Employee Relations Report: Vodafone's Business Success Strategies

This report provides an in-depth analysis of employee relations within Vodafone, a multinational telecommunications company. It begins by exploring the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference used to understand employee dynamics. The report then examines the impact of changes in trade unionism on employee relations, highlighting social cohesion, partnership development, and international challenges. The role of key players, including managers, trade unions, and the state, in maintaining positive employee relations is also discussed. The report further delves into conflict resolution procedures employed by Vodafone, such as compromising, avoiding, forcing, and resolving, along with key features of employee relations in conflict situations like negotiation and collective bargaining. The role of negotiation in collective bargaining and the impact of negotiation strategies are analyzed. Finally, the report examines the influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK, methods for employee participation, and the impact of human resource management on employee relations, concluding with a summary of the key findings and their implications for business success.

Employee Relations for
Business Success

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Unitary and Pluralistic frames of reference................................................................................3
P2 Effect of changes in Trade Union on Employee Relations.........................................................4
P3 Role of the main players in Employee Relations.......................................................................5
TASK 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P1 Procedure for dealing with different conflict situations in Vodafone.........................................6
P2 key features of employee relations in a selected conflict situation............................................6
P3 Effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation...............................................7
TASK 3 ................................................................................................................................................8
P1 Role of negotiation in collective Bargaining..............................................................................8
P2 Impact of negotiation strategy....................................................................................................9
TASK 4...............................................................................................................................................10
P1 Influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK..........................................................10
P2 Methods to gain employee participation and involvement in decision making process..........10
P3 Impact of human resource management on employee relations...............................................11
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Employee relations is very important in an organisation. If a company wants to run
successfully in the market, then maintaining these relations is very important for them. It is the
employees only whose good work enables the company to perform well in the market therefore
companies must always try to keep their workers happy and satisfied so that they perform well. The
organisation chosen for this assignment is Vodafone which is a UK based multinational
telecommunication company,it owns and operates its network in 26 countries and provides IT
services to clients in over 150 countries (Avey, Wernsing and Palanski 2012). This report includes
understanding about employee relations with context to change in Trade unionism, procedure an
organisation follows while dealing different conflict situations. It also includes role of negotiation in
collective bargaining and impact of negotiation strategy. The impact of human resource
management in employee relation is also discussed here.
TASK 1
P1 Unitary and Pluralistic frames of reference
In order to understand the nature and significance of the employees, the employer uses two
factors in the organisation which are: - Unitary and Pluralistic. It helps the company in achieving
their goals easily. Main purpose behind using this approach is to ensure that the workforce is
working in an effective manner and the activities of organisation are going on well. The two
approaches are:-
UNITARY: - It defines the process of doing work to reach the organisation goals. Here, the powers
are in the hands of the individual who are working in managerial level. However, main authorities
are in hands of senior management only. Through this approach company tries to achieve
uniformity of direction so that the employees are able to take the decisions for one another. It also
brings loyalty in the employees of the company.
The management and HR of Vodafone also thinks to benefit the company and therefore they
should focus on this framework in order to bring effective relations in the organisation. In this,
Vodafone makes a team of members who are working to complete their tasks. The company
appoints a team leader to run these activities and they distribute the responsibilities among the
members of team and then the members accept their responsibilities willingly and follow their
leader (Becker, Kugeler and Rosemann 2013).
PLURALISTIC: - In this approach the organisation is divided into number of sub groups. Each
group has its predetermined objective and a team leader. Here, trade unions also play an important
role by taking the decisions in favour of the company which will give motivation to the employees
and also satisfying their needs and wants also. Through this, the organisation tries to know different

