Things you don’t know about employee relations

Many human resource (HR) managers on social media demonstrate their ignorance by focusing only on recruitment, training, and compensation. They ignore labor-management relations, which is a key part of productivity. Why is this happening? — Blue Light.

“Labor-management relations” implies a bilateral partnership between management and union representatives concerning working conditions and other concerns.

This is one of the reasons why some HR people may be ignoring labor-management relations, due to the belief that it applies only to unionized establishments. If there is no union, why bother managing labor-management relations?

With or without a union, all HR managers must do their best to improve their relationships with all types of workers. More than four decades ago, my job was to manage “employee relations,” even if we were unionized. That’s because I was also in charge of collaborating with other employees who were non-union members.

They include workers who don’t want to join unions for some reason, those who want to join unions but held jobs that were excluded from the bargaining unit, supervisors with the right to organize a separate union, and department managers, who cannot unionize.

BEST PRACTICES
In 1996, the unionization rate was pegged at 16.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics. In 2022, the “union density rate, which indicates the proportion of total paid employees” was 6.5%, representing a 0.5 percentage point rise from the 6.0% recorded in June 2020, per the latest report of the Philippine Statistics Authority.

The decline of unionism in past decades may suggest that the workers were benefitting from the proactive position taken by HR practitioners, who provided their people with innovative programs to address their basic concerns on working conditions, compensation, and other common labor issues. Some of them are as follows:

Productivity gainsharing. Some non-unionized companies that do not offer competitive pay to attract and retain staff try to make up for it by giving 8-12 months’ bonuses for its non-management workers and junior officers, subject to above-average individual work performance.

Positive discipline. Companies that are sensitive to employee morale can make workers that commit offenses opt for paid “reflection leave” (deducted from leave credits) instead of suspension without pay. This applies only to minor offenses like tardiness and can be withheld anytime, depending on the worker’s circumstances.

Excellence awards. These promote a culture of meritocracy. Rather than giving a premium to the workers’ length of service, employees with excellent performance get handsome annual merit increases of as much as 10%.

Service awards. Instead of the reasonable 10-year award, some companies have become so benevolent that they also recognize workers who complete five years of continuous employment. However, the awards have tiers: those with at least 20 years of service have been known to be awarded with all-expenses paid overseas trips and high-end watches, among other incentives.

Boss-subordinate conflict. The HR department strictly monitors how line leaders resolve their issues with workers. It’s typical to allow an automatic appeal to the next management level if an issue is not resolved within a certain period. In the case of elevated appeals, the decisions taken by higher-ups is final.

Engagement and empowerment. Many employers encourage their workers to participate in management problem-solving and decision-making. It is anchored on the rationale that workers on the ground fully understand many operational issues which they can solve through self-directed work teams, Kaizen teams, and even the Labor-Management Cooperation scheme mandated by the Labor Code.

PROACTIVE COMMUNICATION
The above list is incomplete. However, you can glean the letter and spirit of these best practices by answering some basic questions, like: Do employees feel ignored? Do they know about the company’s health and plans? Are they consulted on matters that affect their job security? Is management fair to all workers?

Keeping people in the dark makes them feel unimportant.

When proactive communication is not practiced, the rabble-rousers, the malcontents, and the agitators will have a field day, filling in the information gaps. This is the kind of situation that drives workers to unions.

The “stop and listen” technique is not enough. Management must do more to actively “seek out the issues and listen.

Bring Rey Elbo’s “Superior Subordinate Supervision” program to your management team. Contact him on Facebook, LinkedIn, X or e-mail elbonomics@gmail.com or via https://reyelbo.com