Strategies Flashcards

1
Q

Leadership style

APDL

A

Refers to ways that managers communicate with their employees to inspire and motivate them to work together to achieve an organisation’s goals.

  • Leadership styles should be adapted to the particular demands of the situation
  • The particular requirements of the people involved and the particular challenges facing the organisation
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2
Q

Leadership style

Autocratic/Authoritarian

A

Dictates policies and procedures, decides what goals are to be achieved, and directs and controls all activities without any meaningful participation by the subordinates. Full control of the team, leaving low autonomy.

  • One person leading
  • Focuses on planning, organising and controlling
  • Leader does not consult when making decisions and takes all responsibility
  • Classical scientific approach to HR - Suits hierarchy structure
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3
Q

Leadership style

Autocratic/Authoritian

A

Explain/Analyse

  • Often creates a more stressful work environment - Dampen employee morale
  • Employees face strict punishment/penalties for operating outside company guidelines
  • Doesn’t take full advantage of employee’s skills, creativity and experience
  • Increase employee absenteeism and turnover (Separation)
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4
Q

Leadership style

Autocratic/Authoritarian

A
  1. Control - Dangerous work environments or situations requiring complicated tasks with no room for error, such as safety inspections
  2. Provides structure and dependence for inexperienced or unmotivated workers
  3. Quick decisions - Only need approval from one Person

HOWEVER

  1. Increased work burden as leader takes full responsibility for team decisions
  2. Increased work burden can lead to high stress and health problems
  3. Dampen morale, reduce a team’s creativity and productivity if team is made up of highly skilled and motivated workers
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5
Q

Leadership style

Democratic/Participative

A

Encourages collaboration by including employee/s within the decision making process. Focuses on leading, motivating and communicating.

  • Input into decisions by staff
  • Responsibilities shared
  • Behaviouralist approach to HR
  • Suits teams and flatter structures
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6
Q

Leadership style

Democratic/Participative

A

Explain/Analyse - When is it used?

  • When managers recognise that employees may have different yet effective ideas
  • When the knowledge and skill base of staff are valued as part of the culture within the organisation
  • When managers are seeking to motivate staff and encourage a form of ownership over their work
  • To encourage employees to become empowered
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7
Q

Leadership style

Delegative

A

Allows the employees to make decisions. However, not all decisions then become the responsibility of employees.

The process of effective delegate leadership involves a clear understanding between leaders and employees about who can make what decisions.

When is it used?

  • When employees have the relevant knowledge and skills to make the decisions
  • When managers trust the ability of employees to make the right decisions
  • When managers are seeking to motivate staff and encourage a form of ownership over their work
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8
Q

Leadership style

Laissez Faire

A

A Non-authoritarian leadership style

Tries to give the least possible guidance to subordinates, and try to achieve control through less obvious means.

They believe that people excel when they are left alone to respond to their responsibilities and obligations their own ways

DESCRIBE

  • Minimal intervention by managers
  • Responsibilities equally shared
  • High level of teamwork, interpersonal
  • Effective if the leader monitors what’s being achieved and communicates this back to the team regularly

This type of leadership can also occur when managers don’t apply sufficient control

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9
Q

Leadership

  • Directive
  • Visionary
  • Affiliative
A

Directive

  • Emphasis on immediate compliance from employees
  • Other labels: autocratic, dictatorial, coercive
  • Ideal Situations: in a crisis, to kick start a turnaround or with problem employees

Visionary

  • Emphasis on long-term vision and leadership
  • Other labels: authoritative - Ideal Situations: When changes require a new vision, or when a clear direction is needed

Affiliative

  • Emphasis on the creation of harmony/belonging within the organisation - Other labels: harmoniser
  • Ideal Situations: To build buy-in or consensus or to get input from valuable employees
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10
Q

Leadership

  • Bureaucratic
  • Pacesetting
  • Coaching
A

Bureaucratic

  • Leaders work ‘By the book’
  • Follow rules rigorously, and ensure that their staff follows procedures precisely
  • Ideal Situations: Addressing serious safety risks or where large sums of money are involved

