Employee Relationship Management – A Case study on Unilever

Semester IV internal assignment for Management of Business Relations

Name: Simran Manwani
Roll No: 19
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1: Understanding the context of employee relations against a changing background............3
1.1 Explaining the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference...............................................3
1.2 Assessing how changes in trade unionism have affected employee relations..................4
1.3 Explaining the role of the main players in employee relations.........................................5
Managers’ Role........................................................................................................................5
Trade Unions’ Role..................................................................................................................6
State’s Role...............................................................................................................................6
Task 2: Understanding the nature of industrial conflict and its resolution......................................7
2.1 Explaining the procedures an organization should follow when dealing with different
conflicts situation.........................................................................................................................7
2.2 Explaining the key features of employee relations in a selected conflict situation...............8
2.3 Evaluating the effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation...................9
Task 3: Understanding collective bargaining and negotiation process.........................................10
3.1 Explaining the role of negotiation in collective Bargaining................................................10
3.2 Assessing the impact of negotiation strategy for a given situation.................................10
Task 4: Understanding the concept of employee participation and involvement..........................11
4.1 Assessing the influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the United Kingdom..........11
4.2 Comparing methods used to gain employee participation and involvement in the decision
making process in organization..................................................................................................12
4.3 Assessing the impact of human resource management on employee relations...................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
Reference.......................................................................................................................................14
Introduction
What is employee relationship management ?

Employee relationship management refers to managing the relation between the various
employees in an organization. The relationship can be between employee and the employer as
well as between employees at the same level.

What is Management ?

Management is nothing but a technique which brings people together on a common platform and
guides them so that they achieve their desired targets without fighting with each other. In a
layman’s language, management is nothing but managing things effectively so that tasks are
accomplished without any hassles and confusions. Management is required everywhere.

Every individual goes for shopping. The moment you enter in an outlet, a sales person would
come to you and assist you in your shopping. He would try his level best to convince you and
guide you in selecting an outfit according to your taste as well as budget. The moment you
finalize something, you automatically would be directed to the billing section for the monetary
transactions. Your shopping basket in no time would reach the packing area where the officials
would nicely put the outfits in a smart carry bag flaunting the logo of the store. Finally there
would be a supervisor who would recheck your bill and thank you for your valuable time.

How do you think such a smooth coordination is possible? Not a single moment, there was any
confusion. All this is possible through management. Every thing was well managed and
organized effectively to avoid confusions and meet the ultimate objective of the store ie selling
the product as well as making the customer happy.

Employee relationship management is an art which effectively monitors and manages the
relation between individuals either of the same team or from different teams. Employee
relationship management activity helps in strengthening the bond among the employees and
ensures that each one is contented and enjoys a healthy relation with each other.

Employee relationship management includes various activities undertaken by the superiors or the
management to develop a healthy relation among the employees and extract the best out of each
team member.

Employee relations refer to the relationship between employers and employees in the
organization (Akinmayowa, 2006). To become success and to reach organization’s goal,
maintaining employee relation is a fundamental issues. If a organization does not properly
maintain employee relations, it will be difficult for the organization to become success and reach
the predetermined goal. However, to conducts this report, I have chosen Unilever Corporation.
Unilever is one of the largest consumer goods production company in the world. In this report,
there will be discussed on the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference, assessing how changes
in trade unionism have affected employee relations, the role of the main players in employee
relations, the nature of industrial conflict and its resolution, collective bargaining and negotiation
process and the concept of employee participation and involvement.

Figure 1: Co dependency between HR, Marketing and IT sectors in overall business

success.

Task 1: Understanding the context of employee relations against a changing background

1.1 Explaining the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference

Unitary and pluralistic are two significant factors in the organization to reach goal. If the
organization is not able to build unitary and pluralistic among the employees, it will be difficult
for the organization to accomplish the task effectively and efficiently.

Unitary: Unitary is the process of doing the works together to reach organizations goals
(Akinmayowa, 2006). The Unilever Corporation makes a team with a number of people to
accomplish certain jobs. The team members of the group must have faithfulness and equivalency
with one another to maintain unitary in the organization. The members of the team do their jobs
mutually with the predetermined objectives of the organization. The organization also appoints a
team leader to run the activities of the unitary team. The team leader distributes the duties and
responsibilities among all members of the group. The members of group accept their duties and
responsibilities willingly and follow their leader instructions sincerely.

