Principles of Employment Relations - Coursework Example

The rapidly changing business environment has increased concern towards employee relationship. Businesses tend to pay special attention towards building healthy relations and employment relationship as a concept has grown with time. This paper thereby substantiates the manner in which the socio-political relations has an effect on the power distribution which gives rise to conflicts between the management and raises social and legislatives problems both for the employer and the employee thereby diluting their relationship. To develop better relationship different advocacies of different theories like unitarist, pluralist and radical views were presented. This paper examines the different approaches taken by unitarist, pluralist and radical view scholars which will help to understand the manner in which employee relationship can be improved. This will create a positive effect and will help the business is building long term relationship which ensures productivity and better relations to help the business grow. This makes it important that employee relationship is understood on the fore front. It has been identified that different scholars, sociologist, human resource personel and other people in the related field has observed employment relationship differently. This brings to one of the more complete definition which states that employment relationship deals with the corpus of human resource management which helps to deal with the interactions that takes place between the employer and the employee within the organization (Beardwell & Holden, 1994). This has further been developed and tends to include macro level relations as well as every relation tends to have some effect on the work culture and relationship that exists at all levels. This helps to understand an important underlying fact about employee relationship which states that it happens due to both normative and unitary concepts. This concepts look towards developing a functional relationship all through the organization and more so between the employer and the employee. This relationship ensures that the level of conflicts between the employer and employee comes down, there is better flexibility and the presence of trade union ensures that any problems or differences in opinion are solved through mutual dialogues (Cradden, 2005). Another concept which also looks at developing positive relationship between the employer and the employee is the pluralist concept which aims at using the different tribunals and labor laws so that better relationship can be fostered and the rights of both the parties can be preserved. This brings forward to an important fact the there are various factors which have a role in developing employee relationship. This requires on the fore front that employees and employer should understand the changing business environment and look towards a work culture which fosters development of a work environment which allows productivity and helps to provide both the parties their legitimate share. This will help to build positive relations which are based on trust. The importance of the legitimacy relationship has been discussed through different views and approaches so that the organization is able to identify the best fit according to the evolving business environment (Cradden, 2005). Some of the most important views and approaches developed in this regard are the unitarist, pluralist and radical views on employee relationship. This paper further focuses on the manner in which the different theories and concepts presents the evolving employee relationship so that better understanding can be generated in different areas. The concept of unitarism states that work place conflicts between the employer and the employee will happen in all situations. These conflicts remain persistent for a short period of time but since both the employer and the employee have a common interest the differences between the employer and the employee gets sorted out and both of them look towards working in the same direction. This concept stresses that the differences that exist between the employer and the employee is due to the reason that there is lack of communication, different personality traits being demonstrated by people, lack of measures to solve the differences and similar other smaller aspect which creates differences among them (Fox, 2006). For achieving the goals of the business it is imperative that the differences are looked into and proper strategies are being made to remove the differences that exist. This could also result in situations where the employer might have to dismiss or suppress certain section of the employees as they might be unwilling to cooperate and deal with the differences in such a manner that it provides positivity for both the parties. This identifies an important finding through the concept that the efforts should be such that it looks towards formulating a single body of an employee which looks towards solving the differences that exist in the relationship and other bodies in whatever form should be suppressed and brought to an end. This will help to build a positive vibe and develop the required relationship that the business looks forward at. This concept has gained prominence and is backed by the scientific theory which states that employees remain immature and don’t have the required expertise and knowledge to solve the differences that exist between them and the management which results in a rigid attitude being demonstrated by them. This requires involvement of the management in making the employee understand the role they have in building organizations and need to ensure that the employees are spoken personally so that their problems can be better understood and ways can be developed to deal with the differences. In addition to it the management also has to ensure that a single body is developed which looks at addressing all the problems of the employees. This will build the required framework through which organizations are able to develop positive relationship which will help the business to deal with the differences in an effective manner. This theory is further developed by another theory called the human relation theory which states that the workforce environment needs to be developed in such a manner that it looks towards eliminating the differences that exist between the employer and the employee. This requires that the employees are provided with greater autonomy to take decisions and ensuring more power and authority will give the employee a sense of self-fulfillment (Provis, 2009). This will also help to treat the employees differently in comparison to the other factor of production like machines and will provide them the respect they are looking for. This can be achieved by developing the required infrastructure which looks towards developing an atmosphere where a single force is developed so that the problems of the employees can be heard and solved so that the internal tension that exist between the management and the employee can be reduced. This will thereby act as a laison and help to