3MER Supporting Good Practice in Managing Employment Relation Assessment Answer

Employment refers to a correlation of offering and taking between the employees and employers which lead  to the formation of an agreement deciding the payment of a definite amount, completion of the term of the agreement that is agreed by both (Dziewanowska, Pearce and Zupan, 2016).  The paper will discuss the employment law, employment relationship and the right given to the employees under the employment laws. 

1. The impact of the employment law at the employment relationship 

The employment law regulates the relation of the employees and the employer. It is a framework that governs what an employer could expect from the employees and what they could request employees doing and what right they have at workplace. It provides information about the minimum wages, pays rates for the maternity and paternity leaves, the tribunal compensation limits while calculating the redundancy compensation or the unfair dismissal (Employment Law, 2020)

1.1 Factors impacting the employment relationship

 There are many factors that affect and shape employment relationship; they could be both internal and external factors.

Internal factors- are those elements that are within the organization such as management, culture, structure, leadership, H.R. practices etc. The two most significant internal factors that influence pathis relationship most are as follows. 

Working condition- it refers to the supply of the basic resources such as space, water supplies, light arrangement, air all combined known as the healthy workplace where employees could find a suitable environment for working. In addition to this, the working condition also involves the relationship of employer to employees and employees to employees. If employees do not have the basic working condition and the effective relationship with the owner and the colleagues, it affects the employment relationship (Baba and Ghazali, 2017)

Management chain of the command and management style- the employees are more diligence in the case they know to whom they are required to report and who have the authority over them for the decision making. One of the most crucial elements influencing the employment relationship is the management style.  The way in which the human resource within the organization are managed also influences the employee's employment relationship and overall the performance and productivity of the employees and organization (Monye and Ejiro, 2018)

External factors- they are those elements that are outside of the organization but have the potential for influencing the attitude and demand of the employees. 

Economic condition- the prevailing economic condition of a nation influence the employment relationship as it affects the spending pattern of the citizens. The increase in the high level of unemployment and financial hardship, it would affect the employment relationship.

Market competition- the strong elements of the rival companies, affects the employment relationship. The management has to make the strategic decision competing with the competitor for retaining the talent within the organization (Subramanian, 2017)

1.2 Different Types of employment status 

Employment status refers to the privileges along with the employment protection of an employee by which they are entitled to the job and dictates the responsibilities of the employees that is owned by the employer. The employment status has a great influence on the way employees work. The three types of employment status include worker, employee and self-employed.

The worker status is the most common type of employ status, and an individual is considered worker if he has an agreement for performing work or services, they could not subcontract their work to others, not doing work in a limited company. They have the employment rights of the national minimum wages, protection against the unlawful discrimination, paid holidays and the payslips,

Employee status covers working under a contract of employment. The employees and worker differs to each other form one specific area of legislation to other as they have a range of additional employment rights as well as protection and they are statutory sick pay, statutory redundancy pay, statutory maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave as well as pay.

They have contract employment, receive paid holidays, have some special leaves such as sick leave and the parental leave, subjected to the redundancy procedures, and required less number of hours for work compared to the worker, protection against the unfair dismissal, minimum notice periods and the right for asking or requesting considerable work hours.

Self-employed are those individuals who run their self business as well as solely responsible for their success. These individuals are not protected by any employment laws or right as they do not have any employers. They only have a contract with their clients stating the rights or obligation related to both parties (Enright, 2020)

1.3 Importance of clearly determination of an individual’s employment status

The three reasons to must know about the employment status are

• It helps in making employees aware of the employment benefits that they are legally entitled to.
• To know the degree to which the employees are under the control of the management and organization.
• It provides the employer's security about the duties of the employees with the exchange of an effective employment package (Employment Status, 2020)

2 The main individual rights that the employee has during the employment relationship 

The employees have several rights during the employment such as leaves, minimum working hours, right about the dismissal and Termination.  

