Essay: Comparison of three perspectives of employee relations

Introduction: (157 words)
Employee relations is vital component of human resource management, it is a amalgamation of studying relationships between employers, employees an eternal entities. To study these aspects there are three main perspectives which are unitarism, pluralist and radical. in this essay these perspectives will be discussed in great depth and will critically assess their value in understanding various forms of conflict at work. Each perspective provides a unique perception of organisations and relationships and explain actions of members of the organisations and trade unions to daily things such as conflicts. Employees are an important part of an organisation and a key source of achieving company’s objectives but if treated badly they can also be a great cause of inefficiency, lower profits and bad image of organisation. Studying employment relations provide a greater understanding of employees and employers which will make a better work environment and to survive with a good relationship and for the objective of the organisation.
Unitarism: (478 words)
Unitarism emerges from the 19th century from the UK and USA and is based on the assumption that there are common objectives and values shared between employment relationships emphasising on mutual consensus, unitarism is also often referred to as family or team “one happy family”, where management and other members of the staff are all share a common purpose, emphasising mutual cooperation (Naukrihub, 2007). The organisation is regarded as a family and therefore there is integrated communication between managers and workers. Since this perspective see managers and employees as having a common interest there can’t be two divisions of the business. Divisions that do exist are assumed to be the product of personality disorders, inappropriate recruitment and promotion practices, the deviance of dissidents, or poor communication (Keith Abbott).The management should be very understanding of what the workers want and need and make a friendly workplace for them.
This approach believes in having only one authority which is given to managers also known as managerial prerogative that is based on rights of private ownership, and only managers will be liable for all the authoritative decision making aspects, and therefore centralised decisions are taken. Unitarist’s believe in creating a environment where conflicts are prevented usually done through encouragement of teamwork which will improve efficiency of the workers leading towards achieving company’s objectives. There should not be any personal or individual perspective or objective within the organisation. They should keep the command and authority in their hand but they should not misuse their authority in any wrong sense that may harm the employee and employer relationship (MYASSIGNMENTHELP). the result of agitators or poor communications is conflict and power relations is unproblematic. Furthermore, unitarism has a paternalistic approach where it demands on all employees loyalty, being predominantly managerial in its emphasis and application (UKESSAY), paternalists originate a traditional and highly personalised ‘gift relationship’ between master and servant, founded upon a gross power inequality (Ackers, 1998). There are different types of unitarism which are traditionalists and sophisticated paternalists, the former exploit workers and are against trade unions and the latter has no recognition of unions, but work at securing employee compliance (refer presentation).
Since early 1980s, sharp divisions of labour, job security and geographic stability of many companies have eroded and job turnover has become so frequent that workers sustain employability through maintaining rich social networks. Managers began to look to corporate cultures as sources of motivation and control for rapidly changing firms. The contrasts between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ unitarisms lies between different mechanisms that attempts to build short-term loyalty through: Labour recruitment and retention, differentiation of employment contracts, space and place and divisions of gender and age. Unitarist assumptions and values have played a significant role in many schools of theoretical and practical thought, one is Taylor’s Theory of Scientific Management and second theory comes from the Human relations school (Keith Abbott).
Pluralism: (327 words)
Pluralism originated post- 1945 economic growth. Pluralism consist of different interest groups each with different source of judiciary subscribed to differing interests and objectives in contrast to the management unlike unitarist, also here the managers role is to lead by persuasion rather than authority. Employees now have more authority rather then just following guidelines of the managers (keith abbott). Hence there are adverse employment relationships present in pluralist organisations. The organisation is made of mainly two main groups which are the management and workers which are deemed by trade unions. Pluralists generally accept the legitimate right of employees to bargain collectively through trade unions which will act in their capacity on their behalf, as they best mediator in order to influence management decisions, mainly because external sources are more effective in this aspect with a common perspective of keeping employment relationships satisfied (Keith Abbott). The most important weakness of this approach is that the trade union can focus too much to the workers interest that will create inefficiency in collective bargaining process.
Conflicts are usually considered acceptable by managers as they are seen to be inevitable over issues such as profits, tasks rewards etc; there is a greater degree of conflicts to occur rather than harmony between employment relationships. By recognising the inevitability of workplace conflict, those holding this perspective tend to regard conflict as necessary for the health of an enterprise as it serves to bring grievances held by workers to the surface (Keith Abbott). these conflicts are usually dealt by systematic procedures and collective bargaining (refer maybe Keith Abbott). According to the pluralist perspective, management-employee conflict is both rational and inevitable and stems from the different roles of managerial and employee groups( Rose,2004). There are two types of pluralism that are sophisticated moderns broken into constitutionalist (industrial relations codified in collective agreements) and consultative (role of unions reduced, emphasis on ‘problem-solving’ ), and the other is standard moderns (Pragmatic and opportunistic, crisis management) (presentation refer).