Pacesetting

  • Leader expects and models excellence and self-direction
  • Emphasis on accomplishment of tasks to high standards
  • Ideal Situations: To get quick results from a highly standard and competent team

Coaching

  • Emphasis on the professional growth of employees
  • Other labels: Developmental
  • Ideal Situations: To help an employee improve performance or to develop long-term strengths. Also used for succession planning
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11
Q

Leadership Style

CASESTUDY

A

Apple’s leadership style has changed significantly over time

In 1997, the company was 90 days away from bankruptcy, thus, Steve Jobs effectively employed an autocratic / dictatorial leadership style in order to provide firm direction for Apple

As Apple received and especially under Tim Cook’s leadership from 2011, a more participative / democratic leadership style has been created, fostering creativity and increased productivity.

Ultimately, Apple’s effective participative leadership style strategy can be seen through 68% satisfied or very satisfied employee rating, and an 83% recommendation rating

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12
Q

Job design

A

The process of designing the content of a job and how it will interact with other jobs and employees, so as to better inform, motivate and retain employees.

  • Job design is the kind, variety and number of tasks that a worker is expected to carry out in the course of performing their job.
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13
Q

Job design

General tasks

A

A greater variety of tasks to be performed by workers, where they are required to apply a greater range of skills in their job

Main objective of the provision of a wider variety of tasks is to improve worker satisfaction and productivity.

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14
Q

Job design

Specified tasks

A

Identifies one best way of doing a job and that worker skills should be matched to the job requirements.

Employees may be given more of a similar task to perform however are expected to complete the task in greater quantity and with greater responsibility

  • Revolves around tightly defined roles to ensure that employees know exactly what their roles are and what they are expected to do.

Can lead to greater motivation, specialisation and therefore productivity, however may also lead to greater boredom in an employee’s job

Methods of job design -

  • Job rotation - Employees switch, for a period of time, from one job to another
  • Job enrichment - More control and independence
  • Job enlargement - More tasks to do within same job
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15
Q

Job design

Implications

A
  1. Increased job satisfaction
  2. Team cohesion
  3. Increased staff retention and lower absenteesism
  4. Increased producivity for business operations
  5. Cuts costs - Improves competitiveness of business

HOWEVER

  1. Poor business performance
  2. Additonal costs
  3. Employee stress, anxiety, absenteesim and low retention rates
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16
Q

Job design

CASESTUDY

A

Specific Tasks

Apple utilises a specific job design strategy, particularly in Apple stores where different employees are designated specific roles (Customer service, laptop sales, Genius Bar, so as to increase the efficiency of the process but also the value the customer feels.)

Experts’ - Assess customer needs and provide a solution

‘Geniuses’ - Engage in the provision of technical support

  • The colour of Apple retail staff shirts indicate their role
  • Results in greater productivity of Apple employees

General Tasks

Asking customers questions - Developing and exhibiting strong interpersonal skills - Engaging with employees in an outgoing and friendly personality

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17
Q

Recruitment

A

The process of locating and attracting the right quantity and quality of staff to apply for employment vacancies or anticipated vacancies at the right cost.

  • Recruitment matches business’s HR needs with appropriate staff
  • Recruitment begins AFTER job design.

Stages include:

  1. Attract appropriate candidates
  2. Check background, qualification/s
  3. Verify experience
  4. Select employee from short list
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18
Q

Recruitment Implications

A

Poor Recruitment/Selection process leads to issues of:

  • Increased costs
  • Lower productivity
  • Training costs
  • Job dissatisfaction, lower performance, industrial labour turnover
  • Increase in absenteeism
  • Increase in accident or defect rates
  • Claims of discrimination
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19
Q

Recruitment

Internal Recruitment

A

Involves filling job vacancies with people from within the business.

  1. Motivational for staff
  2. Development opportunity
  3. Builds commitment and loyalty
  4. Business only needs to hire at base level
  5. Employees know the culture and operations
  6. Recognises and rewards staff for effort and achievement

HOWEVER

  1. Can reinforce negative culture
  2. Can lead to rivalry for positions
  3. Need established framework for training and merit-based appraisal system
  4. Little value added, no new skills
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20
Q

Recruitment

External Recruitment

A

Involves filling job vacancies with people from outside the business.

