The key elements of an organizations employee relations program include the following: - A written statement of the organizations employee

relations philosophy. - A communications program that transmits information from top management to employees and from employees to top management. - A set of personnel policies and practices that is consistent with the organizations stated philosophy. Policies would include such things as absenteeism, tardiness, hiring and pay. Pinpointing what it is that employees want within an organization and creating universal guidelines to manage employee relations may be slightly evasive. However, there are some important points to consider when creating an employee relations program: 1- Corporate principles: Employees want to be comfortable with what their employer stands for. Social psychology research indicates the chances of success are much greater for your organization if you have a clearly defined vision that all your people can follow. Employees want to identify with corporate principles. Today employees are very opinionated about the moral and ethical issues in business. By having a set of guiding principles, and following them, your organization creates a framework that allows for principle-centered policies, procedures and decisions. 2- Employee feedback: Employees want to know that their employer cares about their opinions and concerns. If you're going to create a good employee relations program, you need to have a mechanism for finding out what your employees care about, what they are concerned about and what they think of you as an employer. One way to do this is through conducting employee opinion surveys. 3- Fair treatment: Employees want to be treated fairly. If you throw a company birthday party for an administrative employee, throw the same party for the employee in the facilities department; If you send flowers to an employee in the hospital, do so for all employees in that circumstance. Otherwise, your good intentions turn into unintended favoritism. 4- Employee participation: Employees want to be productive and involved. Create employee participation teams. The more the employee interacts with other members of the team, the greater he/she will be linked to the organization. Getting as many people as possible strategizing on how to make your business a success is another very viable part of a good employee relations program. 5- Employee recognition: Employees want to be appreciated and recognized for a job well done. There are all different kinds of strategies that can be used to link performance with rewards. Such strategies also promote the entrepreneurial spirit and encourage people to work as a team. 6- Competitive compensation: Employees want to be paid competitively. A principle element of a sound employee relations program is to value the knowledge, skills, and abilities of your staff. One way of doing this is to ensure that your salaries remain competitive. Conduct annual salary surveys, establish fair, consistent pay practices and ensure that the entire compensation package is competitive, not just the base pay. 7- Challenges: Employees want to have challenging work. People like to be challenged, particularly when they feel that they are supported in taking on new challenges. Presenting an organizational challenge to your employees stimulates thinking and creates excitement within the organization. 8- Training: Employees want to achieve the greatest possible results professionally and personally during their career. However, many organizations only provide training for their employees if there's money left over in the budget, rather than budgeting for it. People inherently want to do well, and by providing management training or skill-based training, you send the message to your people that you are interested in their success. 9- Communication: Employees today want to be knowledgeable about the company's effectiveness and its activities. When employers fail to communicate with their employees about what's going on, it doesn't just leave a void of information but it also creates dissent, rumor and ill-

will as your employees come to believe that you do not see them as important enough to communicate with. By communicating your company's effectiveness and its activities, you pull the employee further into the family of your organization. 10- Support: Employees want to receive assistance in balancing their work and family needs. This element of establishing a good employee relations program has to do with understanding that your people have lives outside of your business. By providing assistance to balance their lives' you are building a relationship with your employees that tells them that you care and you recognize the need for that balance. 11- Direct contact: Nothing has a more immediate impact on employee relations than occasional direct contact from the boss. Examples are: - Placing time on his/her schedule to walk around the work area, talking with employees - Participating in events that are planned by employees - Conducting a monthly informal meeting with an alternating group of employees. It is to be noted though that no executive can or should perform full-time employee relations. Occasional employee contact with the boss builds respect and morale; too much contact creates familiarity that, among other detriments, can undermine an appropriate chain of command.