Employee relations: key points

1. Employee relations: key points • Area within HRM that has seen most change in past 30 years • Shift from collective industrial relations to individual employee relations • Importance of Frames of Reference – unitarist, pluralist, radical • Decline of industrial pluralism and rising importance of sophisticated unitarism • Traditional focus on a ‘system’ of industrial or employee relations still retains value as a means of accounting for change Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 5

2. Employee relations: key points • Subject matter of employee relations seen in terms of employment rules • Key issues of what rules and who makes and administers them • Substantive rules – how much pay, holidays, bonus • Proceduralrules – how rules are made and administered • Rules made by management; jointly with trade unions; by the state or through custom and practice Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 5

3. Employee relations: key points • In UK last 30 years seen steep decline in collective bargaining • Growth in managerial regulation – majority of those in work have basic terms and conditions determined this way • Growing importance of legal regulation via EU • Growing competition and managerial regulation reduced scope for custom and practice Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 5

4. Employee relations: key points • Modern developments see employee relations as study of the employment relationship • Renewed focus of individual and collective dimensions • Employment relationship containing elements of co-operation and potential for conflict (structured antagonism – Edwards) • Growing interest in fostering co-operation, partnership as a means to engage workers Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 5

5. Employee relations: key points • Influence of HRM and Partnership agenda • Emphasis on employee involvement – securing involvement as route to loyal and engaged workers • Significance in context of importance of service sector growth, customer service and knowledge economy debates but: • How engaged are workers? • How empowered are they? Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 5

6. Learning summary By the end of this chapter you should: • Appreciate the breadth and depth of change in UK employee relations in the past 30 years • Understand the shifting concerns and focus of employee relations • Appreciate different perspectives in employee relations – the concept of different and competing interests and how these influence attempts to manage change effectively in organisations Unlocking Human Resource Management Chapter 5