The CEO at Healthy Beginnings has hired you, the new Industrial Relations Director (IRD), to turn the organisation around and possibly stop a serious industrial dispute from arising. As the new Industrial Relations Director, you are required to recommend and put strategies in place to cultivate a harmonious industrial relations climate at Healthy Beginnings. If the organization undertakes a redundancy exercise, would you encourage employees to be re-engaged under contracts for service with the organization? and Provide four (4) relevant facts to support your position.
Healthy Beginnings is a large unionised organization located in Jamaica, employing over One Thousand (1000) employees island-wide. They are the makers of nutritional supplements and have been around for more than 20 years. The last five years have proven difficult for Healthy Beginnings, and these challenges may require some HR-related actions. Some of the policies and decisions required to meet the market dynamics may affect the employment relationships at Healthy Beginnings and force the organisation to pursue employee headcount reduction measures, implement new flexible work designs, and introduce new contracts for services.
News of the possible reduction in staff has reached the employees at Healthy Beginnings and the United Pharmaceutical Union has indicated to employees that they are ready to take action through all the appropriate channels on their behalf.
In addition to this dilemma, the organisation recently conducted an employee engagement survey and discovered that employees are very disgruntled. The major concerns identified by the employees included:
- Low wages and unequal pay structures
- Poor communication. The survey indicated that many employees were dissatisfied with the level and quality of communication and suggested that they lacked an ‘effective’ voice in the workplace.
- Inadequate safety policy and procedures
- Escalating conflict between Supervisors and their direct reports. Employees feel that Supervisors are disrespectful, treating workers unfairly, and lack the knowledge to carry out their jobs. This is also compounded by trust issues within the organisation and the employees don’t trust management to be fair, ethical, and transparent
- Annual leave disputes. Employees argued that on many occasions they were told on the day before, that they cannot proceed on planned and approved vacation leave or maternity leave with pay.
- Inadequate work-life balance and inadequate training and growth opportunities.
The survey indicated that many employees felt that training opportunities were reserved for upper management and a ‘special class’ of people within the organisation, and as a result, they could not compete effectively for job openings.
The CEO at Healthy Beginnings has hired you, the new Industrial Relations Director (IRD), to turn the organisation around and possibly stop a serious industrial dispute from arising. As the new Industrial Relations Director, you are required to recommend and put strategies in place to cultivate a harmonious industrial relations climate at Healthy Beginnings.
If the organization undertakes a redundancy exercise, would you encourage employees to be re-engaged under contracts for service with the organization? and Provide four (4) relevant facts to support your position.
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