HSC Business Studies- Research Task 1- Mr Wall- The Scots College
Ruth Mayhew, in her article “The Importance of Labour Laws “aptly defines the relationship between labour and employment laws and human resource management:
“Labour and employment laws give structure to the workplace, define what employees and employers are responsible for and, in some cases, outline federal regulations to give both parties necessary direction for resolving workplace conflict. These laws are important because they enable businesses to devote more of their focus to productivity and profitability rather than giving constant energy and resources to problem-solving “.
This essay focuses on a selection of human resource strategies which companies adopt whilst conforming to labour and employment laws. The strategies include recruitment; training and development; performance management, job design and leadership style. Examples have been drawn from Apple and McDonald's - two large international corporations.
Name
Company
Headquarters
No. of Locations
Structure/Style
Apple
Listed Multinational tech company
Apple Campus, Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, United States
498 Retail Stores (incl. Australia)
Long chain of command
Democratic
McDonalds
Global Foodservice Retailer
Oak Brook, Illinois, United States
36,900 Restaurants (Incl. Australia)
Strict hierarchical structure
Autocratic
The relationship between employers and employees are bound by regulations, specifically, the legal
We need employment law to comply with each relevant legislation. These laws regulates to the relationship between employee and their employer to ensure that they comply with the processes of hiring and equal pay, fair disciplinary/dismissal procedures along with other work placed regulations.
Employment legislation exists to protect both Employee and Employer and must be adhered to at all times. Legislation assists in regulating the relationship between Employers and Employees in order to ensure that abuse does not take place. It gives the employee a sense of security, and ensures we receive all the benefits we are entitled to.
This paper will discuss the United States Department of Labor laws. Americans are protected under these laws from injustices that may occur in the work place. There are over a hundred different laws that have been created by the government and that companies are mandated to adhere by.
Employer and employee relationships were strained from the very beginning of labor, and it soon was evident that government intervention would be necessary to keep the labor movement on track. Several statues have been enacted since the early nineteenth century to deal with management and unions. Evidence can be seen from the Norris-La
Many different labor laws were passed in Congress, for the protection of workers such as, “. . . Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act” (Langbert, 2002, p. 934). Due to the fact, that new labor laws were enhancing all work environments, organizations started to see that trying to function without a human resource management team would only lead to disastrous results. HRM had the added responsibilities of making sure that they not only knew these labor laws, but understood how to incorporate them into their organization. Workers after countless hours of protesting for their rights, had labor laws that were put in place to give all workers the protection and respect that they needed from their organization. Therefore, human resource management had big shoes to fill to make sure that all employees rights were being upheld through their organization.
What are employment laws and why are they so important to American workers? Employment laws have been created throughout the years to provide employees in the United States with job protections. Such protections range from how much employees must be paid to their ability to retain medical insurance after suffering a job loss. Some of the labor laws I believe have significance to workers today are the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (WARN), the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Although most workers are aware of the basic fundamentals of these labor laws, many are not aware of the comprehensive detail surrounding such laws and what prompted their start. Therefore, this paper will review these labor laws in more detail. In addition, a perspective from both proponents and opponents for each of these employment laws will be discussed.
Labor relation issues have been on the forefront in the United States since the early 20th century when the first labor laws were passed (HG.org, 2015) Laws were enacted to govern the rights and responsibilities between employers and employees. The first phase of labor laws dealt with laws to compensation for injured workers, a standard minimum wage and work week and prohibit child labor (HG.org, 2015) In the 1960’s and ’70s, laws were focused on discrimination and unsafe work conditions, today issues include employee healthcare and equal pay for men and women (HG.org, 2015).
For the social injustice of labor laws, the government in the U.S. and in other countries should have gotten involved earlier. Labor laws are there to make sure the boss to employee ratio works cohesively. Also, labor laws work with unions to establish rules and regulations. For example, there are a certain amount of hours the employee can work, needs to be a good work environment, must be a certain age to work, etc. Therefore, the government should have gotten involved earlier to stop the unfair treatment and to set and enforce guidelines.
