MGT 674
Employee Relations
Management
Ajaya Mishra
About Faculty …
 Professional Experiences:
5 years in banking (MBL and Prudential)
 6 years in media (NTV and ATV)
 5 years in INGOs (UNDP/PLAN International)
 5 Years in Government (MOE / CTEVT)
 Academics …

M. Phil. in Management (Leadership)
 MBA (E) in Human Resource Management
 Leadership Program (ISB, Hyderabad)
 International Board and Management Program

Research and Publications …
 M. Phil. Thesis on “Understanding of Leadership and Factors Associate
with Leadership Success, Nepalese Perspective”.
 Research paper presented in South Asian Management Forum on
“Leadership Styles and Employees’ Commitment to Organizational
Change on Organizational Performance: A Study in a Nepali Technology
Based Organization”.
 Training Manual for Institutionalisation of Project Activities,
Cooperative Management, Micro Credit and Enterprise Development.
 Research Papers on Media industry, human resource development
practices in public service organizations, etc.
Employee Relations
Overview …
What is Employee Relations?
 Employee relations refers to the interrelationships,
both formal and informal between managers and
those whom they manage.
 How are we managed? how we would like to be
managed? how and why conflicts arise? and how
these can be resolved at work? These are the basic
concern of employee relations.
Traditional and newer concerns
 Traditional focus on ‘actors’ like managers, employees,
government, unions.
 Until recently looked at person, unions,
manufacturing, manual work.
 Today, increasing interest in ‘new’ actors – customers,
families, other interest groups - and in service sector,
women and complexity of employment arrangements.
 Widening focus has broadened scope of employee
relations concerns
Why are Employee Relations worth studying?
 For many people work is central in terms of time, money,
identity, status, social relations
 Most of us experience work as employees – we have an
employment relationship – between ourselves and those
who employ us, and an employment status
 However many different interests at work (‘stakeholders’)
– owners, shareholders, managers, employees, customers
– all exert pressure on employment relationship
 For employers – the ‘labour question’ a central one
 Need labour to produce output
 Need to ensure labour does what employers want
 Need for control – of labour costs and activities - and
need for welfare
 Tension – control v commitment
The Employment Relationship
 It follows that the ‘employment relationship’ is a central
feature of work but it is dynamic.
 It is also complex – has many dimensions and levels –
economic, legal, social, psychological and political
 Shaped by historical experiences
 Employment relationship now seen as core to the study of
employee relations
 Many employment relationships, many employee relations
The Employment Relationship
Parties to
Relationship
Substance
Operation
• Level
Employment
Relationship
• Process
• Style
Structure
•Individual:
reward, job,
career
•Collective: joint
agreements
• Formal rules
•Informal
understandings
Source: Kessler
and Undy 1997
The Course and Evaluation…
•12 Sessions direct contact on Tuesday.
•Focus on case study analysis and presentation, Group
discussion and Group work.
•Evaluation Criteria
•Class Participation and Attendance
•Case Analysis and Presentation
•Group Work (Brief Research work)
•Mid Term Exam
•Final Exam
10%
15%
20%
15%
40%
•Case analysis, group work and assignments should be submitted
on time.
•Absent during case presentation will be graded “F” in internal
evaluation.
Article Critiquing Framework …
•Issues the author is trying to address
•The Significance of the study or issue
•Basic Assumptions
•Theoretical Framework / Concepts
•Methodology used
•Contribution of the study
•Practical and managerial implication of study
•Conclusion of the study
Group Work…
Method: Qualitative
Framework:
•Understanding of Employee relations practices
•Importance given to employee relations
•Strategies adopted
•Existence of union and their role
•Collecting bargaining and grievances handling practices.
•Employee’s perspective Vs Organizational perspective
•Impact on Organizational performance and employee
satisfaction
•Others specific, if any.
Employee Relations …
Employee Relations: Content, History, Analysis
 Industrial Relations, Employee Relations and Employment
Relations
 IR traditionally concerned with ‘the institutions of job regulation’
(Flanders and Clegg 1954) and the generation of employment rules
 Led to a focus on trade unions and collective bargaining – CB ‘pivot’
of industrial relations
 ‘High point of traditional IR’ in Britain 1970s – collectivist, concern
with reform of collective bargaining – 55% of the workforce were
trade union members, 75% covered by collective agreements
Historical Perspectives
 Event-driven
 Structure-driven
 Government change
 Economic trends
 Technological change
 Political trends
 Demographic change
 Changes to social
 Management change
institutions
 Changes in ownership
and organisation
 Unique events and
conditions - linear
 Regular, patterned,
repetitive - circular
Historical Perspectives
 In practice history reveals patterns of both change and continuity
 Change may be abrupt but may still be affected by path-dependency
 Short-term and long-term change
 Significance in employee relations for how history is experienced,
how it shapes the present – often casts a long shadow
 History in culture – stories, rituals, rules
 Employee relations today the outcome of past struggles – defeats,
victories
 Importance of history in custom & practice
Traditional Concerns of IR
 Theoretical origins of industrial relations/employee relations
focused on order and stability within a developed ‘system’
 Influence of US writers, particularly Dunlop (1958)
 Such a ‘system’ in Britain and other western economies based on
collective bargaining – seen as democratic and most effective form
of regulation
 Copied by many other countries
 Outputs of the system – earnings, productivity and minimising of
conflict
Industrial Relations …
IR is concerned with the systems, rules and
procedures used by unions and employers to
determine the reward for effort and other
conditions of employment, to protect the
interests of the employed and their
employers and to regulate the way in which
employers treat their employees.
K. Aswathappa
Coverage of IR
 Collective bargaining
 Role of management, unions, government
 Machinery for resolution of industrial disputes
 Individual grievances and disciplinary policies and
practices.
 Labor legislation
 Industrial relations training.
John Dunlop and an Industrial Relations
System
CONTEXTS
ACTORS
PROCESSES
Economic
Employers
Managerial Reg Pay and
Social
Managers
Collective
Conditions
Legal
Trade Unions
Bargaining
Inc Productivity
Political
Employees
Legal Reg.
Conflict
Techno –
Customers*
C&P
Less Conflict
Logical
Shareholders*
Feedback
Shared Ideology
OUTCOMES
IR to ER
 Employee relations is more comprehensive and
includes all aspects of HRM where employees are
dealt with collectively.
 It covers …
Participative management
 Employee welfare
 Employee development
 Employee remuneration, safety, welfare, etc.