  1. Wider applicant pool
  2. New ideas, perspectives and skills may produce better solutions to business issues
  3. Get specific skills needed, save on training
  4. Dilutes internal politics
  5. More diversity in employment (EEO)
  6. Builds organisational ‘brand’ through publicity

ADVERSLEY

  1. Risk of unknown staff
  2. Lost productivity in initial phases of orientation and induction phase
  3. New employee may not fit culture, and may not be accepted by internal rivals
  4. Takes a lot of effort and time
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21
Q

Recruitment

Specific skills

A

Highly specialised and required by businesses to address a skills shortage

  • Programming
  • Machinery
  • Engineering
  1. Lack of supply of certain skills
  2. Required certain businesses to source/recruit employees overseas based on having specific skillsets
  3. Negative perception on Australian businesses who do this as it demonstrates that businesses are not willing to train existing/new employee to possess these specific skills
  4. Led to an increase in employee poaching
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22
Q

Recruitment

General skills

A

Includes flexibility and versatility, social confidence, positive attitudes, motivation and the ability to work as a team and/or independently.

  1. ​Many jobs require individuals to work independently and undertake many different tasks
  2. Generally more service oriented, making social and information skills increasingly important.
  3. Assist with gaining employment and career progression
  4. Indicates to HR that the employee has a capacity and willingness to learn

HOWEVER

  1. May require employers to engage in further training and development to improve employee skills to the required standard
  2. Time and cost intensive
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23
Q

Recruitment CASESTUDY

A

Apple uses both internal and external recruitment strategies

  • Apple use their website to attract a diverse range of candidates
  • 99% of roles are advertised internally (Internal recruitment)

They offer an employee referral bonus for the successful placement of candidates

External - Targeted recruitment campaigns used

  • Targeting females by advertising on ‘CareerMum’
  • Mothers wanting to return to the workforce to consider working for Apple Retail.
  • Tim Cook was internally recruited for the position of CEO in 2011
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24
Q

Training and development

  • Current skills
  • Future skills
A

The aim of training and development (T&D) is for long-term change to skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviour

T&D programs have TWO focuses:

  • Current skills needed by the business
  • Future skills for business growth

Implicatons

  • Conducting a skills audit and/or systematic evaluation of skills and employee capabilities
  • Understanding supply/demand of certain skills within the industry
  • Aligning with future direction and vision (What skills will be needed in the future)
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25
Q

Training and development

CASESTUDY

A

Apple provides comprehensive training and development

Training:

  • Apple conducts 100 hours of training per employee annually
  • 70% on-the-job training
  • 20% mentoring (structured mentoring program)

Internal HR site provides comprehensive training programs that are available to all employees

‘Retail Fundamentals’ training program - 92% of all retail staff have completed

Vocational certifications: 13,500 employees enrolled in Supplier Employee Education program since 2008 - 6,000 employees gained vocational certifications since 2017

Development:

The cost of development per employee is $3,300 annually, involving:

  • Talent and succession planning program

Train staff and develop them - Formal mentoring programs - Strong culture of internal promotions - 99% of job advertisements are promoted internally

26
Q

Performance management

A

Refers to a process of measuring tasks performed by employee

  • Management by objective (MBO)
  • 360 degree (holistic evaluation, a quality measure)
  • Self assessment - Competency based
27
Q

Performance management

Develop & Administrative

A

Developmental (Employee Focus)

  • Manages employees by providing feedback to assist them to improve their effectiveness in their roles, overcome weaknesses and prepare for promotion
  • On-the-spot coaching and interaction to help employees achieve goals, quality improvements

Administrative (Organisational Focus)

  • Manages HRM by collecting data which is used to assist and inform planning within HR in areas such as training and development, rewards, benefits, pay levels and more importantly, compliance.
28
Q

Performance management

A

Why is it important?

