Employment relations can be defined as the existing affiliation between an employee and his employer or between employees. This is a relationship that is categorically witnessed in all organizations despite their levels or mode of operations.
It is however a challenge to always uphold good employment relations between people in an organization because disagreements are by nature inevitable and are usually expressed in different ways. Nonetheless, conflict can both be positive or negative and thus generating different kinds of consequences on the work environment.
Positive conflict can be a motivation for higher productivity as well as breed creativity and better decision making practices among the workforce. Negative conflicts on the other hand can increase the obstacles to both individual and organizational efficiency. The inclination to conceal disparities within a company rather than tackling them, more often than not results in negative effects.
This is because differences often cause no or poor communication and when viewpoints and other information is not sufficiently shared, the possibility of unveiling errors and taking risks is considerably lowered. In addition, there may also be a loss of interest in work and thus increased stress, lack of motivation and sometimes can result in absenteeism or disruption among employees.
Employees are very essential for the flourishing and survival of an organization because no company can run without them. It is therefore imperative to ensure the comfort of employees and for good employment relations to be built and extended there are certain advantages and legal constitutions that have to be established for the sake of the workforce (Bamber, Lansbury and Wailes 2004).
Every company has its own dynamics of employment relations that work for both its employees, employers and the whole organization. As for the fast food industry globally employment relations remains quite essential. This paper is concerned with the employment and work relations in the fast food industries in Germany and United states as compared to those of Singapore.
Fast food restaurants are a great convenience for the modern person and have been for many years. The first fast food chain which is McDonalds was initially opened on April 1955 and to date many other fast food chain restaurants have entered the market all over the globe.
In addition to McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, Pizza hut and Wimpy are some of the other examples of fast food restaurants that are in the global market. As the number of fast food restaurants increased, the job opportunities increased as well. Thus, with the coming on of such a large labor force the industry at that instant faced the responsibility of coming up with models of labour management in order to handle the workforce (Royle and Towers 2002).
Being the pioneering fast food chain, most of the fast food industries chose to assume the McDonald’s model of labour management. There are two sides of argument on the labour management policies and practices. The critics usually depict employers as offering low-wage work that is often unchallenging and monotonous to the workers.
On the other hand, the supporters of the management policies argue that the fast food industry offers young workers training and preparation opportunities as well as the prospects of building up a career and course into employment. Although this interpretation portrays that fast food work does not signify a long-term career for most of the people who do it, either of these two standpoints is a clear indication of the kind of alliance that exists between an employer and his/her employees.
Industrial relations, work organization and human resource management can be referred to be the main points of focus in labour management and employment relations.
In connection to the same, there are also numerous themes identified, which relate to the alignment of preferences in the fast food employment relations. These are such as the personnel not having enough knowledge on industrial relations or they do not like certain features of work management, yet they react positively to other aspects of human resource management policies and practices.
They could also be the issue of the personnel lacking sufficient information of general labour management issues. In addition, as they get older, most of the young workers seem to grow an aversion to the aspects of fast food labour. Luckily, there are a few of them with particular unique characteristics who seem to continue liking the McDonalds approach even as they age.
With Singapore being in the Southeast Asian region of the Asian Continent, and Germany and United States being in the European and North American continents respectively, there are obviously bound to have differences in all aspects of operations including the employment industries as well as the characteristics of work and employment relations and labour management.
However with McDonalds, which is an American franchise, being the current market leader of the fast-food industry in Singapore and Germany, similarities in employment relations are also highly expected.
Generally, employers in America have a great deal of freedom on establishing the conditions of employment in their companies as compared to other employers in the other industrialized nations. In relation to the fast food industry, its progression was largely based on the promise of low prices and quick services. As a result, the profitability is greatly reliant on keeping the labour and operation costs down.
However, the increasing number of fast-food restaurants and chains has led to sturdy and competitive pressure in a background that allows employers significant discretions and yet does not guarantee the employees to have a say in control of the working conditions. This in turn attributed to low paid wages, negligible benefits, stretched recruitment of staff and added efforts to increase labour. On the other hand, Germany has its own model known as the model of co-determination.
It is based on indirect participation with selected worker representatives and formal organizations with rights that are supported in law. There are three pieces of legislation that cover private businesses and one of them is the 1952/1972 Works Constitution Act, which concentrates on co-determination at the workplace through various forms of works councils and one form of co-determination at board level for limited liability companies that have over 500 employees.
This Act presents for a works council in any business that has five or more employees who are beyond 18 years of age. The works councils have certain responsibilities and powers and thus can make proposals to an employer and in fact, in some areas where the works council has co-determination rights, an employer cannot go against the decisions or wishes of the works council.
However, in the case of Singapore, there was a consolidation of various labour laws and policies by the government in 1968 which led to the introduction of the Employment Act and the amendment of the Industrial Relations Act. By leaving out matters such as promotions, transfers, retirement, retrenchment, dismissals and work assignments the latter Act gave a lot of authority to the employer as it left such concerns to be negotiated between the employers and employees.
