Employee Relations

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Agenda

Building Positive Employee Relations

Employee Involvement Strategies

Measuring Employee Attitude

Employee Handbook

Disciplinary Action
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Building Positive Employee Relations

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Positive Employee Relations: HR Role
 Works for the fair treatment of employees
 Partners with and trains managers in fairness issues
 Attempts to resolve employee problems
 Believes employees should be treated with respect
and dignity.
 Understands the business needs and the needs and
emotions of employees and tries to balance them
through policies and balanced treatment.

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Positive Employee Relations: Practices
Fair and consistent treatment of
employees

Access to career opportunities

• Job posting
• Job bidding

Balanced promotion decisions

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Feedback and Communication
 Lack of communication leads to making
assumptions; most likely negative (Snowball Effect)
 Feedback mechanisms:
 Attitudes surveys
 Skip-level interviews
 Stay interviews
 Open door policy
 Department/unit communication meetings
 Employee participation committees

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Positive Employee Relations: Practices
 Problem solving procedures
 Counseling (Employee Assistance Programs)
 Compensation and benefits practices
 Communicate market position
 Clarify how salary grades are established, how to
progress and how raised are awarded
 Performance appraisal
 Rewards and recognition
 Obtain employee input through surveys
 Develop clear criteria
 Train supervisors and managers on how to administer
programs effectively

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Agenda

Building Positive Employee Relations

Employee Involvement Strategies

Measuring Employee Attitude

Employee Handbook

Disciplinary Action
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 Employee Involvement Strategies

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Employee Involvement
 Planned attempt to link the shared interests of the
employee and the company for the mutual benefit.
 A motivational technique as it satisfies the needs of
employees to have freedom in making job related
decisions.
 HR roles:
 Communicate organizational goals to employees
 Maintain involvement programs
 Help management develop trust in employees
 Fosters stronger commitment toward organizational
goals.

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Involvement Strategies

Job design

Alternative work schedules

Teams

Employee suggestion systems

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Job Design
 Effective job design enables employees to
experience three critical psychological states related
to beneficial work outcomes:
 Meaningfulness: which is linked to skill variety, task
identity, and task significance.
 Responsibility which is linked to autonomy
 Knowledge of results which is linked to feedback.
 Redesign strategies:
 Job enlargement: adding more tasks similar to the job
tasks
 Job enrichment: increasing job depth by adding more
responsibilities
 Job rotation: movement between different but comparable
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jobs
Alternative Work Schedules
 Give employee more control over work hours
 Enable employee to balance family needs and work
demands
 Some benefits for the employers:
 Increased productivity
 Savings on overtime
 Lower rates of absenteeism
 Reduced fatigue

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Alternative Work Schedules
• Employee works a specified number of hours
Flextime per week with varying start end times

Compressed • Doing full week work in less that 5 days

workweeks
• Work for less than the full time hours on a
Regular part time regular basis

Job sharing • Two part-time employees share one full-time job

• Reducing work hours gradually before full

Phased retirement retirement

• Working off site through electronic computing

Telecommuting and communications equipment

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Teams
• Ongoing • Come together for a • Self-managing, assume complete
charter, usually cross specific responsibilities in a specific area
functional. project, disband when • Participation is a permanent part of daily
• Examples; safety project is completed work
committees, strategic • Example; team for job • Example; a team authorized to manage
planning committees design project client relationships. Team create
production schedules and responsible for
budgets and deadlines
Project
Committees Self-directed teams
teams

• Temporary, aim to accomplish a • Responsible for end

specific objective, general important product, ongoing
and long term strategic issue charter
• Example; taskforce for explore • Participation is a
healthcare options to find ways to permanent part of
reduce costs daily work

Taskforces Work teams

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Employee Suggestion Systems (ESP)
 Employees who deal with day to day issues usually
have better ideas for solving problems and improve
processes.
 ESPs enable employees to provide ideas to improve
processes and workplace.
 Mutual benefits (better business results vs. personal
rewards)

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Effective ESPs
 A clear policy for suggestion and how they are
handled
 Established rules for evaluation of suggestions
 Rules for evaluating the merits of the suggestions
 All suggestions deserve a response
 Keep the process as simple as possible
 Give financial incentives tied to the savings/merit of
the suggestion

