Industrial Relations vs. Employee Relations

 

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• Employee Relations

   

  Essentially, employee relations concerns "the emotional, physical, and practical relationship between employer and employee. It refers to the relationship between management and employee. Relations with employees can further be like the efforts of an organization to create and maintain a positive relationship with its employee. Therefore, in order to foster and maintain this positive relationship, it is imperative and essential that management sees them as stakeholders in the business rather than as economic beings or paid work.

  
  
• Industrial Relations
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• The term industrial relations came into common use in the 20th century for two main reasons. Industry grew dramatically across North America to fuel the World War I effort as union membership correspondingly brought industry increasingly involved in collective bargaining with unions. For us in Trinidad and Tobago we can relate to the same period with the growth of the oilseed sugar industry and the names of Arthur Andrew Cipriani, Adrian Rienzi and Tubal Uriah Butler. Therefore, industrial relations are the relationship between an employer and the workers collectively through that of their union. Industrial relations has become a social science in which industrial relations have been analyzed using academic disciplines such as physiology, sociology, human resource management and economics.

Trade union influence is still an everyday reality for some organizations, particularly in the public sector, but continues to decline across the wider economy. Falling union memberships around the world have made people realize that relations between employers and employees are more important than the focus given to these relations by industrial relations.

 It is the employees that form the backbone of all operations in an organization. And the study of relations between employees and employers are more important than the laws and institutions that govern relations at the workplace. In line with the growing focus on individual relationships at work, there’s an increasing emphasis on helping managers to establish trust-based relationships with employees.

The Difference

Industrial relations focuses on employees regarded as a collective body while employment relations put a strong emphasis on employees regarded as individual; Employment relations are based on greater cooperation between management and employee, being motivated to add value to the organization. Such employment relationships are considered as being based on management practices based on trust, fairness, knowledge and understanding of employee aspirations and attention to “employee voice” obtained through a variety of channels (e.g. employee and union representatives involvement and participation).

 We can  compare differences between traditional industrial relations and emerging employee relations depending on different dimensions. Below graph elaborate the differences specifically. 

 

Dimension	Traditional Industrial Relations	Emerging Employee Relations
Nature of relations	Pluralist	Unitarist
Contract	Emphasis on terms of contract define rules	Beyond contract, innovative ways
Managerial task in relation to labour	Monitoring	Nurturing
Key relation	Labour management	Customer
Pay	Standarrized based on job evaluation	Performance related
basis of labour management relations	collective bargaining contract	Individual contract
Job design	Division of labor	Teamwork
Focus of attention	Personal procedures	Various culture and structure related personal strategies

  

 Reference List: 

Anderson, C. (2014). Makers: The new industrial revolution, Crown Business, New York. [Accessed on 29^th March 2023 ]

Dunlop, J T (1958) Industrial Relations Systems, Holt, New York [Accessed on 28^th March 2023 ]

Farnham, D (2000) Employee Relations in Context, 2nd edn, CIPD, London [Accessed on 29^th March 2023 ]

Gennard, J. & Graham. J., (2010). Managing employment relations. London [Accessed on 27^th March 2023 ]

https://hrexpert.com.au/topics/employee-relations-an-introduction/ [ Accessed on 29^th March 2023 ]

https://nscpolteksby.ac.id [ Accessed on 29^th March 2023 ]

Sisson, K. (2003) Putting the record straight: Industrial relations and the employment relationship, Warwick papers in industrial relations, University of Warwick, 2008, pp. 4. [Accessed on 27^th March 2023 ]