Even with the best of intentions, some organisations do fail in handling employee relations. The work relationship that constitutes HR management is often one sided. No wonder, the majority of employees fail to keep up with expectations. There isn’t one management standard, such that different managers in an organisation could apply his or her own set of rules that might cause negativity in the workplace. If any, positive feedback or psychological pat-on-the-back is hardly existent – the one thing an employee desires the most is to be recognised and appreciated. 

Meanwhile, a lot of organisations think that the reason their employees are unhappy was because they were not involved enough or that their inputs were not considered. So these organisations dump in more work for the employees to do and just let them go with the motion. But the fact is, this is a sure recipe for making the employee feel more demoralized instead of esteemed.

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What do organisations get from better handling of employee relations?

There is strength in numbers, as the saying goes. Make one mistake in handling human relations and the effect easily multiplies among employees. The reverse is true, too. When management handles human relations in a way that empowers its people, positive vibe also resonates among the employees and likewise encourages organisational loyalty.

Other effects of improving human relations include: 

• Help retain the best employees
• Empower employees to work harmoniously together, always in the best interest of the organisation
• Create a working environment that allows the employees to contribute freely their creative ideas, talents, and skills to the objective of meeting goals and targets

What should managers avoid when handling employee relations? 

Employee relations are vital to organisation’s success, so as best as possible management should refrain from doing the following:

• Giving impression that employees cannot be trusted with the work standards by adding more work inspectors or audit systems
• Not creating work standards and clear expectations that actually guide employees on what to accomplish and in what level of quality
• Creating permission steps that employees consider as roadblocks to approval of ideas or strategic plans or in gathering positive feedbacks
• Failing to implement valid employee suggestions, especially if the suggestions are projected to improve work output
• Impressing that employee inputs mattered yet arrive at a decision that didn’t even consider the inputs
• Not dealing rule breakers  directly and make a “group” of employees answerable for such
• Making new rules as a consequence of one or two employees’ failures
• Impressing that “everyone” is untrustworthy, just because a few have been, then consistently watch over them, track their every move and reprimand them instantly even for inconsiderable failures
• Failing at addressing significant wrong behavior of managers and supervisors that contribute to the animosity of employees
• Labeling hacks to work procedures as a form of “resistance” without acknowledging that individual ingenuity often improves productivity so long as there was no compromise in between

There is so much more to better employee relations than just setting hard and fast organisational rules. While rules maintain order in the organisation, employees will feel more appreciated when they are given real human treatment and not just see them as mechanical thinkers.

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