Discuss the nature of the employment relationship with reference to the key institutions influencing it and the three perspectives

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 18th February 2015

Introduction

The concept of employment relationship has gained wide coverage in numerous literatures recently and this is because of the influence it has wielded on the understanding of how to improve the performance of employees by giving them the necessary supports needed to undertake their business process at ease and yield the most significant outcome from such business process. Employee relationship is very different with industrial relations because it deals precisely with the employees while the industrial relation deals with other aspects of the industry.

On that account, this paper is designed to understand the concept of employees’ relations with respect to the institutions that coordinates employees’ relations and the views in terms of how it is being perceived. As such, the paper is divided into three different sections. The first of such is the discussion of the nature of employment relationship, and then followed by the highlighting of institutions involved and how they influence employment relationships, with the final aspect being the presentation of understanding of the three views in employment relationship.

Nature of employment relationship and institutions involved

Although employment relation is a very prominent subject in the academic sector, it is very much concerned with practical issues and processes that affect the employees and employers, together with the government and other non-governmental but important institutions such as the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Confederation of the British Industry (CBJ). Most of the collective employment relations have been shown to exhibit popular appeal and have in most cases been the hit of discussion when they are exhibited in aggressive forms such as in the case of strikes, redundancies or discrimination. Self-evaluation activity (SEA) 1.1 did document a number of cases that is based on disputes between employees and their employers in the industries, together with the reactions that are the outcome of such disputes between the periods of 2002 to 2006. From the documentation, an understanding of what employment relationship is all about was drafted and represented in two broad forms as:

Group of employees and unions involved – employment relationship is somewhat concerned with groups of employees that are represented by trade unions, and the nature of such representation is collective. In terms of employees that are collectively represented by trade unions, they have arguable power to influence decisions that concerns issues such as the level of pay and working conditions that those who are not represented by any trade union. From the same case, the following institutions where identified to be representatives of employees in different positions:

1.      The transportation employees group that is represented by the National Union of Rail, Marine and Transport workers (RMT);

2.      The fire fighters employees that is represented by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU);

3.      The school teachers that belong the main union known as the Nation Union of Teacher (NUT);

4.      NHS workers are represented by UNISON; and

5.      Post office workers are represented by the Communication Workers Union (CWU).

Dispute related issues – another form that can be used describe the nature of employment relations. In the past, employees’ dispute with employers are mainly focused on payment level and the nature of work place, but changes have emerged in the modern setting with focus shifting from just these two areas to other aspects such as the working conditions, and modernization of their working tools.

Following the two concepts, employment relationship has been re-defined in the modern setting to include workers’ interests with the corporate goals ((Blyton and Turnbull, 2004; Burchill, 2008; Edwards, 2003). Such definitions include that:

Employees’ relationship is the subordinate position of workers within the employment relations that is formed through two major but also related ways. First is the employment contract that determines specifically the duties of employees together with the payment pattern and level.

Secondly, the worker through the contract decided to submit himself or herself to the authorities of the employer that they work for. Blyton and Turnball (2004) broadened this by stating that employment relation is a significant authority relation that is established between super- and subordinates in the case where the employees agrees to accept and abide by the decisions of those in authority.

Employment relationship has also been described as being characterized with continuous, dynamic, and open-ended natures of discussion in which the employers for instance are put in the position to exercise their rights or managerial decisions, in order to arrive to a redefined employees obligations and duties that is in line with the employment contract and work efforts (Rose, 2009; Williams and Adam-smith, 2006). From the above discussions, employment relations can now be defined properly as dealing with the establishment of an understanding between employees and employers in order for the employment contract to be conducted in a way that the outcome of the employment process is beneficial to all the parties involved.

Perspectives of employment relationship

There are a number of views with represent to employment relation across the world and they will be discussed in this section. There are not simply welcomed in the aspect of labour relationship in which they have been defined and exit in as any aspect of clarification that has been brought about in this area has always being fused up with arguments, and they are as discussed below.

A unitary perspective – defined by the notion of “discord equals to harmony”

The concept of the unitary view is defined to focus primarily on common objectives and the possibilities for creating harmony in the business environment. In cases where conflicts seem to arise, the view is based on the definition of numerous ways that will result in activities of deviants and troublemakers that originate from ignorance being eliminated. In this model, the concept of productivity as it relates to the enterprise is defined by the objectives that are used to shape the interests of all people associated with it. Managerial style is normally used as the room for creating emphasis on team spirit, togetherness in the workplace and the need for leadership in place of power. For troublemakers, the best way of dealing with them is through sanctions and there is no definition on the emphasis for discipline in the workplace, and as such stronger and more stringent laws are needed to deal with this kind of people. Training and good communication is the main tool that is used to overcome ignorance.

Pluralism - double view of organizational process

The notion acknowledge by this view is that interests are divergent within society and there is the need for organizations to accept the fact that they cannot avoid some forms of conflicts. The productive enterprise is built with coalition, which means that differences exist in terms of the level of commitment exercised by the parties involved. In the pluralism view, it is believed that conflicts fused into the society and organizations as a result of differences in the view and perceptions of people within the system. In terms of the employment relationship, the employees and employers normally have different objectives with respect to the working hours and social life, and changes are normally in their redundant stated which means that higher payment of salaries can be contrary with the investment demands from shareholders.

Conflict – when they workers are united, they will never be defeated

The view presented in this case is that there are differences in terms of ownership with respect to the Marxist analysis in which it is perceived that the nation is essentially divided into two classes – with one part representing those who own the means of production while the other part represent those who do not own the means of production. Those who own the means of production are more focused on maximizing their profits with whatever means possible, while those who don’t are focused on adopting labour as the means of meeting their ends. As such, differences exist with how they view work undertakings as the actions of the owners of the factors of production can be contradictory with that of those who provide labour, which makes it very difficult to define a better working condition. In any case, the workers have similar objectives and once they are united, they can influence the production process significantly.

Summary and conclusion

From the above analysis, it has been demonstrated that labour relations is a very important aspect of the workforce setting in the sense that it deals with defining the right platform of understanding on how works are undertaken in order to meet the objectives of both the employees and the employers. The end outcome is however not uniform as there are differences in the perception of people when it comes to defining the right understand because the focus of companies is to maximize profit while the focus of employees is to increase payment level and working conditions – which can in most cases be contradictory. On that note, it can be concluded that employment relationship should be well managed by the companies in order to ensure that their objectives of increase performance is meet, but they should also put into considerations the demands of their workforce as they represent the right step towards such sustainability with their definitional commitment.

References

Blyton, P. and Turnbull, P. (2004). The Dynamics of Employee Relations (3rd ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave. 

Burchill, F. (2008). Labour Relations (3rd ed.). Houndsmill: Palgrave. [pp. 1-8]

Edwards, P. (2003). ‘The Employment Relationship and the Field of Industrial Relations’ in P. Edwards (2nd ed.) Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Blackwell. [pp. 8-17]

Rose, E. (2009) Employment Relations (3rd ed.). London: FT Prentice Hall.

Williams, S. and Adam-Smith, D. (2006). Contemporary Employment Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.