opinions of employees and try to understand it.
The management of Vodafone should also try to implement this approach as it is very
important for them to understand values of employees and responsibilities of the employer. This
may even create a conflict among employer and employee (Bélanger and Crossler, 2011).
P2 Effect of changes in Trade Union on Employee Relations
Change in trade union directly affects the employee relations in an organisation. Trade
union means the society of workers that works for providing safe and secure work environment to
the employees of organisation and also fighting for their monetary and non-monetary benefits. The
changes of employees relations by trade unions are: -
1. Social cohesion: - In any kind of developed activity, the social cohesion plays an important
factor. In order to remove conflicts among employee and the employer and develop social
cohesion, trade unions fight for employees rights and their social safety. They work for
providing a safe working environment, income security, job security, fair treatment towards
the employees by an organisation.
2. Partnership and development: - The trade unions have contributed in various development
programs which has worked in favour of employee relations. They have done partnership
with various development institutions for developing employee relations. Development
institutions are like housing society, NGO, cooperative societies etc.
3. Challenges at the international level: - After the globalisation of International labour
organisation in 1998, the employees worldwide has got the rights and equalities at the
workplace. The employees at Vodafone has also got all the rights at their workplace because
of which the employees feel satisfied and they work with honesty and give effective results.
In the current scenario, Trade unions are working towards removing the child labour
from the society and they have also introduced various training and development programs for the
employees so that employees can improve their skills and develop for the benefit of the
organisation. However, Vodafone follows the policy of employing pool of talented people in order
to satisfy the needs and demands of the customers (Birasnav, Rangnekar and Dalpati 2011).
Employees working in the company has complete trust over the policies of company and therefore
an entity is able to perform so good all over the world. The management of Vodafone has also done
various partnerships with different institutions so as to develop the employee relations in their
company.
P3 Role of the main players in Employee Relations
Employee relations basically means the relationship between the employee and the employer
in the organisation. There are various people or parties who play an important role in maintaining

the employees’ relations in the organisation (Bolton, Kim and O’Gorman 2011). If these parties will
not be there then maintaining employee relation in an organisation will be very difficult. The role of
main players in maintaining the employee relations in the organisation are: -
 Manager's role: - If an organisation wants to achieve its goal, healthy employee relations is
very important otherwise goal will not be achieved on time. The managers of Vodafone play
an important role in maintaining the relationship in the organisation. The managers role in
maintaining employee relation are: -
 Provide a healthy working environment
 Encourage healthy competition
 Ensure there is an open communication system and many more.
 Trade Union's role: - They help in protecting the employees from the illegal policies and
practices of the employers and help in providing them good working environment in the
workplace. The trade unions don’t allow the employers to bring down the employees and
they strive for the rights of the employees in Vodafone. They ensure that the employees get
better salary and good working environment. The other roles played by trade union in
Vodafone are: -
 Give bargaining power to employees against their employer.
 Fight for the welfare of the employees
 Ensure workers self-respect and standard of living is maintained and many more.
 State's role: - There are no. of institutions and government departments in a particular state.
In UK, there are various authorities of government related to the employees who are have
passed various rules and laws to maintain the relationship between the employee and the
employer. UK government has played an important role in maintaining employee relations
in Vodafone (Chang 2016). The role played by state are: -
 maintaining high level employment
 bringing price stability in the company
 stabilizing the inflation and deflation in the market and many more.
Therefore employees at Vodafone feel secured because there are various parties who are
working in favour of protecting them (Ferrell, Thorne and Ferrell 2011).
TASK 2
P1 Procedure for dealing with different conflict situations in Vodafone.
While working in a competitive environment, there are various times when several situations
arise which creates conflict in the organisation such as strikes, lockouts etc. there are various types
of conflict that occur in an organisation like Intra personal conflict, interpersonal conflict, structural

