Main Context

This study will analyze best practices gaps in various companies along with the approaches to develop Employee relations. It will also reveal the adopted methods by the managers to manage the staffs either through their trade unions or one by one. The paper will analyses the voice strategy managers are using for managing their concerned employees. It is important to identify the current levels of trade union density and bargaining coverage used by a company. The paper will also cover the different procedure of union recognition, collective bargaining and the state of employment relations. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is successfully operating three gardens centres in South East England. Employee relations means to manage relations between employees and employers. A firm with a good staff relations program assign a consistent and fair manner to all staffs, so they were committed properly to their job and faithful towards the company.

Statistical sources

1. Present levels of collective bargaining and trade union density coverage in the South East of England-Trade Union density and collective bargaining density coverage are useful to provide an estimate of the levels of trade union membership density for all workers (Olander and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2015). Trade union Membership statistics have been produced as a National Statistics. It is the study of the employment circumstances of the UK population and this is consider as the statistical survey of people living in private households. To reach agreement preferably to the satisfaction of both parties is the main goal of collective bargaining. In the UK Less than 29% of all employees are covered by collective bargaining (Zheng et al., 2015). When bargaining occurs in the sector of private, collective bargaining is the most important level is at the company. Bargaining is conducted by employers and trade unions. As stated by today’s statistical release, there are 6.2 million staffs in were trade union members in the UK. In comparison with 16.3%, non-UK-born staffs were involved in trade union where majority of UK born staffs is 24.6% in a trade union in 2017.
2. Labor Force Survey regarding trade union members in the South East Retail & Wholesale and Storage and Transportation industries- The business is divided into main parties, that is horticulture and the retail division, the transport division (Crisóstomo and Freire, 2015). The horticulture and retail company has ten garden Centre which is to be the target of 50 employees each. They should be qualified, and those employees who are not qualified enough will have to do an NVQ in horticulture. The annual increase in employment of 74,100 in the year of 2018 to the second quarter, Brought up a total employment to 2,255,000. The number of employees in the labour force is also affected by the changes in the size of the population of working age. In the private sector trade union membership level were around 13. 4% to 13.5% (Townsend, Wilkinson and Burgess, 2014). And in sector of public, trade union membership levels drop by 52.7% to 51.8% in 2017.
3. Median gross hourly pay for all employees in South East England- Product specialist work full time both inside and outside. They treat flowers, plants as well as handling garden furniture and things. Ten long-distance drivers will collect products from continental Europe and ten people in the distribution centre and ten local delivery driver. Their starting pay scale of employees will be £12.50-£13.50 per hour depending on their qualifications. But that employee who is not much qualified, to do an NVQ in Horticulture sponsored by the company. And those who are working in the Wholesale & Retail and Transportation & Storage industries, their basic training pay is £5.00-8.00 per hour depending on age and experience (Zhu et al., 2015). This is also defined that the population aged 16 or over are in paid business in addition to those in government employment or self-employment. Shift work also included putting strength in summer and spring when most plants and flowers are in demand.

The statistics present in this study are based on fourth-quarter estimates (October to December) from the Labor Force Survey.

Sort of approach to Employee Relations is BCG adopting

Employee relation procedure consists various approaches process and methods adopted by employers to manage with employee either in the group through individually or trade unions (Reeves, 2016). Employee relations policy contain the maintenance of excellent relations with employees and their unions and the effective management of the work procedure. Brown has expressed the view that employees must give 200% in their jobs. He expects employees to work overtime in spring as well as in summer for the increased demand of the customers during those seasons (Tansel and Gazîo?lu, 2014). And given the to the department manager to make decisions and to behave strictly on attendance and the policy of a dress code. By these approaches, it can help the firm to build a strong partnership between the workforce and management. There are three types of approaches to employee relations-

1. Traditional- how management will conduct a team to work more to increase their products for the demand of the customers.
2. Adversarial- The organization will decide what the expectation of the customers are and how an employee will be fit into it.
3. Sharing of power- the employee should involve in both day to day work and performance and decision making.

Advantages of its approach

With this approach, firms have a significantly have a higher chance of making their organization more successful. Productivity will improve and increase. Most employees like overtime, it can put employee individually in control of their personal lives and work lives (Conway et al., 2016). The approaches are a benefit to offer employees or to attract one to fill the judgmental role in their work. Overtime can improve company productivity by allowing staffs to arrange their work, during their times of the day.

Disadvantages of its approach

It could make difficult for employees daily operations, whether there is any meeting, staffs have to complete their work on time, and that can be argument work (Popescu, 2018). Overtime and suggestion reward program make many employees and non-winners disappointed, which destroyed morale and engaged value of employees. All are working for the company, not an individual is working, and one is rewarded, this can cause severe problems within the team. And it can make people feel as if they are out altogether.

