Question

‏ ‏Case Study Employee Relations at South-West Trains The company has a well-established collective bargaining agreement with ASLEF, the RMT, TSSA and AMICUS, which operates through the South-West Trains Company Council. This agreement gives the unions negotiating rights on a range of issues, including pay and terms and conditions of employment. They are also consulted on issues relating to performance and attendance, ` IN SEMESTER INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 2 Module Code: BUSS 1704 Module Name: Employee Relations Level: 6 Max. Marks: 100 Employee Relations (BUSS 1704) – Spring - 20 – CW2 (Assignment) – All– QP MEC_AMO_TEM_034_01 Page 2 of 14 changes in working practices, and redundancy. The Company Council is supported by a number of smaller groups. South-West Trains needs to ensure that it can involve and engage all staff, not just its union members. A number of employees are not represented by a union and have a limited formal voice in the company. In addition, the firm’s ‘Tell Us’ employee survey shows that a percentage of staff don’t feel they’re consulted about major decisions. These factors, combined with the approach of the new Employee Information and Consultation Regulations requiring that all staff are included in consultation arrangements, led the company to review its existing arrangements. The company would prefer the current collective-bargaining machinery to be adapted to allow non-union representatives to be informed and consulted alongside union representatives. However, other options may be possible, including establishing employee forums that would be open to all staff and would operate in parallel to the Company Council. Although it has a very good working relationship with all the unions, the company has moved away from relying solely on collective machinery to inform and consult employees. It takes responsibility for communicating with all employees and has improved its direct methods of communication. It holds ad hoc forums on specific issues to generate feedback from employees. Staff surveys have shown that employees want face-to-face communication, where possible through their line manager. ‘Time with your manager’ sessions have been introduced for operational staff to ensure that individuals have regular conversations with their line manager. HR seeks to get across the message to line managers that negotiating skills are basically communication skills, and that authentic conversations are needed to establish trust-based relationships with employees. ‘Partnership’ in the company is seen as being essentially between employer and employees, while the relationship with the trade unions is a professional one. In addition to regular team briefings by line managers, the company is increasingly using email and the company intranet to communicate with employees.

‏Q.Critically examine two employee participation practices in South-West Trains and their impact on employee performance.

Answer 1

Employee participation programme like open fair communication meetups can help employees voice their concerns and opinions on best practices and potential root causes of failed strategies.

Also conducting periodic peer reviews helps subordinates understand each other and create communication links to analyse performance and behaviour.

This helps in overall buildup of interpersonal relationships, strong collaboration, mentoring and coaching, better empathy towards each other, easier coordination and teamwork, trust and respect, and lastly better employees satisfaction and employees retention.

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