conflict and strategic conflict. Solving these types of challenges amongst the different parties in an
organisation is not an easy task for the company. If these conflicts are not solved on time, then the
regular activities of the organisation will get hampered and there the predetermined goal of
Vodafone will get not be achieved on time.
The procedures used by Vodafone to solve these problems are: -
I. Compromising: - It refers to the situation where in order to solve the conflicts, both the
parties are required to make some compromises in their demands. When a conflict goes far
beyond a no solution is being seen then the employee and the employer decides to do
compromise i.e. if the employee of Vodafone wants a salary hike of 30% but the company is
not ready for it then they may negotiate and the employee will get a hike of 10% only.
II. Avoiding: - Sometimes in order to solve a big problem, it is very important to deal it with
maturity. If a company wants to solve an issue they should not indulge in any such matter
and should try to avoid disputes because an ongoing conflict is very harmful for the
company and the employees.
III. Forcing: - When the company avoids the disputes but it doesn't seem to be working in
solving the conflict then the high-level authority of the company will take the actions to
control the situation. In case of Vodafone, the senior people of the company has the right to
take appropriate actions against the conflicts going on in the company. They can take any
step as they have the authority to do so.
IV. Resolving: - Under this, in order to resolve the conflicts of the company government is
intervened in between. Now government will examine the matter of both the parties and
then they will take appropriate actions to solve the conflict between the parties and the
decision taken by the government will be binding to all (Goetsch and Davis 2014).
P2 Key features of employee relations in a selected conflict situation
For managing different conflict situations in an organisation, it is very important that the
employees relationship is developed by following the ruled made by the company. The employee
relations are different in different types of conflicts and therefore there should not be any
discrimination among the employees of the company and its employer (Hung and et. al., 2011). The
key features of employee relations are:-
 Negotiation: - This is the most mature decision that the company takes while solving any
conflict. This is helpful in talking decisions mutually and which is beneficial to both the
parties . Negotiation is done by the companies when they think that they are not in a
situation to fulfil the demand of the employees or the demands of the employee is
unreasonable.

 Collective bargaining: - In this factor, the employee gets all the rights for planning the way
to solve the problem. It the another most useful feature for employee relations. Companies
use this feature in a situation when both the parties comes in a situation where they both
have agreed to settle down and end the matter. Vodafone also uses this step to resolve the
conflicts going on in the company.
 Poor communication: - It is one of the major reason for creating a conflict. When there will
be no communication in the company, then there are more chances of miscommunication or
wrong interpretation of words. So to avoid this, Vodafone should always ensure that there is
good communication between the employers and the employees of the company .
 One sided action: - In an organisation the employees have different competency level and
the employers have different. So, to avoid any conflicts, both of them should be treated
equally in an organisation. This situation comes in every company because each and every
employee is not the same and even if they are more competent then their senior but it doesn't
count as seniors are seniors.
 Objective: - There are certain situations where the company has to grievance all the
conflicts of the company in order to promote interpersonal communication and the
uncertainty issues in the organisation. key features of employee
P3 Effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation
In an organisation conflicts may arise at any time. Whenever a conflicts arise in an
organisation , it is the duty of the management to solve the conflicts on time so that the activities of
the organisation is not hampered. There is a proper structure which is followed by the company to
evaluate the effectiveness of the conflict situation (Jeston and Nelis, 2014). The senior managers of
the company should take help of the dispute handling procedure which gives a chance to the
employee and the employer to sit and talk. The evaluation of procedure used in selected conflict
situation are:-
 Response to the conflict:- This is the situation where the company hears the matter that is
going on in the company. They do so because they don't want that these conflicts should
effect any other department of the company. Vodafone also do the same, they also respond to
the conflict once they are aware of what is going on in the company (Lacity and et. al.,
2011).
 Understanding the conflict:- In this the company tries to understand the reason be4cause
of which the conflict has occurred. This is a very serious and important step taken by the
organisation because if the same situation will occur in future also then it will be easy to
understand and provide the solution. For understanding the conflict, Vodafone tries to reach

