News and features

Tue, 2 Jun 2009

Employee relations 'more important than ever'

Partnerships and relations between employees and employers are more important now than they have been in previous recessions, it has been claimed.

Businesses and employers need to ensure they are taking great care over the employee relations in order to ensure they are in a strong position to grow as the recession ends, an expert claims.

A spokesperson for the Institute of Employment Studies said that while recent research indicates employee satisfaction levels seem to be currently high, this is a reflection of work that employers have put in in the past to create good relationships.

Now, as the downturn leads to job losses and other strains on the workforce, employers must ensure that they keep employee relations as a core tenet of their business operations.

Employers are looking beyond the recession as part of an effort to determine what kind of workforce they will have in the future and if the business is in a suitable position to be able to increase momentum, the spokesperson said.

He added that "there has been a lot more care ... about employee relations in this recession than perhaps in previous ones".

Employers have been keen to protect their relations with staff throughout this recession and, indeed, over recent years, the spokesperson added, noting that the development of such relationships is "not something that comes and goes with economic circumstances."

Ensuring workers are equipped with the correct skills for their job is beneficial for business success. Recent research from the Work Foundation found that around 40 per cent of employees have more skills than their jobs require, with some 20 per cent of graduates currently working in log knowledge content jobs.

• See how training your staff can be a cost effective way of facing the challenges of an economic downturn.