heads-Small conflicts can take the shape of big disputes, if the three is
absence of proper communication channel in the firm. So before going ahead, it is very
necessary for the workers and management to first communicates one-to-one with each other.
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Because this helps in eliminating misunderstanding and quarrel at the first stage only. When
the talks go worthless then both parties should seek legal advice and performs their action
accordingly. It is peculiar for both the parties to keep safe all relevant documents information
for which the dispute is created because this information and data will help to build a clear
understanding of the reason for which the dispute is created.
 Litigation- Litigation is the oldest form of resolving disputes. In this, correspondence
parties opt for resolving disputes through legal prospect. In England and Wales, there
is provision to sort-out the disputes before the case reaches court (Braun and et.al.,
2015). This provision is also known by the name Pre-action Protocol. It is encouraged
to resolve conflict firmly without incurring legal and other cost. Further, proceeding
of court takes longer time to draw the decision. So mostly businesses prefer to draw
solution of the problems at outside the court’s gate
 Arbitration- Arbitration is also similar to litigation but here the process for
settlement of dispute is slightly different. This process is mostly used by the
multinational corporations. The parties who are in disputes agree to refer the
disagreement to arbitration for a binding arbitration. An arbitrator is usually a third
party or an individual who makes decision by understanding the whole scenario in
360-degree view. Generally, the arbitration takes place either by following the
procedures of arbitrator which he decided or by following the rules and regulation of
International chamber of Commerce.
 Alternative Dispute Resolution- It includes many methods of dispute settlement.
The most commonly method which followed is “Assisted” negotiations to achieve the
settlement. It is also knowing by the name Mediation. Here, a neutral mediator is
appointed by the correspondences to achieve the settlement of dispute sooner as
compared to litigation. It removes many barriers which are associated with litigation.
In this, settlement is done with the willingness of both the parties
2.2 Features of employees in conflict situations
The most important characteristics of the employee relations department is through a
culture towards open communication and encouraging the employees to talk about their
issues rather than being stressed out at the workplace. Also, immediate responsiveness is
required to handle any absurd condition due to conflict at work place and also due research
and acknowledgement about the incidences and what is actually taking place in the
organization is an important concern for the employee relations function. The employee
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relations manager must be skilled enough to ascertain and define the conflicting situation
along with the interest of the parties at conflict and decide that how far the conflict has
affected the work performance and involve in meetings with the conflicting parties to grasp
their viewpoints and then make out a solution promptly. The employee relations must find
out a median way and not favoring any one party at conflict and must do so in an impartial
manner and must look at the various alternative solutions. Also, the solution must be reached
through mutual involvement of the parties and follow up after implementation of the decision
is a must for employee relations manager in order to avoid any further conflict. If the conflict
still exists the case may be taken to immediate help of the problem resolution center of the
organization to yield impartial and neutral decisions against such a situation.
2.3 Effectiveness of the procedures used to resolve the conflicts
The effectiveness of the manager in dealing with the conflict resolution depends on
various factors involving the work culture, policies in the organization, knowledge and skills
of the manager, etc. On administering a conflict situation between two individuals, the
manager must try to understand the nature of conflict, underlying interest of the parties at
conflict, need of conflict resolution, etc (Georgiadis and Pitelis, 2016). Thus the recognition
of the need for conflict resolution is important in understanding the importance of the task of
handling the conflict as it impact the working performance in the organization. The manager
must be well acknowledging and must aim towards a constructive and impartial judgment in
resolution of the conflict situation after hearing the claims of both the parties at conflict. The
decision must not be built on the position of the parties in the organization and the
contribution towards the organizational objectives must be a base in resolution of the conflict
situation.
TASK 3
3.1 Roles of negotiation in collective bargaining
A process of negotiation between the employees and the employers group is done by
the trade union and it is aimed at regulating the salaries apart from the working conditions for
the employee and negotiation or freedom of associations is declared by the internationally by
human rights convention and the International Labor Organization. Thus, the negotiation
entails equitable pays for the employees and rewards through use of job evaluation, profit
sharing, etc. The interests of the employees in working in an organization includes financial
and non-financial rewards like training, participation through suggestion schemes, etc. thus
the representative of the employee who are a part of trade unions can enter in to negotiations
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with the employer to provide better rewards, pays and working conditions for the employee
and benefit the employer through improved commitment and motivations of the employees
apart from intervention in to disputes settlement and grievances handling. Thus, the freedom
of associations is a way of expressing their concerns apart from allowing the employees to be
a part of trade unions and can enter in negotiations with the company and company follows
international standards in providing recognition to the trade unions and dealing with them
openly. The company must not stop its employees to participate in trade unions and should
handle employee grievances prudently.
