Pluralism and Unitarism in Employment Relationship - Essay Example

Running Head: Employment Relations Employment Relations Authors Name Institution Name There are two ways of thinking about the Employment Relationship; pluralism and unitarism. Unitarism perspective predominates in organizations like Kodak, Hewlett Packard, 3M and IBM. This perspective holds that everyone within an organization shares a common purpose and are all committed to this purpose. This automatically excludes the existence of conflict in any form and certainly institutional recognition of it (for example, unions). The relationship between employer and employee is seen as a partnership between the suppliers of capital, management and employees. Commentators such as Peters and Waterman (1982) are early champions of the unitary perspective (Honey, P & Mumford, A 1986, 1989). A frequent criticism of this viewpoint is its refusal to accept the existence of conflict. Unitarists counter the argument that conflict is integral to organizational life by arguing that conflict need not exist at all, and that where it does it signals a breakdown in the system, not that the system is flawed. Conflict, they argue may stem from: Poor leadership by management; Breakdowns in communication; Failure to grasp the commonality of interest; Resistance of employees; Though, the more realistic approach to managing people was to recognize that organizations are pluralistic, comprising various groups, each with their own basis of authority and sets of interests. The 'rules' of employment are not just the preserve of management. A new pay rate set by management will not necessarily be seen as fair by workers, creating an issue of potential dispute. Therefore conflict or differences between individuals and groups are inevitable. Management should recognize this inevitability, and find the ways and means to regulate such differences. As noted above, an institutional approach - collective bargaining between employers and trade unions, and the development of formal procedures to deal with disputes about pay, grievances and discipline - was considered to be the most appropriate solution. However, this is flawed to the extent that it implies both parties to the bargain have equal power resources at their disposal. Unitarism has underpinned the 'human relations school' of management, including Mayo, Likert, McGregor, Schein and Herzberg (Pugh and Hickson, 1996:155-77), and reasserted itself in 'managerialism' and HRM. Unitarism cannot be written off as naive and outdated any more than radicalism because of the apparent disappearance of discontent. Though, pluralism refocuses the employment relationship beyond the workplace by connecting the old pluralist and voluntary frames of reference with new questions raised by contemporary society. The health of society is put first, encouraging industrial relations policy initiatives that are driven by social concerns, not just a business agenda. Further he argues that the employment relationship bears hidden ethical considerations of trust and responsibility in relation to human beings. Areas of potential dispute, conflict and difference do exist between managers and workers, between managers and other managers, and between workers and customers, demonstrating that workplaces are pluralistic. In cases where workers 'fiddle' or 'pilfer' from their employer, the nature of their behavior is more in keeping with a radical perspective. Thus it is possible to observe facets of unitarism, pluralism and radicalism in the same employment relationship in which management, for the most part, remains the more powerful. Relationships as apparently diverse as the superior-subordinate, the staff-line, the consultant-client, the salesman-customer, the teacher-student, the counselor-counselee, the husband-wife, or the parent-child are all seen as involving leadership. Thus here we will discuss leadership skills and training contribution towards teamwork. I believe, Training and development can typically be clustered into two categories with distinctly different content orientations: (a) task, knowledge, and skill-based training designed to provide the individual with the attributes necessary to effectively interact and utilize the hardware capabilities of a system; and (b) attitude, expectation, and perception-based training designed to provide the individual with the attributes necessary with which to effectively interact and utilize the human and social attributes of a system. Training has typically been micro in its team orientation, with a center on individual learning, development, and change. This is true regardless of the fact that, at least at a conceptual level, training needs assessment, evaluation, and instructional design models (Goldstein, 1992) assert that training should be designed to support and contribute to clearly articulate organizational goals. In practice, however, training activities are generally focused at the individual level, including needs analysis, delivery programs ( Salas, Dickinson, Converse, & Tannenbaum, 1992), and evaluation criteria ( Alliger & Janak, 1989). This can be accredited to the dominance of instructional theory in training, which is based on individual-level models of change. An inherent assumption is that the individual level is the source of organizational-level change. In my opinion the steps involve the systematic training cycle has five major steps; recognition of training need, training goals, selection and design of programme, accomplishing training, and evaluative feedback. As training is a means of enhancing organizational efficiency. The procedure starts with an analysis of the accessible situation. The requirements recognized will be phrased in stipulations of new work practices which will augment the efficiency of one particular part of the organization. The management of that component of the organization should be concerned at all stages and be dedicated to changing organizational structures or performs which diverge with the new practices that are being commenced. In approximately every case this entail that the managers are implicated in the design and deliverance of the training. They will as well be accountable for supporting the new behaviors in the work place by assessing performance and coaching or supervising as essential to making it certain that the learning becomes integrated in standard work practices (Honey, P & Mumford, A 1986, 1989). The leader's choice of a theoretical model to apply to a given situation is based on his or her assessment of the group's needs and training goals. Through data collection and subsequent diagnosis, the leader arrives at specific recommendations and goals that lead to a clear choice of model to meet emergent training needs. The leader may choose to employ one or several different models in order to meet set sub-goals. For example, the leader may have established as an overall goal the establishment of an efficient organizational structure, but the attainment of that goal may be dependent on the realization of a series of sub-goals. Sub-goals, in this case, might include awareness of group and organizational functioning, improvement of managerial skills, and an increase in communication skills. Each sub-goal requires the implementation of a different model. The