However, unlike in the United States, the Singapore government has incorporated some laws which counter the pro-employer bias and afford basic safety to the employees. This law grants a 44-hour working week, 7 days paid annual leave, eleven public holidays, 28 days paid sick leave, two months paid maternity leave and an overtime rate of time as well as a half and double time on Sundays and public holidays (Perry et al,. 1997, p. 55).
Singapore’s government intentionally designed the employment laws and polices so as to regulate the labour market and despite an overwhelming manifestation of the state being pro-employer in the employment relations system, it is not easy to argue that workers have been meeting inadequate treatment. In the United States, various features of the fast-food industry have made organization of unions to be a challenge.
For example, there is decentralization whereby workers are usually employed by franchisees rather than direct employment by the fast-food companies. In addition, the characteristics of jobs as well as the nature of the jobs create more obstacles to the process of unionization. Conversely, union membership is very high in Singapore as the most significant measure that the government launched was to give employees the right to choose whether or not to join a union.
There was intentional build up of hawker centers in all the public housing estates by the Singapore government after the national independence in 1965, which was meant to accommodate both the merchants as well as the patrons.
However, in the 1990s, many of these hawker centers began to renovate themselves in order to bear a resemblance to the ‘food courts’ originating in American shopping malls. Despite McDonald’s Restaurants having a high degree of centralized control, it was unexpectedly, not the first American-styled fast-food restaurant to be founded in Singapore. Before it was A & W’s Restaurants and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises, which were introduced in Singapore through a structure of local franchising that was there in the 1970s (Royle and Towers 2002).
In the United States, the fast-food industry predominantly employs young people of about 20 years or younger who mostly view their jobs as temporary with plans of moving on to other fields of employment. When McDonalds was initially established in Singapore, the most significant event is that the headquarters team was filled with experienced and highly qualified professionals with most of them being university graduates who had worked as managerial level executives before joining McDonalds.
Restaurant managers on the other hand were mainly secondary school leavers while the crew workers had low levels of educational credentials. Like in the United States, most of the crew employees were part-time workers and most especially individuals who had other full time commitments such as young people in full-time education or mothers with school-going children.
The extreme routinization of work is a common feature observed in the fast-food industry in these three countries. Routinization of work refers to when each worker repeatedly executes a limited number of errands and does it according to the directives that are given by management.
Routinization is especially made easy when an industry is dominated by a workforce of young, inexperienced part-time employees who do not settle on the job for long. This ends up minimizing if not virtually eliminating, as in the case of the fast food industry, the need or opportunity for workers to exercise diplomacy.
Most of the fast-food restaurants have adapted this sort of standardization due to the several benefits it affords them. Managerial control over the operation is dully increased and wage costs are cut through the elimination of the need to hire skilled workers who demand higher salaries. Simplified jobs are easy and quick to learn thus making employers less dependent on experienced skill and workers.
Routinization also proffers the competence to uphold consistent results or products. Since the advertising campaigns always promise fast-food customers to provide a particular standard of food and services, they ensure the delivery of those promises by propagating clear-cut instructions that specify every detail of the food preparation as well as the customer service (Bamber, Lansbury and Wailes 2004).
Technology has also changed and greatly influenced our lives immensely. This includes the introduction of the internet, electronic mails, which have drastically affected the working environment and employment relations as well. Over the years, there has been progressive introduction of several technologically advanced machines that have standardized the work of crew workers and minimized the amount of skills required.
These are such grills and fry vats that have lights and buzzes to guide workers, food products that only require heating, rehydration or assembling, computerized cash registers that can calculate tax, give change and monitor work. There are also computerized systems which help in scheduling work shifts, handling payroll, ordering supplies and monitoring of sales, inventories and waste.
In Singapore, the unions criticized fast-food companies for the pay levels, conditions of employment and their negative reactions in regard to the election of work councils.
However, the establishment of a human resource management program that fostered corporate values and discouraged employee resistance. In Germany there was an establishment of a new employers’ federation known as the BdS (Bundesverband der Systemgastronomie) to provide a lobbying vehicle, which negotiated with the NGG for a collective agreement (Royle and Towers 2002).
In conclusion it is evident that employees are the backbone of the fast food industry and proper labour management laws and regulations should be put in place to address their needs. In return for getting profits from products and services sold by the company, management should employ staff to carry out tasks and responsibilities according to job specifications and pay the employees for their services. This is a practice that should be upheld in all sectors including the fast food industry.
Furthermore even with the constantly changing workforce, proper training should be given to all and new employees so as yield the orderly and quick service that every client expects. Royle & Towers (2002, p. 85) opines that “this could be done successfully using an effective employee manual to train new employees on what is expected of them in regard to the general practices and procedures of proper employee conduct.”
Reference List
Bamber, G. Lansbury, R. & Wailes, N. 2004. International and comparative employment relations: globalisation and the developed market economies. London: Sage.
Royle, T. & Towers, B. 2002. Labour relations in the global fast-food industry. New York, NY: Routledge.