“New developments in the industrial relations and human resource management have moved management and employee bargainin
Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:29 am
“New developments in the industrial relations and human resource
management have moved management and employee bargaining down to
the level of the firm. In doing so they have generated a growing
level of interest in the conduct of employment relations, not just
at the level of specialist managers, who have traditionally had the
responsibility for dealing with issues in this area, but across
management as a whole. There is thus a growing need for managers to
place more emphasis on achieving a greater symmetry between
commercial objectives and employment practices…” “Defining
Employment Relations In so doing, it is first useful to look at
what constitutes the definitional characteristics of the term
‘employment relations’. And to this it can only be said that
considerable and on-going debate has been over the meaning of the
term (see: Teicher, Holland & Gough, 2002, p. 3). One needs
only ask scholars in related fields such as industrial relations,
human resource management, industrial psychology, industrial
sociology, labour economics, labour law and labour history to
appreciate how the term ‘employment relations’ is used in a variety
of ways and contexts. The American HRM literature, for example,
frequently refers to it when describing the corpus of HRM
functional activities and associated interactions that exist
between individual employers and employees at the level of the
workplace. Used in this way it is typically held to describe
something quite different to older forms of personnel management
and industrial relations (see, for example: Beardwell & Holden,
1994). The British HRM literature, however, tends to apply a wider
meaning that goes beyond the workplace, covering in its most
extreme manifestation the type of interactions that can take place
between the state, employer associations and organised labour.
Employment relations conceived in these terms not only involves the
micro-level relations that take place between individual managers
and employees, as is predominantly the case in the American use of
the term, but also the macrolevel interactions that take place
between extraneous institutions set up to govern such relations
(see, for example: Gennard & Judge, 2002). The notable thing
about references made to wider institutional settings in the
British usage is that these are areas that have traditionally
fallen within the province of industrial relations scholarship.
What most British literature in fact does is use the term in two
senses. It uses it first as a normative and unitary concept to
describe the functional activities and interactions of HRM. In
other words, it replicates the orthodox American usage. The
employment relationship in this usage is simply the sum of
prescribed functional activities and interactions that are expected
to manifest themselves in the form of collaborative interactions
between managers and employees, in the flexibility, skill and
loyalty of employees, in the absence of workplace conflict and
trade unions, in the high performance outcomes of firms, and so on.
The literature uses the term secondly as a positivist and pluralist
concept when describing the existing institutional and regulative
settings in which the functional activities and interactions of HRM
take place. This second usage is a simple recognition that trade
unions and state intervention in the form of substantive labour
laws and industrial tribunals are an inescapable part of the
British workscape – a part not so apparent in the United States
(and so also the American literature). Applied in this way the
employment relationship takes on a different meaning that
acknowledges the plurality of group interests and the potential for
workplace conflict, the manifestation of which is typically
revealed in dispute settlement and negotiatory procedures that
determine the formal rules and regulations, informal customs and
practices, which govern the relationship. This dual use of the term
is apparent in much of the wider (West) European literature. Early
chapters dealing with the functional activities of HRM invariably
portray the employment relationship in terms of its unitarist and
normative characteristics, whilst later chapters (usually only one
or two at most) are typically devoted to trade unions,industrial
courts and legal matters, where the employment relationship is
portrayed more in terms of its pluralist and positivist attributes.
This duality is hardly surprising. Most (West) European countries
have legally protected trade union movements that cannot be easily
ignored or suppressed. What is surprising is that this duality is
rarely acknowledged, which may have something to do with the
seeming paradox any such recognition would seem to present. How,
for example, can an employee be committed to the objectives of an
organisation (a core functional outcome expected of HRM practices)
and at the same time be a member of a trade union? Or how can the
functional flexibility of a firm (another expected outcome) be
squared with multi-unionism and associated skill demarcations that
often exist between jobs and union territoriality? (Legge 1995, p.
247). The answer to these and similar questions has so far involved
little more than changing the definitional criteria of employment
relations to suit the particular subject matter being discussed.
This is a wholly inadequate use of the term, and this is not the
place to resolve the problem. For present purposes we can simply
define the functional activities and associated interactions of HRM
as constituting the employment relationship, but only in so far as
the sum of such actions occur in workplaces where there are no dual
loyalties and internal conflicts, and where there is little or no
outside interference in the way a firm decides to manage its
employees. In workplaces where these characteristics are in
evidence, by definition the functional activities and interactions
can only be held to operate within a pluralist frame of reference
(see below). In such cases, the employment relationship can again
be taken to include all the functional activities and associated
interactions of HRM, but under such circumstances the outcome of
such activities and the behaviour of those involved are regarded as
being contingent upon the influences and constraints imposed by
internal and external institutions set up to regulate the
relationship. Seen in this way we can move to suggest that because
the terms and conditions of employment for the vast majority of
British and European workers are regulated through the agency of
trade unions, industrial tribunals, industrial courts, and the
like, that it is a pluralist frame of reference and meaning of the
term employment relations that is most pertinent. This being the
case, it is from the field of industrial relations scholarship that
the remainder of this paper is principally drawn.”
