CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Globally, Employees are among an organization’s most important resources and coined as most valuable assets. The nature and amount of work performed by them have a direct impact on the productivity of an organization. So maintaining healthy employee relations in an organization is a pre-requisite for any organization in order to achieve growth and success (Abushawish, 2013). Employee relations is a broad term that incorporates many issues from collective bargaining, negotiations, employment legislation to more recent considerations such as work-life balance, equal opportunities and managing diversity (Armstrong & Stephens, 2016). It comprises the practice or initiatives for ensuring that Employees are happy and are productive. Employee Relations offers assistance in a variety of ways including employee recognition, policy development and interpretation, and all types of problem solving and dispute resolution. It involves handling the pay–work bargain, dealing with employment practices, terms and conditions of employment, issues arising from employment, providing employees with a voice and communicating with employees (Frank & Jeffrey, 2010).

Employee relations is concerned with maintaining employee-employer relation, which contributes to satisfactory productivity, increase in employee morale and motivation (Ahmad & Shahzad, 2011). In Africa, According to Onyango (2014), employee relations can be seen primarily as a skill-set or a philosophy, rather than as a management function or well-defined area of activity. Despite well-publicized instances of industrial action, the emphasis of employee relations continues to shift from ‘collective’ institutions, such as trade unions and collective bargaining, to the relationship with individual employees. The ideas of ’employee voice’ and the ‘psychological contract’ have been accepted by employers and reflected in their employee relations policies and aspirations.

Employee relations skills and competencies are still seen by employers as critical to achieving performance benefits through a focus on employee involvement, commitment and engagement (Tepper, Moss, Lockhart, & Carr, 2017). Employee relations is seen as strategic in terms of managing business risk: both the downside risk of non-compliance with an expanded body of employment law, and the upside risk of failing to deliver maximum business performance (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2013; Tepper et al, 2017).

Employee relations deal its employees as its customer because ER Managers run their day to day business with the help of its employees and for these employees. Satisfied customers exhibit revenue growth and firm’s level of performance. Progressive Employee Relations practices are found behind success of leading organizations. ER practices are commonly known by the traditional titles but it is up to the management that chooses the best fit practices to fulfill the requirements matching to the culture of the organization. Organizations implement Employee Relation Practices to polish skills of its employees which ultimately lead to better organizational performance (Rawashdeh & Al-Adwan, 2012).

ER practices impart a significant role to enhance performance of organizations indirectly in Cameroon. Performance of employee depends upon job satisfaction, compensation and benefits structure, reward plans, promotions, motivation, environment, training and succession planning. Along with this, modern tools, techniques and sophisticated technology used by organizations for Employee Relations create competitive advantage over competitors (Michael, 2005). Performance Management of Employees is a complex and integrated process of setting up a common employees understanding about targets to be achieved in an organization and aligning the corporate objectives with the measures like skills, competencies required for a job, employee development plans and the ultimate results delivered by them. The main focus of performance management is on continuous improvement, learning advanced and new technologies and skill development to achieve set targets through overall corporate strategy and to construct a workforce that can perform with the highest standards (Rawashdeh & Al-Adwan, 2012).

According to Qureshi, Akbar, A.Khan, Sheikh, & Hijazi (2010), the responsibilities of Employee Relations Department have been viewed as ambiguous over the past years. By the evolving Information Technology and arising need for new management techniques ER professionals were given importance. ER department enriches organization from Job Identification to Exit Interviews. It was not clear to intellectuals whether to assign manpower handling duty to Accounts or to Admin Managers. ERD was not clear in its responsibility whenever established. ERM was called on to develop systems to increase performance. Since the evolution of modern ER Management, motivated employees and employee turnover in an organization have been the core issues for ER Managers. Business managers need motivated employees and want to retain experienced employees but did little to find real time solutions.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Poor employee relations hinder the overall workflow of an organisation and damage organisation organisation’s reputation. Most workers in some organisation in Cameroon do not produce more simply because of the poor relationship between the employers and employees. Employee cannot put up their best performances at workplace when they are not happy with the employer or even with their colleague. Poor employee relations will affect employees’ performance and organisation’s productivity. Poor employer-employee relationship results in strike action and lockout. Employees displayed their grievances through strike action and lockout. Strike action and lockout reduces productivity drastically.  Employee relations or industrial relations is basically relationship between employees and employer collectively. This brought us to research on the topic the effect of employee’s relation on employee’s performance in BAMCCUL

1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main research Question

The main addressed was; what is the effect of employees relations on employee’s performance in BAMCULL?

1.3.2 Specific research Questions

The study will address the following questions;

1. What is the importance of employee relations on employee’s performance in BAMCULL?
2. What are the factors affecting employee relations on employee’s performance in BAMCULL?

• What is the impact of employee relations on employee productivity in BAMCULL?

1.4 Research Objectives

1.4.1 Main Research Objectives

The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of employees relations on employee’s performance in BAMCULL.

1.4.2 Specific Research Objectives

The specific objectives are;

1. To understand the importance of employee relations on employee’s performance in BAMCULL.
2. To identify the factors related to employee relations on employee’s performance in BAMCULL.

• To analyze the impact of employee relations on employee productivity in BAMCULL.