WINNING THE HEARTS OF THE EMPLOYEES

IDENTIFY THE VALUE OF EMPLOYEES

In order for organizations to thrive and achieve the potential, the organization need fully engaged, committed and contented workforces and employees must buy into the mission, culture and values of the organization, appreciate the value of employee role and crucially, the organization need to have a strong relationship to the mutual benefit of the business and employees (Basford & Schaninger, 2016).

PROCESS OF WINNING THE HEARTS OF EMPLOYEES

~ Show the Ability

Employees are more likely to respect the organization if the organizational management is technically strong, have superb skills and have proven the organizational image in the chosen field with higher standard and complete authority (Kotter & Cohen, 2012).

~ Be the Personality

There has to be a certain amount of distance between the organization and the general workforce, however to engage with staff on a personal level should allow employees to see and understand the image of the organization and the standards since there is more to the game, than simply barking instructions (Schneider & Bowen, 2010). And with a little humor can break down barriers and position the organization to be a pinnacle that employees - at all levels, across different teams and departments - can look up to (Jose & Mampilly, 2014).

~ Make Decisions

In order to be a successful, the organization need to have courage in convictions without sitting on the fence the whole time, that will make the employees start making own decisions and undermining organization authority (Thomsan & Hecker, 2000). The organization should consult with the employees and should make sensible, consistent decisions without affording draw backs that will make employees questioning the organization’s judgement (Sachs, 2009).

~ Be Collaborative

Employees rarely respond well to autocratic, power-hungry managements and organizations that is determined to impose organizational agendas only, regardless of logic and reason. Therefore, the organization has to be approachable and collaborative where possible, to get the employees involved (Armstrong & Taylor, 2020). If the system processes can be improved through the ideas of the employees, give the proper consideration and that particular change might make things easier to contribute towards the end goals of the firm (Nayar, 2010).

~ Assist with Development

One of the methods of the organization to win the hearts of the organization is to promote career development opportunities for the employees and support employee’s professional ambitions (Armstrong & Taylor, 2020). This means providing training, coaching and mentoring as appropriate and giving employees the chance to improve the skills set and need to make sure that the employees are aware of the progression opportunities available in-house, allowing employees to work towards career progression (Sachs, 2009).

~ Provide Effective Cover

Common grievances employees have with the organization is the level of cover provided, in meddling with workloads while the employees are on leave (Pinkey, et al., 2019). Providing a leave cover to avoid major frustrations and annoyance shows the care the organization has on the workforce (Nayar, 2010).

~ Provide the occasional Luxury

This might be something as simple as a slice of cake, a box of biscuits, a round of fancy coffees or a drink after-work, and spending a few of the hard-earned pennies of the organization on employees is just another way of saying 'thank you' to the hard work & effort to encourage employee bonding (Jose & Mampilly, 2014). An annual get to gather, families’ gathering and employee sports competitions too build the bonding of the employees and at the climax, giving good bonus and or a profit sharing with the employees will assure the absolute commitment towards the organizational goals (Thomsan & Hecker, 2000).

Figure 1: CREATE A WIN WIN SITUATION

Source: (Briant, 2017)

CONCLUSION

A win-win situation to both the organization and the employees will assure a company’s own success in achieving desired profits or revenue levels coupled with brand equity and percentage of market shares (Papakonstantinidis, 2002). A crucial key to an organization’s growth lies in the hands of the employees who market the products and serve the clients and therefore, implementing programs and enabling employees to succeed in turn enable to organization to succeed (Manzoor, 2012).

Figure 2: Asia’s Best Employer Brand - “Wing” reaps another award for its commitment to employees.

Source: (KHMER Times, 2020)

“Wing” has showcased the organizations prowess as the winner of Asia’s Best Employer Brand award during a virtual ceremony hosted by the World HRD Congress at its 11th annual ceremony in October 2020 and the company CEO revealed that “Wing” invest in employees by building up the capacity to become dynamic future leaders through development programs, and by giving employees the opportunities to grow showing the company’s sustained commitment to staff (KHMER Times, 2020).