  • Identify opportunities for productivity improvement
  • Assess legal compliance
  • Justify staffing decisions
  • Assess performance against organisational standards
  • ]Provide feedback and recognition
  • Identify training and development needs
  • Can be of usefulness in regards to remuneration or promotion (i.e. eligibility for bonuses or promotion)
29
Q

Performance management

Implications

A

Benefits for the business

  1. Assists with human resource planning
  2. Can plan to overcome gaps or weaknesses found in performance
  3. Identifies training and development or legal compliance needs
  4. Evaluation of rewards and benefits programs
  5. Helps identify, motivate and retain talented staff for leadership succession

Benefits for the individual

  1. Helps assess rewards and benefits linked to performance
  2. Creates opportunity for employee to provide feedback
  3. Initiative recognised and rewarded
  4. Fosters promotion on merit
  5. Employee focus is aligned with organisational strategy
30
Q

Performance managment

CASESTUDY

A

In 2014, Apple launched the ‘Individual Development Plan’, a training database and list of all possible training opportunities in the companies HR intranet to track an employee’s training progress which is monitored by managers, thus increasing the efficiency and accessibility of training for employees.

  • 360 degree feedback mechanism is used

Runs each 6 months ‘talent planning sessions’ focusing on performance management

Apple reviews salaries annually and use clear KPIs to measure and benchmark:

  • Bonuses are linked to performance criteria (Apple Head Office) - Complex remuneration packages - Transparency in how to achieve these packages
31
Q

Rewards

A

Refers to the stem total of the business’s remuneration to employees, both monetary and nonmonetary, for the purpose of culturing employee engagement and loyalty

  • To reward and recognise the employees within the organisation
  • To reflect the knowledge, experience and skill levels of their employees
  • To retain their employees
32
Q

Rewards

  • How #1 Monetary Rewards:
  • How #2 Non-Monetary Rewards:
A

Extrinsic

Monetary Rewards: Refers to those rewards that are financial in nature

  • Share purchase plans
  • Housing assistance
  • Travel allowance
  • Bonuse
  • Product discounts

Intrinsic

Non-Monetary Rewards: Refers to rewards that have a non-financial value

  • Flexible work arrangements
  • Job sharing
  • Flexible hours
  • Work from home
  • Training opportunities
  • New Office
  • Certificates or awards
33
Q

Rewards (Monetary & Non-Monetary)

A
  1. Maintain a good relationship with staff over time - Improve corporate culture
  2. Motivates staff - Improve productivity/performance (Performance-based remittance system) - improves workers satisfaction - reduce staff turnover
  3. For non-monetary - Promotes self-actualisation, sense of belonging - improves workers satisfaction and corporate culture

HOWEVER

  1. What motivates employees to improve performance and/or remain at a workplace may differ Based on personal situation.
  2. If only use monetary incentives, results in a transactional relationship rather than an intrinsic value relationship therefore minimal motivating factor
34
Q

Monetary

CASESTUDY

A

Salary: (Well above Award)

  1. Level 1 - $43,000 - Apple retail
  2. Level 2 - $50,000
  3. Level 3 - $75,000
  4. Genius Bar $85,000
  5. Senior management earns $130,000 - $230,000

Programs: Health and life insurance - Tuition assistance

Benefits: Employee stock purchase plan

15% discount on share price (up to $15,000 per year) - 9 weeks paid parental leave - resulted in 100% return rate (industry average is 81%) - improved staff turnover rate

Discounts: - $250 off iPads - $500 off Macs - 25% off iPhones

35
Q

Non-Monetary

CASESTUDY

A

Employee of the month - staff recognition - improves workers satisfaction

Seek opportunity to increase work challenges - employees are provided with more responsibility - employees feel more valued - improves workers satisfaction

Flexible Work Policies - job sharing arrangements, work from home and flexible work hours

Personal and family counselling

36
Q

Rewards

Individual pay

A

Customised for each employee’s contribution, individual contract.

