Chapter 10 - Human Resources Management
Learning Objective: To understand employee appraisal, career plans, and trade unions
Human Resources Managers are responsible for a very complicated issue:
Appraisal is about evaluating an employee's performance against pre-set objectives;
Development, on the other hand, can take the form of new challenges and opportunities, trainings, promotions, etc. - motivation;
Development and Appraisal are important parts of employee satisfaction and the construction of a solid career plan;
Appraisals analyze performance vs. targets and help setting new targets aligned with the business' objectives.
- A career plan is about looking over the workers' strengths and what opportunities could be matched;
- It considers the workers' skills and knowledge in relation to the business future needs to establish development opportunities in that direction.
Employee appraisal and development have a very important role in intrapreneurship, when employees develop key success characteristics:
Are encouraged to become independent thinkers;
Are given the opportunity to perform tasks with other departments' skilled workers;
Are empowered with authority and resources for innovation;
Are inspired to take risks.
Finally, HRM performs a key role on management and workforce relations: some countries have a tradition of disagreement between managers vs. workforce whereas others have a more 'cooperative' culture. The latest is obviously easier and more beneficial:
- Less disruptions due to strikes and other industrial actions;
- Easier to introduce changes in the workplace (e.g. automation);
- Pay levels are more likely to increase based on individual contribution to success;
- Brings higher competitiveness to the business;
- Workers opinions are taken into account leading to more efficient business decisions.
In many places it is common for workers to join trade unions to lead their workforce relations with companies. There are many benefits of joining trade unions:
Collective bargaining bring workers to a better negotiating position;
Collective strikes leads to more substantial results;
Legal support is oftentimes provided by TUs to assist on unfair dismissal or poor working conditions cases;
TUs in general pressure for better working conditions (health and safety).
Many employers have a policy of trade union recognition in which they prefer negotiating working conditions with trade unions rather than individually. Other companies prefer individual negotiations to avoid the pressure of collective bargaining.
Collective bargaining can bring benefits to unionized workers and employers
It is time-saving to negotiate with one representative than with each worker individually;
Workers represented by TUs feel they are being treated fairly as all other workers are in the same situation which is positive for the business;
TUs are responsible for trying not to strike and disrupting business activity - but to negotiate primarily;
Workers experience increased motivation by being part of unions (fair treatment) which leads to increased productivity.
When cooperation and agreements are not reach, however, trade unions have many forms to take on industrial actions over better pay and conditions:
TUs oftentimes sign no-strike agreements to increase their reputation in the eyes of employers and employees (as a responsible organization) as well as to reach a win-win situation with employers regarding pay, holidays, conditions, etc.
However, no-strike agreements are not the rule. Strike actions still are TUs most extreme way of reaching their goals. During a strike labor cease their activities forcing the business to stop.
TUs have other means that not strike of leading employers to comply with their demands, though:
Collective bargaining through negotiation and arbitration are a common one;
Work-to-rule setups in which workers decline any work outside of contract (e.g. overtime) potentially leading to loss of output, revenue, and profit - specially for seasonal businesses;
Go slow: less extreme strikes are also possible. In such cases the minimum number of workers by contract continue to work but another large portion stop their activities;
Overtime bans, which can disrupt businesses during busy periods.
Employers, on the other hand, have their own means of trying to influence an industrial dispute:
Negotiations;
Public Relations (marketing) to influence the public opinion and put pressure on TUs;
Contractual changes towards more flexible working and even to limit industrial actions.
Threats of redundancies so that TUs agree to a settlement;
Lock-outs temporarily closing factories or offices to prevent employees from working and therefore removing their pay - workers might pressure TUs to reach an agreement so that their income is not ceased for too long;
Closures are the extreme action: closing down factories/offices when TU demands are not reasonable and would lead the business to incur losses. This leads to redundancies, which are not desirable by TUs.
Chapter 10 - Human Resources Management
Learning Objective: To understand employee appraisal, career plans, and trade unions
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