Employee-management Relations Research Articles

Distinctive HR Policies and Practices to Create a Workplace “Where Working Is a Pleasure” amid the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Organizational Culture of Publix Super Markets, Inc.

Publix Super Market is relentlessly committed to creating employment opportunities for the communities it serves, especially in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid ever increasing exogenous pressure, Publix has anchored itself in its world-class Human Resource Management, e.g., staffing protocols, performance management, and employee-management relations. Based on research as well as the personal work experiences of the authors with this organization, this paper and case study offers an in-depth view of how Publix has positioned itself—and remains positioned as—one of the top companies to work for in the United States. Rather than view HR as a cog in its operational engine, Publix holds its HR department as a strategic partner. This has been instrumental in maintaining a finger on the pulse of staff’s needs and creating a nurturing culture that champions every professional. Publix is not only a place where ‘shopping is a pleasure,’ but where working is a pleasure also.More than 150 years ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 affirmed that U.S. citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law. Over 50 years ago, the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination. However, despite over a century of legislation and activism, discrimination remains a pressing issue plaguing America today. Despite racial turmoil that afflicts our society, Publix has announced they will not stand for injustice by emphasizing, “Let’s end the injustice. Let’s stand together.” Publix has made a $1 million contribution to the National Urban League affiliates across the Southeast, as they continue to support their civil rights efforts.Publix offers its associates career growth, and the necessary training for equitable promotional opportunities for all their diverse employees. Furthermore, it invests in its associates' health, with a benefits package that encourages wellness, smoking cessation, and provides primary care, vision, and dental plans. Using a qualitative process based on personal experiences and documented literature, this case study will guide you through some of Publix’s hallmark human resource policies, how the company has embraced them, and how it works daily to encourage and incentivize its associates' career growth.

General Motor's great experiments: foundations for Lansing Grand River Assembly

This paper revisits the past and provides an extensive overview and analysis of the three major experiments conducted by General Motor’s (GM) in the 1980s. Each experiment offered an entirely different paradigm for auto manufacturing, for union-management and employee-management relations. Although all aspects of the three experiments can be viewed today in Lansing Grand River Assembly (LGRA), there is one system has clearly become dominant. In this study, we examine the elements of all the three systems and demonstrate how the success of NUMMI led to the wide-spread adoption of lean manufacturing by GM in the past two decades.

First Contract Arbitration and the Employee Free Choice Act

One provision of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would address the catastrophic underenforcement of the statutory right of employees to bargain, which results in half of all newly certified or recognized unions failing to secure a first collective bargaining agreement. It is an important reform for a seriously dysfunctional aspect of federal labor law and it will be a substantial improvement over the status quo. While political and media conversation surrounding EFCA has largely focused on the changing the process by which unions are selected, the provision for first contract arbitration is as important to the protection of the right to unionize.This Article argues that some form of mandatory interest arbitration for first contract disputes is an appropriate means of stabilizing employee-management relations given the extraordinary difficulties that unions currently experience in negotiating first contracts, the weakness of current NLRB and economic remedies, and the rippling effects of these difficulties on nascent unions. The Article surveys the empirical literature on the operation of interest arbitration in the public and private sector in the United States and in Canada and demonstrates that interest arbitration would increase the incentive for employers to negotiate in good-faith and make reasonable proposals. The Article shows that none of the alternative reforms to the law of collective bargaining and to NLRB procedures for protecting the right to bargain will be effective in addressing failures to bargain to a first contract. The Article also demonstrates that a statutory requirement of first contract arbitration is well within Congress’ power and does not represent an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority.

호텔 총지배인리더십의 종사원 관리에 관한 중요도 분석 - 서울 특 2급 호텔을 중심으로 -

본 연구는 호텔기업에 새로운 이미지를 창출하고, 호텔상품 및 서비스의 품질개선을 주도하여 고객에게 더 나은 가치를 제공하고, 호텔 가치를 증대시키는 요인으로 적정한 호텔종사원관리에 대한 바람직한 총지배인의 발전적 리더십이 형성되고 작용되어야 한다는 것이다. 하부조직구성원이 창조적이면서 동의할 수 있을 가치와 도덕이 뒷받침된 인간의 가치 존중에 바탕을 둔 새로운 총지배인 리더십을 원하는 것이다. 분석결과 효율적 경영실천을 위한 아래로부터의 커뮤니케이션 및 직무이해, 창조적인 종사원 직무환경, 경쟁력 있는 종사원 임금, 발전적인 종사원 권한위임 요인들과 표출된 세부항목들을 새로이 인식하고 결집시켜 호텔종사원 관리적 새로운 기업문화의 틀을 실행해 나가야 할 것이다. The purpose of this study is to show the optimal leadership model based on general manager management that is related to hotel employees, which may then be applied to ideal hotel management in Korea. The variables analyzed in this study are employee-management relations from the lowest ranking employee to the highest level of management, with communication and job understanding held common among the subjects. This study looks in detail at four main concepts. Firstly, the employees are encouraged to put forth their best efforts through the standardization of the requirements and regulations of the job and ensuring product suitability. Secondly, the cultivation of new hotel culture empowers the employees. The third point taken into account is the encouragement of employees to take pride in the work they do, which is done through a kind of reward system and salary. The final point considered is the empowerment of employees, which results in employee commitment to the job.

