Best Practices To Improve Employee Relations | Aparna Sharma | Consulting Editor | The People Management

Maintaining healthy employee relations in an organization is a pre-requisite for organizational success. Strong employee relations are required for high productivity and human satisfaction. Employee relations generally deal with avoiding and resolving issues concerning individuals which might arise out of or influence the work scenario. Strong employee relations depends upon healthy and safe work environment, 100% involvement and commitment of all employees, incentives for employee motivation, and effective communication system in the organization. Healthy employee relations lead to more efficient, motivated and productive employees which further leads to increase in sales level.

Good employee relations signify that employees should feel positive about their identity, their job as well as about being a part of such a great organization. Despite the importance of strong and healthy employee relations, there are circumstances in the life of every organization when employee and management relations are hampered. Instances of such circumstances are as follows-

1. When the employees do not behave as per accepted norms of behaviour, it is known as Employee Indiscipline. Absenteeism, change in employee’s behaviour, slow performance and grievances are all forms of employee indiscipline. Thus, when the employees fail to meet management expectations in terms of standard performance and behaviour, it is referred to as indiscipline. In such cases, it must be ensured by the management that steps should be taken so that employee’s behaviour is in conformity with the managerial expectations.

2. Similarly, the employees also expect from the management to provide them a safe working environment, fair treatment, proper incentives, participation in decisions, and needs satisfaction. The failure on part of management to meet these expectations is termed as Employee Grievance.

3. When the employees fail to meet their own expectations whether in terms of personal goals, career goals, performance, self-respect, etc. it is referred to as Employee Stress. Excessive workload, insufficient workload, peer pressure, excessive/unreasonable use of authority by the management, lack of promotional opportunities, nature of job, etc. all again lead to employee stress.

All the above mentioned organizational factors influencing employees relation must be carefully tackled. An optimistic approach to strengthen disciplinary culture rooted on shared norms of employees should be adopted. Every organization must have an effective grievance redressal system in place. Stress management strategies should be followed in the organization.

Improving Employee Relations

Employee relations must be strengthened in an organization. To do so, following points must be taken care of:-

i. Employee has expectation of fair and just treatment by the management. Thus, management must treat all employees as individuals and must treat them in a fair manner. Employee favoritism should be avoided.

ii. Do not make the employees’ job monotonous. Keep it interesting. Make it more challenging. This can be done by assigning employees greater responsibilities or indulging them in training programmes.

iii. Maintain a continuous interaction with the employees. Keep them updated about company’s policies, procedures and decisions. Keep the employees well-informed. Informed employees will make sound decisions and will remain motivated and productive. Also, they will feel as a member of organizational family in this manner.

iv. Employees must be rewarded and appreciated for a well-done job or for achieving/over-meeting their targets. This will boost them and they will work together as a team.

v. Encourage employee feedback. This feedback will make the employers aware of the concerns of employees, and their views about “you” as an employer.

vi. Give the employees competitive salary. They should be fairly paid for their talents, skills and competencies.

vii. Be friendly but not over-friendly with the employees. Build a good rapport with the employee. The employee should feel comfortable with the manager/supervisor rather than feeling scared.