  1. Motivates employees
  2. Individual recognition for work
  3. Greater sense of control over their wages
  4. Improves workers satisfaction

HOWEVER

  1. May drive aggressive sales approach tor receive higher wages
  2. Takes away the collaborative nature of work - negatively impacting corporate culture
37
Q

Rewards

Group pay

A

Based on team performances, collective bargaining

  1. Improved accountability for performance within business departments
  2. May encourage changes in collective behaviour
  3. Improving corporate culture and productivity
  4. Improves communication and collaboration

HOWEVER

  1. Potential for disputes between high and low performing employees thus increasing level and number of workplace disputes
  2. Not all employees apply the same effort, different goals, conflict within group
38
Q

Rewards

Performance Based pay

A

Refers to the process of linking part of an employees income to their performance

  • Motivates the employee to increase their productivity and value to the business in exchange for higher wages, thus benefitting the business
  • Aligns the objectives of the business with the objectives of the employee - Can be effective in revealing the effectiveness of employees

HOW?

  • Through the use of commissions
  • Through the use of KPIs
  1. Employees are motivated to improve their productivity
  2. Creates shared goals between the employer and employees thus improved corporate culture

HOWEVER

  1. Performance based pay may be ineffective if the employee is not motivated by finance
  2. External factors may be highly influential - COVID-19, lockdowns
39
Q

Rewards CASESTUDY

Individual, Group pay and Performance pay

A

Individual Pay

  • Senior executive receive rewards based on their annual performance in achieving/exceeding KPIs. - Vary depending on title/position and roles/responsibilities

Group Pay & Performance Based Pay

In the R&D Department of Apple’s iOS 15, the research division received performance-based pay in order to incentivise productivity, especially considering that the release of the iOS was mission critical

IOS 15 was released prior to competing software release from Google’s Android, which assisted Apple with maintaining their global market share

40
Q

Global

Costs

A

Particularly in Australia, high domestic HR costs have resulted in businesses looking at countries such as China and India where there is both a higher skilled but also cheaper labour force to fulfil professions including basic accounting, legal work, call centre operations and IT

  1. Access to a cheaper workforce can provide economies of scale

Costs include:

  • Hiring staff from other countries
  • Settling family - Accommodation costs
  • Hiring and training host country staff as opposed to relocating home business employees
41
Q

Global

Skills

A

Skills shortages (Industries like IT, & Health) have led the Australian government to try and provide relief to businesses in the form of temporary work visas (457 work visas) to supply skilled human resources.

Businesses need to take into consideration:

  • Skill levels of employees in host countries
  • How skills translate to other countries
42
Q

Costs

Labour supply

A

Global outsourcing can supply at a lower cost workforce

Businesses need to take into consideration:

  • Supply of experienced and qualified employees
  • Willingness of staff to relocate
43
Q

Global Implications

Costs, skills and supply.

A

A global business will have to balance the opportunity of reducing costs by accessing cheaper labour with the skills required by the business

  1. Training may need to be provided
    * E.g. In India, very well educated university graduates who can deliver services at a much lower rate than Australia or US counterparts

Call centre staff - who speak English but may need training on products, corporate culture of the organisation that they are representing

44
Q

Global - Advantages

A
  1. Skills
  2. Access to low cost labour
  3. Expertise - Scale
  4. cultural diversity/perspective

HOWEVER

  1. Employee morale
  2. Language issues
  3. Cultural diversity issues
  4. Expertise may not be aT the same level
  5. May require training
45
Q

Global

Costs, skills and Labour supply CASESTUDY

A

Apple being a transnational corporation has access to a global workforce, therefore has the ability and reason to seek and hire a highly diversified and skilled workforce.

Its organisational structure means that there is centralised decision making in its US Headquarters and regional headquarters (Europe, Australia and Asia Pacific)

Apple’s 154,000 employees world-wide is a combination of locally skilled workers, and international professionals

Cost: Access low cost labour in China through outsourcing to Foxconn and Pegatron

  • Assembly Line Workers earn $9 per hour
  • 80% cheaper than US manufacturing costs

Supply: Foxconn and Pegatron supply 500,000 workers to manufacturer Apple products

‘Skills: Workers in partnership with Harvard and Yale Business Schools through:

  • Internships, scholarships and cadetships
  • Access to high quality, young innovative staff
  • Development of training facilities in regional areas
  • $500m R&D hub in China - R&D hubs in France, Java (Indonesia), India, Sweden and UK
46
Q

Workplace disputes

A

Disagreement over an issue or a group of issues between an employer and its employees, which may result in employees ceasing work.