3.2 The impact of negotiation strategy
The policy of the organization Jolidon includes the treatment of employees in an
equitable manner without any discrimination on basis of position within the organization. the
company shows due concern to fundamental rights of employees to participate in associations
and allows the use of collective bargaining and all the other companies are supposed to
provide for the rights of the employee and work for management of relations with the labor
and provide for good working conditions. However, the problem arises in implementation of
this policy at the local levels as the laws are different in different countries. Hence the
company in years had made use of training of its managers in order to strengthen its policy on
the industrial or labor relations (Thoroughgood, Sawyer and Webster, 2017). The company
had developed a programmed called an e learning module which reached to 80 % of its
human resource management and line managers which has changed the attitudes of the
managers towards industrial disputes and rights of the trade unions to enter in to matters
concerning rights of the employees. Also, the company provides for good reward systems and
enhanced participation of the employees through use of suggestion schemes. Thus, the
company had been in negotiation for improvement of the rights of the employability skills
and management of the labor relations.
TASK 4
4.1 Influence of EU on the industrial democracy in UK
The influence of EU concept of industrial democracy which means how far the
workers are allowed to take the decisions and they share authority at the working place in the
organization. It means that the workers should be allowed to raise their voice in the decisions
making that will impact on the company to the extent to which they can do their work in
appropriate manner. Also, many activists have been arguing that the industrial democracy
deals in the collective bargaining as a method of worker influence in the organization
(Adigun, 2016.). Thus, the collective bargaining and industrial democracy go hand in hand
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and are interdependent on each other. In the late 1970s the Bullock report advocated the right
of the trade unions which were to be represented on the board meeting and their involvement
in the decision making of the companies, this proposal came to be associated with the concept
of industrial democracy. In case of UK, the union based structures are dominant rather than
the systems in the organization working independent of the trade unions. This in turn showed
that the country UK is very well related to employee involvement and participation in the
decision making of the company.
4.2 Methods used to gain the employee participation and involvement in decision making
Various methods are used by an organization Jolidon to improve the level of
involvement of the employees in the company. The organization has worked to improve their
level of involvement such as Suggestion Methods where the employees can provide their
suggestions by using the suggestion drop boxes or directing mails to the management or the
manager. This will help the organization to find the loop poles and make the improvements in
the efficient performing of the company as the lower level employees work closely with
production and customers (Whelan, 2014). It will help to make the organization learned about
the importance of the employee which feels valued and listened to through this approach.
Second or the Another method use by the organization includes Attitude surveys within the
organization where the employees provides their views about their job, quality of working in
company, their views about the pay scales, policies of the human resources department,
satisfaction about the working environment, etc.
This is mainly done by conducting the survey or by using of specially planned and
designed questionnaires and interviews. Also, the companies to improve the employee
involvement by using of Quality Circle. The quality circle is a special team of the
organizational members who are involved in handling the employee problems such as those
related to top down mode of communication or problems being faced by the employees at
work. This method helps to improve the performance of the employees and they feel taken
care of. Also, the company may seek direct involvement of the employees while taking the
tactical decisions or which affect their routine working patterns.
4.3 Impact of human resource management on employee relations
The human resources management have an impact on the overall working of the
organization Jolidon on the different level of strategy involvement of the employees at the
workplace and it also affects their attitudes to work for a company. The human resource
management can be classified in two parts: a) hard approach and b) the soft approach towards
the employees. Hard approach: the employees or worker are taken as the economic resources
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or factors like other resources and are used to attain the goals and objectives of the
organization. Soft approach: the employees are treated as an asset of the organization which
helps to gain the advantage over the competitors through skills, knowledge and attitudes of
the employees working in the organization.
Hence, if the employees or workers are well trained and allowed to take part in the
decision making of the organization it can help the company increase the motivation and
commitment to organizational goals and objectives apart from improved job performance
(Vveinhardt and Streimikiene, 2015).
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be summarized that the company Jolidon has followed
the role of trade union which is very important promoting the dignity of the employees and
the collective bargaining at the workplace. The methods used to resolve the conflict in the
organization, the role and importance of the employee and the employer is being discussed.
The improvement in performance of the employees by the manager and the management. It
helps the employees to take the appropriate decision making using the different strategies.
The company has followed the international stands for the clear communications and
negotiations with the employee representative of the trade unions there should be a proper
employee participation in the trade unions. The trade unions are committed to the
improvement of productivity of the product and services of the organization for the benefits
of both the employee and employer.
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