Employee Relations: An International Journal

Susan M. Hart

2002 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450210443267

Highlights Norwegian regulatory framework with its employee participation tradition. Posits a response of the UK government was the introduction of new offshore regulations with a required need for safety meetings and elected safety representatives. Recognizes, in Canada, that moving into the production phase of the offshore oil industry triggered a renewed interest in offshore safety. Concludes Norway's amended offshore oil and gas regulations of 1998 placed heavy emphasis on workers' input to enable all the changes to take place in a correct manner.

Mike Rigby

2002 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450210443276

The paper examines the role of trade unions in the provision of continuous training. It first reviews the literature in this area and then considers evidence from a study of trade union involvement in the Spanish national training system managed by the social partners. The study finds that union involvement has led to improved training access for workers in SMEs in large part because of the union role as training provider and has contributed to social dialogue at sectoral and national level but has had a limited impact upon training in larger enterprises. The paper argues that an enterprise-based social partnership model built around an independent union agenda for training has limited relevance for SMEs and that a more realistic approach is the development of sectoral social dialogue, "partnership at a distance", capable of delivering outcomes which can be translated to the point of production.

A. Amin Mohamed; John N. Orife; Kustim Wibowo

2002 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450210443285

One of the most difficult problems that companies face when they use Internet recruiting is the volume of résumés that they may receive. This large volume of résumés along with the pressures to identify the best applicants have caused companies to use electronic scanning to sift through the résumés and identify those key words that may relate to the qualifications required for the job. Résumés that contain the desired words are selected for further evaluation while those that do not have these words are removed from the selection pool. As such, key word search (KWS) performs as a selection tool. This paper examines KWS as a selection tool and the strategies that can be used to improve its validity.

Susan Marlow; Dean Patton

2002 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450210443294

The empirical evidence which underpins and illustrates labour management theory has been drawn from a range of case studies across industrial sectors sited, usually, within the corporate sector. This fails to recognise the importance of the smaller firm as an employer. At present, the study of the employment relationship is grounded within a segment of the economy that no longer employs the majority of private sector labour within the UK. To reflect contemporary change within modern developed economies, the manner in which labour is managed in smaller firms must be explored. This paper considers why smaller firms might be excluded from this debate and reviews some of the limited literature pertaining to managing the employment relationship in such firms. One area in particular is then focused upon in more depth, the manner in which labour compliance and control is addressed in smaller manufacturing firms. On the basis of empirical evidence drawn from a study of the impact of employment regulation on smaller manufacturing firms, it is suggested that there are blurred divisions between employers and employees. Through necessity or choice, when the owner of the firm also takes the role of co-worker this can create shared social relationships and group working which is advantageous to the owner, but has implications for managing labour discipline.

C.W. Fuller; L.H. Vassie

2002 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450210443302

Partnerships have assumed greater importance since organisations began to downsize and concentrate their resources on core activities. Effective partnerships depend on establishing adequate levels of trust and commitment between the partners in order for each partner to achieve complementary but different objectives. The success of partnerships is dependent on the alignment and maturity of the organisations' cultures and it has been suggested, therefore, that potential partners should assess and take account of their organisational cultures before committing to partnership arrangements. An assessment framework has been proposed that provides a measure of the maturity and alignment of organisational cultures in partnership arrangements. The utility of the framework was assessed using organisational safety cultures within three organisational settings and using employee-employee, employee-contractor and company-company partnership arrangements.