Core skills in developing an effective employee relations strategy

As we emerge from the darkest shadows of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s a good time to reflect on how employee relations have changed. By taking stock of these changes, we can create a fresh employee relations strategy that helps HR professionals build positive, problem-solving relationships with employees and employee representatives. This may be achieved by focusing on conflict resolution and consultation skills.

Jobseekers as well as employees have different post-pandemic expectations. They may, as Glassdoor suggests, have questions around safety procedures and staff turnover. They may enquire about the pandemic’s impact on business, and how working remotely might affect career opportunities. A Labour Force Survey estimates that, of 822,000 workers suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety, 449,000 reported that ‘this was caused by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic’.

HR professionals and management teams may need help in getting to grips with post-pandemic expectations from jobseekers and current employees, as well as Gen Z and Millennials. In this article, we will look at what employee relations are, and how conflict resolution and consultation skills play their part in fostering a culture of positive relationships.

What is employee relations and why is it important?

Understanding the differences between the following terms is unimportant in the context of this article: employee relations, employment relations and industrial relations. We intend to emphasise the necessity to upskill management teams to improve business outcomes and care for the health and wellbeing of a workforce. While each of these terms may have specific academic meanings, we’re only concerned with the broader benefits of putting an employee relations strategy into action.

Employee relations can be broken down into collective and individual. One can define collective workplace relationships as relating to nurturing good relationships with trade unions and employee representatives. One may discuss pay, industrial action, redundancies, or health and safety. Common legislation is the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and the Trade Union Act 2016.

Individual workplace rights typically comprise contracts, staff handbooks, holiday entitlement, sickness pay, whistleblowing, equal opportunities, and so on. It also covers conflict resolution and discipline handling. Typical legislation and procedural guidelines would include the Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, the Employment Rights Act 1996 (for dismissal), and the Equality Act 2010 (discrimination and equal pay).

There are overlaps between the two definitions of employee relations, and because of this, it’s important to think in terms of improving broad skills sets that encompass both disciplines. The key is to ensure relationships between management teams and employees is managed well via transparent practices and relevant law.

Why should HR professionals and management teams upskill for employee relations?

There’s no question that remote working has transformed how we view the modern workplace. Tammy Homegardner of Forbes believes ‘leaders must build strong and cohesive teams, even with employees working remotely’. So, regardless of the effects of the pandemic on the workplace, there are always new challenges to navigate and new skills to learn, remote work simply being one of them.

In this age of workplace flexibility, conflict has increased. Brian Kropp of Gartner says we are ‘entering a period where things outside and inside the organisation are pulling us apart from each other’. There has never been a better time to focus on upskilling influential managers and HR professionals in the art of conflict resolution and consultation.

Every organisation should prioritise informing and consulting employees. Whether they are members of a trade union (even though the proportion of UK employees who were trade union members fell to 23.1% in 2021) or not, here are steps to take to put an employee relations strategy into effect.

Train HR professionals and managers in conflict competence

Conflict competence is a challenging skill to master, but it’s a vital part of an employee relations training programme. The key to success is in developing a culture of conflict competence.

Anna Shields describes this well in Training Journal: ‘A conflict-competent culture is one where conflict is seen as a natural part of organisational life, where staff members are encouraged to air their views, challenge the status quo, discuss issues respectfully and manage conflict situations early and informally.’

It can take time to foster such an environment. With empathy and openness at the heart of a company training programme, you can guide management teams on how to avoid conflict before it reaches formal procedures. The alternative could manifest itself as absenteeism, presenteeism (or the new buzz phrase ‘quiet quitting’) and an increase in staff turnover. It may also hit the bottom line: The cost of conflict to UK organisations was £28.5bn in 2021 (equivalent to more than £1,000 for each employee).

Try to adopt a proactive and positive approach to managing conflict, whether cultivating partnerships with trade unions and employee reps, or liaising directly with employees. Ensure that management teams are confident in resolving disagreements, striving to solve problems rather than exacerbate them. Emphasise negotiating skills in your training programme, and provide guidance around the legalities of topics such as:

• exit interviews
• company policy changes
• use of employee data
• complaints procedures
• employee benefits.

There are many more topics one might add to the above list. When an organisation reaches out to employment solicitors to handle some of these issues, it could be a missed opportunity to educate managers and HR professionals in how certain legal processes work. It’s a learning opportunity that could increase a company's overall in-house HR capabilities.

Provide the gift of advanced consultation skills

Along with conflict resolution, consultation and communication skills could be helpful as part of an effective employee relations strategy. According to Harvard Business Review, over 90% of people said they wanted weekly communication from their company. Fulfilling this requirement may keep employees up to speed with what's going on in the organisation, but consultation skills are slightly different.

If communication is the art of passing information on to a targeted audience, consultation is the art of nurturing a two-way process of listening to employees and their representatives, and driving a feedback system. ‘The aim of consultation is to work together to reach an agreement on a change or find a solution to an issue,’ says Acas.

By developing consultation skills in tandem with conflict avoidance, management teams could more easily build trust and establish good working relations.

The pandemic provided new workplace challenges. To tackle these challenges, a development programme for employee relations skills could help HR professionals and line managers improve relationships with employees and employee representatives.

Proactive initiatives around upskilling teams could provide long-term cultural benefits. The pandemic has perhaps helped us notice and reflect on current business practices. In rethinking how people could benefit from better employee relations skills, business leaders may be on to a good thing.