Unit 16: Human Resource Management in Business Asmita Ale ASSIGNMENT 3: EMPLOYEE COOPERATION INTRODUCTION In this task, I will be writing a report which explains how Spirax Sarco gain employee cooperation by explaining the following points and giving an example for each one. CONTRACTS OF EMPLOYMENT Contractual Entitlements Contract entitlements are listed within the agreement contract in order to allow the employer and employee to acknowledge what they are both are expected from each other. The entitlements include preparation for the employee’s wage and the data of payment; holiday; sick pay; hours of work; the type of employment – temporary/permanent; notice period; disciplinary rules; pension benefits. For Spirax Sarco, their contractual entitlements are all documented on their ‘Statement of Terms and Conditions of Employment’. For example, the pay of the employee is illustrated below from the screenshot, it shows that the salary of the employee would be transferred through to credit card on the 19 th of each month. However, during the first and last month of the employee’s employment, the pay would be different as it will be based upon the days the employees has worked. For the holiday pay, Spirax Sacro base the holiday entitlement of their employee upon the time period they have worked for the company. For example, an employee is entitled to 187.5 hour of annual holiday; an employee who has worked for the company for five years are entitled to
Transcript
Unit 16: Human Resource Management in BusinessAsmita Ale
ASSIGNMENT 3: EMPLOYEE COOPERATION
INTRODUCTION
In this task, I will be writing a report which explains how Spirax Sarco gain employee cooperation by explaining the following points and giving an example for each one.
CONTRACTS OF EMPLOYMENT
Contractual Entitlements
Contract entitlements are listed within the agreement contract in order to allow the employer and employee to acknowledge what they are both are expected from each other. The entitlements include preparation for the employee’s wage and the data of payment; holiday; sick pay; hours of work; the type of employment – temporary/permanent; notice period; disciplinary rules; pension benefits.
For Spirax Sarco, their contractual entitlements are all documented on their ‘Statement of Terms and Conditions of Employment’. For example, the pay of the employee is illustrated below from the screenshot, it shows that the salary of the employee would be transferred through to credit card on the 19th of each month. However, during the first and last month of the employee’s employment, the pay would be different as it will be based upon the days the employees has worked.
For the holiday pay, Spirax Sacro base the holiday entitlement of their employee upon the time period they have worked for the company. For example, an employee is entitled to 187.5 hour of annual holiday; an employee who has worked for the company for five years are entitled to 195 hours of yearly holiday entitlement; an employee who has worked for the company for more than 10 years are entitled to 202.5 hours. This indicated that for Spirax Sarco the amount of yearly holiday entitlement increase as the employee has offered longer years of service to the company. All the holiday payment would be based upon the employee’s basic salary.
Spirax Sarco do provide their employee with sick pay where the employee would receive the amount of pay whilst they were absent to work
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due to sickness or injury, under the Sickness Absence Policy, which is shown from the screenshot to the right.
The hours of work for employee within Spirax Sarco is 37.5 hours per week, which begins from 8:00am to 4:45pm, with half an hour of unpaid break on Monday to Thursday. However, on Friday, they are only required to
work from 8:00am to 12:30am with no lunch break. These are all illustrated from the screenshot to the left.
Spirax Sarco also include company pension within their contractual entitlement as it is shown from the screenshot to the right, where Spirax Sarco has their own pension plan which is called ‘The Spirax-Sarco Group Personal Pension Plan’, where the employees are allowed to choose the pension plan.
Employee and Employer Rights
Few of the entitlements which are documented in the contract are statutory entitlements, which is legal rights where both employees and employers have to oblige to. Therefore, changes within law now have a vast list of statutory right. For example, the statutory rights for employees includes to receive equal pay, to receive maternity/paternity pay, and to not be unfairly dismissed etc. Employer also have statutory rights, such as employees must give notice to the employer when they decide to leave, or before they go on paternity/maternity leave.
For Spirax Sarco, their employer rights are stated within the ‘Contract of Employment’. For example, for holiday leave, the company do have the right to refuse payment for annual leave over and above employee’s entitlement which is shown by the screenshot to the right. This is under the Working Time Regulation, and only occurs if the employee fail to give or work proper notice of termination or if they were fired for gross misconduct, i.e. theft, physical violence, unlawful discrimination or harassment.
One of the employee rights are stated within the ‘Disciplinary Procedure’ of Spirax Sarco, which is if the employee is unsatisfied with the disciplinary decision which is taken upon them, they have the right to appeal against the decision, in which their right of appeal, and whom to address should be documented within a letter which is illustrated by the screenshot to the right.