2.1 The importance of work-life balance and related legislation 

In the United Kingdom, according to the Working Time Regulation 1998 (revised in the year 2007), full-time employees will have 28 days as the minimum statutory requirement in the context of the paid holiday every year. This is also same for the part-time employees but on a pro-rate basis. A full-time employee would have to spend 48 hours in a week. Per day 8 hours work for the night worker, a right to have eleven hours per day for rest, one day off each week, rest break after 6 hours of working (Working Hours & Time Off Work ,2020)

The work-life balance, as well as related legislation, is important as it protects the employees from any kind of discrimination for the minimum wages, health laws. This makes the employers ensure the safety and well being of its people. The law protects the health and safety of the employees.  This regulation make the employees aware of the weekly working time, annual leave and entitlement and make a special provision for the night workers (Working Hours & Time Off Work, 2020)

2.2 Family/parent-related legal support 

This legislation consisting the paternity, maternity, adoption leaves, dependant leaves entitles employees either the female or male to have leave for pre-decide period by the government. 

Maternity leave- For the maternity, paternity or any adoption leave, an eligible employee has entitled with the 18 weeks leaves unpaid parental leave but in the block's maximum of four in every year.  The statutory leaves apply both after and before the birth as well as or adaptation.  A woman has the 52 weeks of statutory maternity leaves and two-week compulsory leaves just after birth and could have 39 weeks statutory maternity pay.  For the very first six week, a female employee would be paid 90 % of her weekly average earnings. And for the next 33 weeks , they would be paid either on the SMP( that is review in every aprail) or 90 % of the their weekly average salary following the lower one. 

Adoption leave- In addition to this, an eligible employee could have 52 weeks leave for the adoption in which he could take 26 weeks of regular leaves and 26 weeks of the additional leaves. The parents with the surrogacy pregnancy treatment are also eligible for the adoption leave.  The statutory adoption pay for the adoption pay is eligible for the 39 weeks with a qualifying service of 26 weeks of consistent employment.  The rate of the statutory adoption pay is also the same as the statutory maternity or paternity pay (Maternity, Paternity & Adoption Rights, 2020). 

Paternity leave- In addition to this, an eligible employee for the parental leave could have the 26 weeks ending with the 15 weeks earlier to the baby birth.  They are entitled to the maximum of the two-week basic statutory leaves. The pay for the statutory paternity is as much as the pay for the statutory maternity pay. In the adoption case, the paternity leaves start from the day of the placement. And for the surrogate parents, it would start on the day child is born or the day after. They are paid according to the statutory paternity pay according to his weekly earning as well as the length of the service. 

Dependant leave- this leave is entitled to the employees for the person depending on the employees only in the case of the emergency or unforeseen circumstances. The dependants include the parents, spouse, and children or any other individual living as their family members. The limit of such leave is not decided and it is up to the employers. as far as payment is concerned, the employers may pay for time off for this leave or maybe not. It must be included in the employment contract or company handbook or intranet site. 

2.3 Reasons for fair treatment of employees in the context of pay (Equal Pay)

The fair treatment always fosters smooth running of business process and the excellent performance of the organization. It creates a positive work environment where the employees like to work and want to be a part of the organization for a long time. The fair treatment refers to providing equal opportunity and importance to every employee of the organization regardless of any favouritism and according to their performance and contribution to the organization. Any kind of unfair treatment could create several conflicts and strike and even harm the reputation of the organization in the marketplace, so the fair treatment must be a business practice and core value of any organization. The employees should be treated fairly mainly for the two reasons:

• Creating a better and a strong relationship with the workforce based on the respect and trust- the fair treatment create a sense of being equally treated for their work, and they become more dedicated to their work and contribute with their potential to the organizational goal.  It also helps in avoidance of the competition and negative feeling to one employee to their colleague.  
• Creating employee loyalties as well as their satisfaction- the fair treatment makes employees believe in the policies and procedures of the organization, and they become satisfied with their job and loyal to the organization. in addition to this, the fact treatment ensures the organization from any type of legal consequence and helps in retaining talented employees within the organization (Jalagat, 2016)

2.4 The main points of equalities legislation

The Equality Act 2010, replacing the anti discrimination laws in a single Act, protects the employees from any kind of the discrimination within organization and at workplace.

