Improving Employer - Employee Relations

Why is it essential for organisations to create positive employer-employee relations? Employer-employee relations are important as they determine how motivated and engaged employees are in daily business operations. So, how can these relations be improved? Let's find out.

Employer-Employee relations meaning

Managers should aim to maintain good relations with employees so that they feel motivated and supported in their jobs. As well as be more productive and increase their contribution towards the company’s goal achievement.

Employers have legal requirements regarding certain relations including communication and consultation with employees. These are:

• Employers much communicate the redundancy programs if they are happening

• Employees must be informed when business ownership was taken over by another employer

• Employees must be aware of all the changes that are happening to pension programmes

• If there are changes to the working contract agreement employees must be informed by employers

In order to form good relations with employees, employers should establish the employees’ representation in the business such as involvement in decision making and the ability to communicate with the employer when needed. There are key reasons why this is important, these are:

• Making employees accountable and known to managers and leaders in the organisation

• Increased awareness and understanding of workplace issues and other important aspects of the business by employees and employers

• Creating trust between employees and employers and improving working relationships overall

What is the meaning of Improving employee relations?

Improving employee relations means strengthening the relationship between the workers and employer. This is very important as strengthening the relationship between these two parties will increase trust between them and make employees more motivated and satisfied with their work. This will result in employees performing better in their roles and assist businesses in achieving their objectives. Human resource professionals usually assist employees in building good relations in the workplace by consulting employees regarding various issues and giving them support.

What are the strategies for improving employee relations?

Employers need to have good relations with employees as that will help to build trust, motivate employees and improve employees’ and business performance. Therefore, employers should set strategies for how these positive relations can be achieved in the workplace. Key strategies are:

Build good relationships from day one

It is important to leave a good impression and increase employees’ enthusiasm from day one of starting a job. Employers should introduce employees to the workplace and co-workers from the start so that employees feel comfortable and valued. This will also help employees to understand the company and their role in the business in the early stages, which will help them to integrate and work better especially in regards to group or team tasks.

Give Feedback

It is important to provide employees with feedback regularly. The feedback should have both positive aspects and things that employees should improve on. The positive aspect is very important as employees should be aware of what they did well and what value they contributed to the team. Additionally, managers should not forget to publicly recognise employees and always give appreciation to their hard work. As it is very motivational for employees to know what they did well and how they contributed to the company’s success.

Two-way communication

When employers use emails as the main communication method with employees, workers may feel that communication is impersonal and only goes one-way. To improve communication with employees, employers should aim to communicate with employees in person. This will give a chance for employees to be more engaged in the conversation with their employers and make better working relationships. Additionally, employers should involve employees in important conversations such as regarding strategic decisions, as this will make employees feel more motivated and important for the business.

Offering opportunities for career development

One of the most important strategies for making good relations between employees and employers is offering employees a career development opportunity. It is important to offer professional development opportunities and training courses to employees. As well as it is crucial for employees to have career advancement opportunities.

This will assist in keeping employees motivated and form a positive image of the employer.

Keeping employees engaged

It is extremely important that employees are engaged in their work to have good relations with their employers. Firstly, to do that employers should communicate to employees the importance and value that they are bringing to the company. Secondly, employers should ensure that employees are doing the job that is right for them as if the employees are not happy with their job they will not be likely to be engaged in it. Moreover, to improve relations further employers should make sure that they assign employees to meaningful tasks.

What are the best practices for improving employee relations?

Good employee relations are important as they contribute to increasing employees’ motivation and productivity at work. Employee relations are not only limited to communication but also involves organisational policies and any interactions between employer and employees. There are a few best practices that businesses can follow to achieve good employee relations. These are:

• Putting in place policies that will identify and have a solution to arguments or issues that may occur between employer and employees.

• Providing suitable working conditions for employees

• Giving reasonable working hours to employees, so that the work-life balance is achieved

• Providing employees with reasonable pay and benefits

• Putting in place practices that will allow for employees to give feedback regarding their work satisfaction and suggestions of improvements that could be implemented. This feedback should be then taken an action on and implemented into the organisational practices.

• Rewarding and recognising employees for their achievements at work.

What are the methods of improving employee relations?

There are a few methods that employers and HR departments can follow to improve employee relations in the workplace. These methods are:

• First of all, employers should collaborate with employees and make an employee relations plan. This plan should involve a set of goals, a training plan and disciplinary procedures.

• Assessing the effectiveness of employees relations regularly is very important. This assessment will allow employees to give feedback which will allow employers to make suggested improvements regarding the current employee relations plan.

• It is important to avoid micromanagement of employees as they will feel not trusted and will not be able to be creative in the workplace.

• Employers need to implement reward and recognition elements to the employee relations plan. It is important that employees feel recognised for their work performance however employers should not focus on frequently praising the same employees. As other employees will not feel as important and valuable for the organisation. Therefore, employers should aim to recognise the majority of employees even if they added a small contribution to the company’s success.

• Employers should communicate employees’ roles and responsibilities so that workers are aware of their duties and roles in the company. Employers can check from time to time if employees are happy and aware of their responsibilities.

• Employers should allow employees to have the responsibility and ability to make their own decisions. This way employees will feel empowered and important in the organisation.

• Employers should actively listen to employees ideas and thoughts as it will help to achieve effective communication and employees ideas may encourage innovation in the organisation.

• Employers should trust and believe in their employees that they can contribute to the company’s success. As well as forgive mistakes and ensure that employees learn from them. Additionally, employers should support employees in every way they can so that employees are always confident that if they need further support there is someone they can rely on.

In the UK and many other countries relationships between employers and employees are built upon contractual policies and agreements. Such as:

• Employment contract

• Health and safety standards

• Equal opportunities

• Paying agreed salary

• A dismissal notice period of employees

• Sick and holiday pay

There are a few methods in which employees can be involved in making decisions regarding working relations with employers. These include:

Trade unions

Trade unions are the group of professionals formed to protect employees rights against unfair work practices. The actions that employees may take might involve collective bargaining of negotiating pay and improvement of working conditions.

Work council

Work councils are similar to Trade unions but rather than being on a national or international level they are formed on the local level and formed for a particular business. Work councils consist of a group of employees in the business concentrated on protecting the worker’s rights, discussing work issues, consulting employees and taking action the employment practices are unfair.

What is the value of good employer-employee relations?

It is important to keep good relationships between employers and employees as they can bring a lot of value and benefits to a business. The key benefits are:

• Employees loyalty - If the relations between employer and employee are positive and employee and these two parties have a mutual trust of each other, as well as employees, feel respected and appreciated in the organisation they are likely to remain loyal to the business. This will benefit the business in many ways as it will save costs on hiring and training new staff.

• Avoiding conflicts - Good working relations between employers and employees means that fewer conflicts will be occurring in the workplace. This is due to the fact that employees will have the opportunity to communicate with their employer when needed and when small issues occur as well as working conditions are made suitable for employees. This will benefit the workplace environment as fewer conflicts result in creating a better atmosphere at work and no time wasted resolving conflicts.

• Increased productivity - The good working relationships between employer and employee can assist in increasing employee’s productivity. Once employees have trust in their employers and are happy to work for them, they are likely to be more productive. The more productive employees are, the more output is going to be produced in the organisation which will contribute to achieving organisational goals.