Unit 16: Human Resource Management in BusinessAsmita Ale
Types of Employment Contract
There are different range and types of employment contracts, which is illustrated by the screenshot to the right. Few examples of different forms of employment contracts include full-time employment contract, which is where the employee would be required to work for 35 hours a week or more; fractional employment, which is where an employee work for a part or a fraction of the hours in a contract; part-time employment, which is where the employee would have less hours of work than full-time employee, that is less than 30/35 hours per week; temporary employment, which is where the employee would be offered to work on a contracted period, such as for six months; casual employment, which is where the employee is employed when and if they are needed, and where is no specific requirement of continuing employment.
For Spirax Sarco, they have two form of employment contract which is temporary contract or permanent contract which is illustrated within their ‘Contract of Employment’.
Disciplinary Procedures
Disciplinary Procedures are a set of guidelines and rules which are applied to the employees by the employers in order to inform the employees what would occur to them in the event of gross misconduct. An employer requires to give employees a duplicated copy of the business’ disciplinary procedure in a document form by the law. There is also a minimum steps which requires to be followed before the employee can be fired, which is known as the Statutory Minimum Procedures, in which if the employer does not obey to these procedures cautiously, they can be accused of unfair dismissal and taken to employment tribunal.
For Spirax Sarco, they have their own disciplinary procedure, in which each employees have to oblige to. This ensures employee cooperation within the workforce as the employees would be controlled and the disciplinary procedure demonstrates a guideline of the consequences, and the procedure and different
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level of gross conduct towards the employees. This reinforces the behaviour which is expected from the employees, which allows cooperation within the organisation and prevent any misconduct and gross misconduct. The screenshot shows the contents of Spirax Sarco’s Disciplinary Procedures. For example, it illustrates the difference between misconduct and gross misconduct, in which misconduct is conduct which is usually viewed as unacceptable to the company but do not actually create a breach towards the contract of employment, such as unauthorised absence or lateness, failure to follow comply with Company’s Core Values and minor insubordination.
According to Spirax Sarco, Gross Misconduct is conduct which severely breaches the contract of employment’s basis of mutual trust and confidence, such as theft or fraud, severe misuse of an organisation’s property/name and a serious breach of Health and Safety rules.
By having these disciplinary documented and applied to each employees, it ensures Spirax Sarco have employees who are willing to cooperate with employees, employers and the organisation without any issues, and it also regulates cooperation within the company.
Grievance Procedures
A grievance procedure is a process which supports the employees to discuss their concern towards their employers. The company’s grievance procedures requires to be provided to the employees within their contract of employment or requires to be published within the company handbook or the company website.
For Spirax Sarco, their grievance procedures are documented in their contract of employment, which is shown in the screenshot to the right, in which for Spirax Sarco’s employees if they are seeking compensation of a complaint towards their employment, they should write a letter towards their Manager, however if its related with their Manager, they would require to report the matter to a higher senior Manager. This would gain employee cooperation within the workforce as the employee would feel appreciated as their opinion would be considerated by the company which would motivate them to having a positive attitude toward the company thus leading them to cooperate with their employers and employees, which would then allow the company to continue to be a success and make profits for its shareholder.
Union Membership
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A trade union is an organisation where their membership include members and union leaders who united to protect and promote their common interests.
For Spirax Sarco, I do not believe they are a member of trade union as from the screenshot it is shown that Spirax Sarco are very confidential about their information, thus the employees are not allowed to talk about their wages which could be a disadvantage to the company as it could demotivate their employees within the workplace since they have no one to share about their working condition, i.e. their wages, relationship between workers and employer etc., as they might not feel valued by the company thus would decrease the cooperation within employees and employer.
Code of Behaviour
Code of Behaviour are a set of conventional principles and expectations which are considered binding on any individuals who is a member of a particular group, in which most employers now produce a code of behaviours within their company in order to provide a clear guidelines about the behaviour expected from their employees.
For Spirax Sarco, I believe they do have their own code of behaviour as they operate as manual and labour workforce, which indicate that their code of behaviour would probably include codes which links and relates with health and safety as some employees in the manufacture department would require to work with plenty of machineries. The screenshot to the right is the code of conduct for supplier of the famous technology company ‘Apple’, in which I believe would be similar to Spirax Sarco up to certain extend as both company manufacture products which revolves machineries. For example, Spirax Sacro would probably also include code of behaviour for the health and safety categories, where the employees would require to have emergency prevention preparedness as some of the employee would be exposed to plenty of machineries and chemicals.
EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT TECHNIQUES
Membership of Work Groups
Some employers may have work groups, in which allows the employees to get together and make suggestion and changes within the workplace. There are several different types of workgroups, such as:
Broad Groups and Works Councils
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This is a work group which may include employee directors and other senior members who are at the board level within an organisation, or at the works level such as a form of council, who both looks within different areas of the business, for instance, health care, technology or childcare and discuss arrangement for employees.
Quality Circles
This work group include groups of worker who discuss about methods to improve the workplace, in which they are especially focused on discussing about issues which relate with the quality of work, such as manufacturing processes, product design and safety. They are interested in making changes and involved in process which could make job easier and better.
Intra-Organisational Groups
This work group include employees from different areas within the organisation who meet in order to share experiences and ideas, as a simple procedure which is performed within an area of a business could lead to an issue within another department of the company. Thus, there is benefit of having this work group as it prevents this issue to occur and it allows greater understanding of the way the company operate as a whole. There are different forms of intra-organisational group meetings, such as there is transnational group meeting which is where groups from similar industries based in different countries meet through internet video conference; national group meeting which is where group from similar industries from different areas within the same country meet; site specific group meeting which is where groups from the same site, such as a campus or outlet, meet.
For Spirax Sarco, they haven’t provided any information about their workgroups, however, I do believe that they would apply all three of these work groups within their workforce as it provides and gain employee cooperation. For example, they would most likely use intra-organisations groups as Spirax Sarco have plenty of different department within their organisation, such as the finance department, HR department, purchasing department and many more which is illustrated through the screenshot above which is information obtained from the HR manager of Spirax Sarco, Mrs Julie Horrell. This indicate that Spirax Sarco certainly would use intra-organisation group in order ensure each different department within Spirax Sarco can share their ideas and opinions on improving the overall performance of the company. They would specifically apply transnational group meeting as they are international companies operating in 34 different countries, which indicates that the organisation would require to communicate across each company within different countries in order ensure one simple procedure within Spirax Sarco in one country doesn’t affect the performance of Spirax Sarco in another country in a negative manner. This ensures the all employees of Spirax Sarco within different countries are cooperating with each other, which helps the overall company to operate more efficiently and effectively.
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Suggestions Schemes
Suggestions Schemes are alternative methods of achieving employee involvement and cooperation as some suggestions which are made from employees may lead the company to save a large amount of profit. Employer usually encourage their employees to this form of communication by offering prizes, i.e. money and recognition.
For Spirax Sarco, they do apply a suggestion scheme within their workplace as they have a culture for continuous improvement regardless of the role of the employee, in which they obtain all the feedback from their employees and apply those which are commercially viable and provides advantages to the company. They also perform a company UK wide staff survey yearly which is administered by another external company in order to ensure employees confidentiality. This survey includes questions from work life balance, career progression, communication and relationship with manager. This maintain a positive employee cooperation within Spirax Sarco as the employees would feel valued due to the recognition of their opinions by the management which prevents conflicts between employees and the management as if there is an employee who is consistently uncooperative within the workforce, it would waste the manager’s time, upset other employees and disrupt the organisation’s environment which could lead to incompatible relationship between manger and employee which conclude to lower production levels.
Devolved Authority and Responsibility
Devolved authority and responsibility is one of the method which can lead junior staff members to be more interested and involved within the business as it allows them to make decisions themselves and be responsible for them, which allows them to be more motivated as they are able to consider changes and apply them into real life practice. However, there are few withdraw of this as the employee may not want to take the authority and responsibility without having additional payment.
For Spirax Sarco, the responsibilities and devolved authority are all stated within the roles specifications and objectives of each employees, in which the employees are normally aware of their authority based upon the decisions laid out in Spirax Sarco’s internal processes. This enhances the employee’s cooperation within Spirax Sarco as it can lead other junior and new employees to become more involved within the company which allows employees to cooperate positivity with each other.
Open Communications
Within workplace, open communications is having two-way communication between employees and the management. The advantages of having this form of communication include it allowing the employees to know the performance and the circumstances of the workforce, and also the possible issues which will allow the employees to feel more involved and as a part of the business. A disadvantage of not having open communication include increase of rumours and gossip which on influence the company in a negative way as it may lead conflicts to occur within the company.
There are five major forms of open communications, which are:
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Formal Communication
This is the form of communication which is more official, and may take the form of a presentation, an official letter or a telephone call.
Informal Communication
This form of communication is more relaxed and casual compared to formal communication, such as a conversation in a corridor, and also this type of communication may be transferred easily to friends and colleagues.
Top-Down Communication
This form of communcation is passed from the top of the hierarchy of the company, thorugh the levels of management down, to the other employees.