The main areas of the protection under this Act are as follows

• age discrimination, 
• disability discrimination, 
• gender reassignment discrimination, 
• pregnancy and the maternity discrimination,
• marriage as well as the civil partnership discrimination, 
• equal pay, 
• race discrimination, 
• sexual orientation discrimination, 
• human rights, 
• harassment and the bullying, 
• ethnicity pay gap reporting, 
• CEO pay ration reporting, 
• modern slavery statement (Your rights under the Equality Act 2010, 2020)

An employee may face or struggle with four types of the discrimination at workplace and they are as follows:

Direct discrimination- it refers to a situation where an individual is treated worse compared to the other for same reasons. It is an act of favouring one individual more compare to other individual. For example, a female employees are not promoted to the senior position even having all the qualification, experience, skill as the owner assume that she will be unable to take the work pressure while establishing her work life balance. 

Indirect discrimination- it happens when  there are policies, practice as well as rule and regulation that applies to each employees within the workplace in the same way but have the worst effects on some individual compared to others. For example, an organization introduce a new dress code for every employees and as a part of this decision, it prohibits the cornrow haircut. Here this is indirect discrimination as these hair styles are somehow worn by specific racial groups (Your rights under the Equality Act 2010 | Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2020)

Harassment- it refers to an unethical and unwanted behaviour that an individual finds hostile or offensive and which make them intimidated, uncomfortable and humiliated. It is illegal under the Equity Act if it has effects on the other party, violated the dignity, creates intimidation, humiliating as well as offensive environment. 

Victimisation- it refers to the ill treatment of an individual because he or she has done a protected act (claiming of discrimination, supporting someone in giving information or evidence, making allegation about breach of law or doing anything related to the Equality Act). (Your rights under the Equality Act 2010 | Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2020).

2.5 The concept of the 'psychological contract' 

The employment agreement offers written and practical understanding and awareness about the employment relationship, but the psychological contract is another aspect related to the employment relationship.  It is a verbal contract based on the perception of a strong relationship between the employees and the employers that are built on the regular or day to day activities as well as the statements made by one party and the way in which they are perceived and then interpreted by the other party (Psychological Contract, 2020)

The psychological contract could be defined as the expectation of the employees and employers to each other. The underpin policies and procedures examples of the psychological contract are as follows:

• What employees could reasonably expect from the employers such as equal pay, equal opportunities and do not victim of any kind of the discrimination. 
• What the employees should return as the contribution in the form of the effective performance and productivity to the organization and supporting the organization in the hard time or the need of hours such as the extra work in the case of increased demand. 

Effective communication is the key procedure for the establishment of psychological contract. The policies and the procedure are based on mutual trust as these contracts are not written.

3. Termination of the employment relationship

The term dismissal describes refers to the Termination of employment. According to the Employment Rights Act, the employees with their employment contract have rights that they are not terminated in any unfair way. The dismissal must be on fairground with a lawful and reasonable reason and following the procedure before the employment could be terminated. The employers are required to follow the disciplinary policies before the dismissal. The employment relationship or the employees- employer relationship could be terminated after a dismissal that could be both the fair or unfair dismissal. 

3.1 The differences between fair and unfair dismissal

The fair dismissal refers to termination where an owner dismisses an employee on the ground of unreasonable conduct, redundancy, capability, legal restriction such as an employee’s immigration status. In addition to this, a resort process for resolving the employees’ conflict informally must be conducted before the Termination.  In the fair Termination, the employees are notified earlier to their employment termination, and often the employer has a discussion about the Termination with the employees earlier to the final decision (Dismissal ,2020).