Reasons for disputes

  • Remuneration - Wages, Allowances, Entitlements and Superannuation
  • Employment conditions - Working hours, Leave, Benefits and other general employment conditions.
  • Job security - Retrenchment of employees, downsizing, restructuring, use of contractors, outsourcing, re-classification of the workforce.
  • Health and safety - Physical working conditions.
  • Managerial policy - Discrimination, Union issues, Employer approaches to the union.
  • Political or Social protests
47
Q

Workplace disputes

CASESTUDY

QANTAS

A

Qantas vs. Long-haul pilots

  • Australian and International Pilots’ Association (AIPA)
  • Wanted job security, 24% wage increase over 3 years (8% per year) and a cap on outsourcing pilots

Qantas vs. Baggage handlers and catering staff

  • Transport Workers’ Union (TWU)
  • Wanted job security and limit the number of outsourcing plans which were to make 2,800 jobs redundant
  • Also wanted a 12% wage increase over 3 years (4% per year)

Qantas vs. Engineers

  • Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) -
  • Wanted job security by not outsourcing their jobs overseas
48
Q

Types of Industrial action

  • Strikes
  • Lockouts
  • Pickets
A
  • Strikes

Refer to situations in which workers withdraw their labour

  • Lockouts

Employers close the entrance to a workplace and refuse admission to the workers

  • Pickets

Protests that take place outside the workplace, generally associated with a strike. Unionists stop the delivery of goods and try to stop the entry of non-union labour into the workplace.

49
Q

Workplace disputes - How?

A

The legal framework has created an environment which has reduced the amount of disputes significantly due to legislative (Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012) and economic changes which affected industrial relations in Australia

There are now a range of workplace dispute resolution strategies available for businesses

50
Q

Resolution processes

Negotiation

A

Refers to formal or informal discussion/s between those in dispute to try to reach a compromise

  • Both parties engage in negotiations in order to reach a compromise
  1. No legal expenses - Cost effective
  2. Time effectiveness - Increase productivity
  3. Both parties provide input

HOWEVER

  1. Requires ‘buy in’ thus Both parties have to agree and may take significant time to do if parties don’t agree
51
Q

Resolution processes

Negotiation CASESTUDY

A

QANTAS has been in separate negotiations with the AIPA and ALAEA for more than 2 years since 2010

Regarding job security and remuneration in the formation of a renewed enterprise agreement

  1. A negative implication of this process has been the significant time constraints, taking over 2 years and proving ineffective at resolving the disputes
  • In addition, following the grounding of the fleet, the FWA mandated QANTAS workers to cease protected industrial action in the interests of economic/social costs, and allotted a 21-day negotiation period
  • Ultimately, these negotiations failed, resulting in the FWA appoint FWC representatives to conciliate the disputes
52
Q

Resolution processes

Mediation

A

Refers to the confidential discussion of issues in a non-threatening environment, in the presence of a neutral, objective third party

  • Why - An effective method of resolving disputes to prevent escalation to more expensive methods
  • How - Use of a neutral/objective third party - Mediator
  1. Removal of bias
  2. The presence of a third party may lead to a more reasonable negotiation
  3. Cost effective when compared to other dispute resolution methods - (Arbitration)

HOWEVER

  1. More expensive than negotiation
  2. More time consuming than negotiation
53
Q

Resolution processes

Mediation CASESTUDY

A

In response to both disputes with engineers and long-haul pilots

Mediation processes was undertaken to discourage further industrial action

However, it did not assist in resolving the bargaining disputes over job security and remuneration

Consequently, these disputes were escalated to conciliation by the FWC

54
Q

Resolutions

Grievance procedures

A

Refers to formal procedures, generally written into an award or agreement, that state agreed processes to resolve disputes in the workplace.

