Employment relationship

The employment relationship is one that is recognized whenever employers and employees work together. A positive employment relationship is required, one in which there are beliefs and mutuality – the state that exists when management and employees are interdependent and both assistance from this interdependency.

It governs much of what organizations need to be aware of in developing and put on human resource management and employee relations processes, policies and procedures. Therefore Employment relationship need to be considered in relations of what they will or will not contribute to promoting a productive and fulfilling relationship between all the Employee & Employer.

The Employment Relationship defined

The employment relationship, which may be expressed formally by what Rubery et al (2002) regarded as the cornerstone, namely the contract of employment. In law, an employee is someone working for an employer who has the ultimate right to tell the worker what to do. The employment relationship can additionally be defined officially by such means as procedure agreements and work rules.

Figure 1 dimensions of the employment relationship

The basis of the Employment Relationship

Employee	Employer
The employee has to provide skill and effort to the employer	Employer provides the employee with a salary or wage
The employee has corresponding obligations which include obedience, competence, honesty, and loyalty.	Provide a safe workplace to good faith towards the employee
The relationship is created on a legal contract	The relationship is created on a legal contract
The employee can maintain their rights to ‘a fair days pay for a fair days’ work.	The relationship will also be affected by processes such as communication and consultation, and by the management style prevailing throughout the organization or adopted by individual managers
	The employer that has the power to dictate the contractual terms unless they have been fixed by collective negotiating

Table 1 – the basis of the employment relationship

Types of employment relationship contracts by MacNeil (1985) and Rousseau and Wade-Benzoni (1994)

Transactional contracts are formal contracts that have well-described terms of exchange between employer and employees, which are often expressed financially. They contain specified performance requirements.

Relational contracts are largely informal contracts with more abstract terms and refer to an open-ended membership of the organization. Performance requirements attached to this continuing membership are incomplete or ambiguous.

Managing the employment relationship

The employment relationship is strongly influenced by HR actions. The significant impact of this approach is the way in which employee is required to carry out their work, how performance expectations are expressed and communicated, how work is organized and how employees are managed by the Human Resource management. Improving the employment relationship in the organization is to Exists when management is honest with people, keeps its word (delivers the deal) and practices what it preaches.

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition.

Herriot, P, Hirsh,W and Riley, P (1988) Trust and Transition: Managing the employment relationship, Chichester, Willey

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