Is this advisable now the business is expanding?

No, this is not advisable because the overtime timetable were related with a 61% higher injury rate compared to work without overtime. It was found that Job schedules having long working hours were increases risk of stroke (Fratri?ová and Rudy, 2015). It is better to increase the employee rather than time. Overtime makes employees disappointed and will kill their interest in work. The growth of a business is good, but overtime for an employee will affect the health. Few studies have analyses the effect of extended working hours on workers, chance for occupational illness and injuries.

Statistical sources

What kind of Employee Voice strategy is BCG adopting?

BCG gave the opportunity to employees to provide their views, and employee voice means where their views are sought out, and they listened to their opinions too (Griffin, Bryant and Koerber, 2015). By employee voice, they expect that employees will be active in their work and in contributing to the decisions within the firm. Employee voice is defined as two-way communication between employee and managers. BCG adopted a Formal voice strategy. Some approaches they adopted for the employees-

• Meetings for employees at every location, every six months to provide an update in work performance and encourage the team to work hard. Inspiring make an employee work hard for the right reasons.
• A firm will also conduct a suggestion plan for business and improvement operationally for the employees, and they will also discuss the specific problem with management (Mishra, Boynton and Mishra. 2014)
• They will also give prizes and award for the suggestion which will be better and successful. Each employee will be enrolled under the pension scheme provided by the company which is liable than the scheme of new government-sponsored (Mowbray, Wilkinson and Tse, 2015)

The above employee voice policies and the mechanism are useful for other employment in all sectors. An excellent Human Resource (HR) policy provides good guidance on the strategy adopted by the firm and employees also concern about the various aspects of employment (Albrecht et al., 2015). BCG has given power to a department managers to make decisions clearly and enforce the strict attendance for employees of a company that has to be regular and on time for the company productivity. Including that HR policy is also to see that employee maintaining their dress code regularly to look professional at work. However, the responsibility of the manager to explained clearly about the dress code to all the employees in advance to ensure consistent enforcement and compliance.

The suggestion regarding employee voice strategy or mechanisms, and if so what and why?

Employee voice accomplish through formal and informal mechanisms. Formal mechanisms include communication tool execute through firm HR department, such as employee surveys, etc. whereas Informal voice strategy includes conversation generally between employers and employees, feedback about their work performance. It would be highly suggested regarding voice strategy of an employee that Informal voice mechanisms can influence corporate decision making through their actions and group discussion with the employees will help them to improve their skill and to learn more about the work. Feedback to employees will help them to improve more their quality of work and even to boost their productivity. Communication between employers and employees will help both to understand each other’s view about the production and work and also encourage employees to talk about their experience, and it helps an organization to know about what to change.

Employee voice does not just assist to progress employee capability individually but also the employee’s participation and ability to work within the firm. Permit employees to talk openly about the issue and they feel more connected to the leaders of a company as well as with the other employee also. All these strategies will help an employee to work in a positive environment.  

Conclusion 

The paper helps in providing the facts regarding the current levels of the concerned trade union density as well as collective bargaining coverage within the Southeast of England. The paper also highlighted the fact that BCG had significantly adopted many of the vital approaches towards managing the relations with the employees that is to work more at the time of summer and spring because that is the time when the demand of the customers increased. So CEO plans to conduct a meeting for the staffs at every six months. Including that there is also described the voice strategy of an employee like meetings to inspire employees about their performance. After supporting employee, voice firm will achieve positive factors about an organization Firm is also operating a suggestion scheme for an improvement of a business and a most successful suggestion the company is giving an award. Also, they are providing a pension scheme for the employees.

References 

Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.

Conway, E., Fu, N., Monks, K., Alfes, K. and Bailey, C., 2016. Demands or resources? The relationship between HR practices, employee engagement, and emotional exhaustion within a hybrid model of employment relations. Human Resource Management, 55(5), pp.901-917.

Crisóstomo, V.L. and Freire, F.D.S., 2015. The influence of ownership concentration on firm resource allocations to employee relations, external social actions, and environmental action. Revista brasileira de gestão de negócios, 17(55), pp.987-1006.

Fratri?ová, J. and Rudy, J., 2015. Get Strategic Human Resource Management Really Strategic: Strategic HRM in Practice. International Journal of Management Cases, 17(4).

Griffin, J.J., Bryant, A. and Koerber, C.P., 2015. Corporate responsibility and employee relations: From external pressure to action. Group & Organization Management, 40(3), pp.378-404.

Mishra, K., Boynton, L. and Mishra, A., 2014. Driving employee engagement: The expanded role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), pp.183-202.

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