Bullying, harassment, pay dispute, a safety issue or personality clash

  • Most complaints occur in areas of allocation of tasks, discipline, promotion and termination
  • Management attempts to handle grievances in such a way that they do not escalate and become more serious formal grievances
55
Q

Resolutions

Grievance procedures

A

How?

Treat the employee and the complaint as being important

  • Listen carefully and get all the facts
  • Explain to the employee the reasons for decisions
  • Complaints (or other union matters) bought to management should be treated with particular concern
  • Formal grievance procedures may be set out as a provision in an award or enterprise agreement

Include the procedures that an employer and their employees or representatives have agreed to follow, to deal with or resolve workplace issues

56
Q

Resultions

Grievance procedures - Discuss

A
  1. Transparent and clear process to handle disputes
  2. Step by step process
  3. Quickly/fairly settle the grievance

HOWEVER

  1. Time consuming
  2. Excessive documents need to be submitted
  3. Costly: Investigation into the grievances
57
Q

Resultions

Grievance procedures CASESTUDY

A

In the first instance, the parties in the dispute must try to resolve the dispute at the workplace level

Discussions with team members or supervisors - If the matter is not resolved the party may lead to the FWC

58
Q

Resolution

Involvement of courts and tribunals

A
  • Courts - Common law hears complaints such as breach of employment contract
  • Tribunals - Less formal than courts; Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC)/Fair Work Commission (FWC) hears disputes

Why/How

When a dispute has not been resolved through negotiations it may be referred to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) who will appoint a conciliator (conciliation) to hear both sides of the dispute

If this fails: Arbitration takes place where a third party makes a legally binding decision

  1. Arbitration: decision is made by the third party and is final

HOWEVER

  1. More expensive and time consuming
59
Q

Resolution

Involvment of courts and tribunals CASESTUDY

A

QANTAS was unable to resolve the disputes in the negotiation and mediation process

  • Lead to grounding the fleet impacting the economy

Federal Government was involved - A FWC Committee was appointed to oversee the conciliation and arbitration process

Outcomes: QANTAS vs Long-haul pilots

  • Pilots received a 10.5% wage increase over 3 years

However, QANTAS could make necessary organisational changes including redundancies and offshoring

QANTAS vs Aircraft Engineers

  • Engineers being given a 9% wage increase over 3 years

However, QANTAS was able to offshore the maintenance of A380 aircraft in order to reduce costs

60
Q

Resolution

Involvement of courts and tribunals CASESTUDY

A

Result on QANTAS

Significant negative implications on their branding, operations and profitability, the final resolution allowed QANTAS to maintain appropriate management of their HRM, allowing them to sustain a competitive advantage

Key points

  • Industrial action cost the company $194m - $70m from the grounding
  • $56m through lost customer loyalty and forward bookings; and $68m from the union actions in the lead-up to the grounding)
  • Cost the Australian economy $250m per day
  • 80,000 passengers affected
  • 600 flights cancelled
  • Aircraft grounded

QANTAS said no executives or board members would be paid during the lockout period - Negative implications included approx. $194m losses due to the strikes

61
Q

Workplace disputes

Explain / Analyse

Why / How

A
  • Conflict may provide benefits and in many cases improve workplace practices and foster innovation.
  1. Conflicts may also be costly to stakeholders, both directly and indirectly
  2. The level of industrial conflict in an industry or organisation is another indicator of the effectiveness of employment relations/HR

High levels of disputation naturally indicate ineffective employment relations

According to ABS

  • In 1987, there were 1519 - In 2007, there were 135

This decline coincided with a range of institutional, legislative and economic changes which affected industrial relations in Australia (Link to influences)

62
Q

Workplace disputes - Discuss

A
  1. Can improve workplace practice (once the dispute has been resolved)
  2. Improved corporate culture - productivity
  3. Fosters innovation - to improve the workplace corporate culture
  4. Resolution provides greater certainty thus improved productivity

HOWEVER

  1. Disruptive and will impact productivity thus profits
  2. Decreased worker satisfaction (depending on length of Dispute) - negatively impacting productivity
  3. Industrial action like strikes may occur
  4. Absenteeism may occur (employee unable/unwilling to face the dispute at work) - toxic corporate culture