 

References

Abrahamsson, S. & Danyi, E., 2019. Becoming stronger by becoming weaker: the hunger strike as a mode of doing politics. Journal of International Relations and Development, 22(4), pp. 882-898.

Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S., 2020. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. United States: Kogan Page Publishers.

Basford, T. & Schaninger, B., 2016. Winning hearts and minds in the 21st Century. McKinsey Quarterly.

Briant, H., 2017. Create Win Win Situations. Who doesn't like Winning?, 15 08.

Jose, G. & Mampilly, S. R., 2014. Psychological empowerment as a predictor of employee engagement: An empirical attestation.. Global Business Review, 15(1), pp. 93-104.

KHMER Times, 2020. Wing wins big at Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards 2020. Wing reaps another award for its commitment to employees., 04 December.

Kotter, J. P. & Cohen, D. S., 2012. The Heart of the Change: Real life stries of how people change their organizations.. Harvard Business Press..

Manzoor, Q. A., 2012. Impact of employees motivation on organizational effectiveness.. Business management and strategy, pp. 1-12.

Nayar, V., 2010. Employees first, customers second: Turning conventional management upside down.. Harvard Business Press..

Papakonstantinidis, L. A., 2002. The win-win-win model.. Developing a Sustainable Organization, pp. 10-17.

Pinkey, R. L., Conlon, D. E., Sleesman, D. J. & Vandelle, D., 2019. The power of planthom alternatives in negotiation. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Process, Volume 151, pp. 34-48.

Räthzel, N. & Uzzell , D., 2019. The future of work defines the future of humanity and all living species. International Journal of Labour Research, 9(1/2), pp. 145-171.

Sachs, B. I., 2009. Enabling employee choice. A structural approach to the rules of union organizing, pp. 123,655.

Schneider, B. & Bowen, D. E., 2010. Winning the service Game. Employee science, pp. 31-59.

Thomsan, K. & Hecker, L., 2000. Value‐adding communication: Innovation in employee communication and internal marketing. Journal of Communication Management.

Yusuf-Habeeb, M. O. & Kazeem, A. O., 2017. Appraisal of conflict management as a tool for achieving industrial harmony. Nile Journal of Business and Economics, 3(7), pp. 28-51.

 

UNION STRIKES – THE ULTIMATE WEAPON OF THE EMPLOYEES

 

UNION STRIKES

A Union Strike is an organized work stoppage intended to force an employer to address Voice of the Employees through union demands (Myers, 2010). Strikes can be harmful to both employer and union members since the employer loses money and business to competitors during a strike and union members do not get paid during a strike creating “a waiting game” to determine who can last the longest (Biggs, 2002). A Strike is also defined as a collective refusal by employees to work under the conditions required by employers and no doubt strike is the ultimate weapon in the hands of worker and labour laws too support strikes aligned to regulated rules (Darlington, 2006).

CAUSES OF STRIKES

According to Philippou (2015), Union Strikes can occur due to the following reasons;

•   Dissatisfaction with company policy
•   Salary and incentive problems
•   Increment not up to the mark
•   Wrongful discharge or dismissal of workmen
•   Withdrawal of any concession or privilege
•   Hours of work and rest intervals
•   Leaves with wages and holidays
•   Bonus, profit sharing, Provident fund and gratuity
•   Retrenchment of workmen and closure of establishment
•   Dispute connected with minimum wages

TYPES OF UNION STRIKES

Economic Strike: In Economic strikes, labors stop their work to enforce their economic demands such as increase in wages, allowances like traveling allowance, house rent allowance, dearness allowance, bonus and increase in leave entitlements (Mirola, 2003).

Sympathetic Strike: Sympathetic strike occurs when workers of one unit or industry go on strike in sympathy with workers of another unit or industry already on strike and express sympathy and support towards the members of unions already on strike (Orr, 2007).

General Strike: General strikes evolve when all the workers of a particular region of industry demands common rights relates to all workers. The strikes are usually intended to create political pressure on the ruling government, rather than on any one employer and can be identified as an extension of the sympathetic strike to express a generalized protest (Hamann, et al., 2013).