In contrast, the unfair dismissal refers to Termination when the employers dismiss any employee on the ground of any reasonable unlawful ground such as race, religion, sexual orientation, age, gender and pregnancy. In addition to this, the employees are not given the minimum notice period, and an employee is forced for resigning for the employer choice or any harassment behaviour such as false accusation, harassment and any sudden comprising change in the employment agreement (Reynolds, 2016) 

3.2 The importance of exit interviews with both parties 

The Exit interview refers to a discussion, a conversation, or a dialogue between an employer and an employee terminating his or her service with the organization for one or another reason. An exit interview is a process that is conducted in every case of the employee's departure, such as employees' resignation, employees retirement, employees fire. It is an H.R. tool for unravelling ht organizational characteristics such as the organizational culture, job, management that contribute to the employees turnover. the exit interviews are significant for both parties for the employees and employers as the feedback from the exit interviews helps in determining the several organizational problems, legal liability solution and fostering the existing and continuous relationship with the employees. (Sengupta, Sengupta and Bandopadhyay, 2018)

 for example, if an organization undergoes from the discrimination problem in the context of the employment on the basis of hate women or minorities, the exit interview would help the deciding the picture of the management that is misrepresented. The leaving employees could reveal the information that could be useful to the strength as well as the development of the organization.  

In this conversation, all ideas are exchanged with face to face interaction. In this interview, the employee could be offered a better way of employment or working condition. In this way, the exit interview is significant for both the employees and the employer (Mokibelo, 2020) 

3.3 Redundancies Management and its impacts on organization

 The present organization culture is complex, and the redundancy is an unpleasant experience for anyone. It refers to a situation where the employer of an organization reduces the workforce because there is no need for a specific job or jobs. It could be voluntary or compulsory steps for the organization. Redundancy refers to a process of terminating someone because they are not required to be employed, and in simple word, it is Termination of the employment due to the inadequate level of the work and occurs in the surplus of the labour.

Under the Equity Act 2010, making someone redundant on the ground of their age, orientation, sex, marital status, race or religion, disability or other protected characteristics is illegal and unlawful. The procedure for the redundancies management varies organization to organization on the basis of the size and scale of the redundancy programs. Some of the basic steps in every organization for the management of the redundancies are as follows

• Planning- the organization should always try to avoid redundancies by considering the alternative approaches such as Normal staff leavers, Restriction on the recruitment, Redeployment to another part of the organization, Elimination or at least reduction of the overtime, Seeking those applicants who want the voluntary or early retirement, Termination of the employment contract.
• Identification of the pool for the selection – the pool from which employees are to be selected must be identified and must have least one criteria among them such as who undertake a same type of word, one who needs specific department, those who work at a relevant location, those whose job has been reduced or ceased.  
• Seeking volunteers- offering a redundancy package.  
• Consulting employees- before the issue of the notice about the dismissal.
• Selection for redundancy- that should be based on the attendance record, length of service, skill qualification along  with competencies, work experience and performance record
• Appeal and then dismissal- the organization must give an earlier notice about the redundancy and have an individual meeting (Redundancy, 2020)

Redundancies effect on the organization 

Several researches has proved that redundancies are one of the most harmful kinds of organizational changes as this affects morale, productivity, faith, comfort, the motivation of employees. It has adverse effects on the share price. According to the findings of a survey by the charter Institute of Personnel and Development, seven out of the ten employees reported that redundancies affect not only the organization but also the survivors. It imposes the challenge of the high turnover to the organization. The organization lost the faith of the employees as they become tempted for making people redundant on the assumptions that it is one of the best ways of cutting the cost and short-sighted. On the other hand, the cost of the redundancy process also negatively affects the performance of the organization (Nyasha, 2016).

There are several direct as well as the indirect cost that is associated with the redundancy for the employers. the direct  cost involves the statutory or contractual redundancy payment and the indirect cost consist of the time spend by the management on the training and development,  higher labour turnover due to the reduced morale as well as engagement of the employees (Redundancy, 2020)