Pluralism: According to the pluralism perspective, the organization is divided into a number of
powerful sub groups. A definite objective and leader is defined with every group. Those groups
meet the distinction on the difference opinion among employees and share and discuss the
organization’s goal and objectives with the employees. If any dispute occurs in the organization,
try to solve them by collective bargaining process (Akinmayowa, 2006).

1.2 Assessing how changes in trade unionism have affected employee relations
To protect employees form the employer’s illegal policies and procedures and to provide better
working conditions to the employees in their working place, Trade Unions are established in year
1990 to 1991. In the emergence of Trade Unions, the advent of factory system of production and
the industrial revolution in the England and other countries has a great significance. Trade Union
has developed with a number of objectives. In that time, the relation between employees and
employers always faces with conflicts for employers unethical rules and procedures. After
developing Trade Unions, employee’s relations are notably affected. The changes of employee’s
relations by the Trade Unions are given below:
Figure: Trade Unionism affected Employee Relations (Source: Burbach and Royle, 2014)

Social Cohesion: For any kind of development activities, Social cohesion is a significant factor.
To overcome conflict and develop social cohesion between employers and employees, Trade
Union strived for different agenda on employees’ right, social safety. Through these, they ensure
safe working environment, income security, fair payment, jobs security and the rights of the
employees to the employers.

Partnership in Development: Trade Unions also contributed a number of development

activities those significantly affect the employees’ relation. They made partnership with different
development institutions such as housing societies, consumer cooperatives for the improvement
of employees’ relation (Burbach and Royle, 2014).

Progressing Civil Rights and Equality: Trade Union strived for different agenda on
employees’ right and equality. Through these, they ensure safe working environment, income
security, fair payment, jobs security and progress human rights and equality in the workplace.

Challenges at the International Level: The principles and rights at work become globalised
around 20th century by International Labor Organization declaration in 1998. After that,
worldwide employees get rights and equality at the workplace.

Partnership and Alliances: The Trade Unions make partnership with different organization in
the society. They make alliances with human right bodies, consumer and environmental bodies
and community associations in the society to ensure employee’s right and equality in the
community.

1.3 Explaining the role of the main players in employee relations

Employee relations refer to the relation between employees and employers in the organization. A
number of parties have to play significant role to maintain employee relation in the organization,
otherwise, maintaining employee relation in the organization becomes difficult. The role of the
main players in employee relations is demonstrated here:
Figure: The main players in employee relations (Source: Marco and others, 2003)

Managers’ Role
To reach the organization’s goal, a healthy employee relation is must in the Unilever. Otherwise,
the organization will not reach its goal by the time. The managers of the Unilever have to play a
significant role to maintain employee relation in the organization. The role of managers in
employee relations is described here:

 Have to behave with every employee of the organization equally and avoid favoritism
 Provide a open and feasible communication system
 Encourage a healthy competition at the workplace
 Ensure healthy working environment
 Provide jobs security
 Distribute the duties and responsibilities of each employee in the organization properly
(Sims, 2002)

Trade Unions’ Role

To protect employees form the employer’s illegal policies and procedures and to provide better
working conditions to the employees in their working place, Trade Unions are established in year
1990 to 1991.Trade Unions resist the domination of employers over employees at the Unilever
and strived for the rights of employees at the workplace in the Unilever. Consequently, the
employees get better salary and healthy working conditions at the workplace and the domination
of the employers goes beyond. To maintain employee relations, Trade Union also had a number
of roles at the workplace such as:

 Given bargaining power to the employees over their employers at the Unilever
 Fought for the employee welfare at the workplace
 Ensured higher wages rate, healthy working environment, job security at the Unilever
  Increased worker’s self-respect and standards of living
 Checked unfair labor practices of the employers through making different labor laws and
legislation at the Unilever (Burbach and Royle, 2014)

State’s Role
There number of authoritative institutions and government departments in a state. The authority
of the United Kingdom government related with employees passed different rules and legislation
to maintain relationship between employers and employees in the organization. State has a
significant role to maintain employee relations in the Unilever. The roles of the United Kingdom
to maintain employee relations are:

 Maintaining higher level employment

 Ensuring price stability of the products and services
 Controlling inflation and depression in the money market
 Developing laws and legislation related with employees welfare
 Protecting exchange rate (Sims, 2002)