Sit down Strike: Workers do not absent but keep control over production/service facilities by not working. This particular strike is also known as 'pen down' or 'tool down' strike where workers show up to their place of employment, but they refuse to work and refuse to leave, creating a difficult scenario for employer to confront the union and take the workers' places (Meyer, 2009).

Slow down Strike: The concept is to Go-slow and workmen do not stop the work but deliberately slow-down the process of production or service causing losses to the employer. Go-slow is a serious misconduct on part of the workmen ultimately causing damage to means of livelihood, while harming to the employer (Dziak, et al., 2004).

Hunger Strike: Hunger strike is a form of industrial protest, workmen resort to fasting near the workplace demanding the employer to redress the grievances (Abrahamsson & Danyi, 2019).

Wild Cat Strikes: Conducted by workers or employees without the authority and consent of unions (Anner, 2018).

All-out Strike: A strike that embraces all workers involved in a dispute and will continue until securing a settlement and “All-out strikes” can be contrasted with selective strikes that involve only a proportion of the workforce and protest strikes that will not long last (Darlington, 2006).

MODERN DAY STRIKES – BANKING SECTOR

Unions are becoming quite savvy in communicating with existing members and potential members and the Union leaders are increasingly focusing on being more transparent with their members during the bargaining process and continue to build strong communication networks centered on social media and connected online platforms, with development of mobile apps and company-specific websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts (Somaya, et al., 2008). In the presence of latest communication platforms, opposing and criticizing unions too strongly could backfire so communications and strategies should be formulated to focus on issues, or else impasse which will eventually lead to a Union Strike in the absence of an agreeable solution (Hermann, 2007).

Banking industry is a very sensitive industry since core banking merely death with financial transactions of the loyal clientele. Any inconvenience or interruption to the transaction process will definitely lead to heavy financial losses, regulatory fines and ultimately risk of loosing the valued customers to a competitor (Somaya, et al., 2008).

Figure 1 : Bank Union Strike impact 23,000 crore of Cheques held up

Source : (Narasimham, 2020)

A BANK UNION STRIKE has resulted a delay in clearance of cheques worth Rs 23,000 crore and has led to many financial losses and fines by the Central Bank of India (Narasimham, 2020).

References

Abrahamsson, S. & Danyi, E., 2019. Becoming stronger by becoming weaker: the hunger strike as a mode of doing politics. Journal of International Relations and Development, 22(4), pp. 882-898.

Anner, M., 2018. CSR participation committees, wildcat strikes and the sourcing squeeze in global supply chains. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(1), pp. 75-98.

Biggs, M., 2002. Strikes as sequences of interaction: The American strike wave of 1886. Social Science History, 26(3), pp. 583-617.

Darlington, . R., 2006. Agitator ‘theory’of strikes re-evaluated.. Labor History, 47(4), pp. 485-509.

Dziak, R. P., Smith, D. K. & Bohnenstiehl, D. R., 2004. Evidence of a recent magma dike intrusion at the slow spreading Lucky Strike segment, Mid‐Atlantic Ridge. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 109(B12).

Hamann, K., Johnston, A. & Kelly, J., 2013. Unions against governments: Explaining general strikes in Western Europe. Comparative Political Studies, 46(9), pp. 1030-1057.

Hermann, C., 2007. Neoliberalism in the European Union. Studies in Political Economy, 79(1), pp. 61-90.

Meyer, R., 2009. The rise and fall of the sit-doWn strike. Strikes in American History.

Mirola, W. A., 2003. Religious protest and economic conflict. Sociology of religion, 64(4), pp. 443-461.

Myers, B. W., 2010. Union Strikes and the impact of non financial stake holders. Stake Holder Interet on Financial Sector, Issue 01.

Narasimham, T. E., 2020. Public Sector Banks, Chennai: Bharat Bandh.

Orr, G. D., 2007. Mandatory secret ballots before employee industrial action. Australian Journal of Labour Law, Volume 20, pp. 272-294.

Philippou, P. S., 2015. There is Only One P in Perth-And, it Stands for Pullars!. The Labour, Trade-union, and Co-operative Movements in Perth.

Somaya, D., Williamson, I. O. & Lorinkova, N., 2008. Gone but not lost: The different performance impacts of employee mobility between cooperators versus competitors. Academy of Management Journal, 51(5), pp. 936-953.

