Employee relations are an important part of every company’s culture. Since your company in Ireland consists of numerous workers from all different walks of life, it makes sense that there would be occasional clashes.
Sometimes you have one worker who doesn’t get along with another or you may have issues between an employee and a manager. Since not everyone sees eye to eye, but both need to meet somewhere in the middle in order for your company to continue to be a success, you need to work on developing solutions to many of these issues as they pop up.
Main Issues with Employee Relations
There are a number of common problems when it comes to employee relations. Each has its own solution, although you might find that your company deals with them as they appear in the workplace. The important thing here is consistency. You need to treat your employees equally, and not give them different solutions to the same problems. They’ll notice those differences.
Wages and Fairness
One of the most important employee relations problems that you might find yourself dealing with involves wages. If you hire a worker at one rate, and then another at a slightly higher one, yet have both employees doing the same job, then they might notice.
This is unfair to the worker with the lower salary, particularly if both have similar backgrounds. What you need to do here is ensure that there are equal starting rates for all workers at that level. It simply isn’t fair to compensate one higher than the other, unless one has more experience or additional education.
If this is the case, then communicate it properly.
Conflicts between Workers
This is another issue that pops up in the employee relations category.
Any time that you have workers from different backgrounds in the same office space in Ireland, issues may pop up. What matters most is how you deal with those conflicts.
For example, you can use a HR software that can track the conflict events in order to determine which employee antagonizes the other. Calling attention to this can stop the conflicts. However, if both parties seem to be at fault, then you may need to pull them into conflict resolution so that they can air their grievances.
General Workplace Safety
Workplace safety is a big issue. Too many companies begin to value profits over employee safety, leading to accidents that could have been prevented.
In order to combat this issue, you need to have an official workplace safety policy in place that is in accordance with Irish labor and safety laws. The more detailed this policy is, the better.
On top of this, your workers need to follow the policy, and you must have management in place who can ensure that this is done. Emphasize just how important it is to have a safe workplace, not just an efficient one.
Timekeeping Inconsistencies
Timekeeping inconsistencies are another common problem. You might spend a good portion of your day helping foster employee relations by fixing time logs and ensuring that their hours are correct.
In order to save yourself time (no pun intended), you should utilize a good employee timekeeping system. These systems are designed to make it easier to log in and out, as well as track how many hours each employee has worked on certain projects.
On top of this, many of them have biometrics systems that allow workers to log in using a simple fingerprint. It’s a high-tech solution to many timekeeping problems.
Issues with Various Types of Employee Leave
In Ireland, each full-time worker is eligible for certain types of leave. The overall length depends on many factors, from those set-in place by the government to the ones in your employee handbook.
On top of leave, many workers are granted vacation days as well. In order to properly track this time off, you’ll need to use HR software. These programs can help a great deal, as your workers can actually request time off in them, preventing them from having to contact HR and put in a handwritten request or email that may get lost.
Tracking Attendance
Tracking attendance can help foster employee relations because you’re able to see which employees are working and when. This way, when one begins to show up late, leave early, and not get as much work done, it’s clear that they have an issue and should be pulled aside.
Communicating with burned out or unhappy employees is the key to ensuring that everything runs smoothly with your business in Ireland. These workers will bring down their colleagues and aren’t performing at their utmost potential. You need to help them as soon as you possibly can before things get worse.
