Employee Relationship Management: A Complete Guide

Well, companies and organizations are doing some major changes in their business due to different aspects.

Also after the global pandemic, most of the businesses are offering the employees to work from their home or give flex days.

Since most of the employees are now working remotely and fewer people are in the office, it becomes more crucial to focus on managing the employee relationship.

Employee relationship management is the crucial part, it can help in reducing turnovers and boost productivity.

But to understand how the company can focus on this and what are other aspects require consideration, here you cover all of the things.

In This Article

What To Know About Employee Relationship Management?

Employee relationship management is a process where companies focus on their relationship between the employer and employees. It includes managing the relationship of all employees who work with the company.

Well, it starts the first day when the employee starts to work and ends when they leave. The ideal management can go beyond to improve so the employees and management work along without any confusion or hassle.

The management requires to focus on improving communication, employee satisfaction, and implementing the tools as well technology.

Well, According to the small business chronicler, Employee Relationship Management is a process that manages the interactions with the employees effectively in order to achieve the organization goals.

Here HR plays a vital role as they are then responsible for training the managers. This helps in creating the relationship as well as maintaining it.

Not just that, the HR department also requires measures and monitors these relationships, so they can verify if everything is going smoothly.

Reasons Why Organization Take Employee Relations Seriously

When the company has a good relationship with their employee, there are several benefits that they can enjoy.

To know better, here are some points that can help you :

You Get More Engaged Employees

Well as per the research done on employee engagement, there are 90% of leaders who understand the importance of having employee engagement.

But only 50% of leaders know the right way of addressing the problems.

With the help of employee relationships, the company gets higher rates of engaged employees.

According to Forbes, those employees who are engaged with their work stay motivated and committed to their employer for a longer time.

Also to boost the engagement, here are some of the tips that you can follow :

Make sure you share, review as well as update the expectations of the employees.
Encourage your employee to participate in discussions and share their thoughts.
Don’t avoid the feedback and recognize their work.
Encourage your employee to have open communication so the obstacles and issues can be identified easily.

You Get Satisfied Employee

Employee engagement depends on how the employee feels about their job. If they are not satisfied with what they are doing, it will also make them less interested in their work.

There are 65% of employees In the US according to whom communicating to their employees affects job satisfaction.

45% of the employees say that their employer does a poor job when it comes to communicating with them.

When you have a better employee relationship, it helps in boosting employee satisfaction which improves their performance and engagement with their work.

You Get More Productive Employee

When your employees are not engaged and satisfied at their job, it will lower productivity too.

But when the employment relationship is strong, it helps in getting better productivity which boosts the revenue and profit for the business.

To make sure that your employees stay productive, it’s important to give feedback and recognize their work

You Get Higher Employee Retention

One of the problems that companies are facing these days is higher numbers in employee turnover.

Not just it increases the cost of an employee leaving but causes disturbance and hassle in the workplace.

However, employee retention can be better and this is one of the things that employee relationship management can help.

When you have a strong relationship with the employees, they all know what is going in an organization and are updated with information. This helps in making them secure and boosts their confidence.

You Get Good Employee Experience

When the employee’s experience is good, it shows proof that the organization has a healthy workplace culture.

To make sure that the employee experience is good, it’s important to have communication with the employees.

Also, it should be open and transparent which will help the employees that they are involved with. It boosts employee engagement too.

Why Is Employee Relationship Management Crucial?

One of the reasons why the employees leave the job is the relationship that they have with their coworkers and managers

When the relationship gets strained between the employees and managers, it can end up in two possible outcomes where neither is good for the business.

Here either employee might leave the job. Or they stay but due to the strained relationship, it can cause hassle in work. Also, the other employees might get influenced too which affects the work and the results.

That’s why it’s important for the company to maintain a strong relationship as it makes sure that everyone is heading towards the same goal and boosts success.

When the company has a positive relationship with their employee, it boosts efficiency, leads to more productivity, reduces the chance of conflict, and helps in lowering the turnover rate.

Why A Business Needs Employee Relationship Management?

Well, the relationship is a two-way street which means that all of the employees are having conversations back and forth.

Not just having the relationship improves the work performance but there are other lots of benefits that the business gets by a healthy and positive relationship.

With the help of employee relationship management, the company can understand better about their employees and focus on how to get the best from them.

Not just that, here are some of the reasons behind why your business needs to have employee relationship management.

Determining What Your Employees Want

Employee relationship management helps in understanding what your employees want. This is an important aspect of business success.

Employees are the reasons behind why the business becomes successful, without them it’s impossible to gain the goals and grow.

When a business knows about their employee’s needs, they can improve the management, offer what can make them happy, and offer the working environment that can boost their performance.

It’s not enough for you to assume that the business knows everything about its employees. There are 85% of employees who are stated they are not happy with their work.

However there might be different reasons but when the business has a better understanding, they can look for things that can make their employees happy.

Also, the needs can vary, depending on the characteristics of the employee such as income level, gender, age as well as job type.

That’s why you need this to get the idea directly from the employees.

Having Honest And Open Communications

Communication is important for establishing a strong relationship between employees and management.

The managers require to communicate with their employees and also be honest about their work and what’s affecting them.

When the organization has open communication, they have a strong relationship which improves their productivity.

Also, it increases loyalty and decreases dissatisfaction at work.

Having the employee relationship management makes sure that there is no confusion, disagreement, and issue between the employees and the management.

Also if there is something, it helps in tackling and solving the issue without letting it affect the work.

Balancing The Work & Life Needs

The employee relationship management focuses on their whole employee instead of on-site ones.