Task 2: Understanding the nature of industrial conflict and its resolution

2.1 Explaining the procedures an organization should follow when dealing with different
conflicts situation
Sometimes, conflicts may change in the organization’s rules and procedures but ongoing conflict
is dangerous for Unilever to reach its predetermined goal. Different conflicts occurred in the
organization on different times such as intrapersonal conflict, interpersonal conflict, strategic
conflict and structural conflict. Solving conflicts among parties in the organization is a challenge
for the Unilever Corporation. If the organization does not solve conflicts on the time, the regular
activities of the organization will be severely hampered. Unilever Corporation uses different
procedures to solve conflicts situation in the organization such as:
Figure: Procedures to conflicts in the organization (Source: Burbach and Royle, 2014)

Compromising: Compromising refers to solve the conflict between the parties by each side
making concessions. When both parties wanted high and the conflicts goes beyond for long time.
Then the employees and employers decided to make compromise between them. For example,
the employees of the Unilever demand to increase their salary 25%. The Unilever Corporation
does not accept their demand. Because, if the organization increases salary with this demand, the
annual profit of the organization will highly decreased. After that, the authority of the Unilever
makes compromise with their employees by increasing salary 10%.

Avoiding: The Unilever Corporation often solves the conflicts by avoiding disputes. Ongoing
conflicts are always disagreeable and harmful for both employees and employers of the
organization.

Forcing: When try to avoid the conflicts does not get solution to the disputes, the higher level
authority solve the conflict by forcing. Bu, it is a autocratic procedures to solve a conflict
situation (Marco and others, 2003).

Resolving: In the resolving procedures to solve conflicts, both parties demand are examined by a
governing body. After that, the governing body takes necessary steps to solve the conflicts
between employers and employees in the Unilever.
2.2 Explaining the key features of employee relations in a selected conflict situation
Sometimes, conflicts may change in the organization’s rules and procedures but ongoing conflict
is dangerous for Unilever to reach its predetermined goal. If the organization does not solve
conflicts on the time, the regular activities of the organization will be severely hampered. For
example, a conflict is created in the Unilever Corporation between employers and employees for
does not permitting long vacation. The employees want two months vacation leave with payment
in a year. But, the employers of the Unilever Corporation oppose the demand. Consequently,
conflict is created between the employees and employers in the organization. To solve conflict
situation, a person must have a number of key features such as:

Figure: The key features of employee relations (Source: Sims, 2002)

2.3 Evaluating the effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation

To solve conflicts situation in the organization, procedures are used. If the organization does not
solve conflicts on the time, the regular activities of the organization will be severely hampered.
The procedures are used to solve the conflict is given below:
Figure: The procedures to solve conflict (Source: Sims, 2002)

Effectiveness:

 Increased understanding between employees and employers

 Better group cohesion
 Developed self-knowledge
 Increased the productivity of the Unilever
 Better efficiency of the operations
 Better quality of life for all

Task 3: Understanding collective bargaining and negotiation process

3.1 Explaining the role of negotiation in collective Bargaining

Collective bargaining is the process of reducing conflicts in place of work. Through negotiation
between employers and employees representatives, conflict is minimized. In the organization,
different people come from different society and culture. The attitudes and behavior of one
society’s people vary with another society’s people. So, occurring conflict is a general issue in
the organization. The organization has to focus to minimize those conflicts for maintain and
conducting regular activities. The more conflicts the organization will face, the more burden the
organization will face that severely hampers the organization’s regular activities. Negotiation in
collective bargaining has significant role to minimize conflicts in the organization such as:

 Minimize conflicts in the organization

 Maintain regular activities of the organization
 Develop the moral of employees and employers in the organization
  Helps to make a proper pay scale for the employees

3.2 Assessing the impact of negotiation strategy for a given situation

Unilever is the largest consumer goods industry in the world. There are 172000 employees of the
Unilever around the world. Unilever ensures the highest employees rights at the workplace and
the salary of the Unilever Corporation is attractive to the employees. Therefore, the organization
often has to face some conflicts to conducts their business organization. In that situation
negotiation plays a significant role. Negotiation is the process of avoiding disputes and conflicts
through discussion. For example, the employees demands four months yearly vacation. The
authority of the Unilever Corporation does not fulfill that. Consequently, an internal conflict
created between employers and employees in the organization. To overcome this conflict, the
employers and employees negotiated with each other and Unilever provides one and half month
vacation in every year. Organization uses different negotiation to resolve conflicts in the
organization. Negotiation has significant impact to resolve conflict situation such as to minimize
conflicts in the organization, to maintain regular activities of the organization and to develop the
moral of employees and employers in the organization (Marco and others, 2003).

