Employee Relations

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IN SRILANKA

 Employee Relations

The employee relations define an organization’s effort to create and maintain a positive relationship with its employees. By maintaining positive, constructive employee relations, organizations hope to keep employees loyal and more engaged in their work. By what Rubery et al (2002) regarded as its cornerstone, namely the contract of employment. 

In an organization, human resource department manages employee relations. In some instances dedicated employee relationship managers are also assigned to do this part and they perform as an intermediary between employee and employer. In Srilanka, we can observe that trade unions actively involve as a strong mediator to represent the employees, especially in government sectors. 

Managing Employee Relations

Human resource management involves with employees through collective or mutual agreements and which leads to the formation of trade unions. HR needs to impose continuous changes to manage increasing workforce to overcome the conflicts. Developing strategic employee management does not guarantee a conflict free environment since different people from different culture and background are engaged to achieve a common goal. Still we can concentrate in the following skills to reduce the disputes.

The nature of the employment relationship is influenced by human resource activities, which covers all aspects of HRM such as recruitment, performance reviews, promotion, career development, rewards, involvement and participation, complaint handling, disciplinary procedures and redundancy (Armstrong, 2009)

Interpersonal Skills: Which means the implementation of proper communication method, as this is the first step to avoid dispute. Effective communication between employee and employer will sort out most of the issues and make positive impact in outputs.

Conflict Management: Indentifying the core of the conflict and provide a solution without harming both employer and employee, because jumping straight into the conclusion will create a never ending conflict. Hence, managing conflict should be acceptable to both parties. To perform this, management should have better negotiation skills.  

Employee Relations in Srilanka

The Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC) was established in 1929 as an organization of employers dealing with employees and social issues in the country. EFC especially focus on industrial relations and labour law.

In Srilanka there are 2074 registered trade unions, of which 54.5 per cent represents public sector, 27.5 per cent represents public corporations and 18 per cent represents  private sector. The number of members covered by the trade unions amount to 9.5 per cent of the total workforce of Srilanka (International Labour Organization).

As per the records more than 80 per cent trade unions are acting on behalf of government sector employees but they are not in a position to provide best outcomes compared to private sector trade union which is only 18 per cent. The main lapses we can observe in Srilankan government sector are the lack of communication and negotiation skills from both sides.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js9ETBsrmzY

References

Armstrong, M. (2009). Armstrongs Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice (11 ed.). London, United Kingdom: Koganpage.

International Labour Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved 09 15, 2019, from International Labour Organization: https://www.ilo.org/colombo/areasofwork/workers-and-employers-organizations/lang--en/index.htm

Rubery, J, Earnshaw, J, Marchington, M, Cooke, F L and Vincent, S (2002) Changing organizational forms and the employment relationship, Journal of Management Studies, 39 (5), pp 645–72