The Fastest Way to Create Chaos in Labor Relations

Employees willingly sign up to be part of an organization and then diligently work on fulfilling their roles. Employers are sometimes unaware of how their decisions impact their workers and damage the unwritten employment contracts that all business interaction relies on. The fastest way to create chaos is through managing a business with unprofessional standard while acting with integrity does the opposite and in turn raises performance.

There is a right and a wrong way to make decisions.  Employees want to succeed and expect to be treated with dignity and respect. Promotions should be based on their merit and not the personal whims of the manager. Having actual criteria in place and ensuring fairness in a selection process in important for creating the best work environments.

Solid labor relations is about creating mechanisms, policies, procedures, and professional standards that guide a company on a macro scale. Individual managers may play havoc and cause damage to those standards but should ultimately be held to account for their poor behavior. Without "rules of the road" commitment begins to break down expectations change.

Employees look at how people are promoted, hired, fired, and selected to make determinations about the type of efforts needed to succeed. Even though, as human beings, we want to promote people similar to us it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the long run of the business. If a manager makes decisions based on misguided perceptions then they are looking to individually profit at the expense of the entire company.

It is easier said than done. There are written rules and there are unwritten rules. The written rules are those guided by policies and laws while unwritten rules are often the biggest determiner of outcomes. Unwritten rules like social status, be friends with, lie about, cheat so and so, be nice to, etc... end up defining work performance.

When unwritten rules are solidified into a culture the organization will have some serious difficulties rooting out its impact. It isn't just the vantage point and actions of a few but become a part of the very fabric of a department. This can be hard to remove from the minds of others if they have experienced the same reality.

However, with consistency, adjustments in culture, and the right kind of leadership it is possible to learn from the past and make solid changes that strength the business fabrics. Companies that create employee commitment and have solid labor relations approaches will find themselves retaining talent, attracting new talent, and creating a sense of community.

Methods of Creating Chaos in Labor Relations:
-Allow managers to make self-interested decisions not based in business logic.
-Fail to use formal policies and procedures as guides.
- Have no criteria for selection and promotion.
-Be unprofessional.
-Be toxic.
-Fail to see a need for improvement and don't act.
-Sow a culture of distrust and resentment.

Methods of Creating Trust in Labor Relations:
-Evaluate managers base on their ability to make decisions in the company's best interest.
-Allow flexibility within policies and procedures.
-Encourage professionalism.
-Remove toxic people and promote positive people.
-Continuously look for excuses to improve the organization.
-Have defined criteria for selection and promotion.