The employment relations focus on the various relationships between the employees and the employers within the business organizations in Australia. The employers of the organizations manage the human resources properly to ensure that the needs and requirements of the employees are fulfilled and they are provided with enough scopes and opportunities to perform to their potential within the workplace with ease and effectiveness. As, we all know that it is important to establish good relationship between the employers and employees of the organization, because the employers are responsible for the management of processes such as recruitment, selection and providing rewards and compensations to the employees as well (Alcover, Martínez-Íñigo & Chambel, 2012).
The major issue that has been faced regarding the employer and employee relationship is the low level of wages paid to the workers of the organization by the supermarket giant named Coles in Australia (Coles.com.au, 2017). This has resulted in workplace conflicts and even deteriorated the quality of products and services within the business organization, i.e., Coles, Australia. There are other issues as well including a loss of money due to the agreements made between the employer and Union of Coles. The wages paid are quite lower than the awards, as a determined based on the enterprise agreement managed between the employers and employees of the organization (Bach, 2012). From the previous part of the research topic, it could be understood that the workplace conflicts experienced included four major players such as the employer, i.e., Coles, Union SDA, employee Penny Vickers and State executive body, which is the Fair Work Commission Act. There is no need for trade unions as well because it demands the trust and loyalty of the employees to focus on the managerial emphasis and applications with ease and efficiency. The labour and management interests are opposite to each other and so there can be emergence of conflicts based on the natural responses of workers to the exploitation by capital. The employers also do hold the responsibilities of controlling and enforcing skills among the individuals, furthermore focus more on persuasion and coordination between the employees of the organization (Conway et al., 2016).
The issues related to the employment relations are legal issues, conflict management issues and attendance issues as well. The employment relations issues could result from the employment and labor laws and also because of issues such as workplace harassment, discrimination within workplace, not providing equal opportunities to everyone and most importantly lesser wages paid to the workers. The employers have the roles and responsibilities of identifying the harassment causes and even allegations regarding discrimination within the workplace of Coles. Sometimes, the employees might not be satisfied with the job responsibilities that had been handed over to them and in such cases, the employers must accommodate the workers and modify the job responsibilities based on some issues faced by them. The legal issues often hinder accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives and so the laws, rules and regulations have been enabled to govern the legal aspects for managing employment relations and ensure that the issues are overcome with ease and effectiveness (Donaghey et al., 2014).
There could also be conflicts emerging within the workplace between the employees, staffs and even sometimes between the employees and managers of the organizations in Australia. During the critical situations, it is the duty of the manager to ensure that proper resolution procedures are used to maintain optimal working relationships between the employees and employers of the organization. These kinds of procedures also allow the employees to provide their views and opinions and make sure that the issues are not disclosed outside, rather these issues will be resolved internally. The management of conflicts also helps in making the employers document the various aspects related to a particular incident and even make the employers informed about ways of resolving those (Giese & Thiel, 2014). For the employees of an organization, a strong attendance must be maintained by them and several issues might tend to arise when they missed their work or even had not been adhering to the schedule, furthermore affecting both the co-workers and deteriorating the quality of work done by them within the workplace. An employee could often be found to get involved in some inappropriate behaviors and the employers must correct them through development of disciplinary action. This would prevent such situations, also improve the performances of workers through encouragement and motivation, and furthermore allow them to maintain ethical practices for creating a good culture within the workplace. The presence of a good culture could establish good and positive relationships between the employers and employees and even make them work together as an unit to accomplish the business goals and objectives effectively (Hutchinson, 2012).
As the major issue here is the low wages provided to the workers based on the different kinds of agreements, so the performances of workers may deteriorate and this can deteriorate the organisational performance, furthermore decreasing the organizational productivity and sales revenue in business. This was because of the agreements made by SDA, which resulted in making more than 2,50,000 employees paid less than the actual awards. This made the employers gain certain benefits such as they were able to save a lot of money, i.e., nearly up to $300 million every year. When the opinions and views of the employer and employees do not match, then there can difference in attitudes and behaviors, which can further create complexities regarding the clarification of roles and responsibilities of the employees and not being able to perform to the potential within the workplace (Kalleberg, 2013). This would also prevent innovation, creativity and establishment of new policies to prevent issues like unpaid wages and low wages paid to the workers within quick time. The relationship between employers and employees also depend on the ways by which employees do collective bargaining while communicating with the employers regarding the structure of salary and wages that have been decided and will be paid to them. There are various concerns for these kinds of issues that have fallen to the industrial relations related to the study of collective bargaining. Due to lack of focus on the industrial relations and human resource management from the administration of formal contracts and agreements, the employers have failed to establish good relationships with the employees, which has created further issues within the workplace and decreased the organizational efficiency and business performance too (Kaufman, 2014).
The employment tribunal laws are implemented to ensure that the workers of the organization need to first notify the conciliations service before creating any case related to the discrimination or unfair dismissal within the workforce. The new employment tribunals implemented could facilitate the employer employee relationship and create new incentive and wages plan for respecting the rights and roles of the staffs rather than making them face any financial penalties at any stages. With the Confederation support, the employer could also change the culture for resolving the issues with the employees as well and pay them right wages (bbc.com, 2017).
There are several advantages that can be obtained by managing good relationship between the employers and employees of the business organizations in Australia. Maintaining strong relationship and establishing a sense of trust and loyalty between them could also help in creating a good culture and enhance the efficiency of the working environment. It would increase the level of motivation of employees and could even lift the morale of employees with ease and effectiveness. This would keep the employees motivated and encouraged and might even drive their performances quite quickly. The companies in Australia, which have invested a lot of money in the management of employment relations can thus increase the production level of the organization, even result in better profit level and ensure continuous business growth and success (Kersley et al., 2013). A good working environment could be created by gaining the loyalty and trust of employees and encouraging a loyal workforce too. Gaining such effective workforce could help in improving the retention of existing employees and attract new employees to the organization as well. This helps in saving a lot of cost for the recruitment processes along with the training sessions provided to them. From various evidences, it was found that the cost incurred during the turnover of employees has increased largely than the cost of managing employment relations within the workplace. In case the turnover of employees is lower, it can be assumed that the employer do possess a workforce that consists of employees with relevant knowledge, skills and expertise (Kim & Bae, 2017).
