Employee relations: An introduction

'Employee relations' describes the relationship between employers and employees - both individually and collectively. 

Individual voice channels are very important. But collective channels, that use union and/or non-union representatives, give employees a collective voice that can complement individual channels. 

Informing and consulting the workforce is a core people management principle. If done well, it foster effective dialogue between management and workers, including through their elected representatives. This allows senior management to impart important information or plans to the workforce and gain buy-in. For their part, employees can voice collective ideas or concerns. 

Employee relations is an area of specialist knowledge in our Profession Map. It emphasises the importance of making sure the relationship between an organisation and its people is managed through transparent practices and relevant law.

Trade union influence

The declining levels of union membership and density, combined with a huge fall in collective industrial action, are well charted. 

According to May 2025 UK official statistics, the proportion of UK employees who were trade union members fell to 22.0% in 2024, up from 22.4% in 2023. 

Despite the overall downward trend in membership levels, approximately 6.4 million employees belong to a trade union and trade union influence remains an everyday reality for many organisations, particularly in the public sector. CIPD research in 2022 shows that, among those employers with representative arrangements for informing and consulting with staff, 40% reported both union and non-union representation, 39% just non-union representation and 18% cited union representation only.

A wide range of legal provisions apply in managing employee relations which can broadly be subdivided into individual workplace rights, and obligations concerning collective relationships.

Individuals

Contract law and the terms of the employment contract influence individual employee relations. In addition, employers’ handbooks or staff manuals, which as a minimum comply with the Acas Code of Practice on grievance and disciplinary procedures, are important. Provisions in handbooks may be contractual or non-contractual, but will set out matters including for example holiday, sickness, parental and other forms of leave, whistleblowing, communications and equal opportunities.

In addition, certain mandatory statutory employment rights supplement contractual rights. These rights affect matters such as dismissal, hours of work, equal pay and treatment, conciliation, mediation, and other forms of dispute and discipline handling. Key examples of employment legislation affecting employee relations are the Employment Rights Act 1996 (dealing with the circumstances in which employees can be fairly dismissed) and the Equality Act 2010 (dealing with discrimination and equal pay). 

Collective relationships

The collective dimension includes collective bargaining, information and consultation, arbitration and industrial action. Employers may work with recognised unions to negotiate pay and conditions, or to inform and consult over changes such as redundancies or health and safety. Current legislation includes:

• The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 concerning collective bargaining and redundancy consultation
• The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) which protect employees affected by business transfers or service provision changes where services are outsourced to a contractor, reassigned to another contractor, or brought back in-house.

CIPD members can find out more in our Trade union recognition and industrial action law Q&As.

New legislation: Employment Rights Bill

The Employment Rights Bill, when law, will make signigicant employment law reforms, some of which may particularly affect employee relations - for more detail on this Bill, see our employment law tracker.

Workplace conflict is a fact of organisational life and needs to be managed proactively. Individual and ‘unorganised conflict’, in the form of sickness absence, bullying or harassment, and employee turnover, can be just as harmful and costly to an organisation as organised industrial action on a collective level.

Organisations need to develop proactive approaches to managing conflict and ensure that line managers are confident to resolve disagreements at an early stage as part of a problem-solving approach.

Working in partnership 

‘Partnership’ between trade unions and employers has not always been promoted as a modern employment relations model. But a focus on joint working, collaboration and mutuality still has relevance. 

CIPD research shows almost six in ten (59%) agree that ‘working in partnership with trade unions can benefit the organisation’. 

Fostering a climate of mutual co-operation with recognised trade unions and employee representatives, whether union or non-union, can complement people management practices and result in benefits for the business as well as for employees. That is the key message of a joint CIPD and Prospect policy paper ‘Working Together to Make Work Pay’. 

Over the past two decades, the focus on employee relations as an HR discipline has reduced, with employee relations and conflict management typically viewed as operational and transactional in nature.

The expertise and status of the employee relations specialism needs reasserting and broadening, so that proactively managing the employment relationship, and conflict, is integrated across all people professional’s roles.

The more traditional, formal employee relations and negotiating skills need to be complemented with a much wider set of competencies, such as consultation, early conflict detection and resolution of differences between employees and management, including extension of these skills to line managers.

Develop a positive employee relations framework 

It’s important that organisations develop an effective, holistic employee relations framework, for example:

• Set up multiple and complementary mechanisms for employee voice, including direct methods with individuals and indirect collective methods, via employee representation.
• Establish structures and processes for communicating with union and non-union representatives and employees at all levels of the organisation. 
• Have a system to capture, evaluate and listen to feedback across the different voice channels.
• Train and guide managers so they understand the organisation’s aims and practices for information and consultation and have the skills and knowledge to promote effective employee voice.
• Ensure a positive joint working ethos is cascaded throughout the organisation, so that managers at all levels approach working relationships with representatives in a constructive way and build trust.

Contacts

Acas

GOV.UK - If your business faces industrial action

Books and reports

Aylott, E. (2022) Employee relations: a practical introduction. 3rd ed. HR Fundamentals. London: Kogan Page.

Bennett, T., Saundry, R. and Fisher, V. (2020) Managing employment relations. 7th ed. London: CIPD and Kogan Page.

Saundry, R., Fisher, V. and Kinsey, S. (2019) Managing workplace conflict: The changing role of HR. London: Acas.

Saundry, R. and Unwin, P. (2021) Estimating the costs of workplace conflict. London: Acas.

Visit the CIPD and Kogan Page Bookshop to see all our priced publications currently in print.

Journal articles

Rowsell, J. (2024) Exclusive: one in five large firms underperforming on employee relations objectives, research finds. People Management (online). 15 May.

CIPD members can use our online journals to find articles from over 300 journal titles relevant to HR.

Members and People Management subscribers can see articles on the People Management website.