Chapter 11

Maintaining Good Employee Relations

Dr. Ohmar Myint

Employee Relations
• The definition of employee relations refers to an organization’s
efforts to create and maintain a positive relationship with its
employees.
• By maintaining positive, constructive employee relations,
organizations hope to keep employees loyal and more engaged in
their work.
Employee Relations

• Employee relations refers to the manner in which management

addresses and interacts with the staff.
• Maintaining good employee relations helps reduce workforce
conflicts, boost staff morale and raise overall productivity, efficiency
and quality. People or workforce is the most important part of any
business.
Definition of labor union

• Definition of labor union: an organization of workers formed for the

purpose of advancing its members' interests in respect to wages,
benefits, and working conditions members of a labor union with job
protection under a collective bargaining agreement with the
employer.
Advantages of Labor Union
• Labor unions promote higher wages.
• Labor unions help workers get better benefits.
• Labor unions help families receive better benefits.
• Labor unions provide worker protections.
• Labor unions create an opportunity to negotiate frequently.
Disadvantages of Labor Union
• Labor unions require ongoing dues and may require initiation fees
• Labor unions may participate in activities that workers disagree upon.
• Labor unions discourage individuality.
White-collar workers
• White-collar workers are suit-and-tie workers who work at a desk
and, stereotypically, eschew physical labor. They tend to make more
money than blue-collar workers.
Blue Collar Workers

• Blue-collar worker stereotypical refers to workers who engage in hard

manual labor, typically agriculture, manufacturing, construction,
mining, or maintenance.
The difference between Blue-collar Vs White-collar labor
• The blue-collar worker is perceived to make less than the white-collar
worker.
• The white-collar worker might work behind a desk in the service
industry, while the blue-collar worker gets his hands dirty doing
manual labor or working in a division of manufacturing.
• Perhaps the white-collar worker has a more well-rounded education
than the blue collar worker.
Union shop Vs Agency shop
• In a union shop new employees must join the union within thirty
days or be fired.
• Employees in an agency shop are not required to join the union, but
they must pay union initiation fees and dues, and they can be fired if
they refuse.
Closed shop Vs Union shop
• Closed shop is the agreement that any person employed by any
particular company unionized. A closed shop is where employees
must join the union to get hired and remain employed.
• A "union shop" is where employees must join the union within 30 or
so days of employment.
Collective Bargaining
• Collective bargaining is the process of negotiating the terms of
employment between an employer and a group of workers, such as
pay and working conditions.
• The process takes place between company management and a labor
union.
Individual Bargaining
• Individual bargaining is the process by which an employer and an
employee negotiate an individual contract of employment, regulating
the terms and conditions of employment.
Terms of Employment/ Contract
• Terms of employment are the responsibilities and benefits of a job as
agreed upon by an employer and employee at the time of hiring.
• These generally include job responsibilities, work hours, dress code,
vacation and sick days, and starting salary.
What is Justice?
• Justice is a concept of moral rightness based ethics, rationality, law,
natural law, religion, equity and fairness.
Different types of Justice
• Procedural justice
• Distributive justice
Procedural Justice
• Procedural justice is the idea of fairness in the processes that resolve
disputes and allocate resources.
• Procedural justice: employees’ perceived fairness of the processes by
which outcomes are allocated.
Distributive Justice

• Distributive Justice refers to equitable distribution of benefits and

burdens.
• Distributive justice: employees’ perceived fairness of organizational
outcomes that they receive. In other words, are they getting back as
much as they are putting in?
• These benefits and burdens could be in the form of income, power,
wealth, education, religious activities and other economic, social or
organization variable.
What is Work Team?
• Work Team
• A group whose members work intensely on a specific common
goal using their positive synergy, individual and mutual
accountability, and complementary skills.
Functional work team

• In this work team, all the members belong to the same functional
area and respond to a single manager, responsible for the
management of the whole group.
Cross-functional Teams

• A hybrid grouping of individuals who are experts in various

specialties and who work together on various tasks.
Self-managed teams
• Groups of employees who work in an extremely integrated and
collaborative way because they don’t have a formal leader.
• Members define the division of labor, responsibilities and the
distribution of tasks, as well as make decisions and even control and
supervise themselves.
• A formal group of employees who operate without a manager and
responsible for a complete work process or segment.
Problem-solving Teams
• Problem-solving Teams
• Employees from the same department and functional area who
are involved in efforts to improve work activities or to solve
specific problems.
Thank you!