HRIR 201 - HRM & IR Analysis of Wellington City Council Living Wage

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of Wellington City Council's decision to implement a living wage, examining the issue from both Human Resource Management (HRM) and Industrial Relations (IR) perspectives. It outlines the organization's structure, the rationale behind the living wage initiative, and its potential benefits and risks for both the employer and employees. The analysis considers the impact on stakeholders such as citizens, employees, and management, highlighting the potential for increased costs and the need for careful budget management. While the living wage aims to improve the living standards of low-wage workers, the essay also addresses potential challenges like job losses and reduced social support. Ultimately, the essay evaluates the viability of the living wage decision and its broader implications for the Wellington community.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Authors Note:

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Table of Contents
Providing a brief outline of the organisation:............................................................................2
Analysing the issue from an HRM and IR perspective:.............................................................2
Depicting the benefit and risk for the employer from the relevant decisions:...........................3
Depicting the risk and benefits for the workers or employees:..................................................4
Depicting the stakeholders that needs to be considered:............................................................5
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................6
Reference and Bibliography:......................................................................................................8

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Providing a brief outline of the organisation:
Wellington City council is mainly a gathering of the city member, who take relevant
decision regarding society improvement. The main aim of the city council is to improve
living standard of the employee by adequately forming the living wage attribute. The
Wellington City Council mainly accommodates both contractors and full time employees,
who are intended to be considered under the living wage scheme. The overall Wellington
City council mainly comprises of different types of employees and workers, ranging from the
16 activities. The organisation mainly intends to provide all the relevant services such as
Arborist, Built Heritage Incentive Fund, Cemetery Technician, Customer Contact Centre,
Dog Control, Events Coordinator, Fitness Consultant at Club Active, Funding Advisor, Kai
to Compost, Landfill Operations Manager, Life Guard, Otari-Wilton Bush Manager, Park
Ranger, Urban Agriculture Advisor, and Wellington Libraries. The above depicted services
mainly need contractors and as well as a full time employee for supporting their activities.
From 2013 the Wellington City council has raised the living wage rate, whereas in the current
year the accommodation of contract employees is also conducted by the council.
The distinguishing features of the company can directly have an impact on
profitability, which might hamper relative features of the organisation. The decision made by
the Wellington City Council mainly reduce the relevant income as employee wage rates will
directly increase for the organisation. This relevant increment in the overall wage rate could
directly affect the annual budget of the Wellington City Council and reduce its ability to
support future activities of the organisation.

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Analysing the issue from an HRM and IR perspective:
The overall Human Resource Management (HRM) and Industrial Relation (IR) of the
Wellington City council is relatively high, whereas negatively impacting its financial position
to continue the service yearlong with the allocated budget. According to the HRM
perspective the relevant income of the employees will mainly increase, which will directly
have a negative impact on cash flow of the Wellington City Council. The relevant HRM
activities of the company will mainly satisfy its work force, which could help in boosting
employee motivation. The expenses of the council will directly reflect on its ability to
continue with all the relevant operations. The rising wage rate could directly have a positive
impact on the HRM activities of the organization, where employee will have positive attitude
towards the organization (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). However, the main issues for the
increased wage rate could directly have an impact on the employer retention capacity, as
increased cost would lead to job termination.
Depicting the benefit and risk for the employer from the relevant decisions:
There are both benefits and risk involved in the relevant decision that is been made by
Wellington City council, where the benefits could mainly change attributes of the
organisation. The change in attributes of the company could have both benefits and risk
involved in operations of the organisation. The decision of living wage rate could mainly
make the wages of the employee at the constant level of $20.20. This constant expenses of
$20.20 per hour for employee could mainly reduce the overall income and increase expenses
incurred by the organisation. Brewster & Hegewisch (2017) mentioned that increment on
wage rate could directly reduce the overall income, which might hamper profitability of the
organisation.

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The overall benefits from the relevant decisions are depicted as individual wellbeing,
brand name, attracting good workers, CSR., cultural values, decent work and increased
retention. The improvement in the above features could directly allow Wellington City
council to improve its image among the citizens and employees. The implementation of
living wage is mainly intended by the council to uplift the workers living under poverty level.
These relevant benefits could also help in setting an adequate attribute, which might help in
increasing living standard of the employees working within the organisation. The CSR and
cultural value could also increase, which might help in raising motivational level of the
employees. The improvement could also help in increasing brand image of Wellington City
council, which in turn could help increasing popularity of the mayor. This could also help in
raising the relevant decent work flow among potential workers, which could support annual
budget of Wellington City council. The relevant move has also allowed Wellington City
council for adequately increasing its retention capacity, which might reduce employee
turnover ratio.
However, there are risk from the relevant decision, which are relatively identified as cost
and dissatisfaction among the employer. The relevant increment in the cost factors could
directly have negative impact on profitability of Wellington City council. This relevant
increment in expenses could directly hamper budget valuation of the company, which might
directly affect operational viability of Wellington City council. The major risk factors mainly
state the relevant increment in costs, which will increase due to the implementation of high
wage rate. There is a constant budget, which is prepared each year by Wellington City
council. This relevant budget needs to be comprehended by Wellington City council and all
the relevant expenses needs to be conducted within the budgeted amount. However, this
implementation could directly have an effect on operational capability of Wellington City
council.

