Emerging Trends of Employee Relations

Introduction to employee relations

Employee Relations refers to maintaining a better relationship with the employees of organizations that helps to keep the employees more engaged and loyal in their work. The Human Resource department needs to play a vital role in employee relations that also helps to identify dedicated employees (Leat, 2012). In an organization, the Human Resource department has two types of functions: resolving issues and preventing issues between management and employees. The second primary function is enforcing appropriate policies in an effective way. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, employee relations have changed with trends that improve with effective communication, integrity, and trust (Kataria, Kumar, Sureka & Gupta, 2020). The success or failure of the company depends on employee performance, well-being, and productivity by driving toward the values and goals of the company. The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged many working cultures with lockdowns, travel restrictions, and lack of tools and resaurces (Kataria, 2020). Owing to this situation, organizations were compelled to adopt to the latest trends to make a more productive workforce.

 

Increasing work-life balance through remote working

As an emerging trend, remote working comes to the stage for the convenience of the employees that emphasizes flexible working arrangements by making a balance between work and life that improves employees’ personal lives. The employees are able to work at any time or place. HSBC banks around the world, are now permanently shifting towards remote working by reducing physical space and also a reduction in administrative costs (Malecki, 2020).  The employees are more relaxed when they perform duties from home which signifies a sense of belongingness, and that causes to decrease in absenteeism and employee turnover. Flexible work schedules and health benefits being the most important components of remote working, these components aid in highly elevating employee productivity, which also increases employee relations and commitment to the work. It was highlighted by Anderson and Kelliher, 2020, that the most important fact of remote working is that employees are able to effectively balance work-life, which leads to a better commitment and strong relationship between management and employees. Beyond working policies, work-life balance is extended. Moreover, applying gor leaves has become very difficult for employees, but with remote working, the employees can have a balance between personal life and working life with flexible work hours and without taking (Anderson, 2020).

 

Using modern technology

Due to the advancement of technology, the employees have reduced the need to travel from one place to another for work correspondence and entities. Remote working depends on collaboration techniques and digital communication that navigates toward virtual meetings, and it is estimated as 300 million daily zoom users enable a great working experience as positive benefits (Anka, Thacker & Penhale, 2020). The useful apps like Zoom, WhatsApp, and Skype have enabled the employees to conduct meetings, interviews, awareness programs, virtual training, video conferencing, audio conferencing, and office group chats (Anka, Thacker & Penhale, 2020). Most important to notice that the companies now utilize virtual training, for example, Dialog Axiata company uses virtual training for its employees through Adobe Connect, Zoom, and Cisco GoToTraining. For the purpose of increasing employee relations, organizations now create a common network for all the employees through appropriate software. Smart utilization of resources enables cloud technology Artificial intelligence and machine learning (Manzo & Minello, 2020). Cloud technology helps to adapt to the changes by handling large payroll systems and Human Resource functions to improve employee engagement towards work that mainly save time, and cost and eliminates human errors. It was noted that post-pandemic,  artificial intelligence and machine learning are heavily practiced by Commercial banks including Nations Trust, HSBC, and Hatton National banks to improve employee work more productive by driving toward analytics-driven decisions (Wang, Liu, Qian & Parker, 2021). This Artificial intelligence and machine learning improve opportunities for career growth.

 

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity is heavily used by many companies especially in job rotation, to improve employee engagement that signifies a diverse working environment. Employees become innovative if they are facilitated a sense of inclusivity and diversity in the workplace that also leads to career development and personal growth. Employees at Google innovate 50% of their innovations during their free time because the company divides time slots for employees' working hours which signifies diversity and inclusivity in the working place (Baumann & Sander, 2021). Job rotation enables the employees to get knowledge on other tasks and improve teamwork. Emirates Airlines is a good example of working in multiculturalism for the purpose of promoting diversity and inclusivity. In Coca-Cola, corporate governance is promoted by allowing both men and women equality in appointing to the Board of Directors. A diverse working environment boosts taking better decisions, inclusive leadership, team performance, attractiveness to recruitments, stability, and profitability (Baumann, 2021). In a diversity and inclusivity environment, employees first have been prioritized that emphasize appreciation, recognition, providing benefits, timely promotions, etc. In apparel companies like CIB, ASB provides an employee loyalty reward system that selects the best employer in the year to improve employee commitment and employee engagement. MAS holdings organize annual cricket tournaments to improve employee relations.

 

Setting common objectives and personal objectives

The Covid-19 pandemic has taught several lessons to companies across the world. Most companies are not able to continue working with lockdowns, isolation processes, and other health guidelines. In that situation, it is important to set personalized objectives and common objectives for each employee (Sako, M., 2021) Apart from that, the personalized objectives must be aligned with company goals. For example, the mission of MAS Holdings is ‘Change is courage’ and by targeting this mission, the company sets both common objectives and personalized objectives for employees to enhance employee relations and engagement (Davies, 2021). In that situation, the company displays its mission in every department. Personalized objectives signify the importance of the workforce while common objectives signify team working. Fulfilling experiences can be created a company's core values that emphasize organizational structure in the working environment (Sako, 2021). With the changes in policies, expectations, and processes, effective communication must be shared. Providing transparency of the companies is very important to increase employees’ productivity, for example, the organizations namely Nestle, MAS Holdings, and Brandex company publish their annual financial reports on the relevant official websites.

 

References

• Baumann, O. and Sander, E.L.J., 2021. Psychological impacts of remote working under social distancing restrictions. In Handbook of research on remote work and worker well-being in the post-COVID-19 era (pp. 1-17). IGI Global.

•  Leat, M., 2012. Exploring employee relations. Routledge.

• Sako, M., 2021. From remote work to working from anywhere. Communications of the ACM, 64(4), pp.20-22.

• Kataria, A., Kumar, S., Sureka, R. and Gupta, B., 2020. Forty years of employee relations–the international journal: a bibliometric overview. Employee Relations: The International Journal.

• Malecki, F., 2020. Overcoming the security risks of remote working. Computer fraud & security, 2020(7), pp.10-12.

• Anderson, D. and Kelliher, C., 2020. Enforced remote working and the work-life interface during lockdown. Gender in Management: An International Journal.

• Davies, A., 2021. COVID-19 and ICT-supported remote working: Opportunities for rural economies. World, 2(1), pp.139-152.

•  Anka, A., Thacker, H. and Penhale, B., 2020. Safeguarding adults practice and remote working in the COVID-19 era: challenges and opportunities. The Journal of Adult Protection.

• Manzo, L.K.C. and Minello, A., 2020. Mothers, childcare duties, and remote working under COVID-19 lockdown in Italy: Cultivating communities of care. Dialogues in Human Geography, 10(2), pp.120-123.

• Wang, B., Liu, Y., Qian, J. and Parker, S.K., 2021. Achieving effective remote working during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A work design perspective. Applied psychology, 70(1), pp.16-59.