Comprehensive Report on Employee Relations at General Motors

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of employee relations, focusing on the case of General Motors (GM). It begins by defining employee relations and highlighting its value and importance, emphasizing the impact on employee well-being and business profits. The report then delves into the fundamentals of employment law, citing relevant acts such as the Recruitment Act, Health and Safety Act, Equality Act, and Employment Act, and assesses GM's compliance with these laws. It explores the rights, duties, and obligations of both employers and employees, providing insights into fair treatment, safety, and fair remuneration. Furthermore, the report includes a stakeholder analysis, examining the impact of positive and negative employee relations on various stakeholders. The report underscores the importance of a healthy workplace environment, highlighting the need for conflict reduction, employee motivation, and reduced absenteeism, ultimately contributing to organizational success. Overall, the report provides a detailed overview of employee relations in the context of General Motors, offering valuable insights into creating a productive and harmonious workplace.

EMPLOYEE
RELATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Value and importance of employee relationship..............................................................1
1.2 Fundamentals of employment law....................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Different type of rights, duties and obligations an employer and employee has within
workplace...............................................................................................................................5
2.2 Advice relating to rights, duties and obligations of employment relationship ...............7
TASK 3 ..........................................................................................................................................7
3.1 Implementation of stakeholder analysis...........................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
4.1 Impact of positive and negative employee relations on stakeholders..............................9
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
.......................................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Employee relation is defined as the term used for relation between an employer and
employee. A healthy relationship, employee involvement, commitment and engagement helps to
improve both employee well being and business profits(Crespo, 2011). Employee relation
include different labour laws and rights given to an employee in an organisation. There are
different rules given by law which are followed in organisations to give a safe and secure
environment at workplace. These rights include health and safety, pregnancy leave, right against
bullying, right for basic facilities, etc. In the following report, one of the largest Auto mobile
manufacturer General Motors is considered. It is headquartered in Detroit and is involved in
manufacturing, designing, marketing and distributing vehicles and vehicles parts. This report
describe value and importance of employee relationship and fundamental employment laws. The
various type of rights, duties and obligations an employer and employee has within workplace
are explained. Later part of report consists of implementation of stakeholder analysis and
impact of positive and negative employee relations on stakeholders.
TASK 1
P1 Value and importance of employee relationship
According to Marchington and Wilkinson Employee relation is defined as the study of
the rules and regulations for managing employees at individual level and group level. Employees
working in an organisation shares a certain relationship among them. An isolated environment
leads in spreading negativity and hence demotivating employees. Therefore it is necessary for
employees to work happily together as a single unit and achieve organisational goals. According
to General Motors, it is responsibility of organisation to manage presence of healthy relation
among their employees. There are following reasons listed below which shows the importance of
employee relation in an organisation:
Individual cannot take decisions alone: Guidance and suggestions of others are
necessary sometimes as there are some problems which cannot be solved alone (Dávila and Piña-
Ramírez, 2014). People are needed who can act as a critic and help other people to get out of
problems. If relationship with employees is not good nobody would help each other. For e.g.
While working in General Motors if there is an individual who do not know how to operate any
tool, other employees will help him if they share a good relation.
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Work becomes easy when it is shared: Sharing work with other employees decreases
work load and pressure and increases productivity of the employee. Responsibilities are shared
among team members and in this way people share good bond by helping each other in solving
complex problems of organisation. For e.g. General Motors undergoes several complex projects
where team members help each other in performing tasks.
Organisation is a happy place when employees work as a family: Employee tends to
lose focus and concentration if there is pressure or stress. When employees discuss their life and
problems with each other it creates a great bond between them and this automatically helps in
lowering stress level of employee. They share lunches, movies and time together and in this way
they share healthy relationship. For an example: Employees of General motors spent leisure time
with each other at weekends and this creates a friendly bond among them.
Keeps an individual motivated: When employees share bond they trust each other and
share their secrets and problems with each other (García‐Cabrera and García‐Barba Hernández,
2014). Employees feel confident and motivated while working with people who respect them.
For an example: Employees of General Motors have good bond with each other and they create
motivational environment at workplace. This was done through offering staff with different
compensatory/incentive polices.
