What is an Employee Relations Strategy?

 


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An employee relations strategy is a plan of action to create an environment that will meet the needs of both employers and employees. The strategy should help employees understand and align with the company’s mission and vision, set out a plan for frequent communication, and create avenues to give feedback and reward good work.

Employee relations strategy comes in many forms depending on the nature and size of the organization. It has been found to be an important aspect for effective and efficient management of organizations. Employee relations strategies set out how employee relations policy aims are to be achieved. The intentions expressed by employee relations strategies may direct the organization towards any of the following:

  • Altering the forms of recognition, including single union recognition, or de-recognition.
  • Changes in the form and content of procedural agreements.
  •  New bargaining structures, including decentralization or single-table bargaining( ie bringing all the unions in an organization together as a single bargaining unit).
  •  The achievement of increased levels of commitment through involvement or participation.
  •  Deliberately bypassing trade union representatives to communicate directly with employees.
  •  Increasing the extent to which management controls operations in such areas as flexibility.
  •  Developing a ‘partnership’ with trade unions, recognizing that employees are stakeholders and that it is to the advantage of both parties to work together.
  •  Generally improving the employee relations climate, to produce more harmonious and cooperative relationships

What strategies can be used to improve Employee Relations?

 


 

 

As with any good strategy, you’ll want its impact to be measurable

•             Employee satisfaction

•             Number of recognitions

•             Number of complaints

•             Response time for complaints

•             Number of employees/leaders who can articulate mission & values

•             Benefits & compensation data compared to competitors

•             Number of resolved cases

•             Number of positive/negative employer reviews on external sites

According to the research by Department of Business Management, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria equity, promotion, mentoring and recognition have positive influence on employees’ performance. While in the opposite direction, organizational policies have negative and insignificant effect on job performance which suggest that increase in employees’ performance will require that managers pay more attention to friendly organizational policies

 


Reference List: 

Gennard J and Judge G (2002) Employee Relations. London: CIPD [ Accessed on 29th March 2023 ]

Purcell, J. and Sisson, K. (1983) ‘Strategies and practice in the management of industrial relations’, in G.S. Bain (ed.) Industrial Relations in Britain. Oxford: Blackwell [Accessed on 28th March 2023 ]

Worlu, Rowland & Osibanjo, Omotayo & Ogunnaike, Olaleke & Salau, Odunayo & Igbinoba, Ebeguki. (2016). Employee Relations Strategy: Implication for Performance in Lagos State University, South-West, Nigeria. SSRN Electronic Journal. 10.2139/ssrn.2786361. [Accessed on 28th March 2023 ]


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