3CO04 - Essentials of People Practice

Narrative - legislation and Organisational Practices

AC 3.1: Explain the importance of work-life balance within the employment relationship and how it can be influenced by legislation.

Work-life balance is a holistic concept that covers flexitime, a transition from full-time to part-time, job-sharing, home working, and paid leave to attend to emergency situations. According to the CIPD (2018), work-life balance in the basic concept refers to work not being part of life. Following this convention is that work-life balance allows individuals to address personal and social aspects of life without work interference.

The benefits of work-life balance within the employment relationship context are anchored on staff retention, enhanced productivity, profitability, employee engagement, more morale, and a reduced rate of absenteeism. A work-balance environment ensures that employees are motivated and satisfied, which enhances their social and overall mental well-being (Brough et al., 2020). These benefits extend to improved relationships with other stakeholders, including teamwork and collaboration. Work-life balance increases the employees’ morale and level of engagement which are fundamental to meaningful relationships at the workplace. Reduced absenteeism and increased productivity, achieved through work-life balance, are also important in ensuring profound relationships with the manager (Alqahtani, 2020). Besides, employees with work-life balance are not stressed, which is important in workplace relationships.

Work-life balance is influenced by various legislations, including the Working Time Regulation of 1998, the Working Time Directive of 2003, and the Employment Rights Act of 1996. These legislations outline the working hours, rest periods, night working, minimum wages, maternity and paternity leaves, and flexible working. As stipulated in the Working Time Legislation of 1998, the average working period is 48 hours weekly with an opt-out provision (CIPD, 2022). Workers are also entitled to paid leave and a specific rest break. The Employment Rights Act of 1996 provisions are that employees have the right to request the employer for a change in the contractual conditions and terms for flexible working provided they have worked for the firm for 26 weeks continuously.

AC 3.2: Explain the concept of wellbeing in the workplace and why it is important.

Employee well-being from my perspective, is a culmination of several factors, including my relationship with others, satisfaction with my work, physical health, and emotional welfare. These elements are anchored on various organisational concepts, including learning and development, reward management, and employee engagement. According to Krekel et al. (2019), employee well-being is a broad concept that covers areas of happiness, motivation, satisfaction, and engagement. As shown in figure 1 below, employee well-being involves various areas, including personal growth, work, health, values, and social or collective welfare.

Employee Well-being Areas (Source: Author).

As shown in figure 1 above, health is an important area of employee well-being and covers areas of mental and physical. It is the ability of an employee’s body to effectively deliver the roles and responsibilities.

The value of employee well-being, as described by CIPD (2022b), includes increasing the employee’s resilience, employee engagement, reduced absenteeism, high productivity, better workplace relationships, and high performance. Achieving these benefits requires the integration of well-being practices throughout the company’s areas, from the leadership to people management and culture. Employees with high well-being are not stressed or overburdened, which increases their productivity and engagement. For example, employees who are physically healthy can work under pressure to achieve the firm’s goals. Engaged employees with good mental health are creative and innovative, which is important in developing solutions to the current organisational issues and maintaining a competitive advantage. Another example is social well-being, which is important in employees working together to achieve organisational objectives.

AC 3.3: Assess how employee engagement impacts the way people feel at work.

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Employee engagement, from Khan’s definition, involves how individuals express themselves emotionally, cognitively, and physically during their job interactions (CIPD, 2021). This means the internal being, which is linked closely to behaviour, including the discretionary aspect of the individual doing an extra mile. There are positive and negative elements of employee engagement, as summarised in table 1 below.

Table 1: Positives and Negatives of Engagement 

Employee engagement has benefits and drawbacks. It should be done on an optimum level, failure to which it may be detrimental to the workforce. Employee engagement increases productivity and employee satisfaction and motivation. The drawbacks of employee engagement include presenteeism, a situation where the workforce comes to work even in instances that they should not or have justification for being absent (McGregor et al., 2018). The implication of this is that it may challenge the individual’s work-life balance.

Employee engagement has significant effects on how people feel at work. Engaged employees are motivated and satisfied to profoundly accomplish their roles and responsibilities. Their stress levels are low, and will exhibit discretionary behaviour, which is described by working an extra mile (Sun and Bunchapattanasakda, 2019). Over-engagement, however, may result in other issues, including poor work-life balance. This can be associated with the employees spending too much time at the workplace, which also results in burnout.

AC 3.4: Summarise the main points of discrimination legislation.

Discrimination refers to unfair treatment of an individual for various reasons, including disability, age, civil partnership, marriage, gender reassignment, maternity, pregnancy, sex, belief, religion, and race. These reasons are referred to as ‘protected characteristics’ in the Equality Act of 2010 (Bhopal, 2020). Notably, discrimination against these features is unlawful. Discrimination, according to ACAS may be direct or indirect. Direct discrimination entails unfair treatment due to the protected characteristic. For example, an unequal reward package due to sex or age is direct discrimination (Triana et al., 2019). Another example is when an employee is asked about the disability and how it may impact recruitment and selection. Indirect discrimination, on the other hand, involves the arrangements and rules applicable to various employees and applicants but less fair to a given protected characteristic (ACAS, 2020). For discrimination to qualify as indirect, the applicant or employee should prove two factors, which fall under rule or arrangement. These include the decision or treatment as unfair compared to others with the protected characteristic and unfair action for those that do not have the protected characteristic. For example, an internal job advertisement where the only candidates that may apply are women, which means that there is indirect discrimination against men.