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Depicting the risk and benefits for the workers or employees:
The relevant decision of Wellington City Council could also have a positive and
negative impact on workers or employee in Wellington City. Chelladurai & Kerwin (2017)
mentioned that improvement in workers or employee’s remuneration could directly help in
cultivating motivation level of the workforce. However, the relevant increment in wage rate
could directly allow the employees to increase their living standard and reduce any kind of
problems, which might incur from workforce.
The major risk that is involved for the employees are the reduction in other social
support more demand from employee and job loss. The relevant increment in living wage
could directly have an impact on the other social support, which is been provided by
Wellington City council. These support levels could directly have negative impact on
operations of the company. The relevant increment in wage could directly reduce the overall
expenses on other support activities, which is been conducted by Wellington City council.
This is a major risk factor that will reduce financial viability of the city council and force
them to terminate jobs due to lack of funds. This is a major problem for the workforce, as
insecurity in their relative job retention could directly increase.
The relevant benefits depicted for the employees is the wellness, engagement, health
and satisfaction level. The relevant increment in satisfaction level, health and wellness of the
employees will directly increase due to the implementation of living wage rate. The relevant
increment in the wages could also allow the employees to live above the poverty level and
adequately support its lively hood. The Wellington City council mainly aims in increasing
employee engagement after implementing higher wage rate.

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Depicting the stakeholders that needs to be considered:
The implementation of living wage rate could directly have an impact on the
operations of Wellington City council. There are relevant stakeholders, which will have
impact from the decision that is made by Wellington City Council. The decision for adopting
living wage rate could directly have an impact on operations of the organisation. The major
stakeholders of Wellington City council are citizens, employees, and employers. The citizens
are considered to be stakeholder of Wellington City council, where the relevant increment in
the wage rate could directly have negative impact on the operations of the organization. The
wages of employees will mainly increase the relevant expenditure of the council which in
turn could have negative impact on its operations. This relevant increment in the expenses
could reduce its ability to support the operation due to constant budget provided for
conducting operations (Storey, 2014).
The second stakeholder that will have negative impact from the implementation of
living wage rate is the management of Wellington City council. The Wellington City council
will mainly need to comply with the changes in wages and make adequate decision for
generating supporting the expenses and increase the level of budget. This could directly have
an impact on operations of the organisation, where Wellington City council is mainly not able
to comply with the increased expenses to support its operations. Therefore, relevant
compliance with the living wage rate could directly have an impact on operations of
Wellington City council. Whereas, the management will not be able to make adequate
decisions regarding different services provided to be community.
The third stakeholder that will be effected from the decision are the citizens, who will
be charged more for the increasing expenses incurred by Wellington City council. This
implementation living wage rate for employee and contractors of Wellington City could

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directly affect the relevant payments, which is being conducted by the citizens. The relevant
increment in expenses could be an additional burden, which might increase their tax rate.
Conclusion:
From the overall evaluation of the decision made by Wellington City council relevant
increment in expenses would mainly incur, which might reduce ability of the organisation to
support different activities. The relevant essay mainly helps in depicting viability of the living
wage decision, which is been made by Wellington City council. There are benefits and risk,
which are portrayed for both employer and workers of Wellington City council. This
increment in wage could also have impact on stakeholders of Wellington City council, which
could in turn raise the tax paid by the citizens. However, implementation of the living wage
could directly help employees living under poverty level and raise living standard of the
citizens.

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Reference and Bibliography:
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Brewster, C., & Hegewisch, A. (Eds.). (2017). Policy and Practice in European Human
Resource Management: The Price Waterhouse Cranfield Survey. Taylor & Francis.
Brewster, C., Houldsworth, E., Sparrow, P., & Vernon, G. (2016). International human
resource management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Budhwar, P. S., & Debrah, Y. A. (Eds.). (2013). Human resource management in developing
countries. Routledge.
Chelladurai, P., & Kerwin, S. (2017). Human resource management in sport and recreation.
Human Kinetics.
HUNT, C. (2017). Wellington City Council cleaners set to get living wage but ratepayers
could pick up the bill. Stuff. Retrieved 11 December 2017, from
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/91131212/wellington-city-council-cleaners-
set-to-get-living-wage
Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014). An aspirational framework for strategic
human resource management. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 1-56.
Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource
management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.
Purce, J. (2014). The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New
Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals), 67.

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Renwick, D. W., Redman, T., & Maguire, S. (2013). Green human resource management: A
review and research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(1), 1-
14.
Sparrow, P., Brewster, C., & Chung, C. (2016). Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Storey, J. (2014). New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals).
Routledge.