2. Employee Relation
• The basic purpose of an employee relations in
human resources department is to maintain
good working relationships between the
employer and employees. Strengthening the
employer-employee relationship .
3. Employee Relations vs. Labor Relations
• Employee relations specialists generally handle
matters involving employees who are not
members of a bargaining unit.
• Labour relations specialists are responsible for
handling matters involving labour-
management issues, such as union contract
negotiations, grievances, work stoppages and
strikes.
5. Employee Relations and Fair Employment Practices
• employee relations specialists, their primary
role consists of identifying and resolving
workplace issues concerning complaints of
discriminatory employment practices and
unlawful harassment.
6. • Maintaining employee confidentiality is a
responsibility of the employee relations
specialist from the initial complaint filing to
resolution.
• human resources staff members in this area
usually receive extensive training on
employment laws and dispute resolution.
7. Connection Between Employee Relations and Human
Resources
• human resources department does well to
have an employee relations specialist which
the human resources manager should be well-
versed in all of the field's disciplines.
• employee relations specialists who are
extremely proficient in every HR discipline can
reasonably anticipate promotion to a human
resources.
8. Employee Discipline
• Employee Discipline. Discipline is
the regulation and modulation of human
activities to produce a controlled
performance.
• It is to encourage employees to confirm to
established standards of job performance and
to behave sensibly and safely at work.
9. • employees confirm to the rules and regulations
framed by the organisation for an acceptable
behaviour.
• ‘Richard D. Calhoon’, “Discipline may be
considered as a force that prompts individuals or
groups to observe the rules, regulations and
procedures which are deemed to be necessary for
the effective functioning of an organisation”.
10. Main Features of Discipline:
• 1. Discipline is self-control:
• 2. It is a negative approach:
• 3. It is a punitive approach:
11. 1. Discipline is self-control:
• It refers to one’s efforts at self-control to
confirm to organisational rules, regulations
and procedures which have been established
to ensure the successful attainment of
organisational goals.
12. 2. It is a negative approach:
• Discipline encourages people to undertake
some activities, on one hand, and restrains
them from undertaking others, on the other.
13. 3. It is a punitive approach:
• Discipline also imposes penalty or punishment
if the rules and regulations framed by the
organisation are not obeyed or ignored by the
members.
• Punishment is imposed not to change past
behaviour but to prevent its recurrence in
future.
14. Objectives of discipline:
• 1. Motivate an employee to comply with the
company’s performance standards:
• 2. Maintain respect and trust between the
supervisor and employee:
• 3. Improve the performance of the employee:
• 4. Increase the morale and working efficiency
of the employees.
• 5. Foster industrial peace which is the very
foundation of industrial democracy.
15. Grievance
• A grievance is any dissatisfaction or feeling of
injustice having connection with one’s
employment situation which is brought to the
attention of management.
• A grievance is any dissatisfaction that
adversely affects organizational relations and
productivity.
16. • 1. Dissatisfaction is anything that disturbs an
employee, whether or not the unrest is expressed
in words.
• 2. Complaint is a spoken or written dissatisfaction
brought to the attention of the supervisor .
• 3. Grievance is a complaint that has been formally
presented to a management representative or to a
union official.
17. Effects of Grievance:
1. On the production:
• a. Low quality of production
• b. Low productivity
• c. Increase in the wastage of material,
spoilage/leakage of machinery
• d. Increase in the cost of production per unit
18. 2. On the employees:
• a. Increase in the rate of absenteeism and
turnover
• b. Reduction in the level of commitment,
sincerity and punctuality
• c. Increase in the incidence of accidents
• d. Reduction in the level of employee morale.
19. 3. On the managers:
• a. Strained superior-subordinate relations.
• b. Increase in the degree of supervision and
control.
• c. Increase in indiscipline cases
• d. Increase in unrest and thereby machinery to
maintain industrial peace.
20. Grievance Handling
• A grievance handling system serves as an
outlet for employee frustrations, discontents,
and gripes like a pressure release value on a
steam boiler.
• Employees do not have to keep their
frustrations bottled up until eventually
discontent causes explosion.
21. Model of grievance procedure
• National commission of labour has suggested a
model grievance procedure which would ensure a
speedy settlement of grievance.
• The model comprises of 5steps.
Step 1
• 1. The aggrieved employee shall convey his or her
grievance verbally/written to the officer designated
by the management. The officer will have to reply
to the complaint within 48 hours of its presentation
to him.
