Influence of Employee Relations on Work Performance

What is Employee Relation?

Employee relations can be seen mainly as a skill-set or a philosophy, rather than as a management function or well-defined area of activity.
Despite well-publicized cases of business action, the importance of employee relations continues to move from ‘collective’ institutions, such as trade unions and collective bargaining, to the association with individual employees. The ideas of ’employee voice’ and the ‘psychological contract’ have been acknowledged by employers and reflected in their employee relations policies and aspirations. Employee relations skills and competencies are still seen by employers as critical to achieving performance benefits through a focus on employee involvement, commitment and engagement. Employee relations are seen as strategic in terms of managing business risk: both the downside risk of non-compliance with an expanded body of employment law, and the upside risk of failing to deliver maximum business performance.

Job Satisfaction and Job performance

Researchers have put a substantial quantity of effort into attempts to show that the two are positively related in a particular mode: a happy worker is a good worker. Although this sounds like a very appealing idea, the results of experiential literature are too mixed to support the theory that job satisfaction leads to better performance or even that there is a reliable positive correlation between these two variables. On the other hand some researchers argue that the results are equally inconclusive with respect to the hypothesis that there is no such relationship. As a result of this ambiguity, this relationship continues to stimulate research and re-examination of previous attempts.

Job satisfaction is a compound and multifaceted concept, which can mean different things to different people. Job satisfaction is usually linked with motivation, but the nature of this relationship is not clear. Satisfaction is not the same as motivation. “Job satisfaction is more an attitude, an internal state. It could, for example, be associated with a personal feeling of achievement, either quantitative or qualitative.” In recent years attention to job satisfaction has become more closely associated with broader approaches to improved job design and work organization, and the quality of working life movement. The relationship between job satisfaction and performance is an issue of continuing debate and controversy. One view, associated with the early human relation’s approach, is that satisfaction leads to performance. An alternative view is that performance leads to satisfaction. However, a variety of studies suggest that research has found only a limited relationship between satisfaction and work output and offer scant comfort to those seeking to confirm that a satisfied worker is also a productive one. Labor turnover and absenteeism are commonly associated with dissatisfaction, but although there may be some correlation, there are many other possible factors.

Maintaining employee relation

Employees want to be comfortable with what their employer stands for. Social psychology research indicates the chances of achievement are much greater for your organization if you have a clearly described vision that all your people can pursue. In some organizations, this is also referred to as a mission statement. Employees want to identify with corporate principles. Today employees are very opinionated about the moral and ethical issues in business today. They care about such things as employee privacy and employee rights. By having a set of guiding principles, and following these principles, organization creates a framework within which to develop principle-centered policies and procedures or make principle-centered decisions regarding difficult employment related issues. Employees want to know their employer cares about their opinions and concerns. If you’re going to create a good employee relations program, you need to have a mechanism for finding out what your employees care about, what they are concerned about, what they think of you as an employer. Conduct employee opinion surveys. 

References:

CIPD. (2016). Employee Relations | Factsheets | CIPD. [online] Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/employees/factsheet [Accessed 24 Feb. 2020].

UKDiss. (2020). Influence of Employee Relations on Work Performance. [online] Available at: https://www.ukdiss.com/examples/employee-relation-leads-to-performance.php#citethis [Accessed 24 Feb. 2020].

Barnes, S. (1998). [online] Austin.bizjournals. Available at: http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/1998/03/30/focus4.html [Accessed 24 Feb. 2020].