Reduction of conflicts and fights: Conflicts and fights occur when people are working
together in an organisation. When employees like each other and have respect for other
employees it will reduce cases of conflicts and fights. Good relationship stops employees to find
faults in others and understand problem of others. Employees do not waste their time in
meaningless conflicts and fights. General Motors organises different activities for workers in
which they come together and perform this helps in creation of good bond which reduces fights.
Absenteeism is decreased: A healthy relationship among employees reduces problem of
absenteeism at workplace. Individuals are serious for their work and dedicated towards coming
to office daily. Employees stop complaining and enjoying their work at office. General Motors
has a low absenteeism rate of workers. This could be understood with a good example where
General Motors' employer basically working on all the queries that were presented by staff.
Actions taken by general motors would directly improve loyalty of staff against company.
Employees need support of each other: In some situations, employees need support of
others to get out of problem and issues of their personal or professional life. Others will help
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when the person is nice to them. Other people's support while working can be required at any
time and moreover healthy relationship builds a positive work environment. For an example: an
individual at workplace is not feeling well and failed to attain the daily target. Here, his
colleague can help in General Motors and this will improve relations among them.
P2 Fundamentals of employment law
There are several laws imposed by government for employees of the organisations. These
laws are made to ensure safety and security of rights of working individuals. Companies follow
different rules in their organisation to make employees feel safe and secure (Hameed, Ramzan
and Zubair, 2014.). Government rules and regulations for General motors are explained below:
Recruitment Act (Employment law 2018): According to this law, employers of UK
based organisations using traditional way of recruiting process driven by development of
technology have to follow pre-employment checking procedures that are both legal and ethical.
Organisations have to ensure certain checks before recruiting which includes right to work
checks, criminal record checks, medical checks, reference checks, and online and social media
checks.
In General motors employers are not following laws of recruitment properly. They are
not ensuring medical and criminal records of person who comes for interviews in the
organisation. This negatively affects environment of company and employee's well being.
Health and safety law(Health and safety act 1974) : Based on the health and safety
measures of an employee in work premises. According to health and safety Act 1974 it is
responsibility of employer to protect safety, health and welfare of employees of the organisation.
This includes production of safety and risk policies and legal issues that help to tackle with stress
at workplace. Organisations of UK provide certain measures for safety and health in
organisations to provide a healthy environment for employees to work. Health of an individual is
important as an employee dedicates time and hard work for company and they must be getting
safe environment in which they work.
Being an auto-mobile industry, there are times where General motor is not able to
provide health and safety to its employees (Hogh, Hoel and Carneiro, 2011). Employees are
allowed to work for more than 8 hours which is ideal working hour for an individual. There are
cases of people falling sick due to working without taking breaks, stress, depression, in this
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company. It is advisable for employer of General Motors to ensure good health of employees and
provide them safety at work.
Bullying and harassment at work(Equality act 2010):
According to equality act 2010, employers of organisation are responsible for preventing
activities like bullying and harassment at workplace. Bullying of any employee will not be
tolerated. Apart from this offensive, intimidating and malicious behaviour with an employee will
not be appreciated and one who is involved in such acts should be punished.
In General Motors, employers do not take cases of bullying and harassement seriously.
They do not take legal actions for employees involved in such activities. Due to this employee
retention rate was low as people were not satisfied and there was always a threat of being bullied.
Discrimination Act(Equality act 2010):
This act states that presence of race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion and
belief discrimination will not be entertained in organisation(Maurer and Chapman, 2013.). All
individuals must be treated equally and in any case where employee is discriminated because of
religion they follow or gender or age then legal actions can be taken against that employee under
equality act,2010.
General motors does not take any action when employees have issues related to
discrimination. There is a case in General Motors where a female employee was not treated
equally as number of male employees was more. No action was taken against male employees
involved in discriminating that female. Effective rules must be applied in this organisation to
create a sense of equality of employees.
Discipline and grievance Act(Employment act 2008):
Employment Act 2008 ensures a proper management for employee relationship at
workplace of organisation. Discipline and grievance act should be followed in organisation for
developing healthy relationship among employee and employer(Mowday, Porter, L. W. and
Steers, 2013). Employers require various policies and procedures to manage difficulties at
workplace.
Employees of General Motors are facing many problems related to discipline and
grievance as there is no proper procedure for employer to handle grievance and maintain
discipline in organisation.
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TASK 2
P3 Different type of rights, duties and obligations an employer and employee has within
workplace
Employers and employees of every organisation have several rights and responsibilities.