22. Step 2
• 2.If the grievant(grieving employee) is not
satisfied with the answer or does not receive
the answer within 48 hours he or she shall
present the grievance to the department head
nominated for this purpose. The head must
give his reply within three days of the
presentation of the grievance.
23. Step 3
• 3.If the aggrieved employee is still not satisfied
with the decision of the department head or
does receive within the stipulated period, the
employee can approach to the grievance
committee, who has to give its
recommendations in seven days and report
the same to the management. Management
must communicate the the decision to the
grievant within three days.
24. Step 4
• 4. if still employee is not satisfied either with
the decision made by grievance committee or
does not receive decision from the committee
, he or she can make appeal to the
management for revision, the management
can take a week period for appeal to be
considered and revised decision is informed to
the grievant.
25. Step 5
• If the employer is still not satisfied with the
management’s decision, the grievance is
referred to voluntary arbitration within a week
after the decision taken by the management at
stage 4.
• The decision of the arbitrator is the final and
binding on both the parties, i.e, the
management and the union.
26. • Emp - Supervisor -48 hrs
• Not ok or does not rec - HOD - 3 days
• Not ok or does not rec - Grievance Com - 7 days
• Not ok or does not rec - mgmt - review and 3 days
• Not ok or does not rec - Employer + Worker =
Arbitrator (third party which is neutral)
• Decision full and final, agreement signed by both
parties
27. Trade Unions
• Trade unions are associations of workers formed to
represent their interests and improve their pay and
working conditions.
• There are four main types of trade unions.
• i. Craft unions:
• ii. General unions:
• iii. Industrial unions:
• iv. White collar unions:
28. i. Craft unions:
• These represent workers with particular skills
e.g. plumbers and weavers. These workers
may be employed in a number of industries.
ii. General unions:
• These unions include workers with a range of
skills and from a range of industries.
29. iii. Industrial unions:
• These seek to represent all the workers in a
particular industry, for instance, those in the rail
industry.
iv. White collar unions:
• These unions represent particular professions,
including pilots and teachers. Unions in a country,
often belong to a national union organisation. For
example, in India, a number of unions belong to the
All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC).
30. Top 6 Problems faced by Trade Unions in
India
• 1. Small Size
• 2. Poor Finance
• 3. Politicisation
• 4. Multiplicity of Unions
• 5. Lack of Enlightened Labour Force
• 6. Miscellaneous Problems.
31. 1. Small Size:
• According to the veteran trade union leader V.V. Giri,
“the trade union movement in India is suffered by the
predominance of small sized unions”.
• There were 9,023 trade unions till 1992
• In the year 1992. The total membership of all the
unions was 57.4 lakhs, with an average membership of
632 per union.
• Nearly three-fourths of the unions have a membership
of less than 500.
• Small in size of the union implies, weakness in
bargaining power.
32. 2. Poor Finance:
• Small size of unions has its direct bearing on its
financial health.
• It is the small size of trade unions
accompanied by small subscriptions.
• the trade unions cannot undertake welfare
activities.
33. 3. Politicisation:
• A serious defect of the trade union movement
in India is that the leadership has been
provided by outsiders’ especially professional
politicians.
• Leaders being affiliated to one or the other
party.
• the unions were more engrossed in toeing the
lines of their political leaders than protecting
workers’ interests.
34. 4. Multiplicity of Unions:
• trade unionism in India is also characterised by
multiplicity of unions based on craft, creed and
religion. This is well indicated by the socio-political
realities
• The implication of multiplicity of trade unions is
that it leads to union’s rivalry in the organization.
• multiplicity of unions contributes to fragmentation
to workers leading to small-sized unions.
35. 5. Lack of Enlightened Labour Force:
• Lack of education, division by race religion,
language and caste, migratory nature, lack of
self consciousness, and non-permanent class
of workers are the cause for the lack of
enlightened labour force in India.
36. 6. Miscellaneous Problems:
• (i) The majority of registered unions are
independent unions as only 16,000 units out of
50,000 registered unions are affiliated to the
Central Trade Unions (CTUs)
• (ii) It is also found that about 90% of workers
in the public sector are unionized while in case
of the private sector only 30 % workers are
unionized”
37. • (iii) Given the fast changing industrial scenario,
jobs are moving from the organized formal
sector to informal sector.
• the unorganised sector which constitutes
about 90% of the total work force does not
come under the purview of the trade unions.
38. • “Multiplicity of trade unions, political rivalries,
lack of resources, disunity in the ranks of
workers etc., are some of the major
weaknesses in a number of existing unions”.