QUESTION 2 (15 Marks) Macro environmental factors influence the
labour employee relationship. Discuss the economic perspective and
how it relates to some macro factors in the labour employee
relationship.
management have moved management and employee bargaining down to
the level of the firm. In doing so they have generated a growing
level of interest in the conduct of employment relations, not just
at the level of specialist managers, who have traditionally had the
responsibility for dealing with issues in this area, but across
management as a whole. There is thus a growing need for managers to
place more emphasis on achieving a greater symmetry between
commercial objectives and employment practices…” “Defining
Employment Relations In so doing, it is first useful to look at
what constitutes the definitional characteristics of the term
‘employment relations’. And to this it can only be said that
considerable and on-going debate has been over the meaning of the
term (see: Teicher, Holland & Gough, 2002, p. 3). One needs
only ask scholars in related fields such as industrial relations,
human resource management, industrial psychology, industrial
sociology, labour economics, labour law and labour history to
appreciate how the term ‘employment relations’ is used in a variety
of ways and contexts. The American HRM literature, for example,
frequently refers to it when describing the corpus of HRM
functional activities and associated interactions that exist
between individual employers and employees at the level of the
workplace. Used in this way it is typically held to describe
something quite different to older forms of personnel management
and industrial relations (see, for example: Beardwell & Holden,
1994). The British HRM literature, however, tends to apply a wider
meaning that goes beyond the workplace, covering in its most
extreme manifestation the type of interactions that can take place
between the state, employer associations and organised labour.
Employment relations conceived in these terms not only involves the
micro-level relations that take place between individual managers
and employees, as is predominantly the case in the American use of
the term, but also the macrolevel interactions that take place
between extraneous institutions set up to govern such relations
(see, for example: Gennard & Judge, 2002). The notable thing
about references made to wider institutional settings in the
British usage is that these are areas that have traditionally
fallen within the province of industrial relations scholarship.
What most British literature in fact does is use the term in two
senses. It uses it first as a normative and unitary concept to
describe the functional activities and interactions of HRM. In
other words, it replicates the orthodox American usage. The
employment relationship in this usage is simply the sum of
prescribed functional activities and interactions that are expected
to manifest themselves in the form of collaborative interactions
between managers and employees, in the flexibility, skill and
loyalty of employees, in the absence of workplace conflict and
trade unions, in the high performance outcomes of firms, and so on.
The literature uses the term secondly as a positivist and pluralist
concept when describing the existing institutional and regulative
settings in which the functional activities and interactions of HRM
take place. This second usage is a simple recognition that trade
unions and state intervention in the form of substantive labour
laws and industrial tribunals are an inescapable part of the
British workscape – a part not so apparent in the United States
(and so also the American literature). Applied in this way the
employment relationship takes on a different meaning that
acknowledges the plurality of group interests and the potential for
workplace conflict, the manifestation of which is typically
revealed in dispute settlement and negotiatory procedures that
determine the formal rules and regulations, informal customs and
practices, which govern the relationship. This dual use of the term
is apparent in much of the wider (West) European literature. Early
chapters dealing with the functional activities of HRM invariably
portray the employment relationship in terms of its unitarist and
normative characteristics, whilst later chapters (usually only one
or two at most) are typically devoted to trade unions,industrial
courts and legal matters, where the employment relationship is
portrayed more in terms of its pluralist and positivist attributes.
This duality is hardly surprising. Most (West) European countries
have legally protected trade union movements that cannot be easily
ignored or suppressed. What is surprising is that this duality is
rarely acknowledged, which may have something to do with the
seeming paradox any such recognition would seem to present. How,
for example, can an employee be committed to the objectives of an
organisation (a core functional outcome expected of HRM practices)
and at the same time be a member of a trade union? Or how can the
functional flexibility of a firm (another expected outcome) be
squared with multi-unionism and associated skill demarcations that
often exist between jobs and union territoriality? (Legge 1995, p.
247). The answer to these and similar questions has so far involved
little more than changing the definitional criteria of employment
relations to suit the particular subject matter being discussed.
This is a wholly inadequate use of the term, and this is not the
place to resolve the problem. For present purposes we can simply
define the functional activities and associated interactions of HRM
as constituting the employment relationship, but only in so far as
the sum of such actions occur in workplaces where there are no dual
loyalties and internal conflicts, and where there is little or no
outside interference in the way a firm decides to manage its
employees. In workplaces where these characteristics are in
evidence, by definition the functional activities and interactions
can only be held to operate within a pluralist frame of reference
(see below). In such cases, the employment relationship can again
be taken to include all the functional activities and associated
interactions of HRM, but under such circumstances the outcome of
such activities and the behaviour of those involved are regarded as
being contingent upon the influences and constraints imposed by
internal and external institutions set up to regulate the
relationship. Seen in this way we can move to suggest that because
the terms and conditions of employment for the vast majority of
British and European workers are regulated through the agency of
trade unions, industrial tribunals, industrial courts, and the
like, that it is a pluralist frame of reference and meaning of the
term employment relations that is most pertinent. This being the
case, it is from the field of industrial relations scholarship that
the remainder of this paper is principally drawn.”
QUESTION 2 (15 Marks) Macro environmental factors influence the
labour employee relationship. Discuss the economic perspective and
how it relates to some macro factors in the labour employee
relationship.