Common Employee Relations Issues and How You Can

Avoid Them
Employee relations issues, when effectively handled, have the potential to boost organisational
performance. Every organisation comprises of people of different perceptions, beliefs and
opinions. These differences often lead to different employee relations issues which need to be
identified and well handled in order to maintain good employee relations. Are you a business
owner and you crave to know the common employee relations issues and how you can
successfully avoid them? This article sets to identify the common employee relations issues and
suggests how they can be avoided.

There we go!

Employee Disputes

Employee disputes remain an inevitable (Robbins, 2005) but unpleasing part of organizational
life, which need to be well managed for them not to become exacerbated. When left unresolved,
employee disputes could be detrimental to organizational performance (Mashanne and Glinow,
2008). A number of researches have indicated that employee dispute is a recurring problem in
the workplace. In 2014, a research conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development (CIPD) discovered that 38% of employees in the United Kingdom experienced
interpersonal dispute. Essentially, employee disputes could occur between employees and their
employers or between two or more employees (Teague and Roche 2012).

In whatever form it takes, employee dispute needs to be resolved because it is capable of

resulting in poor company morale. Handling employee disputes in the workplace is a critical
thing that must be done with prudence and cautiousness. As a human resources manager, it is
your duty to figure out the best strategy to avoid employee disputes. Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy
(2009) proposed five major conflict management strategies in the workplace. These include
compromising, competing, collaborating, accommodating and avoiding. These strategies have
their own unique features and come with diverse merits and demerits. However, this article
recommends you with a collaborating approach. The collaborating conflict management
approach is a win-win approach that helps business owners to minimise negative feelings among
workers. This approach allows you and other members of the organisation to collaborate with
one another to identify a lasting solution to an existing employee dispute.

Using this approach, you must identify the conflict issue between employees and involve all
parties concerns, needs, desires and interests. This will enable all parties to work together to
brainstorm solutions that will be a lasting one.

Labour Wage Disputes

Labour wage disputes (otherwise known as pay disputes) are also a common employee relations
issue that have encircled most business organisations. Business owners should understand that
labour wage disputes at workplace often require swift action as they cannot be left unattended to.
As indicated by Aldiyansah (2008), labour wage disputes are becoming increasingly complex.
Practically, labour wage disputes arise in relation to unpaid bonuses, late payment of wage or
salary, underpayment of commission, outstanding holiday pay and so on.

To avoid labour wage disputes, human resource managers should consider self-service
timekeeping software that will enable employees to clock in and out from their respective smart
devices. This will correct and rectify most computational errors or administrative oversights that
lead to pay disputes. You can also set up an employee complaint system that will enable
employees to formally log in complain about the monies they believe are owed. On receipt of
such complain, you are to investigate the matter and where necessary, you should pay the
employee what is owed as soon as possible.

Employees’ Safety

As a business owner, the safety of your employees in the workplace should be a priority.
Employees’ safety has remained one of the major employee relations issues in the recent time.
Workers want to work in an environment where their safety is guaranteed. Where the safety of
workers is not adequately guaranteed, there is likely for dispute to ensue between the employees
and the employers. It is undisputable that safe working conditions have the potential to affect
employees’ behaviour and enhance productivity (Dawson and Zanko, 2011). On the other hand,
unsafe working conditions may lead to stress, illness, accidents, slips, trips, falls and other health
problems (Weakley, 2019).
Unsafe working conditions can be avoided through the enactment of a befitting health and safety
policy that will clearly state the duties of both employees and employers in ensuring safety in the
workplace. As a business manager, you can encourage safe work behaviour through a reward
system. Such reward system could be monetary, non-monetary or psychological. It is expected
that the reward system will make your employees to become more dedicated towards the
implementation of measures to promote safety in the workplace.

Also, insecurity in the workplace can be avoided through the establishment of occupational clinic
that will render medical supports and helps to the employees. Employees are likely to experience
any forms of injuries and accidents in the workplace, it is therefore the need of the occupational
doctors to provide medical treatment needed at such time.

Timekeeping and Attendance Issues

Tracking time and attendance is another critical function of human resources managers.
However, timekeeping and attendance taking has become so complex and challenging (Adwan
and Minwer, 2016). Today, the lack of attendance has increased to a very large in most
organisations. This has often resulted in time theft, inaccuracies in payroll and other gaps in
operations. Common timekeeping and attendance issues at workplace include fake leaves,
absenteeism, unauthorized leave, tardiness, long or frequent breaks and many more.

Business owners need to ensure that employees keep to time and be at the right place at the right
time. Efforts should be made to allow employees to communicate about attendance issues as this
will reduce the chances of conflict arising. As a business owner, you are advised to develop and
utilise a time and attendance technology that is capable of recording GPS locations upon clock
ins and set geo-fences. You need to develop a system that will provide you with complete
oversight of all your workers. This will enable you to discover who is clocking and for who,
where is he or she clocking from, who is running late and who is arriving early.
 References

Adwan, and Minwer. (2016). Management Information Systems & Their Impact on Improving
the Quality of Service at the Commercial Bank Customers. International Journal of Business and
Social Science , 84-93.

Aldiyansah. (2008, October 11). Buruh dan Permasalahan yang Tidak Kunjung Habis. Jawa Pos.

Dawson, P. and Zanko, M. (2011). Occupational health and safety management in organizations:
a review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 14(3), 328–344.

Hughes, R., Ginnett, R. and Curphy, G. (2009). “Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of
Experience”. 6th edn. New York: McGraw Hill.

Mcshane, S.L and Glinow, M.A. (2008). “Organizational Behaviour”. New York: McGraw –
Hill Companies.

Robbins, S. (2005). “Organizational Behavior”: New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Weakley, L. (2019). The Importance of Health and Safety in the Workplace.

www.workplacediversity.com Accessed on 8th March 2023.