 

 

BARGAINING IMPASSE

 

WHAT IS BARGAINING IMPASSE

Impasse is a deadlock or stalemate in bargaining declared by one or both parties to the negotiation (Raei, et al., 2017). Impasse occurs when differences of matters to be included in the agreement remain so substantial and prolonged that further negotiation would be futile (Zumbolo, 2018). Any one party in the negotiating table would declare impasse when there are no alternative proposals to promote the bargaining process (Dezső & Loewenstein, 2019).

A major unresolved puzzle facing the social sciences is the cause of impasse in negotiations (Church, et al., 2020) and the consequences of impasse are evident in the amount of private and public resources spent on civil litigation, the costs of labor unrest, the psychic and financial grazes of domestic conflict, and in clashes between religious, ethnic and regional groups (Hippel & Hoeppner, 2019). Impasses not only pernicious, but somewhat paradoxical since negotiations typically unfold over long periods of time, offering ample opportunities for interaction between the parties (Zumbolo, 2018).

Bargainers possess private information about factors such as their alternatives to negotiated agreements and costs to delay, causing the bargainers to be mutually uncertain about the other side's reservation value (Friedenberg, 2019). Uncertainty produces impasse because bargainers use costly delays to signal to the other party about their own reservation value. However, this supposition is explanation for impasse is difficult to test because satisfactory measures of uncertainty are rare (Essa, et al., 2018).

CAUSES OF BARGAINING IMPASSE

A major cause of bargaining impasse is the tendency for parties to arrive at judgments that reflect a self-serving bias to conflate what is fair with what benefits and such self-serving assessments of fairness can impede negotiations and promote impasse in at least three ways (McAuliffe , 2017).

~ First, if negotiators estimate the value of the alternatives to negotiated settlements in self-serving ways, this could rule out any chance of settlement by eliminating the contract (Pinkey, et al., 2019).

~ Second, if disputants believe that their notion of fairness is impartial and shared by both sides, then they will interpret the other party's aggressive bargaining not as an attempt to get what they perceive of as fair, but as a cynical and exploitative attempt to gain an unfair strategic advantage (Malik, et al., 2018).

~ Third, negotiators are strongly averse to settling even slightly below the point they view as fair (Keough, 2017).

The bias is also present when bargainers have incentives to evaluate the situation impartially, which implies that the bias does not appear to be deliberate or strategic (Hippel & Hoeppner, 2019).

NEGOTIATING THROUGH IMPASSE

Participants perceive that they are no longer able to find effective solutions, impasse is a normal phase of any conflict resolution or negotiation process, even though often perceived as a threat or a demand, impasse can be an opportunity for new insights and collaborative solutions (Yu, et al., 2017).

~ Naming the impasse and embracing the opportunity is not immoral but uncomfortable, yet important because element of the expression of the conflict and identifying impasse concerns ultimately help participants go beyond initial positions (Hall-Baker, 2017).

~ Respecting the variety of needs and renewal of commitment to ground rules while helping the interest-based concerns can use the triangle of needs to shift focus to more constructive areas of inquiry (Poon, 2018).

~ Exploring alternatives to a negotiated agreement and carving out a realistic negotiating space is very important to arrive at a final decision (Cotter & Henley, 2017). Therefore, respect the silence while allowing time to process, slow down the process and avail structured breaks so that the results of negotiations will be fruitful (Miettinen, et al., 2020).

Figure 1: International solidarity has the power to reform the Banking Industry

Source: (UNIGlobal, 2017)

The above figure shows the financial workers from the United States and Australia are standing together to curb big banks’ abuses of employees and customers (UNIGlobal, 2017).

In brief, when a solution is not visible for a proper negotiation, people in the table of negotiation tend to drag the main points of conflict for no reason, availing unwanted time, merely to delay the process towards a final agreement. The delaying of periodic Collective Agreements without a major point of discussion is clearly visible in the Banking Industry thereby reducing the moral and making the employees violent to select alternatives in winning the employee rights (Dubal, 2017).