Radical Persoective: ( 264 words)
Radical frame of reference also referred to as marxism is an approach to the employment relationships drawn from the work of Karl Marx. Marxists also validly critique the work of previous two associated theories and frame of reference (Keith Abbott). It is a view of the organisation that places it in the context of class antagonism and capitalist society, capitalist societies were distinguished by never ending status struggle. This struggle is usually caused by inequalities in the distribution of wealth and the skewed ownership of the means of production (Keith Abbott). This is also known as fascist society which is far from egalitarian. This approach believes that capitalism breeds corruption and greed, people at higher position have the ultimate power and strength to rule upon their subordinates leaving the employee to suffer while corporations rake in profits subordinates are deprived of any opportunity, and power and they see themselves just as a puppet (refer). This perspective focuses on the division of interest between capital and labour, and also analyses industrial relations in social, political and economic terms (nakhriub). This approach perceives employers to maximise profits and return of capital employed, while exploiting their employees. Employees are not treated equally and therefore also fear job security. The clash of interest between capitalist and labour is a continuous process, where workers conflict for his share in the outcome of wealth since he is the most important factor of production (nakhirub). Therefore employment relations are intrinsically unequal, alienating and controlled by employers. Conflict is endemic, obscured by HR policies, which are mere sticking plasters (Gold, 2017) (presentation).
Understanding conflicts at work: (559 words)
Unitarist
According to unitarist’s, conflict is perceived to be as negative between relationships. It is not an inevitable characteristic of relations between managers and employees (Keith Abbott). In the unitarist run organisations it is seen as a sign of dissatisfaction of employees with the management of the company and this may disrupt the work process and culture of organisation. Conflict is seen as a abnormal cause for disruption in work due to high tension between workers and employers where communication gap has widened and this should be suppressed through coercive means (Rose, 2004) and the assumption is such that trade unions should not intervene in this problem. To ensure such divisions does not stand in the way of the ‘natural order’ of things, it is urged that the management must pay careful attention to removing the sources of potential conflict (Keith Abbott). Under no situation and according to this perspective, union should have a part to play in the authority exercise and decision-making within the organisation, as this would represent a violation of managerial prerogative (Rose, 2004). Despite not favouring trade union intervention, in some scenarios trade union may ‘force’ managements accept presence for the purpose of pay determination and employment conditions (Rose, 2004).
As we know there are two kinds of conflicts, one is functional conflict that supports the organisation by increasing the competition among the employees and the other one is dysfunctional conflict. The organisation and management should understand the difference between the kinds of conflict and should understand the great power of functional conflict that may help the organisation grow faster and increase their efficiency.
Pluralist
Conflict is seen to be very normal and more than harmony in the pluralist perspective as it seems to be unavoidable over certain things eg profits, employment conditions. According to the pluralist perspective, management-employee conflict is both rational and inevitable and stems from the different roles of managerial and employee groups( Rose,2004). In fact conflicts are seen to be a source of competition and efficiency. In contrast to unitarist, trade unions are seen to be representatives of the workers that can influence management decisions. In pluralism conflict is dealt through collective bargaining by trade unions which is the most effective approach as they are the best meditators, which is essentially negotiating on employment conditions such as wages, hours etc (refer). As they are the external sources, so they can be more effective in making a decision and common perspective that will keep the employees and employer satisfied. It is also argued that the potential for conflict provides a spur to managers to explore innovative methods for handling it in a way that will produce the best results. In this regard it is argued to not only provide management with the most efficient means for institutionalising employment rules and minimising the level of workplace conflict (keith abbott).
Radical Perspective
From the radical perspective conflicts is quite essential and structural. Industrial conflict is quite popular in the marxist perspective, this is essentially in the form of protests, strikes etc. This often occurs when collectively the employees of an organisation are against the rules. Because of imbalance and division, industrial conflict is continuous and inescapable, and closely associated with political and social conflict. Conflict is therefore seen as inevitable and trade unions are a natural response of workers to their exploitation by capital.
Conclusion: (234 words)
Amongst the comparison of three perspectives of employee relations we have discussed, it is concluded that each one differs and have different perspectives on human resource management. These three perspectives give an insight into interests in an organisation and labour market theories (presentation). The unitary approach is where all members of the organisation have the same objectives however a single authority if given preference and therefore lean towards self regulation and conflict is seen to be negative. Pluralists on the other hand are made up of sub-groups each with different objectives and favour external regulation, they perceive conflict over disagreements in members of the organisation conventional and inherent. Marxist perspective focuses on the fundamental division of interest between capital and labor, and sees workplace relations against this background (Naukrihub, 2007). The conflict for marxist perspective in employment relationship reflect the society structure. In any case radical approach should be avoided because it shows the difference between the rich and the poor and division of power. Although it is preferable that every organisation is approached with pluralistic view as it collectively involves employees , it is arguably true that unitarist is the more prevailing approach. Unitarist’s is mostly not preferred as it involves management intervention and mangers have the power for decision making. However in unitarism it shows the concept of one happy family where all the members share a common belief, idea and ideologies.