Proper guidelines are there for protecting rights and duties of employees and it prevents
mistreatment from employer. In some organisations, conflict occurs due to lack of guidelines on
right of both parties employee's and employer's. The various types of rights and duties of
employee and employer are listed below:
Employee's Rights and duties
 Fair treatment: Employers have control over employees but it is not fair to force staff do
any unnecessary work (O’Leary and Pulakos, 2011). Abuse of power and discrimination
leads to ineffectiveness of employees. According to Equality Act, 2010, staff of any
company like General motors has a right of equality where they should get treated
equally without making any sort of discrimination at workplace. An individual can
directly sue manager or General Motors for not treating in unfair way at workplace. If it
is talked about obligations, than an employee stays obliged to stay honest with General
Motors and not to perform any sort of fraudulent acts at workstation for their own
benefits. Along with this, duty of employee is to be reasonable, that means fair treatment
can only be given if nothing was done by employee against General Motors.
 Safety: Occupational safety and health administration states that employees working in
an organisation have to be given safe and secure environment (Silva, Hutcheson, J. and
Wahl, 2010). This could be understood with a good example, where a staff member was
not at all feeling well at workplace of General Motors, but still he/she was basically
forced to work and at the same time right treatment was also not given. But, according to
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, an employee has a right to ask for a leave or for
right treatment as well. Along with this, duty of employee is not to take bribes while
performing job at workstation of General Motors.
 Fair remuneration: According to fair labour standards act, employees have a minimum
wage amount which has to be given by organisation. Employees are entitled to pay in
case of overtimes. It is illegal for any employer to stop pay of employee for personal
reasons. For an example: an employee (female worker) did the overtime at General
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Motors but she did not got paid for the same because of not hitting its targets. Here,
employee could directly sue General Motors for breaching the act. On the other hand,
duty of employee is to work for the same considering all the legislations that has been
followed by General Motors. Along with this, they are also obliged to get paid on the
work which was done or on the basis of contract which was done by them with General
Motors. Best Interests: Employee's rights balance with obligation to employer. Employees should
not reveal business informations to competitors. They should not involve in any activity
which jeopardize reputation of the company. Employees coming late to office must be
given warnings before dismissal. Along with this, an obligation of employee at General
Motors is not to disrupt business, for example, taking part in industrial actions.
Employer's rights and duties
 About work environmental: Employers can make changes at every stage of operation or
management in the company. The employer has right to bring out change in selection or
recruitment process as required by him. Employees roles and jobs can be changed by
employer if according to him employee can perform better in other department.
 Basic necessities for employer: Employer has right to posses basic necessities which
includes clean eating areas, tidy toilets, clean workplace and positive work environment.
Apart from this organisational culture can be adopted depending upon needs of employer.
On the other hand, if it is talked about employer's obligations than, in General Motors, it
is required for employer to pay employee the agreed amount if staff member arrives for
work performs its duties.
 Monitoring Conversations: Employer has the right to monitor employees business
conversations for quality control processes (Verwijmeren and Derwall, 2010). If there is
any rule to not use phone for personal use in the company employer has the right to
change or modify this rule. On the other hand, they are also obliged to observe Health &
Safety Regulations regularly in order to monitor if they are breaching them or not and if
any act got breached by superior than take strict actions against the individual. Through
this, employees may feel secured and stay loyal to General Motors for a longer time
frame.
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 Protect company information: Employers have right to protect confidential information
of company which includes employees data, trade secrets and future business plans.
(Morrison, 2011) It depends on employer to provide information to employee and it is
totally decided by him what is to be informed and what is not to be informed. Another
obligation of General Motors' employer to give employees correct information about
rights under their contract.
General motors provide all above mentioned rights to employer. They have to perform
their functions in organisations by following various duties and responsibilities provided for
managing employees and making them more productive and effective.