each and every employee so that complete truth and story is known to them.
 Finding the solution:- This is the step where the solution of the problem is provided by the
company. For solving a conflict, few steps are being taken like:-
 Knowing the conflict
 Interpreting the situations
 Agreeing on the situation
 Finding a good solution
 Agreement on implemented the solution
 Implementing the solution.
Vodafone follows all these steps to provide a proper solution to its employees of the given
conflict. It tries all the methods which help in avoiding any kind of conflict in the company. The
company appoints its staff to solve the problem slowly and Sloan and follow the steps described by
the company.
TASK 3
P1 Role of negotiation in collective Bargaining
Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between the employer and the group of
employees for the agreement regarding wages, working hours, promotions and other important
terms in order to solve the various disputes which are going on in the organisation. There is a
process followed by collective bargaining which is as follows: -
 Formulate: - In this, a negotiation team is made who have enough knowledge about the
matter which will be handled in the company (Li, Frenkel and Sanders 2011).
 Argue: - Here, the process will be discussed that will be implemented on the employees.
This process of discussion is very effective as it helps in making the negotiation successful.
 Offer: - In this, the representatives offer possible options to the employees. The one's which
is possible is implemented and the one which is not is possible, corrective actions are taken
on it (Saunders, 2011).
 Bargain: - In this situation, when the employee is not satisfied with all the offers of the
company then they will redesign few of the offers and then forward it back to the
representatives.
 Clearing: - This is a point where both the parties agrees to settle on one point and thus
negotiation happens.
Negotiation is very important for the employees and the organisation. It gives

encouragement to employees to work efficiently and effectively. Vodafone also needs to negotiate
with its employees so that they work effectively in the organisation. The various roles played by
negotiation are:-
i. Allocation of revenue: - Whatever profit is being earned by the company should be shared
by the employees as well. The employees may get the right to share the profit by negotiation
as per the agreement.
ii. Evaluation of the employees:-It is up to the employees which factors they have to choose
to negotiate. The employees of the company can help in making the work environment a
better place to work in. They can help in evaluating few factors like environment, abilities,
skills etc.
iii. Establishing the principles: - The employees of the organisation sets these principles by
negotiation. These principles are made to make the organisation friendly to the employees.
P2 Impact of negotiation strategy
Negotiation is that aspect in an organisation that helps them to achieve the best they can.
Vodafone negotiates with its employees to find the best solutions for the disputes which arise in the
company are negatively impact the performance of the employees. When the negotiation strategies
are implemented , it helps in identifying the impact of the disputes inside Vodafone. The various
strategies that can be implemented are given below:-
 Competing strategies:- it shows the competition that is present in the work environment. As
we all know that Vodafone is a very big company but its competitors are not small as well
(Scheer, 2012). Therefore, Vodafone implement this strategy so as to know that whether
there is positive impact of the negotiation or negative impact because it will only decide that
the company will gain profits in its short span or incur losses.
 Avoiding strategies: - This strategy is for staff. The employees and the employer uses these
strategies to avoid the problems which are being faced by the company. Whenever an
employee raises any issue regarding work schedules then this strategy will be used by
Vodafone (Schmiedel, vom Brocke and Recker, 2013).
 Accommodating strategies: - It is adopted to meet the financial crises by avoiding the
situations of huge turnover. Here the companies offer various option or offers or schemes to
the employees in order to convince them to not to leave the company. This strategy is
basically adopted to meet the major issues that impact the performance of Vodafone.
 Compromising strategies: - when an employee wants to a promotion with regard to his
position in the organisation then Vodafone will use this strategy. The company can not

