Employee Relations: An International Journal

Dan Kearns

1997 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425459710171003

Changes in the nature of work, social policy, and concepts of disability allow increased potential for the integration of vocational rehabilitation (VR) in the workplace. Concurrently, workplace rehabilitation programmes are becoming more popular, as organizations see the value of VR in improving workplace culture and reducing insurance premiums. Investigates the opportunities for collaboration between rehabilitation and human resource management (HRM) at policy, planning and practice levels. Failure to integrate can lead to the VR programme being marginalized and needless duplication of activities. Concludes by calling for increased cross‐disciplinary training for both HR practitioners and VR professionals as a basis for effective integrated rehabilitation at the workplace.

Darren McCabe; John Black

1997 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425459710171012

Explores the role of trade unions in relation to team working. Asks the questions: are unions incompatible with team working and what are the implications for shop stewards of team working? Argues that moves towards team working are likely to be fragile because of political and power‐based tensions, within and without the employment relationship, which impinge on trade union responses to team working, and likewise impact on management’s ability to adopt a sustained approach towards team working. Consequently, in contrast to its unitarist ethos, team working is characterized by resistance, conflict, accommodation and contradiction. This is an attempt to highlight the complex, temporal and contested nature of team working.

Janet Druker; Geoff White

1997 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425459710171021

Reviews reward management practice in the construction industry, based on a postal survey of larger construction firms. The research results provide little evidence of thorough‐going use of reward management to encourage and reinforce organizational change. Collective agreements survive for manual employees. Non‐manual employees are loosely grouped in broad‐banded grading structures with significant scope for managerial discretion in the treatment of individual salaries. However, there is little evidence of developed performance management systems. The absence of more formalized reward systems may provide a short‐term benefit in allowing considerable flexibility but may have negative implications for long‐term productivity, the control of wage costs and the availability of skills. Given the uneven gender balance, existing pay systems could also give rise to claims for equal pay.

Nicola Denham; Peter Ackers; Cheryl Travers

1997 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425459710171030

Looks at the effect of modern empowerment policies on middle management. The transition of middle managers from technical experts to coaches, and the position at the sharpest point of conflict between senior management and employees, means that empowerment often requires middle management to implement a policy which threatens their own jobs. Based on 28 management interviews and five focus groups held within two large UK organizations between 1995‐1996, this research seeks to to answer three central questions: How does empowerment affect middle managers? What coping mechanisms do they use? What are the implications for the organizations? The results show that, in line with previous literature, managers are resisting empowerment policies to some extent. However, the added fear of redundancy among middle managers means that they are, to varying extents, beginning to “act” their compliance to empowerment affecting the ultimate success of such initiatives.

N.G. Terry; P.J. White

1997 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425459710171049

A postal survey of companies registered in Scotland considered various occupational pension issues. A major finding was the strong managerial belief (but absence of hard evidence) that pension schemes had positive recruitment and motivational effects. Ad hoc ‐ery ‐ in the sense of expediency ‐ might help to explain this lack of evidence. Nevertheless, schemes could fulfil certain covert objectives, indicative of a more purposive management. The relationships between pension schemes and human resource management (HRM) are shown to be complex. Aggregate pension provisions seems to run counter to the individualistic thrust of HRM. However, early retirements and shifts into money purchase schemes for some employees might reflect a distinction between “core” and “periphery” employees, as well as “hard” and “soft” HRM approaches.