Task 4: Understanding the concept of employee participation and involvement

4.1 Assessing the influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the United Kingdom
European Union was developed in November, 1993 which has significant influence on industrial
democracy in the United Kingdom. European Union generally focuses on the four areas of the
employee relations such as:
Figure: The influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK (Source: Need, 2006 )

Equal Opportunities: In previous time, employers dominate employees at the place of work and
consequently employees do get proper salary and opportunities of their work. European Union
provides different laws and legislation such as part time work, fixed term contract, parental
leave, working time and equal opportunities to protect employers’ dominance at the workplace
and ensure equal opportunities between employees and employers in the organization.

Employment Protection: European Union helps to protect employees through developing

different laws and legislation in favor of employees at the workplace. In the previous time, the
working condition was unhygienic and risky for the employees. The European Union protests
them and ensures employment protection. EU improves the working condition, standard of life
of the employees and ensuring effective uses of Human Resources at the place of work (Marco
and others, 2003).

Employee Relations: Employee Relation refers to the relation between employees and
employers in the organization. Employee relation is a significant factor to reach the
organization’s goal. European Union ensures sustainable employee relations in the organization
by fair remuneration, development of living and working conditions, autonomy of association
and collective bargaining, right of entry to vocational training, Equal treatment for men and
women.
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Health and Safety at the Work: Health and Safety are two significant factors at the workplace.
EU ensures healthy workplace and provides job security to the employees. European Union
provides different laws and regulations such as pregnancy, and maternity leave rights, parental
leave, working time and equal opportunities to ensure health and safety at the place of work
(Marco and others, 2003).

4.2 Comparing methods used to gain employee participation and involvement in the
decision making process in organization
Employee participation and involvement in the decision making process in organization is the
democratic way to maintain employee relation. There are number of methods to gain employee
participation and involvement in the decision making process in organization. Among them, the
most useful methods to gain participation and involvement in the decision making process is
compared

Suggestion
Attitude
Quality
s survey
scheme
circle
Figure: Methods to gain employee participation in the decision making process (Source:
Guest, 2007)
below:

Attitude Survey: Attitude survey is the process of conducting survey on the employees to seek
the views on the matter. It is conducted through different procedures such as hob evaluation,
performance management and pay determination. Attitude Survey is conducted by the focus
interviews and structured questionnaire (Guest, 2007).
Quality Circle: Quality Circle is used to overcome conflicts and problem at the organization
which result come from the higher level organization to the lower level organization where
management accepts those knowledge that has in the circle and others knowledge and
information ignores (Guest, 2007). It also provides the opportunity to engage at the work and
gain knowledge and experience on the job.

Suggestion Scheme: Suggestions Scheme provides valuable instruction to the employers of the
organization to increase the efficiency of operations at the workplace.

4.3 Assessing the impact of human resource management on employee relations

Employee Relations is a part of the Human Resource Management Department in the
organization. So, Human Resource Management has a large impact on employee relations such
as:

 To hire employees
 To recruit and train employees
 To ensure best performances
 To deal with performance issues
 To ensure the best utilization of the resources (Guest, 2007)

Employees are the major assets of an organization. It is essential that the employees perform
together as a collective unit and contribute equally towards the realization of a common goal. No
task can be accomplished if the individuals are engaged in constant conflicts and
misunderstandings. It has been observed that targets are achieved at a much faster rate if the
employees work together and share a warm relationship with each other. Employees must be
comfortable with each other to deliver their best and enjoy their work.

