Employee Relations: Decision-Making Procedures

Employee Relations Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Employee Relations Due to the rapid technological advancements and globalization of businesses, employee relations have become an integral part of organizations. For the past two decades, organizational workforce has been changing as well, it is getting more diverse. The rapid change in employee diversity has called for new developments to manage employee relations within an organization. Employee relations have been considered to be the relationship that exists between employers and employees. Employees are the most important resources an organization hence being termed as the organization’s most valuable assets. This is because the nature and amount of tasks that they complete have a direct impact on the overall performance of the organization. Therefore maintaining a healthy relationship is crucial in achieving the overall objectives of the organization. Therefore, employee relations are involved with the interactions among parties to the employment relationship. The involved parties include employers, employees, trade unions and state agencies that play third party roles. Armstrong (2009) asserts that employee relations involve various areas of human resources management that are concerned with employee relationships either directly or through trade unions. The purpose of employee relations is to ensure that there are effective decision-making procedures in handling employee-relation issues such employee motivation and conflict resolutions (Beardwell & Claydon, 2007). Moreover, Beardwell and Claydon (2007), argue that good employee relations leads to a motivated and committed workforce, fewer disputes and improved productivity. There are three theories that have been adopted to analyse employee relations within an organization. They are; unitary theory, pluralist theory and Marxism theory (Teicher & Holland, 2002). Each approach provides a particular perspective in regard to employee relations to help in the interpretations of various events such as role of employee unions, conflicts, employee-manager relations and job regulation. These approaches are contradictory based on their principles. Unitarianism Theory The unitary perspective considers an organization to be like family which is unified to a single authority and loyalty structure. Unitary approach emphasizes on common values, interests and objectives. Those who utilize this perspective consider an organization to be a team hence the emphasis on shared values and goals. This implies that employers and employees have a common interest for the survival of the organization. In this perspective, in case of the occurrence of a conflict, it is unlikely to affect the organization to a point that it can dissolve. Conflicts that may arise are considered to a result of personality disorders, poor communication, inappropriate recruitment and promotion strategies or deviance of the employees. The theory suggests that in order to avoid such conflicts that may affect the “natural order” of the firms operations, the management must be identify and remove potential factors that may cause the conflict. This can be achieved by ensuring that there is fairness and equitability in the recruitment and promotion proces...