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Agenda

Building Positive Employee Relations

Employee Involvement Strategies

Measuring Employee Attitude

Employee Handbook

Disciplinary Action
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 Measuring Employee Attitudes

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Assessment Methods

Employee Employees
surveys focus group

Attitude
surveys

Opinion
surveys
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Attitude Surveys
 A tool to identify employees needs and values
 Measures satisfaction and engagement
 Survey topics may include:
 Quality of management
 Quality of work/life issues
 Employee morale and job satisfaction
 Effectiveness of compensation and benefits
 Perception of HR effectiveness
 Employee retention and attrition issues
 Organizational communication
 Workplace safety

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Attitude Surveys-Special Considerations
 Guarantee anonymity
 Accept criticism
 Don’t ask if you are not prepared to address the
issue
 Communicate the results and give feedback
 Ensure that the timing is appropriate

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Doing the survey
Internal External

Online Traditional

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Employee Focus Groups
 A group who participate in a structured discussion to
look in-depth at specific issues.
 May be used to follow-up a survey or to gather
opinions about benefits
 Should be planned effectively and facilitated by a
competent facilitator.
 Participant should represent the targeted group

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Organizational Feedback
 Presentation of data to stimulate discussion and
generate potential solutions.
 Management Feedback: Providing management with
the interpretation of the results.
 Employee Feedback: Sharing results with
employees and addressing the issues appeared in
the results.
 Ignoring the feedback not only diminishes the
benefits of the survey, it has detrimental effect and
may increase dissatisfaction.

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 Employee Handbook

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Employee Handbook
 Explains major HR and employee policies and
procedures and employee benefits.
 Very important, sometimes overlooked
 Types of information
 Introductory information
 Employment information
 Compensation
 Benefits
 Attendance
 Other information

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How to Develop Employee Handbook
 Review and update existing policies
 Create an outline of the handbook content
 Create summary of each policy and procedure
 Add each summary in the appropriate section of the
outline
 Review entire handbook
 Send for legal review
 Distribute to employees
 Update when necessary

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Sample
 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND COMPENSATION PROGRAMS
 In order to attract and retain a highly qualified and competent work force, XYZ has instituted a performance
management program to compensate employees in a fair and equitable manner based upon demonstrated job
performance, and in accordance with its Equal Employment Opportunity policy.

 Through this program employees will receive constructive work reviews designed to address performance and skill
developmental needs and interests. Upon an employee's anniversary date, an employee becomes eligible for
consideration of a salary review.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM SCHEDULE

 Employees may receive constructive work reviews on the following schedule:
FULL-TIME NON-PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES:
a. 3 month work review
b. annual work and salary review, based on anniversary of start date.
FULL-TIME PROFESSIONAL LEVEL EMPLOYEES:
a. 6 month work review
b. annual work and salary review, based on anniversary of start date.
PART-TIME EMPLOYEES:
a. annual work and salary review
 Under usual and appropriate circumstances, employees should receive a performance review annually. If an
employee's job responsibilities change substantially at any time after the annual work review, however, another may
be performed before the next annual review, after the new assignment has begun.

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Developing Employee Handbook-Guidelines
 Keep it simple: clearly written, can be understood by
all employees
 Keep it current: review it as major changes occur.
Make it online
 Pay attention to the look: make it attractive visually
and linguistically. Proper graphics may be used.
 Obtain evidence of receipt.
 Have legal review

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Agenda

Building Positive Employee Relations

Employee Involvement Strategies

Measuring Employee Attitude

Employee Handbook

Disciplinary Action
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 Disciplinary Action

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Disciplinary Action

Last resort

The goal is to correct

behavior not to punish

Promote fairness

Preserve respect for

management and supervisors
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Reasons for disciplinary action

Poor performance

Absenteeism and tardiness

Violation of policies and rules

Serious misconduct
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How to Avoid Disciplinary Action
 Set clear expectations
 Have written policies, procedures and work rules
 Establish a climate of communication
 Maintain an open door policy

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Progressive Discipline
 Problem solving and open dialogue
 Oral warning
 Written warnings/ deductions
 Final warning
 Discharge

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