first sub-goal may require a t-group orientation followed by lecture and discussion in a skills training format to enhance understanding and the ability to use what has been learned. The second sub-goal requires skills training in effective managerial behavior. The third sub-goal, communications, brings to mind the personal growth training model. In employing one or several different models to meet group goals, the leader must be aware that mixing one model within another model, during a given segment or within a given session, is confusing to the group. The clear use of a single model at a specific time in the group's life provides for more purposeful goal-oriented training programs. Proper training helps team to improve and enhance communication. This is an immense time for the leadership and teams to share the information with the entire team so that everybody discerns the score of the game. The group appraises what origin the business to be what it is and recognizes changes for the subsequently part of the organization. Training also contributes to every person and division discerns what his or her collision on the business is. A cross functional team representing the areas that can influence transform should get together to make it take place. These ways for communication put up teams by getting everybody to constantly interrelate with each other. This assists build confidence among the team members also. Training pull attempt together to achieve a frequent goal as a team, businesses get larger profits. Training team is a procedure, while team members discern the common goals, their tasks and responsibilities, decided upon techniques for communication comprising coaching and giving response, and have encouragement to achieve them, accomplishment is certain. Teams as well eases dialog among members through communications, and by facilitating determine interpersonal conflicts which take place in or between meetings. In addition those teams also improve inventiveness in an organization as people with balancing skills are stanch to a common reason, routine goals, and move toward for which they hold themselves equally accountable. Team surroundings are characterized by principles and beliefs that prop up the principles of quality development. These embrace participative managerial, collaboration, and unremitting learning. Members divide a frequent vision and deference for one another. Staffs are organized or arrange themselves in formal and informal, provisional, or longer-term teams. This may embrace work teams, analytical teams, centers of quality, research teams, and cross-functional teams which assist in ornamental creativity in an organization. The utilization of team training can assist to develop the efficiency of an organization and meeting its goals. The precise knowledge that every person brings and the widened contribution of a team show to better decisions. Furthermore, teams also amplify morale and allow people to take better conceit in their work. Training also contributes Teamwork to offers a general language that creates additional well-organized and effective communication both straight and upright across the organization. Furthermore, it diminishes costs and get better overall act in a lot of ways, including more rapidly and more dependable decisions, doing stuff right the first time, improving client satisfaction, and abolishes redundancies (Heifetz, Ronald A., 1994). Classic models of organizational training emphasize two key areas of linkage between training activity and the organizational system. McGehee and Thayer ( 1961) emphasized the organizational goals and objectives resultant through needs assessment that drive the fortitude of training content. They defined training as, ". . . the formal procedures which a company uses to ease employees' learning so that their resulting behavior contributes to the attainment of the company's goals and objectives" (p. 3 ). Goldstein (1992) incorporated this linkage, but emphasized transfer. He defined training as ". . . the systematic acquisition of skills, rules, concepts, or attitudes that results in improved performance in another environment" (p. 3 ;); trained knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) cannot affect organizational goals if they are not expressed in the work environment. Needs analysis is traditionally regarded as a diagnostic process that occurs prior to training. The purpose of needs analysis is to recognize what is to be trained, training content, and who is to obtain training targets. Transfer is usually regarded as a post training outcome and a key gauge of training effectiveness. Training is predicated on meeting organizational goals and objectives. Classic models of training emphasize desires assessment as the means by which these goals exert an influence on training design, though they do not bond this process directly to transfer. Needs assessment integrates three principal activities: organizational analysis, operations or task analysis, and person analysis. Training can also considerably benefit from integration with concepts drawn from organizational theory. The training function is bound by the appropriate constraints of the organizational system and its defining features. Recent theory has begun to think the interface between the organizational system and training (Goldstein, 1991). Training is being conceptualized as essential to the strategic goals of the organization (Schuler & Walker, 1990), as a component of the human resource planning process (Jackson & Schuler, 1990), and as an activity that is forced by organizational environment features. Thus, the neglect of the leadership skills and organizational system implications for training effectiveness, mainly in those instances when training content or its level of delivery does not line up well with contextual constraints. Hence, this paper reaches the conclusion that incorporation of a systems perspective identifies issues that must be addressed to ensure that training contributes to desired changes. Trained knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) at the individual level are embedded in team- or unit-level technology, coordination processes, and social system contexts, with broader contextual constraints originating at higher system levels. From this perspective, preparing individuals to accept training-induced change, and encouraging them to express their new capabilities in the work environment, require training that is delivered at the appropriate level and is congruent with contextual supports. It is clear that training shares themes with other research domains that also address the problem of organizational change. Yet, these themes have rarely been systematically applied to issues in training. The leader has an inimitable pose in organization. The qualities of good leadership embrace vision, target setting, spur, vision, incessant learning, teamwork, adaptation, and motivation. Leadership can be applied at all stage, not simply by managers and supervisors but as well by peers and persons. Though, leadership is not a mysterious process. It can be clearly defined and its component parts can be taught to your people. Take the time to train your people in the nine behaviors of leadership. 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