Why employee relations now need to be led by L&D
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-04-2019-158 |
| Date | 08 April 2019 |
| Pages | 76-77 |
| Published date | 08 April 2019 |
| Author | Arran Heal |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
Strategic commentary
Why employee relations now need to be
led by L&D
Arran Heal
Employee relations need to be
the new focus of training.
There are a bunch of reasons
why, all of them rooted in the way in
which organisations have moved to
flatter structures and informality
without equipping themselveswith the
conversation and relationshipskills
needed for this new world of work.
The latest figures from the Ministry of
Justice show overwhelming demand
for Employment Tribunals. Numbers
of claims in England and Wales
between April and June 2018 were up
to almost 11,000, compared with
around 4,000 past year (a rise of 165
per cent). The surge in demand has
led to a growing backlog anda
system creaking under the strain. The
CIPD has warned of implications for
HR departments in terms of the
administrative resourcesneeded to
prepare for tribunal hearingsand
being involved over longer periods of
time with cases that grow in
complexity.
Much of the sudden increase in
tribunals can be put down to the
removal of fees in 2017. But not all.
There has been a marked changein
attitudes among employees to the
authority of their employerand its
leaders and managers. One of the
most challenging issues for managers
is reported to be dealing with their
teams of “millennials” –the 20
somethings and employees in their
early 30s sometimes referred to as
“Generation Me” becauseof their
perceived sense of “entitlement”.
Millennials, managers argue,expect
special treatment: constantpositive
feedback and recognition, regular
development an open door to career
progress.
More people are feeling able to speak
out against poor treatment, bullying
and harassment by those in authority.
The string of very public scandals in
recent years has encouraged workers
to think again about how they are
treated, to be more acutely sensitive
to what might be inappropriate and
has helped to normalise the practice
of making a complaint.
What is needed is a strategy of
training for underpinning healthy
employee relations:
Develop conversational
intelligence
Staff, at all levels, need support in
learning how to talk together, work
together and deal with differences
better in this new twenty-first century
context. We have seen the rise and
inclusion of emotional intelligence in
the modern manager toolkit, now HR
need to be thinking more about
stocks of conversation skillsor
“conversational intelligence”,
equipping more people to deal with
and be open to the inevitable
challenges of work –and not retreat
behind digital media. Most oftenwe
opt for the route of least resistance,
until there is a serious problem, and
then come the flashes of anger and a
Arran Heal is based at the CMP
Solutions, Cambridge, UK.
PAGE 76 jSTRATEGIC HR REVIEW jVOL. 18 NO. 2 2019, pp. 76-77, ©EmeraldPublishing Limited,ISSN 1475-4398 DOI 10.1108/SHR-04-2019-158
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