There are other advantages of maintaining good employments relations too such as resolution of conflicts and creating a more productive workforce. When strong relationships are established between the employer and employees, it can also help in reducing the chances of conflicts and make the employees more motivated and encouraged to focus on their individual tasks and enhance the productivity of the organization easily. It is often stated that a happy workforce consists of not only a good culture but also includes a set of employees with the most desired skills, knowledge and expertise to perform efficiently within the workplace, keep it productive and ensure business success (Klarsfeld et al., 2014).
With the development of employment relations, it would be easy for the employees to respect the employers and achieve the designated roles and responsibilities through setting of goals much easily. The productivity will also become higher and with the setting of clear goals and objectives, the management of human resources will be done much more appropriately. The employer and employee relationship is a must for the success and growth of the business organizations like Coles, Myers, Woolworths, etc. and it can keep the employees of the organization encouraged to perform better (Wilkinson, Wood & Deeg, 2014). They could be rewarded with incentives to drive their performances and make them feel valued for the organization as a whole. It is a true fact that the various management levels within the business organizations create good culture where employees can work as an unit and become more productive consistently. Goals are set through strong employee relations and this increases the level of enthusiasm among the em0loyees, furthermore make them focus on how to achieve reputation and good image while working within the organization (McDonald & Thompson, 2016). When a positive relation is formed between the employers and employees of the organizations, it becomes easy to delegate tasks and grab enough scopes and opportunities to empower the employees and staffs and make them acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses too. Employers need to make statements clearly to the employees regarding their weaknesses, so that those can be rectified and they can improve the organisation’s workforce efficiency (bbc.com, 2017). This would not only help in resolving the communication issues, but will also help in enhancing the performances of workers, furthermore make them overcome the issues related to workplace conflicts and ensure that the workers are not paid less based on some inappropriate agreements, which may benefit the employers more than the employees (Milner, 2015).
In certain situations, employees are found to get involved in some kinds of misunderstandings, which even make them show behaviors, and attitudes that may not be expected within a good working environment (Coles.com.au, 2017). The employers do hold the major responsibility to handle such critical situations and deal with the inappropriate behaviors properly. The employers could implement discipline according to the kind and frequency of violating the policies and procedures. One such examples could include inappropriate behaviors by an individual and how it had been dealt with by the employer (Pries & Seeliger, 2013). The manager could, at first provide a verbal warning to the employee asking him about such kind of behavior. According to the issue presented in the first section, the employees, in case they are provided with lesser wages can discuss the matter with the employers and ask about the causes. When the employers could not provide a proper explanation, then the employees could approach the higher management team to look into the matter and ensure that these kinds of issues were resolved as soon as possible (Wilkinson & Wood, 2012). The employees could also show laziness and be absent at office, based on which, the employer had the rights and authority to deliver a written warning and make them know about the issue. In case the issue is faced again, the employer could give a final warning prior to the termination of the employment of the individual. When the employer is held responsible for not paying the right amounts of wages to the employees, then the manager or higher authority of the organization can document the policy violation and discourage the employer from getting involved in such kinds of issues ever again (Baskaya & Rubinstein, 2012).
The employer could also provide freedom to the employees for delivering better quality services to people and ensure that the right amounts of wages are paid to the employees. Not giving the employees freedom can result in keeping them bound under certain limitations, which may hinder their creativity skills and innovation too. The employers must have time to communicate with the employees consistently and make them feel valued for the organization. This would help in maintaining steady relationships and make the employees enjoy enough freedom to perform to their highest potential with ease and effectiveness (Gargiulo, 2017).
It is important to create a good working environment where employer can interact with the employees properly and keep open doors for any sort of queries and concerns related to the lesser wages paid to the employees. The employer must make sure that an open communication channel had been established to manage quick resolution of workplace conflicts with ease. It is important to prevent discrimination within the workplace for making sure that all the employees are paid well enough and equality is embraced within the organization (Townsend, Wilkinson & Burgess, 2014). Allowing the employers to communicate with the employees is essential along with providing proper coaching and training sessions to improve their skills and knowledge and make them perform to their potential, so that the wages are not deducted. From the first portion of the project, it is clear that the employees have been working overtime, which is not required. The employees must be provided with few days off so that they can get refreshed and perform to their potential. Preventing discrimination within workplace can resolve conflicts properly and ensure that the employees get good amounts of wages (Van Wanrooy et al., 2013).
Conclusion
The topic focused on the most important concepts of employment relations based on the previous topic which shed limelight on the issues within the workplace of business organization Coles in Australia. It was clearly understood that the workers were paid lesser wages though they had been working over time in many situations to manage business operations and processes properly. The research portion demonstrated the relationships between the employer and employees with the involvement of Union SDA, Employee and the state executive body. The causes of such issues included misunderstanding or varied opinions of the employer and employees. Lack of motivation and encouragement by the employer also proved to be a major cause of such kinds of issues. It not only resulted in lesser commitment by workers but also reduced the productivity level of the organization. The analysis was though done by understanding the advantages of maintaining good and positive employee employer relationships and ways like preventing discrimination, management of conflicts by the human resource management team to resolve the issues with ease and effectiveness. Few recommendations were provided as well to derive a good conclusion in the end of this report.
References
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