Fundamentals of healthy employee relationship management:

 Transparency in communication is of utmost importance for a healthy employee

relationship management. A single point of contact must be assigned who should be
made responsible for handling queries of all the team members and escalating it to the
seniors. Confusions are bound to arise if all of them would walk up to their superiors with
their problems. Let the team members decide their SPOC. In such cases employees
actually know who to get in touch with in case of a query and in the absence of their
superiors. The hierarchy should not be too complicated and every employee should be
accessible to each other. Important information must be passed on in the presence of all,
where everyone has the liberty to express his opinions freely. Important information can
also be put on the notice boards for everyone to read and get a common picture. If any
 one has performed exceptionally well, do display his name on the bulletin board. Let
everyone read it and get inspired to perform better next time. Encourage morning
meetings where individuals can come together and know each other well. Exchanging
information through emails is also an important way to improve the relation among the
employees as everyone knows what is being communicated to the other individual.
 Encourage group activities at the workplace. Motivate individuals to work together
probably in a group so that the comfort level increases. The more they talk, the more they
get to know each other. Give them a target, a deadline and ask them to take each other’s
help and reach to a conclusion. They would definitely come closer this way and start
trusting each other more.

An individual spends the maximum time at his workplace and one should treat his team
members as a part of one’s extended family. It is important to celebrate festivals at
organization, the same way we do at our homes. Celebrate each other’s birthday and do
ask for treats. Such informal get togethers go a long way in improving the relation among
the employees. Individuals come together, enjoy together and come to know lot many
things which actually they don’t bother to find out during the normal working hours.
Families must also be invited for a better bonding. The team leaders must ask their team
members to take their lunch together so that they discuss other things apart from their
daily work.

 Assign challenging work to your team members so that they feel motivated to
deliver their level best. Do not assign something which they do not find interesting. The
responsibilities must be divided equally among the team members and no employee
should be overburdened. Every employee should be aware of his key responsibility areas
to avoid confusions. No way should the work get monotonous.
 The concept of workstations and cubicles must be promoted rather than closed
cabins. People sitting in closed cabins tend to get cut off from rest of the employees in
the organization and are generally lost in their own sweet world. They would enter their
cabins in the morning and come out in the evening and thus sometimes even don’t get the
opportunity to exchange greetings with their fellow workers. People sitting in
workstations tend to talk to each other more often even in between work and thus
relationship improves. One can even walk up to the other’s desk to have a brief chit chat
in order to take a small break and feel relaxed. Employees sitting together discuss many
things and even share their secrets, thus the trust increases. It is commonly observed that
if any of your colleagues sitting next to you is on leave for some days, you start missing
him.
 The employees must be motivated to avoid politics and blame games at work. Such
activities are considered highly unproductive and spoil the relationship among the
employees. Backbiting is a strict no no at the workplace. Avoid getting into unnecessary
controversies and useless criticism at work. Respect your team members as well as your
superiors. It is important that one trusts his management rather than unnecessarily
cribbing and finding faults. Avoid conflicts and try to adjust with each other. It is okay to
be friends with your colleagues but don’t have unrealistic expectations from anyone.
 Last but not the least the superiors or the team leaders must not act pricy and try to
dominate their team members. The “Hitler approach” does not work now a days. No
one should be afraid of his boss, instead treat him as his well-wisher and mentor who is
always there to support him. The employees must be able to fall back on their team leader
anytime. The team leader must understand the needs and expectations of his employees
and should not be too harsh to them. If they want a leave for a genuine reason, do grant
them. Don’t be after their life if you find them chatting with their family or friends over
the phone once in a while or log on to any social networking site. These things are natural
but make sure the work does not suffer.

 Partialities must be avoided for a better employee relationship. Treat everyone as one
and every individual must respect each other’s privacy. There is a limit to everything and
thus over indulgence in each other’s work, too much of a friendly nature should be
avoided.

For a better employee relationship management, it is important that employees have a positive
frame of mind and don’t always consider their colleagues as their enemies. Don’t always assume
that your fellow team member would say something against you in front of your boss. Avoid
disputes, misunderstandings, instead work together, enjoy together and make the organization a
better place to work.

Conclusion
To become success and to reach organization’s goal, maintaining employee relation is a
fundamental issues. If a organization does not properly maintain employee relations, it will be
difficult for the organization to become success and reach the predetermined goal. A number of
parties have to play significant role to maintain employee relation in the organization, otherwise,
maintaining employee relation in the organization becomes difficult conflict arises in the
activities of the organization. Sometimes, conflicts may change in the organization’s rules and
procedures but ongoing conflict is dangerous for Unilever to reach its predetermined goal.
Solving conflicts among parties in the organization is a challenge for the Unilever Corporation.
If the organization does not solve conflicts on the time, the regular activities of the organization
will be severely hampered.

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