change the position of the employees whenever they say, so the company may ask them the
reason because of which they what this change and if it is due to the promotion then the
company will see the performance of the employee and then decide as per it.
TASK 4
P1 Influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK
European union was developed in 1993, which had a significant influence in the industrial
democracy in UK. It is a structure which defines the work environment through which the entire
company designs its framework. EU works as a creator of democratic industrial relationship
because of which the employees working there feels privileged and enjoy all the rights. European
union focuses in various areas of employee relations such as: -
 Equal opportunities: - In earlier times, in organisations the employers tried to overpower
the employees because of which the employees were not able to work properly and their
salary was also deducted more often. Therefore, European union introduced different laws
and regulations to avoid these types of practices in the organisation. The laws were - part
time work, parental leave, working time, equal opportunities to the employees. All these
laws motivated employees to work freely and with their full right and without any
discrimination.
 Employment protection: - European union protected the employees by introducing laws
and regulations in favour of the employees. Earlier the working conditions in the companies
was very unhygienic because of which the employees didn't wish to work in the company as
their health got affected very much (Talib, Rahman and Qureshi, 2011). The EU helps in
bringing good working environment in the companies and ensures the protection of
employees.
 Healthy and safety at work: - These two are the important factors in the organisation
which is required by every employee. The EU tries to provide all those facilities with which
the employee feel that they are safe and so as their job (Trkman, 2013). The health matter is
protected by introducing laws like parental leave, maternity leave, study leave etc.
Vodafone, being a UK based company has to follow all these laws and regulations laid down
by the European union. They focus on the opportunities which they are getting from the market and
the profits must be equally divided amongst its employees without any discrimination. Therefore,
the employees of Vodafone in UK feel safe and secure unlike its employees in other company.
P2 Methods to gain employee participation and involvement in decision making process
There are no. of methods to gain the employee participation in the decision making process

of the organisation. Companies can engage the employees by making them part of various activities
of the organisation which can further help in accomplishing the goal of the organisation. Useful
methods to gain employee participation in decision making process are:-
 Consultation: - While performing the decision-making process, opinions are invited from
everyone in the office. Vodafone also uses this approach to engage their employees in the
decision making process. It is not compulsory that the opinions given by employees will
always be chosen. It is for consultation mainly. Sometimes companies recruit people just for
taking consultancy services only. These types of people are experts in consultancy so their
advices are valuable for the company.
 Peer peeking program: - This is a new employment developmental model introduced in
the companies in which the employees are given the rights to choose their own colleagues
inside the office. Vodafone is also starting to implement this new model in the organisation
and so the employees can choose their own team and for this they can even take interviews
of new candidates. All this process is conducted under the supervision of HR experts.
 Safety committee: - These committees work for the safety of employees and for reducing
liability in the organisation. These committees are run by the employees of the organisation.
In Vodafone, employees are responsible to handle the activities run by these committees
(Ucbasaran and et. al., 2013). They run campaigns, organise events and do many other
things to run the committee.
P3 Impact of human resource management on employee relations
Since employee relations is considered as a part of human resource department therefore
human resource management has a very important impact in employee relations. HRM plays a
significant role in selecting the appropriate workforce which is highly motivated and thus
contributes in the success of the organisation (vom Brocke and Sinnl, 2011). Vodafone uses various
management strategies to ensure that the various management activities are done in an efficient
manner in the organisation. Vodafone make sure that they are providing effective and efficient work
practices in order to retain the employees for long time in the organisation. Various training and
development strategies are being adopted by the company to enhance the performance of the
employees. This is beneficial for both i.e. the employees and the company as the skills of the
employees are enhanced by these training programs ad they are able to make a good working
environment inside the organisation and similarly, the company is also growing die to the good
performance of the employees.
The impact of human resource management on employee relations comes in following
ways: -

 hiring the employees
 Develop training and development strategies
 Best performance of the employees
 Dealing with employee's grievances inside the company
 Utilization of resources in best possible way.
Therefore, Vodafone's HR department also ensures that the employees relations are
maintained in the best possible way inside the organisation so that the work is done smoothly and
there is not much conflicts between the employees (Wu and Lu, 2012).
CONCLUSION
In the above report, it is included that maintaining employee relations inside the organisation
is very important in order to ensure smooth functioning of activities in the organisation. The report
includes the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference, how change in trade union has affected
employee relations, who are the main players of employee relations(Chang, 2016). The procedure
followed by organisation in solving conflicts, its effectiveness and the features of employee
relations is discussed here. The role of negotiation in collective bargaining and the impact of
negotiation is included in this report. It also discusses the influence of European union in industrial
democracy and comparison between methods to gain employee participation in employee relation
and also the impact of human resource management in employee relations.
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