Bottom-Up Communication
This form of communication transfer information from the bottom of the organisation i.e. a work council or an employee suggestion scheme, through the level of management to the top of the organisation i.e. directors.
Lateral Communication
This form of communication occurs between employees who are at the same level, however, working in different department of the company. For example, communication between the marketing manager and the finance manager would be an example of lateral commination.
For Spirax Sarco, I believe they would use all of the forms of open communication within their organisation as they would use each form for different circumstances. For example, they would apply formal communication if the company as a whole would like to present an idea about their business plan through a presentation. They would use informal communication in circumstances such as colleagues having chat or discussion with each other within cafeteria. They would use top-down communication if the head of Spirax Sarco want to explain the organisational vision to all the employees as it is one of the most effective method to give employees a clear understanding of the message as the employees would require to behave according to the vision and it also provides better coordination. They would apply bottom up communication if employees wants to share their ideas on methods of improving company through employee suggestion scheme towards their manager, who is positioned higher than them through the layers of management. They would lateral communication method when employees from different departments i.e. manufacturing department and finance department, who are at the same level want to communicate with each other about the company.
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Spirax Sarco also uses ‘Weekly Paid Performance Appraisal’ where the employers evaluate the performances and the production level of each employees, which enables the employers to communicate with their employees as it documents how each employees are performing and the improvements that are required, which is shown through the screenshot to the right, which is also known as ‘Top-Down’ communication method.
Types of Communication
There are plenty different forms of communication which is used within organisation in order to obtain employee involvement, which can affect the message which is received. For example, employees may feel more trustable and comfortable with open form of communication, such as a discussion compared having information obtained to email or text. This is because each different type of communication have its own possible advantages and disadvantages, in which the screenshot to the right illustrates different form of communication.
For Spirax Sarco, they are most likely use face to face meeting as a method of communication within their employees as it prevents the meaning of the actual message and information to be destroyed. Spirax Sarco have a bi-weekly meeting where they are informed with their division’s performance and other useful information. They also have a quarterly meeting where they discuss performance and information on business plan and wider group strategies. This is proven by the screenshot to the right. Also, Spirax Sarco generally uses
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company bulletin and newsletter as a communication method to communication with all of their employees which does reinforces the cooperation within employees.
Organisational Culture
Organisational Culture is a set of rules in which every employees and employers learn to accept, and also influences the behaviour of employees. This can be demonstrated in a numerous of methods, such as the ethos of the organisation, which is a code of conduct of the company. A company’s ethos may be positioned in a published set of values or a mission statement in order to allow the employees, customers and other stakeholders to be aware of the core beliefs and values of the company.
For Spirax Sarco, their organisational culture is covered by the core values the company set for themselves, which are Respect, Accountability, Passion, Integrity and Delivery. They believe these core values would bind them together as an organisation and enable them to share a common understanding of what they value within their employees, and they deliver their commitments to stakeholders. This encourages employee’s cooperation as most employees would have the mind-set which is structured by the core values of Spirax Sarco, thus employees would cooperate with each other in a positive manner which prevent conflicts within the workplace.
National Accreditation
Few companies applies national accreditation schemes in order to get their entire staff members to be involved. By being involved with schemes, such as the Investors in People (IIP) which is one of the most known awards which requires employers to invest in one of their largest assets which is people, and their recognition is dependent upon three core principles which is ‘plan’, that involve developing strategies in order to improve performance; ‘do’, which include taking action to improve performance; ‘Review’ which involve evaluating and improving performance. There has been evidence which shows that by having IIP scheme within the workforce has led to increase in employee commitment and productivity, which is illustrated through the screenshot on the right and is obtained from the official website of IIP (https://www.investorsinpeople.com/what-investors-people).
Charter Mark is another national award which is based on the government’s quality improvement for customer services, in which it is both a standard and improvement tool to help organisation to improve service delivery to customers. Recently, this scheme has been
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renewed to make it applicable for public service organisations i.e. schools and hospitals. This enables company to involve all their employees as the employees would be required for decision making.
International Standards Organisations also is another scheme which helps to develop and introduce standards for many organisations, in which the standards are methods of working or providing resolution for issues. One of the standard was to getting more staff being included in decision making and offering suggestions, which can be done by providing training to support them to place their ideas into practice.
For Spirax Sarco in UK, one of the national accreditation they have received was the ‘Export Award in the Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucestershire Citizen Business Awards 2014’. This award was awarded to them due to Spirax Sarco being a company which has generated substantial, and sustained, increases within their export activity. This suggest that Spirax Sarco do have effective employee cooperation within their workplace as they were able to work as team and cooperate effectively in order to achieve this national accreditation.
