Looking at employers: the relationship between migration and satisfaction with relations at work and with employers in Lithuania and abroad

Abstract

The relations between employers and employees in the context of migration have until recently not been an object of significant research in Lithuania. It is worth emphasizing that when research on this subject is initiated by representatives of employers, the needs and evaluations of employees remain largely unacknowledged. Especially well-noticed in the public sphere is research initiated by the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists and its cooperation with the Lithuanian government, with the country’s universities, and with (non)governmental organizations carrying out research that seeks to understand migration as a phenomenon in Lithuania and ensuring the smooth functioning of business organizations in Lithuania. In this case the mutual relations of employees and their views of labor relations and of their employer are only a minor part of such research. But in order to better understand the causes of Lithuanian migration that minor part must become one of the key aspects of research. Satisfaction with relations at the place of work and with the employer extends economic causality from just an issue of remuneration to social values such as how people feel in the work-place, conditions of working, and attitudes to the employer based on workload distribution, respect for the employee, the stress level in the workplace, the bosses’s sensitivity to the employees’ personal problems, career opportunities, relations among employees, and the existence of a shadow economy. Such a broad field of research enables one to arrive at a more detailed and comprehensive description and analysis of labor relations and of attitudes toward employers in Lithuania.