CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      Background of the study

Employees are among an organization's most important resources and coined as most valuable assets. The nature and amount of work performed by them have a direct impact on the productivity of an organization. So maintaining healthy employee relations in an organization is a pre-requisite for any organization in order to achieve growth and success. According to CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development) Employee relations is a broad term that incorporates many issues from collective bargaining, negotiations, employment legislation to more recent considerations such as work-life balance, equal opportunities and managing diversity. It comprises of the practices or initiatives for ensuring that Employees are happy and are productive. Employee Relations offers assistance in a variety of ways including employee recognition, policy development and interpretation, and all types of problem solving and dispute resolution. It involves handling the pay–work bargain, dealing with employment practices, terms and conditions of employment, issues arising from employment, providing employees with a voice and communicating with employees. Employee relations is concerned with maintaining employee-employer relation, which contributes to satisfactory productivity, increase in employee morale and motivation. Today, Employee Relations is a much broader concept. It involves maintaining a work environment that satisfies the needs of individual employees and management. Improving employee morale, building company culture, conveying expectations. An effective employee relation involves creating and cultivating a motivated and productive workforce. It’s necessary to keep the dynamics of employer-employee relationship in mind. It covers all the relations between employers and employees in industry. Employee relations also includes giving scope for employee participation in management decisions, communications, policies for improving cooperation and control of grievances and minimization of conflicts. People are generally motivated from within, but HR and organization focus should be on what they can do to help foster the type of environment where employees thrive to give their best performance. Motivated employees have higher level of work engagement, reduced turnover and better performance as compared to disengaged employees. Since the organization success is directly linked with the performance of its employees the companies maintaining strong employee relations initiatives will benefit because their workforce is highly motivated to put their best efforts. Hence managing these relationships becomes important for business success, as strong and healthy relationships can lead to greater employee happiness and even increased productivity.

1.2      STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

A recent study conducted by Blyton (2008) revealed that employees do not put up their best performances at workplaces when they are un-happy with management, government, or even their fellow colleagues. Bad employee-employer relationship results in strike actions and lockouts. All these actions taken by employees to display their grievances only do the organization harm than good as productivity will be reduced drastically.
By many accounts, employee relations today are in crisis. In academia, its traditional positions are threatened on one side by the dominance of mainstream economics and organizational behavior and by postmodernism.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is employee relations and its effects on organizational performance.  But for the successful completion of the study; the researcher intends to achieve the following sub-objectives;

1.   To identify the challenges faced by employees at work places.

2.   To identify ways of enhancing healthy relationship between employees and employers in an organization.

3.   To ascertain the relationship between employees –employer relationship and organizational performance

4.   To ascertain the problems that impact negative relationship between employees and employer

1.4      RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

For the successful completion of the study, the following research hypotheses were formulated by the researcher; 

H0: there are no challenges faces by employees at workplaces

H1: there are challenges faces by employees at workplaces

H02: there is no significant relationship between employee-employer relationship and organizational performance

H2: there is a significant relationship between employees-employer relationship and organizational performance

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is believed that at the completion of the study, the findings will be of benefit to organizations. This study will therefore help enlighten management of various organizations of the various effects of relationship practices between employers and employees in an organization. The study will also be of great benefit to the researchers who intends to embark on research on similar topics as it will serve as a guide. Finally, the study will be of great importance to academia’s, lecturers, teachers, students and the general public. 

1.6 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study covers the employee relations and its effects on organizational performance. The researcher encounters some constrain which limited the scope of the study;

 a) AVAILABILITY OF RESEARCH MATERIAL: The research material available to the researcher is insufficient, thereby limiting the study 

b) TIME: The time frame allocated to the study does not enhance wider coverage as the researcher has to combine other academic activities and examinations with the study.

c) Organizational privacy: Limited Access to the selected auditing firm makes it difficult to get all the necessary and required information concerning the activities. 

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

EMPLOYEE: An individual who works part-time or full-time under a contract of employment, whether oral or written, express or implied, and has recognized rights and duties. Also called worker. ... I was an employee at a prestigious bank, so I had to dress nice everyday and be on my best behavior

RELATIONSHIP: The way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected.

ORGANIZATION: An organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department

PERFORMANCE: A performance, in the performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers present one or more works of art to an audience. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand

1.8 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows

Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), historical background, statement of problem, objectives of the study, research hypotheses, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlights the theoretical framework on which the study is based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study. 

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