References

Church, B. K., Dai, N. T., Xi Kuang & Liu, X., 2020. The Role of Auditor Narcissism in Auditor‐Client Negotiations: Evidence from China. Contemporary Accounting Research , 37(3), pp. 1756-1787.

Cotter, M. J. & Henley, J. A., 2017. Gender Contrasts in Negotiation Impasse Rates. Management (18544223), 12(1).

Dezső, L. & Loewenstein, G., 2019. Self-serving invocations of shared and asymmetric history in negotiations. European Economic Review, Volume 120, p. 103309.

Dubal, V. B., 2017. Winning the Battle, Losing the War. Impact of Misclassification Mitigation in the Gig Economy, p. 739.

Essa, S. A., Dekker, H. C. & Groot, T. L., 2018. Your gain my pain? The effects of accounting information in uncertain negotiations. Management Accounting Research, Volume 41, pp. 20-42.

Friedenberg, A., 2019. Bargaining Under Strategic Uncertainty: The Role of Second‐Order Optimism. Econometrica, 87(6), pp. 1835-1865.

Hall-Baker, T., 2017. Conflict, Knowledge, and Collective Bargaining in Public Education. s.l.:Michael Vassilakopoulos.

Hippel, S. & Hoeppner, S., 2019. Biased judgements of fairness in bargaining: A replication in the laboratory. International Review of Law and Economics, Volume 58, pp. 63-74.

Hippel, S. & Hoeppner, S., 2019. Biased judgements of fairness in bargaining: A replication in the laboratory. International Review of Law and Economics, Volume 58, pp. 63-74.

Keough, C. M., 2017. Negotiation and bargaining. Organizational Communication, pp. 1-10.

Malik, S., Mihm, B., Mihm, M. & Timme, F., 2018. Aggressive Posturing and Strategic Gender Effects in Bilateral Bargaining.

McAuliffe , P., 2017. Transitional opportunity? How peace negotiations and power-sharing impede root cause approaches. In: Transformative Transitional Justice and the Malleability of Post-Conflict States. Cheltenham Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Miettinen, T., Ropponen, O. & Sääskilahti, P., 2020. Prospect Theory, Fairness, and the Escalation of Conflict at a Negotiation Impasse. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

Pinkey, R. L., Conlon, D. E., Sleesman, D. J. & Vandelle, D., 2019. The power of planthom alternatives in negotiation. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Process, Volume 151, pp. 34-48.

Poon, K., 2018. The Impasse Over Constitutional Reform. In: Negotiating Democracy in Hong Kong. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 3-19.

Raei, E., Nikoo, M. R. & Pourshahabi, S., 2017. A multi-objective simulation-optimization model for in situ bioremediation of groundwater contamination: application of bargaining theory. Journal of Hydrology, Volume 551, pp. 407-422.

UNIGlobal, 2017. uniglobalunion. [Online]Available at:https://www.uniglobalunion.org/news/international-solidarity-has-power-reform-banking-industry
[Accessed 03 12 2020].

Yu, S., van Ierland, E. C., Weikard, H. P. & Zhu, X., 2017. Nash bargaining solutions for international climate agreements under different sets of bargaining weights. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 17(5), pp. 709-729.

Zumbolo, A., 2018. The Acceleration and Decline of Discord. Collective Bargaining Impasses in New York State, Volume 36, p. 163.

 

BARGAINING NEEDS VS MASLOW’S HIERARCHY

 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

This is a theory of individual development and individual differences and the people are wanting beings and always want and demand more, depending on what currently possess (McLeod, 2007). Further suggested that human needs are arranged in a series of levels, or a hierarchy of importance and this very theory is postulated and developed the needs theory into a hierarchy (Armstrong & Taylor, 2020).

The underpinning philosophy is that, an unsatisfied need creates tension and a state of disequilibrium and adds the dimension of goals into the theory. Such goals would lead to stability and equilibrium once a goal is achieved. All behavior therefore is guided by needs (Kang, 2019). The importance of needs is not equally important for every moment. Therefore, some needs may provide a much more powerful drive towards a given goal. This eventually implies that there is often a dominant need. Another dimension of complexity originates from the apparent lack of relationship between individual needs and organizational goals (Armstrong & Smith, 2015).  And individual differences result in people placing different values on the same need. This further explains that employees may have other interests outside the work environment that can compensate for needs not met on the (Benz & Sonnicksen, 2018).

Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Source: (Doellgast & Benassi, 2020)

Physiological needs

This advice and explains that in order to satisfy physiological needs, the organization may ensure a level pay that enables a person to buy food and clothing and have adequate housing (McLeod, 2007).

Safety needs

This suggest that the provision of job security, adequate medical benefits and safe working conditions as other ways of satisfying safety needs (Gahan, et al., 2018).

Social needs

These types of needs suggest that creating and promoting good interpersonal relations, friendly supervision, professional assessment, corporate identity and social interaction go a long way in satisfying the need to belong (López‐Andreu, 2019).

Self-esteem needs

Self-esteem needs suggests that promotions, recognition of performance, respect and giving credit as some ways of satisfying self- esteem needs (McLeod, 2007).

Self-actualization needs

Satisfying self- actualization needs, according to Mette, et al., (2017) entails giving employees the opportunity to use their skills and abilities to the fullest extent possible and becoming all, they can be.

Figure 2 : Hatton National Bank Collective Agreement 2018-21

Source : (DailyMirror, 2018)

With my experience over 15 years as a Banker working for a premier Bank in Sri Lanka, collective bargaining in demanding the needs of the employees are basically done through Employee Union mediation called Ceylon Bankers Employee Union (CBEU). And once in every three years the CBEU negotiate for worker benefits and wage increases through a Collective Agreement. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs theory has an intuitive appeal and has been very useful and influential in the field of conflict resolution relevance to employee demands and negotiations (Gahan, et al., 2018)

References

Agarwal, R., Shirke, A. & Panackal, N., 2020. Enablers of the Collective Bargaining in Industrial Relations: A Study of India’s Industrial Policies Through ISM and MICMAC Analysis. The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 63(3), pp. 781-798.

Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S., 2020. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. United States: Kogan Page Publishers.

Armstrong, N. & Smith, D., 2015. Cricket. Cetura, Volume 5, pp. 104-107.

Benz, A. & Sonnicksen, J., 2018. Advancing backwards: Why institutional reform of German federalism reinforced joint decision-making. The Journal of Federalism, 48(1), pp. 134-159.

Campbell, S. & Weststar, J., 2020. Peering Inside the “Black Box”: The Impact of Management-Side Representatives on the Industrial Relations Climate of Organizations. Labor Studies Journal, 45(3), pp. 250-272.

DailyMirror, 2018. Pressreader. [Online] Available at: https://www.pressreader.com/sri-lanka/daily-mirror-sri-lanka/20181019/282544429278507[Accessed 02 December 2020].

Doellgast, V. & Benassi, C., 2020. "Collective bargaining." In Handbook of research on employee voice. Cheltenham Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Gahan, P., Pekarek, A. & Nicholson, D., 2018. Unions and collective bargaining in Australia in 2017. Journal of Industrial Relations, 60(3), pp. 337-357.

Kang, Y., 2019. Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining in Minority Trade Unions: By Youbin Kang, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, The United States of America. International Labor Rights Case Law, 5(2), pp. 158-163.

Kohler, S. & Schlag, K. H., 2019. Inequality Aversion Causes Equal Or Unequal Division In Alternating‐Offer Bargaining. Bulletin of economic research , 71 (1), pp. 47-57.

López‐Andreu, M., 2019. Employment institutions under liberalization pressures: Analysing the effects of regulatory change on collective bargaining in Spain. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(2), pp. 328-349.

McLeod, S., 2007. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Simply Psychology, Volume 1, pp. 1-8.

Mette, J. et al., 2017. “It’s still a great adventure”–exploring offshore employees’ working conditions in a qualitative study. Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, 12(1), p. 35.

Tebetso, T. T., 2020. THE ROLE OF BOTSWANA TRADE UNIONS IN PROMOTING EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IN AN ORGANISATION: THE CASE OF BOTSWANA EXAMINATION COUNCIL.. Revue Européenne du Droit Social , 48(3), pp. 118-126.