Is there still a need for Unions? Why? Why not?
Operation of Unions has undergone a lot of transformation. Earlier, they operated as illegal organizations in the protection of the employee from exploitation through salary, wages, or remuneration. Later the law protected them, and therefore the history is a huge success story with millions of workers belonging to new organizations’ groups. The flexibility of the unions is highly felt today where the workers are in a position of negotiating with the government through the unions. The unions came to existence as the bridge for negotiating with the employers for the members.
At present, the unions are, however, questionable considering their incapability to stop the high and ever-rising living standards. The wages of those employed are lower than the amount received by the unemployed from the social security scheme. The unemployment levels are equally rising, and the unions are not in a position to prevent the peaks. The capitalist systems of society from which the unions arise and operate are strictly limited over achievements and operability.
Some of the situations arising are making the function of the unions blunt for instance, in cases concerning the profit-making capitalist or private companies and industries, the unions are not in a position to push up the level of wages. When such companies are marketing their products and selling profitably, the unions can win concessions. They can menace to halt production and interrupt the flow of profit through reinforcing the worker’s demands with threats to sabotage the operations.
For a firm near bankruptcy or depression, the threats are illogical. The unions seem to be fighting the same old battles without any advanced setting of getting out of the dead-end capitalism and ability to enhance the worker’s sustainability. Unions can only archive their ability to alter the functioning of capitalism by engaging in capitalism that engages socialism, without having the labor government involvements. Socialism can free workers from capitalistic associated limitations such as exploitation, unemployment, nonnegotiable status, poverty, and wars.
The trade unions are therefore facing a lot of limitations, especially in their dealings with the private sectors. The establishment of a social network means that the workers are in a position of finding an understanding with the employers through the unions and therefore have a healthy negotiation over their welfare. The status of the unions seems to be a tug-of-war with employers, therefore, arguably nullifying the need for the unions.
From these findings and a personal perspective over the formation of the unions were initially resisted pressures from employers. Truly, workers suffer because eventually, they finance strikes pays and end up with only little advancement and other small allowances.
These are problems the workers are not supposed to be subject to but, considering the other point of view, the companies, especially private firms, will exploit them regardless of the number of profit margins workers bring in for them. It means that without the pressure from unions, the wages would be lower than they are today. Regardless of the limits of actions the unions can take, they are still viable entities.
How are Performance Appraisals used in your organization? Are all employees rated fairly?
A well-designed performance appraisal system recognizes and accounts for the contributions made by an employee to the organization. The system gives feedback regarding performance to enable the HR department to analyze and come up with an effective and equitable rewarding system. The system is supposed to develop output showing the worker’s professional capabilities. The appraisal is meant to communicate the values and culture of the organization and assist the management in making personnel decisions, which have evidence and are defendable.
Today, most organizations are in a position of making decisions based on evaluations of performance. An appraisal system assists the management to set goals for the workers and make future predictions of performance basis their ruling on past performance records. The evaluation procedure also assists in making decisions concern with compensation packages, programs for retention of workers and, engaging a proper succession plan. They are also able to engage the development plans through analysis of training, development, and career planning.
The development criteria for appraisal programs should have proper alignment to the goals of the organization, have relevance on the role of the firm, be specific, have some measurable aspects, be under the control of employees and, should be understood and acceptable to the involved participants. These criteria can be based on some business qualitative as well as quantitative aspects of performance, competency of the workers, their noticeable efforts, results, discipline and, the frequency of the behavior.
The rating of the employees can also have a basis of general or specific standards or performance expectations, improvements noted about the past performance, ranking in the job categories, and comparison to other workers at the same level. The appraisals lack fairness in rating when the criteria are not met.
The rating scales may, however, differ from one organization to another due to differences in the definition of rating, the difference in the number of possible ratings, absence of presence of a midpoint for understanding. The procedure of appraisal also depends on the projects assigned, the set milestone, and the timings (quarterly, semi-annually, or annually). Gathering of appraisal data occurs through written or recorded surveys, internet or intranet monitoring, individual discussions and, group or teamwork analysis.
The employees suffer from unfair ratings because of inaccurate, untrue, favored, politicized, unspecified, constituted actionable feedbacks.