The Principal Contextual Factors to Have Impacted on the Processes and Outcomes of Employment Relations in Recent Years

Wilton (2013) describes the employment relations as the way that power is distributed between the management and the workers, what frameworks are used to regulate that power and how conflict can be expressed and dealt with when present. Since the financial crisis of 2008, employment relations have become even more important as so many aspects of the workplace and what is desired from employees have changed in order to adapt to the new challenging times. This essay focuses on the main contextual factors that could influence the employment relationship - political, economic, technological, and connected to globalisation and changes in the labour market. All of these factors have had certain effect on the processes and outcomes of the employment relations which include recruitment and selection, managerial processes for handling grievances, collective bargaining, performance management, worker’s voice and involvement, tribunals, organizational commitment, pay, working conditions and job satisfaction. Last but not least, each factor has had a different impact depending on the point of view – that of the employee, the employer and the unions. In that diversity lays the true beauty of the employment relations.

Surely one of the factors that employment relations are affected by can be found in the context of political, regulatory and legal changes. The law is a major factor in setting the rules for employment relations. During the time of Margaret Thatcher and John Major trade unions’ influence had been majorly decreased. Theoretically, the relationship between the employer and the employee should be equal. In reality, the employer has been seen as the one who possesses the power “over” the workers (Sisson, 2008). Corporations have the ability to change employee’s wage and working conditions as well as use different ways to exercise control. The Labour governments between 1997 and 2010 did not help the unions to rise again but at least introduced laws enacting the...