Rlchard Pettlnger

LABOR RELATIONS AND STAFF MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS

A key intervention in stress management is the style and approach adopted in labor relations in particular, and staff management in general. It is usual to identify two labor relations ’ perspectives as follows.

» Unitary: based on ‘‘the one right way ’’ leadership and management style, so that clear standards are established. These must be capable

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of overall acceptance and conformity. This brings ‘‘pressures to conform’’ and is stressful to some individuals. The unitary approach comes with active responsibilities for designing, implementing, and supporting clear standards of attitude, behavior, and performance for the good of all. The approach is very successful at Sony and Semco (see Chapter 7).

» Pluralist: in which a variety of individual, group, collective, occu- pational, and professional aims and objectives are accepted. There is great potential for stress and con flict. This is compounded where the organizations are also large, complex, hierarchical, and diverse – for example, multinational and transnational companies and large public sector service bodies.

Such organizations normally have complex human resource and labor relations functions. The primary contribution is to address and resolve problems wherever they arise. The pluralist perspective works best when procedures are designed to ensure a speedy resolution of issues once raised, and this was a key drive of the staff management reforms at Broadmoor Hospital (see Chapter 7). The pluralist perspective suffers in general from being adversarial, confrontational and hierarchical in basic approach, and these are all potential sources of stress. The requirement to employ human resource and labor relations functions is also very expensive for organizations. This has caused many organizations and managers to look at alternatives, and to try to streamline procedures and practices wherever possible.

7.