How Can HR Professionals Foster Better Industrial Relationships? Seeking Your Advice

What are the basic tools to maintain harmonious industrial relationships in the industry? Kindly provide me with your valuable advice on this matter. As an HR professional, what kind of steps can we take to improve relations?

Thank you.

Understanding the Paradigm Shift in Industrial Relations

There is no specific tool for industrial relations (IR). You should understand the paradigm shift in IR with a tech-savvy, freedom-loving, job-hopping, job enrichment, and more entrepreneurial modern workforce, which does not believe in continuity of service, reflecting a negative culture of the organization. The workforce is active on social media and platforms like 'WhatsApp,' impacting employer branding. This is a very sensitive issue, and your approach may not be the same for a similar situation in another culture. It varies from industry to industry and depends on the social, monetary, and psychological needs of individuals and groups/cultural needs.

Solutions to Industrial Relations Challenges

Every problem has solutions. Try to use the four 'W's and one 'H' concept (Why, Where, When, What & How). Every grievance, whether individual or group, revolves around the employer's/employer's team/managers/supervisors interactions. You have to play a mentor/safe role on the expectations of the Employer vis-a-vis Employee to achieve organizational goals.

The basic tools of IR are employee communication, rapport with union leaders, grievance handling, problem-solving approach, statutory compliance, etc.

The IR situation is very dynamic. Depending on the situation at hand, you have to devise your approach, tools, and techniques to resolve the issue.

Dear All,

Thank you all for your valuable feedback. Sir, I want to know what kind of scheme we can implement in our organization for better communication with workers. Some other ways to interact with workers and other staff. Kindly suggest five ways where we can identify problems indirectly.

Warm Regards,
Gaurav Mehta

In addition to the formal means and modes of communication, you have to develop informal means and modes as well. These are days of social media; there is no limit to how creatively and in the organizational interest you can use this media. Furthermore, these are some of the means used very effectively:

Management-employee direct communication meeting

Invite a cross-section of employees from all areas of work (limited to the capacity of the meeting place) along with the team of top management. First, have a presentation on organizational health and challenges, followed by a presentation on any key issue faced by the unit, such as safety or maintenance, etc. Then, throw the forum open to anyone from the audience who wants to make suggestions or criticisms. When there are no more suggestions, the Chief Executive replies to each and every suggestion, makes firm commitments on implementable ideas, and with reasons rejects what is irrelevant.

Create an informal group of opinion leaders from each work area

In every work area, there are some employees whom everyone consults and respects, not because of status nor union affiliation. Such opinion leaders hold the key to real downward and upward communication. Share with this group what the management wants to communicate to the lowest employee level and listen to them intently to receive upward communication. Pay serious attention to the feedback and take remedial action.

Posting of Labour Welfare Supervisor

Post some workmen who are adept in problem-solving in any work area of nearly 250-300 workers. Their job is to collect the grievances of workers, be it related to wages & allowances, safety items, identity card, or attendance, etc. It is the job of the LWS to sort out the grievance and report back to the workman the progress thereof. Empower the LWS to directly seek the intervention of HOD or Chief Executive where the situation demands.

These are some of the methods used by us in developing a strong communication network that could help the company recover from a shock 37 days tool down by 100% workmen in 1987.

Line Managers as Good HR Communicators

In an ideal situation, line supervisors and line managers play important roles. Encourage line managers and supervisors to consider, besides production pressure, the human aspect of working conditions, systems, and procedures to create a worker-friendly and easily adaptive environment.

Effective Grievance Communication

Make your grievance communication more effective. Show the workers that we are transparent and keep them informed of market share and any increases and downturns. Share quality issues compared to international standards and seek suggestions for improvement, cost reduction, and empowerment. Encourage multitasking and make the workers supervisors for their quality output in each shift against the monthly target. Do not encourage any cost-escalating suggestions.

Encouraging Worker Engagement

Encourage the workers as a group to take on challenging situations by making them committed to such challenges as suggested by them. Appreciate openness and provide individual criticism or negative feedback.

Thank you all for your valuable feedback. We are going to start our organization's suggestion scheme, and some committees have been constituted for better communication with the workers. We hope that with the help of such implementations, we can build the best interaction with our workers. If anyone has any suggestions in this regard, kindly share them with me. We do not have a Labor Welfare Supervisor because we have only 300 staff members. Thank you a lot for your replies.