Challenges to the ‘system’ - crisis and reregulation
 Post 1979 ‘Thatcherism’
 Public policy – lack of support for old ‘adversarial’ IR system,
trade unions, failure of collective bargaining

 Moves to regulate IR through legal means – restrictive labour
law to ‘curb the power of trade unions
 Re-establishment of managerial prerogative
 Re-regulation of industrial relations against a backdrop of high
unemployment and weakened TU bargaining power
Is talk of a system still useful?
 Can we still talk about ‘national systems’?
 Often more diversity within as between countries
(Marchington 1995)
 Argued that if we can still talk about a ‘system’ it is now
organisation-based Purcell (1989)
 Greater diversity in employee relations as managers have
sought to re-regulate employment and employment
relationships
Changing Focus – Managerial agenda
 Today management-employee relations in Britain more
about involvement, engagement, participation and
partnership rather than collective bargaining and conflict
resolution
 Employee involvement and high performance work
systems, employee engagement.
 The role of management choice in shaping employee
relations and employee relations strategy
Employment Relations and HRM
 HRM and the ‘individualisation’ of employment relations
 Focus on the individual worker and relationship with management
 Mainstream HRM – concern with involvement and commitment
and relationship to business performance (Guest et al. 2000)
 Business-model of HR dominant
And Now….
 Increased concern with both individual and collective
aspects of employment
 Re-focusing on how the employment relationship is
regulated.
 Theoretically, this marks a return to a focus on power
and authority relations in employment
Main Parties Engaged in ER…
Individual
Employees
Trade Union
Representative
Government
Managers
Employer –
Employee Relations
Employer’s
Association
Representative
Courts and
tribunes
Different Perspectives of Employee
Relations …
Manager’s perspective …
 Creating and maintaining employee motivation
 Obtaining commitment from the workforce
 Establishing mutually beneficial channels of
communication
 Achieving high level of efficiency
 Negotiating terms and conditions of
employment
 Sharing decision making with employees
 Engaging in power struggle with trade
unions
Trade union’s perspective …
 Collective bargaining about terms and conditions of
employment
 Representing individuals in conflict with
management
 Improving abilities of employees to influence events
in the workplace
 Regulating relations with trade unions.
Individual employee’s perspective …
 Improve their conditions of employment
 Voice and grievances
 Exchange views and ideas of management
 Share in decision making
Third Parties' perspective …
 Creating and maintaining harmony at work
 Creating a framework of rules for fair conduct in
relationships
 Establishing a peace making arrangements
 Achieving a prosperous society with justice
?
…………