P4 Advice relating to rights, duties and obligations of employment relationship
Employee representatives and employees share relationship in order to provide healthy
environment at workplace. Employer relationship is governed by law in order to maintain
industrial peace and work. Employees should render their obligations to employer and basic
rights of employees should be respected by employer. As conflicts and fights are reduced when
people share a healthy bond. It is advisable for General motors to implement the labour laws,
equality rights, discrimination rights, health and safety rights, recruitment rights and discipline
and grievance rights in their organisation. No employee should be bullied or harassed at
workplace. This could be understood with a good example where equality at General Motors was
not been given to an individual at work and became a victim of harassment. Black individual
(worker) at general Motors was got bullied by a group of white people (colleague of black
employee). Here, breaching of Equality Act, 2010 took place and employee has a right to take
legal actions against bullies. On the other hand, duty of employer at General Motors is not to
entertain any sort of discrimination acts and it becomes a responsibility of employer to sue
bullies for the actions with wrong intentions that were taken.
National Minimum wage act, 1998 states that every worker is paid according to the level at
which it works. General motors pays it's workers and managers according to themselves so it is
advisable to thus company to equally pay it's employees in order to create a positive environment
with no dissatisfied workers.
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TASK 3
P5 Implementation of stakeholder analysis
Stakeholder analysis is a technique used by different organisations identification of
stakeholders and analysing their needs. The objective of stakeholder analysis is to develop a
strategic view of human and industrial landscape. It also analyses the relationship with
stakeholder and dealing with issues. Stakeholders of the industry includes customers,
shareholders, employees, investors and communities (Robbins, Ford and Tetrick, 2012). General
motors stakeholder analysis gives the information about different problems that are being faced
by stakeholder of company and how to overcome them and build good rapport and image of
company in the eyes of stakeholders. General Motors initiated corporate social responsibility
activities for addressing stakeholder's interest and develop firm relation with target customers
across the world. Top priority stakeholders are customers while communities are least priority
stakeholder.
Customers: For General Motors, top priority stakeholder are customers and interest of
this group is high quality products and services and specially aftersales services. General motor
company ensures to provide innovation in products for quality, fuel and safety which maximises
satisfaction among stakeholders as well as customers. CSR programs of General motors don't
offer just vehicles but improve the driving skills of customers and stakeholders.
Employees: This stakeholder group is considered for career development, high wages,
equal treatment and opportunities of employee. General Motor has refines its safety measures at
workplace to protect it's employees. (King and Grace, 2012)Various programmes are initiated to
help employees feel valued and respected including Global Leadership Summit for executive
managers, Experienced leadership program for middle managers and salaried supervisor institute
for new leaders. All such programmes reveals efforts made by General Motors in to support its
employees for betterment.
Investors: These stakeholders are important for General Motors because they affect
capital of firm. This organisation implements various plans for achieving consistency in global
era. Such plans are made to maximise company's profits. Investors are interested in providing
capital when they are attracted by performance and innovation of the company. Therefore it is
important for General motors to have business stability worldwide.
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Communities: This group includes support for community development and conservation
of environment. Communities influence the perception of General Motor's customers. There are
different programs initiated for creating interest in front of investors which includes supplier
sustainability training, Volunteer corps for General Motors and driving skill.
Stakeholder analysis of General motors helps the company to know about initiatives
which it takes to satisfy its customers, investors, employees and communities. It is analysed that
General Motors follows all employment acts and rights at workplace(Mouriño-Ruiz, 2010).
Employers should provide all rights and regulations to employees to make them feel valued. It is
involved in implementation of various corporate social responsibility activities. This creates a
positive image of company in front of shareholders.
TASK 4
P6 Impact of positive and negative employee relations on stakeholders
Employees are called as precious assets of organisation and it is necessary for them to
collaboratively work as a single unit to achieve goals. Employee relationship management is
required in every organisation as it refers to managing the relationships among employee and
employer. A healthy employee relation gives a positive environment to employees and hence
increasing their productivity and efficiency. Positive and negative empoyees directly affects the
perception of stakeholders of the company. Organisation should prevent negative employee
relationship and maintains employees to help each other and work together as a family in
achieving organisational objectives and goals.
Impact of positive employees on stakeholder: Positive employee relationship enhances
performance of employees and maximising profits for company. Business stability and profits
are considered by different stakeholders which includes customers, investors, shareholders and
communities(Mittal and Dhar, 2015). A good image in front of these stakeholders is necessary
for support of investors in providing capital for firm. Presence of positive work culture for
employees and regular innovation in products for customers helps in achieving appreciation from
stakeholders. General Motors has good rapport globally and it is known for its good work and
services since years.
Impact of negative employees on stakeholder: Negative employee relation means
occurrence of conflicts, fights, job dissatisfaction in the organisation. This creates demotivated
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