How to Understand Industrial Relations

The role of the industrial relations professional is growing more complex

Ever been summoned to your Human Resources department to discuss a situation that's undermining your department or division? If your company made a commitment to a top-notch HRD staff, the person you'll meet with has solid credentials in industrial relations (IR). IR professionals are trained to handle, mediate, resolve and smooth out just about every interchange that takes place between employer and employee. To understand how critical this has become in today's volatile marketplace, get to know this complex relationship on intimate terms.

Things You'll Need

• Occupational Outlook Handbook

Instructions

1. Read about the history of industrial relations. Browse a textbook. Find the chapter on the Industrial Revolution and you'll discover that moving from agrarian to urban life meant factories replaced farms and homes turned into tenements. As a result, a variety of social ills dramatically changed U.S. commerce. Factory workers were subjected to horrific working conditions. Some died. The need for dialog between workers and bosses became so critical, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) in 1935 to guarantee workers rights, including fair wages and decent working conditions. Unions emerged from this crusade and while companies tried to strike down the Act, the Supreme Court upheld it in 1937.

2. Understand the government's role in helping embattled workers. Management suffered a blow under the NLRA. Workers became empowered. An oversight board, known as National Labor Relations Board, emerged from the fray and labor relations specialists representing unions began recruiting. No private or public sector businesses were exempt from labor organizers, though passage of the Taft-Hartley Act limited union recruitment and activities in 1947. From this confluence of events, an industry known as labor and industrial relations emerged. Today, industrial relations professionals are involved a majority of facets of employer/employee relations.

3. Explore the way industrial relations works. Typical responsibilities staffers in this division may undertake are overseeing negotiations between management and employees, layoffs, education programs, transitioning workers between departments, assisting with personal matters such as counseling and referrals, plus hiring, firing and benefits coordination. Labor relations department staff are regularly called upon to handle internal communications, host a company website, produce a newsletter or prepare a firm to move to new headquarters.

4. Find out where the industry is going. Industrial relations divisions are taking on larger, more targeted roles as they move to specialist-focused teams. A firm may hire union negotiators, employee advocates, arbitrators, trainers, mediators, strategic planners and consultants to tackle morale, productivity, turnover and other issues emerging from a company's growth, maturation, expansion or decline. When this happens, hiring, firing, benefits administration and communication tasks may fall to lower-level IR employees, but one of the areas companies are cautious about delegating down are matters that fall under the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Act since industrial relations administrators must have a solid working knowledge of all facets of affirmative action guidelines and laws.

5. Learn why research is becoming so important. There's a growing movement in corporate America to employ industrial relations researchers focused on keeping tabs on competitors and analyzing trends so a business never falls behind in technology, operational methodology and talent. Savvy companies doing business with state, local or federal governments are hiring industrial relations specialists to negotiate contracts and agreements. Keeping tabs on changing laws and regulations can also be a full-time job for the labor relations team and in our litigious society, having an IR specialist to track and document legal matters and current state and federal legislation is becoming more commonplace.

6. Look to future developments. Beefing up IR departments to meet the challenges of 21st Century America will be a daunting directive. Esoteric responsibilities---like finding and testing learning theories to assure the firm of getting the right employees and setting policy to thwart potential terrorist attacks---will become commonplace, as will the protection of trade secrets and other top secret matters. The field may have a new face, but if you look closely, you'll find that industrial relations are still predicated on serving both management and staff. For this reason, the Occupational Outlook Handbook predicts steady or rising job openings through 2016.

References

• National Labor Relations Board
• Occupational Outlook Handbook
• Wise Geek