The ‘objective’ of labour law, in our common understanding of the subject, is grounded in securing ‘justice’ for employees (or workers) in their formal working lives. The assumption that there is an imbalance of power in regards to the relationship between employers and their employee has been established over a significant period of time. With companies acquiring large amounts of funds and expanding themselves on a global scale, those who hold managerial positions are becoming more and more inclined to use their new found ‘power’ in a way which houses the potential to exploit the employees who are seen to have less of an influence (in comparison with large profit maximising enterprises). It is for this reason that regulation of the employment relationship between these two parties ought to be properly regulated, as a means to ensure that companies do not take advantage of their employees, a position which has been emphasised by law scholar Sir Otto Kahn-Freund, who has articulated that “the main object of labour law has always been, and I venture to say will always be, to be a countervailing
The practise of Human Resources is moving from the traditional forms of managing people to a more strategic form whereby the Human Resources function is closely linked with organisational performance and success. This strategic form of human resources has increased the need for the Human Resource professional to understand the linkages between Corporate Strategy, Human Resource Strategy and Employee Integration.
Employment or labor laws have been developed to facilitate smooth relationship between employers and employees. Employment laws provide rules and regulations that should govern both the employer and the employees in their places of work. Employment laws discuss issues related to child labor, wages and salaries, retirement, working conditions, compensations, incentives and employment benefits among others. The major objective is to ensure the employer does not exploit the employee and on the other hand, the employee honors the terms and conditions of the job as presented by the employer.
The economic environment in nowadays dynamic, it is fairly important for organisations and managers to recognise the curtail of Human Resource Management. It is clear that Human Resource Management (HRM) has become one of the most recommend management strategy in the modern business (Leopold and Harris, 2009). Human Resource Management is a technique process of managing people in the workplace to enable and enhance organization performance (Leopold and Harris, 2009). This theory involved the responsible to attracting, selecting, training and managing people which make employees become more valuable to the organisations. It invests effect in learning and development at work. Also to communicate with all employees at each level to reward successful employee relations (Wilton, 2011). Human Resource Management plays a very important role in the operation strategy and management concerns in work organisations of all kinds (Leopold and Harris, 2009). In aim to justify this statement by evaluate the benefit and importance of Human Resource Management in contemporary work organisations. This essay will focus on analysis the advantages of use Human Resource Management in business also underline by explain more detail about the different HRM strategy brings benefits and give competitive advantages impact to the organisation success. Then summarise by a general conclusion on the importance of HRM in contemporary work organisations.
The purpose of Employment Law is to provide legal protection to employees and employers. Employment Law is set up to ensure legal guidelines and standards are met with recruiting, working standards, pay and allowances and the disciplinary process. It is also aimed at protecting a person’s Equality and Human Rights such as
Abstract: Human Resource Management is fast gaining popularity and its importance is becoming unavoidable, this is due to the fact that Human Resource Management plays a huge role in the growth of any company irrespective of its size. Unfortunately it is yet to achieve global standards or strategy of operation; this can be attributed to the various differences between environmental factors, employment attitudes, cultural
Instead, human resource practices of ‘best fit’ are more effective when they are designed to fit certain contingencies in the organization’s specific context. Consequently, ‘best practice’ is perceived to improve performance within an organization when a select bundle of policies is implemented and the employees are managed more efficiently. Jeffrey Pfeffer’s (1994) work under this conception offers a list of seven practices assumed to be most beneficial to an organization for achieving competitive advantage ‘through people’. (1) The importance of employment security is emphasized because it is unrealistic to expect such hard work and commitment from employees without some expectation of security on their part. (2) Selective hiring is a source of sustainable competitive advantage through its “capturing” of particularly exceptional human talent (human capital). (3) Self-managed teams require efficient teamwork, and are seen as a route to achievement of more creative solutions. Employees deserve to be rewarded for