develop positivie relationship within the organization. The pluralist view is different from the unitarist view as they state that when employer and employee work together conflicts are bound to happen and needs to be addressed as it is not possible to have an organization without conflicts. The differences between them arise because each party has a different interest and they look towards increasing their own interest instead of mutual interest which creates differences. To remove this differences the role of trade union has to be increased as they have to lead towards reducing the differences and ensure that a strategy is developed which looks at the benefit of all (Kaufman, 2004). Trade unions due to their power will be able to influence their behavior of the management and make them take decisions which looks towards mutual benefit and helps to produce new ideas which will facilitate the changes and ensure better opportunities of removing the differences. A theory supporting the pluralist theory is the industrial relation theory which is a part of the wider social system looks towards advocating the fact that the environment in relation to the work scenario should be developed to facilitate better relations. This will require that different activities like holidays, proper wages and different fundamentals are being looked into which will help to shape the performance of the employees and reduce the tension that exist between the management and the employees. This highlights the development of different assertions like the role of trade union, proper environment context, developing a rule to ensure proper employer employee relationship and developing ideologies which will help to accomplish the different goals (Ackers, 2002). Thus, theory looks towards increasing the role of trade unions and makes them one of the most important elements in building positive relations between the employer and the employees. The Strategic Choice theory is the one which supports the pluralist theory states that the industries have undergone changes which has altered the role of different parties and has made the business look at different alternatives. This states that the changing environment has reduced the role of union membership and has increased the powers with the trade union so that a new structure for the sharing and transfer of knowledge is developed (Fox, 2006). This has impacted the organizations in a positive manner as the trade union involvement has increased which has helped to reduce the tensions between the employer and the employee to a large extent. The trade union has thereby been entrusted with additional roles and has brought about widespread changes in their power and role to reduce the differences between the employer and the employee (Kerr, 2004). This theory not only propagates the development of relationship at the top level but also addresses the importance of developing positive relationship at all levels. This will help to provide the trade union role to be increased and by ensuring that the decisions taken are in the mutual benefit of all the problems pertaining to employee relations will be solved to a large extent. The manner in which employee relationship is viewed is slightly altered when we look at the radical view provided by the Marxist. This theory states that there exist differences in the wealth holding of individuals which makes people act in a manner that will benefit them (Habermas, 2004). They look to take decisions which only benefit them which have largely affected the bargaining power due to the presence of power in a few hands. This has resulted in a scenario where the employees are exploited and are not given their dues. This has been one of the prime reasons which have affected the relationship between the employer and the employee and being able to develop a culture which respects the rights and obligations of others will help to remove the differences that exist. Trade unions have a role to play in this regard but the benefit of the decision can be increased if the consent of both the employer and the employee is obtained as it will lead towards developing strategies which are aimed at the benefit of all. This will help in developing a positive relationship through which the differences can be dealt to a large extent and business developed. The different theories like the pluralist, unitarist and the radical views have explained the manner in which they view employment relations and the manner in which the importance of the relationship can be developed. This concepts look towards developing a functional relationship all through the organization and more so between the employer and the employee. This relationship ensures that the level of conflicts between the employer and employee comes down, there is better flexibility and the presence of trade union ensures that any problems or differences in opinion are solved through mutual dialogues. This will help to deal with the differences that exist in their approaches and will provide a complete overview through which the problem can be sorted. Thus, the paper presents the manner in which the different theories and views look towards employment relationship and the importance it has in the business scenario. This presents the manner in which the theories like the pluralist, unitarist and the radical views have explained the manner in which they view employment relations can be developed. All the theories have highlighted the importance of having a mutual dialogue and should be aimed at reducing the tension that exists. Pluralist and radical views have made it important for the business to look towards developing the role of trade union so that the differences can be resolved. Also, having a single body which addresses the issue of employment relations will help the business in ensuring that a positive relationship between the employer and the employee is generated which will help the business to ensure long term growth and an opportunity to develop the business through positive relationship. References Ackers, P 2002. Reframing Employment Relations: the Case for Neo-Pluralism. Industrial Relations Journal, 33 (1), 2-19 Beardwell, I. & Holden, L. 1994. Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Perspective, Pitman, London. Cradden, C. 2005. Repoliticizing Management: A Theory of Corporate Legitimacy, Ashgate, Guildford Fox, A., 2006. Industrial Sociology and Industrial Relations, Research Paper 3, Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employer Association, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, London. Habermas, J. 2004. The Theory of Communicative Action Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (trans. T. McCarthy), Polity, Cambridge. Kerr, C. 2004. Labour and Management in Industrial Society, Doubleday, Garden City NY. Kaufman, B. 2004. The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations: Events, Ideas and the IIRA, International Labour Office, Geneva. Provis, C. 2009. Ethics and Industrial Relations' in C. Leggett and G. Treuren (eds.), Proceedings of 13th AIRAANZ Conference (Adelaide), 1 (7), pp. 193-206 Read More