3 minute read
5 Steps to Improve Your Industrial Relations Climate
Learn what to do to maintain a positive industrial relations climate in your workplace.
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Good industrial relations, which is essential to healthy and sustainable working lives, assumes an important role, especially in today’s context of blurred boundaries, work overload, complexity, and ambiguity. According to Hammer, Currall, and Stern (1991), Industrial Relations (IR) Climate is the degree to which relations between management,
employees and their representatives are seen by participants as mutually trusting, respectful and cooperative.
No organization prospers without a solid industrial relations climate; as such, HR leaders in every country need to, along with their leadership team, identify what aspects of industrial relations are relevant to them and become deliberate about their course of action. Below are five (5) steps you should take to improve the industrial relations climate in your workplace.
1. Diagnose: understanding the current situation 2. Strategize: Set priorities to promote a positive industrial relations climate 3. Collaborate: The Union is not the enemy 4. Promote: Open Dialogue 5. Support: Empower (and hold accountable) your People Managers
1. Diagnose: understanding the current situation
Before you can take your organization to another level, you need to understand where you are right now. Where are the biggest obstacles and barriers to your industrial relations climate? What are the root causes, and which systems and processes need to be redesigned?
Tips: 1. Conduct listening sessions with different employee groups to get an unfiltered understanding of the current climate, and 2. With the union leadership, do a SWOT analysis session to see similarities and gaps in assessing the current IR climate.
No organization can improve its industrial relations climate through a single initiative or action. Instead, you need to take a comprehensive approach, setting and working towards strategic priorities in critical areas.
Tips: 1. Use the data from your diagnosis to prioritize improvement actions, and 2. Appoint a cross-functional team inclusive of union/employee representatives to own and drive the action plan.
3. Collaborate: The Union is not the enemy
Collaboration (and communication) is key to any thriving industrial relations climate. Treat the union/employee representative like an ally and key partner of the business. The more involved they are, it fosters better understanding and support for critical decisions.
Tips: 1. Invite the Union to your next business or HR strategy brainstorming session to get their perspective on the in/external environment, and 2. Without prompt, discuss some of the recurring people challenges and solicit their recommendation(s) on how they would improve the situation.
4. Promote: Open Dialogue
Provide a way for employees to express grievances openly and to resolve conflicts without fear of retaliation. That does not mean that employees should be able to rant to the whole office, but there should be a person or an internal process that allows an employee to bring up problems.
Tips: 1. Have a quarterly engagement on the internal process(es) to report grievances, and 2. Equip people managers with conflict management skills, so they tackle problems head-on.
Managers have a significant impact on the industrial climate and should be taught how to lead with trust and resolve conflict promptly. Give them the support and tools to do that through training and targeted communication.
Tips: 1. Implement targeted training for managers on how to role model the leadership required for the IR climate being pursued, and 2. Establish cross-functional workgroups with people managers so they can share good practices.
The goal of improving your industrial relations climate is investing in the relationship your employees and Union have with your company. Taking a people-first and data-driven approach to industrial relations will add value to your current way of working.
Judon Bowden is a human resource professional passionate about helping companies re-think how to attract, develop and inspire employees in a rapidly changing workplace. When not working for the world’s coolest beer company, he always reads or tweet on #everythingHR. Got Questions? Connect with Judon on LinkedIn or email: 4everythinghr@gmail.com.
