Your relationship with your employees

Businesses can benefit from strong relationships with their employees. By keeping your business transparent and maintaining an open line of communication, you’re more likely to have engaged and motivated employees. Listening and responding to your employee’s needs is also useful if you want to increase retention and is considered a core component of a soft human resources management (HRM) style.

Sometimes, your employees will voice their concerns collectively. They usually appoint a representative within their team who becomes the spokesperson for their group. This helps to keep a conversation open between management and teams. This helps management to provide a clear outline of business strategy, as well as giving employees the opportunity to discuss any plans and provide feedback. 

Trade unions

While trade unions are less popular in the UK than they have been in previous years, they still play an important role for some employees, particularly those working in the public sector. This could include teachers or post office workers. As an employer, you might find that you work with employees who are represented by a union. They might go to them for advice if they have any concerns about working for your company or if they believe that they have been unfairly dismissed. 

When maintaining good employee relations in general, it’s helpful to be aware of the UK’s employment-related legislation and how it may apply to your organisation. Below, we will look at the Employment Relations Act 1999 and how it relates to your role as an employer. 

What is the Employment Relations Act 1999?

Employees have certain rights when it comes to joining a trade union, which are covered in the Employment Relations Act 1999. The Employment Relations Act 1999 was introduced to protect employees from being blacklisted if they’re a member of a union. It also means that employees are allowed to be accompanied to a tribunal by a trade union official, a certified unpaid trade union member or a workplace colleague. 

What’s more, the act covers law relating to an employee’s family relationships. It outlines areas such as union membership protections and accompaniment rights during certain procedures. Information about maternity and parental leave entitlements is set out in broader UK employment legislation, and the government website provides the most up-to-date guidance on these topics. Guidance on how these provisions apply in different family situations, including adoption, can also be found in official government resources. For more information about the Employment Relations Act 1999, please visit the UK government website, which covers all aspects of these regulations.

Many organisations choose to reflect relevant employment rights within their internal policies so that staff understand how those rights are supported in practice. Employers often align policies such as parental leave, holiday, and sick pay with the requirements set out in UK employment legislation. This includes stating your company’s rules around parental leave, holiday and sick pay. 

Related employee relations acts in the UK

Other laws relating to employee relations include the Equality Act 2010, which states that UK employers cannot discriminate against candidates and employees on the basis of protected characteristics. These include race, gender, age, religious belief, pregnancy status and sexuality. Following the Equality Act 2010 often requires creating an equal employment opportunities (EEO) policy.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 covers the ways in which employees can be fairly dismissed (and what counts as an unfair dismissal). It also outlines situations that UK legislation classifies as ‘automatically unfair’. Official government guidance provides detailed examples of these circumstances, including how requests for flexible working are handled.

Ways to keep employment relations strong

Keeping employment relations strong is part of your overall people strategy. It might change as your business grows. You might find it harder to keep a bigger team satisfied than a smaller team who are transparent and able to discuss issues with their manager on a more regular basis. Therefore, paying close attention to employee voice can help you discover what your employees need, while also being able to provide feedback of your own. Here are some ways to keep employment relations strong as an employer:

• Create a feedback evaluation plan, where employees of all positions and backgrounds can provide feedback either anonymously or directly to their manager.
• Allow both opportunities for individual employees to provide their voice, as well as employees to provide their collective voice as part of their team.
• Train managers in conflict resolution so they can help deal with employee-related conflict if it arises.
• Train managers in a range of leadership styles, so that they can work with employee opinions effectively across different situations.
• Create opportunities for employees to have a voice, whether they are represented by a trade union or not.
• Encourage healthy working relationships between different teams, employees, and create opportunities to build trust.

Alongside this, you may find that you could also benefit from developing manager consulting and negotiating skills. Working with employees empathetically, considering their perspective and how it relates to the goals of your own business strategy can be a useful way of reaching common ground. Being able to spot signs of conflict before they become a wider issue can also be of great benefit to your business in the long term.

The Employment Relations Act 1999 was introduced in order to safeguard employees from being blacklisted if they were a member of a union. It also means that they can be represented by a union during a tribunal. However, by resolving conflicts early on and strengthening employee relationships, you can help keep staff engaged, motivated and less likely to engage in conflict.