NCI Courses

This chapter explains and define employment relations, which is fundamentally concerned with the way that employers, employees, Government and other third parties use a range of rules and processes to negotiate and regulate behaviour at the level of workplace and the work community. The roles played by the key employment relations actors and their interests are then outlined, and the main theoretical perspectives that have been developed to explain and understand employment relations are examined. Systems theory and the main frames of reference are explored, along with more radical approaches such as labour process theory and feminist perspectives of employment relations. The core processes used to regulate the employment relationship. ‘Market and managerial relations’ as dimensions of the employment relationship

Examines the factors external to the organization – economic, political, economic, social and technological – that influence the nature of work and employment relations. We explore how the State shapes the corporate environment in its role as an economic manager, lawmaker and Ireland’s largest employer. We focus on related contemporary issues including Brexit, the problem of low British productivity and the globalization of economic activity. Explores changing social attitudes towards work, gender and trade unions with specific reference to the findings of the British Social Attitudes Survey. This is followed by an examination of the impact of rapid technological change on the way we work now and may work in the future. Provides an analysis of contemporary developments in the Irish labour market exploring the splintering of traditional modes of employment and the increased emphasis on ‘good work’ in the wake of the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. Looks at the origins and development of state intervention in the employment relationship. • Markets, labour markets, and market regulation • Origins and development of state intervention in the employment relationship • The neoliberal critique of the institutions of labour market regulation • The growth and character of state intervention in the employment relationship: impact and issues regarding market and managerial relations • Individual rights – pay; diversity, worker protection • Collective rights – bargaining and consultation • Debating labour market intervention within the EU.

The central role of the line manager in the effective management of the employment relations and, therefore, employment relations strategy and practice. How HR can better support the line manager in their role. An important development in recent years has been the greater devolvement of people management tasks to the line. This will form a central spine of the discussion in the chapter. The formulation of an organization’s strategy, concentrating on the main elements of business strategy, the levels at which strategic decision-making takes place – the corporate level, the business-unit level, and the levels appropriate to the different functions of the business – and the ‘fit’ between an organisation’s activities and its resources. The associated employment policies necessary to achieve strategic objectives Exploring the nature of employee engagement and particularly by asking with whom, and in what, employees are engaged? Representation at work -the way in which employee and workers interests are represented in employment relations and focuses on the changing role of trade unions, which, despite their declining influence, still provide the main source of representation in Irish workplaces.

The concept of ‘worker voice’ – from industrial democracy to ‘employee involvement’ Collective bargaining: theory, parties and practice Union purpose, development and change Productivity bargaining and the ‘frontier of control’ Direct and indirect employee participation and the institutionalisation of information and consultation Change and scope in management approaches to ‘worker voice’

Managing discipline and grievances Equity, diversity, and inclusion Health and wellbeing Conflict and conflict resolution Mediation