3.6 Decision Making to Improve Human Resource Performance AQA A-Level Business Revision Playlist - Employer Employee Relations | A-Level, IB & BTEC Business

Hi there. As part of our studies of A Little Business Human Resource Management, we need to have an overview awareness of what's known as Employer and Employee Relations, which is quite a complicated area in real life, but what I've tried to do in this short presentation of video is just to distill the key features of the content that as a student you need to be aware of. Let's just start with the legal bit, not legal warning, but the legal requirement for employers to actually consult with employees. This isn't voluntary.

There are certain situations where employers have to consult, have to communicate with employees. I've listed some of them there on the screen. And hopefully most businesses won't have to get involved in that too frequently. For example, redundancy programmes or the sale of a business from one to another.

But the law is very detailed in relation to the responsibilities of employers and how they must consult and deal with employees in many areas. However, moving on to the broader topic of the relationship between employers and employees, there's a concept you need to be aware of called employee representation. What this basically means is that the employees have representatives who meet and who communicate with the bosses with the employers. And in most cases that's an informal arrangement, but also there can be formal types of employee representation.

We're going to look at a couple of those over the next few minutes. Basically it involves the employees becoming a more part of decision making in the business. And there are good reasons for this. Not the least being that employers and employees should see their relationship between each other as a positive force for good in the business.

They need to understand each other's issues. The matters which are affecting what life is like working in a business. And of course the key part of that is building trust. The trust between the bosses and the workers, the trust between the employees and the senior management team, which hopefully leads to a positive working environment and culture.

So lots of good reasons and advantages of employee representation. There are some potential disadvantages downsides. Again, if you want to pause a video for a minute or two to add one or two of these to your notes. Essentially, generally I think it's accepted that good employer employ relations if they can be achieved and sustained are beneficial.

They have advantages for the business, particularly in relation to employees feeling more committed and more motivated in their work. And also if we think you're about reducing the risk of their business, reducing the costs, some of the potential disruption to a business. If you can have fewer industrial disputes, strikes, that's going to be good news. Just a quick word on a concept called works councils.

Works councils are a specialist form of employee representation. And well now we're out of the EU, the UK, we'll see what happens in terms of ongoing formality of firms that have to have worked councils if indeed they continue. But they were or are in EU legislation mandate trade for businesses that have more than a thousand employees. And all works council is, there's a formal committee style meeting between employees and employers to deal with some of the issues there on the screen such as training welfare issues, working conditions, recruitment and what have you.

But to finish off though, just need to spend a minute or so on trade unions. So you do need to have an awareness of what the trade union is, which is an organisation that exists to promote the interest of its members, the members being the employees. And traditionally trade unions have looked to secure, promote job security, to fight for better working conditions and incomes and pay. And they offer a wide range of services and support to the members of the trade union.

Trade unions have historically had a somewhat confrontational relationship with some employers in some industries. But by and large the relationship between trade unions and employers, I think certainly in the UK, is still fairly cordial in most industries. And of course the reason for that is there are good reasons, advantages for a good relationship. And I've listed some of them there on the screen.

There are some time savings, cost savings of dealing with one unit rather than trying to negotiate with all employees. And generally trade unions, if they're involved in the right way, can be a supportive partner, a supportive stakeholder, particularly for businesses that need to undergo significant change. So the need to consult with unions to help implement change management programmes is often seen as part of an effective change strategy. So there we go, that's just a quick overview of some of the main features of employer and employee relations.