This means that the business requires to take a step forward to make sure that the employees have a balanced work-life.

For example, it can include creative staffing which allows part-time, off-site assignments, and flextime.

It also focuses on making the work less stressful and fulfilling. It includes the

employee birthday parties
gym membership
wellness program
Company Outings
Daycare stipends
Charity events

Measuring & Monitoring The Results

For the organization, it’s important to track, measure, and monitor everything to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Also, it shows the growth and help in solving the problems before it gets serious.

However, it’s not just limited to this, but the organization requires to measure and monitor the employee’s satisfaction too.

Well, The managers should be on alert to see if there are any kinds of signs that show discontent. However this can be subjective, that’s why it’s important to monitor the results of the formal assessments more carefully.

It includes the signs like :

Tardiness
Missing deadlines
Formal complaint
Excessive sick or personal days
Formal complaints filed
Employee morale
Disciplinary actions

These signs should be tracked and monitored, they should be shared with the employees too.

There are so many examples of companies performing surveys but the results are not shared with employees.

People Skills Are Not Easy

Employee relationship management requires to have the skills as well as includes the processes for managing the relationships. It’s similar to any other relationship.

For making it stronger, it’s important to have a clear understanding of what the employees want. It’s crucial to take the steps to make it more interactive with the employees.

There is a different use of communication channels, it can be formal and interpersonal.

The measuring of the efforts should be frequent. When there are no signs of improvement, then adjustments should be done to get the level of performance and satisfaction.

What Are The Key Principles Of Employee Relationship Management?

The foundation of the relationship between employees and organization lies in a psychological as well as a social contract.

Well, the contract includes the beliefs related to the reciprocal obligation that is between two parties. But the employees often think that their company failed to fulfill the contract.

When the employees have this perception, there are some effects that it cause to employees, it includes :

Employees don’t trust their organization.
The reduction in job satisfaction.
Effects the sense of obligation.
Reduces the intention of stay in the company.
Lack of interest in the extra role and in-role performance.

Such a percentage can cause catastrophic problems when it comes to employee relations.

According to the study conducted by Morrison and Robinson, behind the perceived psychological contract breach, there is two roots cause i.e. Reneging and Incongruence.

Well, reneging means when the agent of the company finds out about the obligation but fails to solve it knowingly.

For example, if the recruiter made a promise which can be explicit for hiring the new hire. it can be a promise of promoting them within two or three years but fail to fulfill that.

As for the incongruence, it’s a different understanding between the employee and organization about the existing obligation or about the nature of the obligation.

For Example, the recruiter vaguely said that the employees get the promotion much quickly, often within two or three years. But the new hire took the statement and misprinted it as the promise.

Well here, there are two main principles that should be followed I,e,

Keeping The Promises
And To be honest during the conversation.

Even though it may be tempting, it’s important for the organization to not oversell something. Also if due to some reasons that they won’t be able to fulfill their promises, it’s important, to be honest, and communicate with the employee.

Leading with false hope can make your employee lose their trust and it’s a huge reason that makes them choose some other options.

What Are The Best Practices For Employee Relations?

For employee relationship management, it’s important to improve their employee relations. And for that here are some of the best practices that they can consider :

Communicate With Honesty

No doubt that this should be the priority of the employee relationship management

The communication between the organization and employees should be open and honest.

This makes the foundation that makes the relationship much stronger. Also, share the updates with the team, answer the questions and be attentive regarding their queries.

Have Trust & Avoid Micromanaging

The best way to show that you trust the employees is not doing the micromanaging. Once you make it known about what they should be doing and what expectations the company has, let them handle the rest.

Trust them with the work and let them work on their own. However, make sure that they know about contacting management in case of help.

Make sure that you are frequently communicating and sharing about the company with your employees. But with that, also share the mission and visions related to the business.

When you share the visions, it also helps in getting the team behind it too.

The best way you can consider for this is randomly asking the employees about what they know about the company vision or the company goal for the year.

It will make it more attentive and helpful for everyone to know about the vision. Avoid having the manager repeating the visions again and again.

Recognize And Appreciate

There are 76% of people who feel not valued and they look for better opportunities in some other organization.

That’s why it’s important for the company to show that they value their employees. Also, it strengthens the relationship when the employee feels that they are important.

You can do public praise which boosts confidence and is also effective in the workplace.

Well for that, you can also do :

Celebrate the success of your employees. You can hold a small week celebration and cheer for them.
You can encourage them on all-hands meetings. During this, the achievement of employees can be created to a different department.
You can appreciate their work during team-wide meetings on a regular basis. This can be an informal moment for celebrating and appreciating the work done by the employees.

Avoid The Favoritism

Well, when you show favoritism, it can make other employees feel less valued and they won’t be doing their best.

That’s why it’s important to not show favoritism. Treat and appreciate everyone equally. This will make sure that your employment relationship is good with everyone.

For this, it’s important to create an environment where all of your employees can participate as well as thrive. Also here everyone should know that they are heard.

Boost their confidence by appreciating, make sure you are not taking sides, and be equal to everyone.

Taking sides can cause the feelings like jealousy and disheartened to other employees.

Frequently Asked Questions ( FAQs)

What Is The Best Practice For Improving Employee Relations?

The best is having open communication, investing in them, and appreciating their efforts. These are helpful to create an environment where everyone will feel appreciated and recognized.

What Employee Relations Mean?

Employee relation or ER is a term that defends the relationship between employees and employers. Well, this one focuses on individual and collective relationships to strengthen and improve the relations between them.

What Are The Four Important Pillars In Employee Relations?

It includes open communication, showing gratitude, investing in employees, and consistent feedback.