Discrimination may be expressed as harassment and victimisation. Harassment involves the actions of a supervisor, co-worker, or manager which show intimidation, hostility, and threats in the work environment. The Equality Act of 2010 covers every individual from harassment, victimisation, and discrimination (ACAS, 2020). The impacts of discrimination in the employment relationship include dissatisfaction and demotivation of the employees, poor teamwork, conflict, and low engagement levels. An HR that fails to equally and fairly address discrimination in any form may receive criticism and poor cooperation with the employees.

AC 3.5: Explain what diversity and inclusion mean and why they are important.

Diversity and inclusion involve treating every individual equally and fairly. The concepts further entail providing every employee an opportunity to participate and be involved in the decision-making process at the organisation. At my company, diversity and inclusion are reflected in various steps, including recruitment and selection and during strategic planning and implementation. For example, every employee is allowed to provide their suggestion on a company’s products and services and how they can be improved. According to Grissom (2018), workplace diversity and inclusion cover several themes, including unconscious bias, discrimination, and inclusive cultures. CIPD defines inclusion as where differences among the people are valued and applied to ensure each person thrives at work (CIPD, 2021b). Diversity involves recognising the differences and acknowledging the merits of various perspectives.

Equal opportunities differ from inclusion and diversity in that it is the law and is driven by the legislation. Equal opportunities refer to ensuring no one is discriminated. Diversity and inclusion are about acknowledging, respecting, and valuing the differences among people. Under equal opportunity, no one should be biased or disadvantaged based on any prejudice. The social justice case involves the belief that each individual has the right to equal access to business activities, including learning and development, employment, and promotion. According to the World Economic Forum (2019), the business case in inclusion and diversity is based on the interconnectedness and socio-cultural dynamics. For example, each individual has an equal opportunity to participate in the performance management process. Social justice entails each individual being offered a consistent and fair process. At my organisation, employees at my organisation qualify for promotion based on merit and experience. Social justice is reflected in avoiding discrimination or bias of any individual and applying the organisational criteria.

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AC 3.6: Explain the difference between fair and unfair dismissal.

Dismissal entails the end of an employee’s contract. It can also be described as firing or sacking. Before the employee is dismissed, there should be a valid reason, a full and fair procedure followed, and the decision should be fair, consistent, and balanced (ACAS, 2022). The legislation describing dismissal is the Employment Rights Act of 1996, which outlines the potential reasons for dismissal (Table 2).

The HR should ensure that the dismissal is fair by providing sufficient reasons for the action.

Unfair dismissal entails when there lacks a fair reason for terminating the individual and the employee is not permitted a fair procedure (Smart, 2021). Automatic unfair reasons include requesting flexible working, maternity leave, trade union membership, and whistleblowing.

The fairness or unfairness in the dismissal can also be described from the perspective of involvement and non-involvement. In a fair dismissal, the individual is involved in the decision-making process and is informed of the judgement (Collins, 2021). For instance, an individual accused of fraud has to be involved and investigations are done to determine if indeed the person participated in the misconduct. When the redundancy procedure has been initiated, involvement is demonstrated in the employees being consulted.

References

• ACAS, 2020. Discrimination and the law. Available [online] at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/engagement/factsheet#gref [Accessed August 12, 2024].
• ACAS, 2022. Dismissals. Available [online] at: https://www.acas.org.uk/dismissals/unfair-dismissal [Accessed August 12, 2022].
• Alqahtani, T.H., 2020. Work-life balance of women employees. Granite Journal, 4, pp.37-42.
• Bhopal, K., 2020. Gender, ethnicity and career progression in UK higher education: a case study analysis. Research Papers in Education, 35(6), pp.706-721.
• Brough, P., Timms, C., Chan, X.W., Hawkes, A. and Rasmussen, L., 2020. Work–life balance: Definitions, causes, and consequences. Handbook of socioeconomic determinants of occupational health: From macro-level to micro-level evidence, pp.473-487.
• CIPD, 2018. Work-life balance supports can improve employee well-being. CIPD Applied Research Conference 2018. Available [online] at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/work-life-balance-supports_tcm18-57294.pdf [Accessed August 12, 2024].
• CIPD, 2021. Employee engagement and motivation. Available [online] at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/engagement/factsheet#gref [Accessed August 12, 2024].
• CIPD, 2021b. Inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Available [online] at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/diversity/factsheet#gref [Accessed August 12, 2024].
• CIPD, 2022. Working time. Available [online] at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/emp-law/working-time#gref [Accessed August 12, 2024].
• CIPD, 2022b. Well-being at work. Available [online] at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/factsheet#gref [Accessed August 12, 2024].
• Collins, P., 2018. The inadequate protection of human rights in unfair dismissal law. Industrial Law Journal, 47(4), pp.504-530.
• Grissom, A.R., 2018. Workplace diversity and inclusion. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 57(4), pp.242-247.
• Krekel, C., Ward, G. and De Neve, J.E., 2019. Employee well-being, productivity, and firm performance. Saïd Business School WP, 4.
• McGregor, A., Ashbury, F., Caputi, P. and Iverson, D., 2018. A preliminary investigation of health and work-environment factors on presenteeism in the workplace. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 60(12), pp.e671-e678.
• Smart, A., 2021. Protecting UK healthcare workers from patient racism. Sociology of Health & Illness, 43(8), pp.1826-1830.
• Sun, L. and Bunchapattanasakda, C., 2019. Employee engagement: A literature review. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 9(1), pp.63-80.
• Triana, M.D.C., Jayasinghe, M., Pieper, J.R., Delgado, D.M. and Li, M., 2019. Perceived workplace gender discrimination and employee consequences: A meta-analysis and complementary studies considering country context. Journal of management, 45(6), pp.2419-2447.
• World Economic Forum, 2019. The business case for diversity in the workplace is now overwhelming. Available [online] at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/business-case-for-diversity-in-the-workplace/ [Accessed August 12, 2024]. 

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