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9593E  Communicating with Employees 

Module Purpose

The module is about developing communication strategies within an organisation. It will help you develop strategies to improve relations between employees and management.

How to use these Resources

This page will assist you in finding appropriate online material to help broaden your understanding of the concepts involved and to complete the integrated assessment event for the module. It is meant to complement the work done in a classroom with a teacher.

For each learning outcome this page provides activities to lead you to some key sites, some background reading and some additional sites to explore.

 Learning Outcomes

When you finish the module you should be able to:

1. Outcome - Identify contemporary industrial issues and regulations that affect
                   employee relations.
2. Outcome - Describe the impact of contemporary industrial issues and
                   regulations on workplace communication in a specific organisation.
3. Outcome - Identify effective communication strategies and barriers to effective
                   communication that might be involved in managing contemporary
                   employee relations.
4. Outcome - Propose a strategy for improving employee relations in an
                   organisation.

 Outcome 1

• Outcome - Identify contemporary industrial issues and regulations that affect
                  employee relations.

Activity 1

From any of the sites below select five industrial issues (preferably choose ones relevant to your workplace). Who are the key and secondary stakeholders in each issue?

Labourstart - an international trade union site. You can view labour news from any country or region.

Australian Workplace - the Federal Government's site listing projects and changes in industrial regulations.

Australian Council of Trade Unions - describes current industrial issues and campaigns being conducted by Australian Trade Unions.

The Labor Review - the journal of the NSW Labor Council with articles summarising key industrial issues.

Activity 2

Go to NSW Department of Industrial Relation's website Awards Online - Which Award and find out about the awards and agreements that are relevant to your own workplace.

 Background reading

Unfair dismissal case studies - important lessons can be learnt from the mistakes other employers have made in employment dismissal cases. These case studies from the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) and the Federal Court illustrate instances of appropriate, and inappropriate, employment policies and practices which became industrial relations issues.

Danger: Toxic Company -the problem isn't that loyalty is dead or that careers are history. The real problem, argues Stanford's Jeffrey Pfeffer, is that so many companies are toxic - and that they get exactly what they deserve. (Slow to load but worth the wait.)

 Other useful websites

HREOC - Complaints Help Page - details of programs, how to lodge a complaint, plus publications and media releases from the Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission.

Looksmart Australia: Industrial Relations - a comprehensive listing of Australian industrial relations sites. Links are listed under sub-headings such as employer associations, equal opportunity, government bodies, health and safety, wages and agreements, labour unions and organisations.

Employment Studies Centre (ESC) University of Newcastle - this page on current projects gives an insight into how research is conducted into solving significant industrial issues.

Evatt Foundation - the Australian labour movement's pre-eminent independent research organisation.

 Outcome 2

• Outcome - Describe the impact of contemporary industrial issues and
                  regulations on workplace communication in a specific organisation.

Activity 3

Go to the Vault's collection of American company-specific message boards for employees. Type "employee relations" into the "SEARCH THE BOARDS" box and browse some of the postings. Note which issues are affecting people most.

Activity 4

Go to your favourite search engine such as Google and type in "downsizing Australia". Find an article which discusses the effect of downsizing on corporations. Consider whether your organization has been affected by downsizing, redundancies, job insecurity etc. Write a paragraph on how this has affected morale and communication in your workplace.

Activity 5

Go to your favourite search engine such as Google and type in "reasonable hours campaign". Browse through some of the documents. Write a paragraph on how successfully people in an organization you know are balancing work and family life and how this affects the way they communicate with each other.

Activity 6

Read these two letters from children of Australian outworkers and the Behind the Label Vision Statement. Then go to a search engine and do a search on "sweatshops". How does the failure to regulate the conditions of outworkers affect them and their families?

 Outcome 3

• Outcome - Identify effective communication strategies and barriers to
                  effective communication that might be involved in managing
                  contemporary employee relations.

Activity 7

Read the article It's the Manager, Stupid which explains the critical factors that measure the difference between bad managers, good managers and excellent managers and is based on surveys of over a million employees by the Gallup Organization. Summarize the main findings.

Activity 8

Read the case study Powered by the People then summarise the very successful attempts made by Consolidated Diesel to remove barriers to communication by holding large numbers of small meetings where people feel free to ask questions and make suggestions.

 Background reading

• Open Space Technology
  Open Space Technology is one way of running meetings and events for up to 1000 people. It works particularly well in urgent situations where there is a lot of disagreement.

 Outcome 4

• Outcome - Propose a strategy for improving employee relations in an
                  organisation.

Activity 9

Read the Commitment to Diversity Statement at Pacific Northwest Laboratories. Write down at least three elements of its diversity program that could you incorporate into your strategy for improving employee relations.

Activity 10

Write down three suggestions the article Elan at Work - Part 3: And, elan is what institutions should be about makes about the way strategy should be developed and communicated, how people should set goals and how feedback should be managed in order to improve employee relations.

 Background reading

Flexible work practices: From benevolence to bottom line
A 1998 article from the NSW Anti-discrimination Board. It argues that leading organisations are using flexible work practices to gain a competitive advantage. These organisations are also significantly reducing the risk of costly legal battles faced by organisations who ignore current anti-discrimination and industrial relations laws.

Last updated: 23 August, 2006

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