Employment Relations Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Employment Relations - Assignment Example Employment relations theories The study of employment relations has led to several theory perspectives that have helped explain the nature of employment relations. The following is some of the perspectives draw. The first is Unitarianism, a perspective based on workplace conflicts between the employees and the manager. This theory explains that conflicts at the workplace are inevitable, and they should be seen as a unifier and not a dissolvent (Lloyd and Newell, 2001: 357). In the organization, the employee carries the same interest as the manager and that is to see the organization thrive. In case of disagreement the two parties agree to disagree for the benefit of the organization. The main cause for conflicts according to Bryson (2005: 1111) is a clash of personality, promotion, lack of communication skills and dissidents deviation. This can be easily solved by the management through finding the problem and solving it. In Taylor’s scientific management theory (1974:44) he s tates that employees have limited ambitions and tend to act immature and avoid their responsibilities whenever they can. Companies that choose to subscribe to Taylor’s theory set clear roles and directives on assignments undertaken at work. The approach here gives management an upper hand because it has great authority on the workers (Taylor: 1974: 47). The other theory applicable in this case is the human relations theory where workers are viewed as individuals who are self motivated and have a sense of self-fulfillment in the organization. In this theory workers are granted the autonomy to operate in a manner that they feel the job satisfaction (Gennard and Judge, 2005: 76). Organizations that adopt this approach create a self-governing environment and allow employees to govern themselves. The second set of assumption is pluralism and unlike Unitarianism pluralism believes that work conflict is necessary and healthy for the organization. Businesses are made up of different complex groups with each group carrying different interests (Daniel, 2006: 36). The management and employees are considered been in different groups here. The assumption here is that there different forms of authority making conflict inevitable. The conflict is taken as a positive factor because it is this situation that sheds light on the employee’s grievances. Conflict also forces management to come up with innovative ways to handle the disagreements. Pluralists according to Daniel (2006: 36) agree with the two competing sides because it is believed to result to amicable solutions. This is because management not only comes up with conflict solutions but also fair solutions that keep their power balanced. Dunlop’s system theory is one of the greatest approaches used by most pluralists (Hollishead et al., 2003: 19). This theory states that employment relations are made up of a wide sub-system that determines how parties involved in the work environment can keep out con flicts at the workplace. There are four elements according to Hollishead et al. (2003: 23) that are important factors in employment relations, and that are the actors, the environment, set rules and ideologies that are binding. Another theory recently drawn is the strategic choice theory