JOIN USManaging non-unionised employees
In a unionised organisation dealing successfully with the leaders of employee union by itself is considered as successful employee relation; since most of the employees are members of the union and they listen to the leaders. But dealing with non-unionised employees requires altogether a new approach.
In a unionised organisation it is reasonably easier to understand the pulse of employees by interacting with their union leaders; it is also possible to seek the help of union leaders to handle difficult employees; it is possible to maintain uniform service conditions by negotiating common agreement with union leaders on behalf of all the employees.
Whereas in non-unionised organisations the employee relation managers have to communicate with each and every employee, negotiate service conditions with each of them individually and deal directly with employees without third party intervention for any issues like indiscipline, poor performance or unauthorised absence.
Non-unionised employees can be classified into three categories namely
(1) Daring elephants (those who don’t want to form union),
(2) Threatened tigers (those who are not allowed to form union)
(3) Diligent deers (those who are not interested to join the union).
Employees belonging to each of these categories have unique gifts to offer at workplace if they are managed professionally.
Daring elephants
Daring elephants are the employees who do not wish to form union. They feel powerful enough to protect their interest individually without the support of others. They represent their problems directly to management without the intervention of third parties like union leaders. They negotiate best service conditions from the employer and they quit the job if their needs are not met. Dealing with daring elephants require world class people management practices coupled with professionally trained managers in charge of employee relation.
In the past, employers were asking the job seekers to give three reasons; why he or she should be hired. Now it is the turn of daring elephants to ask the employers three reasons why they should join this organisation. This category of employees is found mostly in talent scarce sectors like information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES).
Every daring elephant thinks that he or she is the best employee deserved to be treated with respect. As much as the employer wants employees to deliver prompt and dedicated service to the customer; the daring elephants also expect similar treatment from the employer to meet their career needs. They want promotion, salary increase and foreign posting at the speed of thought.
Threatened tigers
Threatened tigers are employees who want to form union but they are not allowed by the employer to do so. These employees consider themselves stronger but feel threatened by the giant power of the employer. Hence they want to come together to form union to challenge the might of employer.
Threatened tigers want to be consulted, negotiated and recognised by the management for all that happens in the corporate jungle. They keep on submitting a series of demands to the management for continuous improvement in service conditions without reciprocal obligation to improve work place performance.
Threatened tigers don’t want to quit the job if their demands are not met. Rather they want to use lawfully acceptable methods of coercion like striking the work, for compelling the management to accept their demands. But unfortunately their entire struggle is confined to formation of union and its recognition by the management as collective bargaining agent.
The pilots dismissal for formation of union in Jet Airways in 2009 and consequent unrest or the ongoing strike at Maruti Suzuki’s Mansear plant for recognition of the union are good examples of threatened tigers.
When threatened tigers feel that they are subjected to injustice by the employer they do not have the support of internal union for guidance and support. Hence they go out to seek the help of external groups like language associations and caste associations. These associations who do not understand any thing about employee relation or labour legislation get the work done by threatening the employer.
Diligent deers
Diligent deers are the employees in unionised organisations who refuse to become members of the union. They are diligent in their work and they want to be fully loyal to the employer. They expect the employer to take care of their workplace needs.
Union leaders always find a via media to make scapegoat out of diligent deers as they have deliberately refused to become members of the union. Even the legitimate benefits extended to diligent deers annoys the union leaders and they may even allege that management is discouraging employees from becoming members of the union by offering undue benefits.
Organisations should therefore protect the diligent deers from the union leaders. After all diligent deers are also employees who are most committed to the organisational cause and their right to work without becoming members of any union should be protected by the employer.
This category of employees will not expect special consideration from management but just equal treatment on par with the unionised employees. They feel hurt when unionised employees get undue favours. They will be hurt more if employee relation managers behave like puppets in the hands of union leaders.
The International Institute of Human Resource Management has carried out research in managing employees in non unionised organizations and has come out with the following recommendations.
Communicate effectively
Communicating with each individual employee in non unionised organizations is challenging but not impossible. To know the needs, opinions and suggestions of individual employees; multiple communication channels can be opened.
Have a dedicated team of employee relation managers accessible to employees all the time at work place. These managers should be trained and empowered to listen to employees empathetically, take prompt action for redressing the grievance and communicate the action taken to the aggrieved employee. Conducting employee satisfaction survey periodically can go a long way in understanding the needs and opinions of employees. Suggestion boxes may be maintained at workplace to enable employees to give their suggestions from time to time.
Top-down communication should also be effective enough to convey the messages of top management to each and every employee of the organisation. Sending letters to individual employees, posting updates in the company blogs and organizing face to face employee meetings with top management from time to time can go a long way in building effective communication channel with employees.
Informal consultation
Absence of union should not be construed as monopoly of employee relation managers in determining service conditions. Rather informal consultations by way of conversation, dialogues and negotiation with small groups and individual employees can go a long way in building trust and interpersonal understanding.
Improve service quality
Non-unionised employees want that services rendered to them by the management should be of high standard, timely and employee friendly. This is a most important aspect of dealing with non-unionised employees. If employee relation managers can keep the employees happy by providing prompt service to them, then motivating and retaining such employees becomes easier.
Equity and Justice
Non-unionised organisations are known for creating inequities in service conditions by paying different salaries to different employees for doing the same work or for promoting one employee ahead of his senior. Employees will not find anything wrong with this kind of differential service conditions but they only want to see that such decisions are purely based on fairness and equity.
Socialisation
Having union gives employees a sense of belongingness which is missing in the non-unionised organisations. Hence the organisation should provide more and more opportunities to the employees for belongingness. Such opportunities could include, fun clubs, picnics, hobby clubs etc., which can provide informal environment for employees to create their own social identities.
Career paths
It is the case with most of the employees across the organisations that they want more salary based on their age and experience but the organisation thinks that what is being paid is much more than they deserve.
While both the arguments are right the solution to this problem rests in providing appropriate career paths. If a mechanic has worked for 10 years his salary would be much higher than the mechanic joining today for doing the same job.
It is therefore wise to promote such senior employees to the higher level position to harness their expertise gained by working for years and to justify the payment of higher salary, which can create a win-win situation both for the employer and the employee. All the efforts ultimately should result in retention of talented employees (like daring elephants) taming the restless employees (like threatened tigers) and caring the loyal employees (like diligent deers).
A more accurate way to understand the effectiveness of managing non unionised employees is to ask yourself a fundamental question- what are my people management challenges and how far they have been addressed by the measures taken.
In practical terms has these measures helped me to attract talented people to join my organisation, has the employee motivation for performance gone up, has the employee attrition come down, has my quality level gone up and cost come down, are my employees feel safe and comfortable without the formation of employee union and have I been able get adjudged as best employer.
(The writer is Director at Talent Avenues Corporation)