COURSE TITLE: EMPLOYEE RELATIONS WORD COUNT: 3000 CASE STUDY The Gransden catalogue company (GCC) is a long

established mail order company, selling a wide range of household and clothing goods via a direct sales catalogue to its customers. The company has in recent times switched most of its sales operations to a website sales catalogue. Although it still has a paper copy of the catalogue which is sent to regular customers, who then have a choice of either ordering via the website, or via the telephone, or on a form sent through the post, most now customers order via the internet via email or directly via the website itself. Goods are sent out to customers by a mixture of contract postal services including parcel force, depending on the area of the country and the size and weight of the goods. GCC employs nearly 500 staff who mostly works at its Manchester site, although approximately 20-30 staff is employed at the transit warehouses which are situated near Bristol and Falkirk. There is a senior management team of 7 directors (6 are male and 1 female who head up the purchasing department) each director heads up a specific function. Most of the middle management are also male, although there are more female middle managers in the telephone sales area and also in the fashion buying section of the purchasing department. A large proportion of the staffs in both the warehouse and customer orders department are female many of whom work in the region of 30 hours a week, to fit in with their home and child care responsibilities. Pay rate starts at about 10% above the national minimum wage level, most of the customers facing roles pay very slightly above the average for similar part-time jobs in the area. There are few additional benefits provided to the staff with only the management level staff being entitled to a pension arrangement. Holidays are based on the WTD (working time directive), with a requirement that all staff take some of their holiday in the early summer, and that no holidays will be taken in the run-up to Christmas, although holidays can be taken from Christmas eve until after the new year, during which time a skeleton staff Rota is annually devised and utilized with opt out of the Rota only allowed in exceptional circumstances. This causes complaint as it causes staff with children in particular to struggle to cover the holidays that their children are entitled to. This along with work content has led to a fairly high staff turnover at 18% per annum but some 20% of staff have worked for the company for many years but this is largely because the site is adjacent to a large housing estate and many staff say that living and working elsewhere would mean that, with travelling costs, they would be worse off. A large number of the jobs are semi-skilled rather than skilled and are seek as tedious and repetitive by the staff. Some of the customers-facing roles can be stressful in terms of dealing with difficult and unhappy customers. Customer orders are manually processed and goods are picked largely by hand, and if any automation is used in the work required, the machinery is now getting rather old and unreliable. There are some large container Lorries used to distribute in bulk to the warehouses in Bristol and Falkirk, and the cost of these vehicles and their drivers has been the subject of the senior management debate as to whether this part of the operations could be outsourced to an outside contract haulage company. There is a union recognized for bargaining purposes but only the warehouse staff belong to it, and even the membership levels are at only 35%. The management while negotiating with

the union on the warehouse staff pay on an annual basis, have taken advantage of the fairly low level of support and driven a very hard bargain on the annual pay increase for the last 5 years, and rates have only increased by little more than RPI (retail price index), meaning that in real terms the pay rate has become a little less competitive to other employers over the years. The senior management style has largely been to be hands off with regards to how the middle management operates on the ground, but the style has been largely old-fashioned across the board. There have been some changes in this approach over the past year when the old managing director retired and a new managing director (MD) was appointed from outside the company. He has been trying to change the culture and some personnel changes have been occurring at the top of the organization, including the recruitment of a new HR director just over 6 months ago, who replaced the previous personnel manager (the title and level of the previous head of HR reflects the old fashioned approach of the management) prior to the new managing director taking over. The new HR director has introduced a whole raft of up to date policies in terms of bringing in a staff handbook, updating the grievance and disciplinary procedures, and is currently discussing with the trade union, the introduction of a formal companywide absence management policy. This involvement was originally greeted with suspicion by the union representatives, but now this has evolved into an increasingly better relationship which is starting to build up between the new HR director, the MD and the trade union representatives, although the meetings can sometimes be strained when the logistics director and the accountant are involved. The HR director has also started to introduce some training programmes for middle management on communications and proper use of the new procedures which have been introduced. Overall the company is the last surviving organization of its type still operating in the north of England. The MD is keen to continue the changes to how the company actually operates and wants to bring the company up to the 21st century modern style, and also to modernize the company in physical terms in relation to more up to date machinery and storage facilities, plus more customer responsive computer use for tracking orders, order picking and deliveries from shelf to customer. These ambition of the new MD have however been tempered by the current recession and the very competitive high street and super store environment. GCC has recently seen its sales impacted by the recession with a 5 % drop in sales over the last 6 months, which is somewhat better than its competitors which have averaged a drop of 10% in sales, and compares reasonably well with the level of sales which high street are having at the moment. However the 5% drop is significant enough for the management to believe that it will be necessary to make cost saving across the board. The MD has asked the HR director for his views on what can be done to make cost savings and also preferably to enable the company to operate more effectively and efficiently in other to make the prices at which core goods could be offered more attractive compared to high street. The MD wants to use modern techniques to improve staff performance. YOUR TASK/QUESTION To propose an employee relations strategy in report format FORMAT OPTION You have been asked for advice by the HR director to look at the situation within the company and the opportunities and threats faced by the company and suggest suitable ER

policies and practices which will enable the company to improve its working method and approach to the staff it employs. Devise a employee relations strategy for the organization to respond to the current economic issues, putting forward policies and proposals for practices that will reduce the impact for the organizations and its staff. Consider possible employee relations issues, communication strategies and impact of proposed changes. Employee relations implications which you may wish to consider could be the following: Cost- including money and time etc Staff acceptance of the change, strategies for getting staff on board with the ideas Communication and timescale of the policies Popularity of change and areas of friction The importance of getting staff on board and keeping them on board with regard change measures How the changes in behavior can be measured

GUIDANCE FOR COMPLETING THE ASSIGNMENT AS GIVEN BY THE LECTURER The assignment should be produced in a report format to cover the following: 1) Introduction to the organization: ensure you commence the assignment with an analysis of the organization, to include the context of which it operates its basic structure and a clear overview of the culture and current management style using employee relations theory to support your analysis. Thus the first expectation of the assignment would be that you will use a business tool to evaluate the environment for the organization such as the PEST or PESTLE; a SWOT analysis plus clear evaluation of the management style as perceived by you within the organization using at least one theoretical framework for that evaluation (30%) 2) Findings: set out clearly the rationale for any proposals and the problems triggered by current changes or your proposed changes (30%) 3) Conclusions: a fairly short section summarizing your argument(s) under 2), these may need to reflect some issues raised by points in 1) as regarding style, culture etc (15%) 4) Recommendations: define the strategy you advise the company to take, giving a clear rationale as to why you have chosen the approach(es) you have with cross reference to the context outlined under 1) above, picking out the disadvantages and advantages of your recommendations, plus time frame and if possible rough costing (25%) NOTE In all mark allocation quality of expression, structure, and very importantly good academic practice regarding referencing will be taken into account. PLEAESE NOTE THAT THE WORD COUNT FOR BOTH ASSIGNMENTS EXCLUDES REFERENCES AND WORDS IN TABLES.