The same yet different: Worker reports on labour practices and outcomes in a single firm across countries

This paper examines cross-country differences in labour policies and practices and employee performance and attitudes toward work from a sample of nearly 30,000 employees in a large multinational manufacturing firm. The analysis shows: 1) large establishment and country differences in work practices, performance, and attitudes toward work across countries; 2) qualitatively similar responses of workers to work practices across countries; 3) a strong link between the establishment average of employee reports on the quality of labour-management relations and establishment average measures of employee performance 4) a positive relation between average employee performance and average employee-management relations at the country level, but no relation between country level performance in the firm and measures of the extent of national labour regulations or practices.

The Effects of High Performance Work Practices on Job Satisfaction in the United States Steel Industry

A unique data set is used to examine how different practices associated with high performance work Systems in the steel industry affect the job satisfaction of workers. While the effect of these practices on organizational performance is widely studied, few have examined their effects on workers. The analysis in this paper is based on data from a sample of 1,355 hourly workers in the U.S. steel industry across 13 plants. The results indicate that the effect of high performance work practices on job satisfaction dépends primarily on how work roles and job duties are defined, on good employee-management relations and on practices that help balance work and family responsibilities. These results show that those who are able to use their skills and knowledge on the job, those who report positive employée-management relations, and those who believe the company helps them balance work and family responsibilities have relatively high probabilities of being very satisfied with their jobs.

Internal plant environment and just-in-time manufacturing

This paper considers the implementation of just-in-time manufacturing in relation to aspects of the internal plant environment. A case-based research methodology was employed using data from six plants, each of which claimed to be engaged in just-in-time approaches to manufacturing. The data were both qualitative and quantitative, obtained mainly via interviews and questionnaires. The results support propositions that a more complete implementation of just-in-time manufacturing is associated with a clan-like plant culture (comprised of low power distance, collectivism, and cultural congruence), with employee influence over day-to-day work, and with good employee-management relations. The best and worst JIT plants highlight these results.

Obscuring But Not Reducing Managerial Control: Does TQM Measure up to Democracy Standards?

Despite TQM's (total quality management) stated emphasis on more cooperative employee-management relations, we argue that TQM, as it is presently conceived and practiced, obscures but does not reduce management control over workers. Based upon examination of the foundational TQM texts and of 25 implementation guides, we show how the language of 'empowerment' and 'self-management', central to the TQM mission, is often used in equivocal ways that compromise the meaning of these concepts as they were originally developed and used by radically egalitarian grassroots organizations. We also show in several respects how TQM's organizational changes may further perpetuate inequality among workers. By distilling the key ideal-typical features of the total quality organization and comparing them with the ideal-type characteristics of the machinebased bureaucracy and of the egalitarian-democratic organization, we bring into sharp relief how they are not the same. In bringing to the TQM literature the practices and standards developed over a 150-year history by genuinely egalitarian cooperative organizations, we are able to show the profound differences in form that prevail despite their parallel language. Should TQM practitioners wish to adopt the substance of these shared control methods, they would do well to learn from the examples of the grassroots organizations that pioneered these empowerment methods.

Organisational Innovation: Competing Models of Productive Efficiency

Decisions made by firms over investment in technological and production systems embody conceptions of productive efficiency that are themselves becoming sources of competitive advantage. It is argued in this paper that three dominant models of productive efficiency inform such decisions in the 1990s. There is the model of efficiency that fits with mass production, emphasising division of tasks, standardisation, repetition and cost minimisation. There is the model that underlies the successor system of lean production, first practised by Toyota in Japan, where the emphasis is on just-in-time, total quality management, and employee integration. While some authors limit the options available to firms to these two, this paper argues that there is a third, western alternative which traces its roots to sociotechnical innovation; in the current period it finds expression in business process re-engineering associated with the introduction of information technologies and quality assurance, and takes the form of such organisational innovations as cellular manufacturing, client-centred service cells and ‘high performance’ work systems. The conceptual framework is illustrated in the field of industrial relations, where competing models of structured employee-management relations have profound implications for the competitive posture adopted by firms.

Developing a Production System in Mexico

In designing and installing a manufacturing system for a factory in Mexico, we had to address problems and considerations that are typical in implementing production systems for developing countries; for example, the unskilled work force and poor power supplies. Other problems in planning and developing arose from conditions and goals that differ from those in other developing countries; for example, poor employee-management relations. Many such problems can be avoided or solved with proper planning.

Employee-Management Relations

Employee-Management Relations

Employee-management relations in the New York State public sector

Despite what has been said above, it is safe to state that management in the public sector is not in danger of being deposed. Both labor and management can survive; they have in the private sector and the relationship has proven mutually beneficial. But continued interaction and cooperation is needed to assure a lasting relationship, even though new challenges are inherent in it.

Operations Analysis and Employee-Management Relations

Operations Analysis and Employee-Management Relations

The Role of State Agencies in Public Employee Labor Relations

Discusses the role of state agencies in public employee labor relations in the United States. Comparison between public and private employee-management relationships; Details of the U.S. Executive Order 10988; Basic approaches to employee-management relations in the federal government; Classification of the agencies responsible for the administration of public employee relations at the state and local level; Advantages of using labor agencies. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

The Impasse in Labor Relations in the Federal Civil Service

Examines employee-management relations in the federal government of the United States. Impasse between the approaches of the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Civil Service Commission; Philosophies underlying the approaches to employee-management relations in the federal government; Routes to policy decision. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)