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The following suggestions may be made to improve human relations:
- Personal and social forces: The Hawthorne experiments have demonstrated personal and social forces in motivating men and women in their work; in their attitudes to their jobs; to their environment and to the management. “When the members of a group share their leisure, enjoyment as well as work, they develop interest in events which have only a personal significance, and attain social solidarity and good fellow-feeling, work then becomes a fun, an environment and not an unpleasant necessity. This is bound to boost up production irrespective of the working conditions and wages… The management of today must, therefore, try to create the mental and social conditions wherein the workers are able to work freely, without a sense of anxiety, under supervision which is a part of the total situation and not something apart from and imposed on them…They should be made to feel that they do not merely produce this or that but that they are doing something important sand valuable to their fellow-workers, to the company, and to the community.”
- Personnel Counseling: The essence of this suggestion is that the worker should feel at home when he is within the four walls of the factory. He should not regard it as a jail. He should feel that, if need arises, he can consult his bosses. The supervisors should also make the worker talk freely on matters within the organization as well as those that are outside the organization, but which affects his life. He should sympathetic and considerate in attending to all the problems of the workers. More of then not, the workers have to face several problems at home; they may run into debt, may be involved in litigation or may be worried due to illness of family members etc. When any such calamity hits the worker, he is upset; under such circumstances, he cannot work patiently. Half an hour’s informal chat with someone who knows about these things can take the load and release him for his work.
- Employee’s Handbook: The main objective of the employees handbook is induction of the new employee. It also serves to refresh the knowledge of those already employed. The rules of conduct are mentioned in it in somewhat paternal fashion. According to the British Institute of Personnel Management, “An employees handbook – one of the corner-stones of a progressive personnel policy…should stand as a statement of good faith, setting out clearly the rights and obligations of each party, the measure of redress which exist for each and obligation of the individual towards his fellow-workers. “The employee’s handbook should, therefore, be rather a ‘working partnership handbook’ than a discipline manual. If it has been able to elicit the interest of employees and secure their confidence and loyalty in the firm, the book can lay down the foundation for solidarity and strength of the organization.
- Works Committee: The Works Committee, made up of an equal number of workers and employers representatives, is consultative and is required “to promote measures for securing and preserving amity and good relations between the employer and the workmen, and endeavor to compose any material difference of opinion in respect of any matter of common interest or concern.” The function of the Works Committee, therefore, is to bring together or reconcile the two sides-employer and workers.
- Joint Management Council: The Joint Management Council fosters close friendly relations and cooperation between labour and management for their mutual benefit. Unlike the Works Committee, it is the means of exchanging views and information and of promoting communication among the various functions or sections or layers of the organization. By frank and free deliberation of the Council arrives at conclusions and makes recommendations to be management. The discussion, to be fruitful, must be genuine and sincere, and workers must be encouraged to make contribution to them. Persons sitting around the table at this time should not act as representatives of management or workers, but as members of the council endeavoring to arrive at the best solution to the problem under consideration.
- Suggestion Programme: The sixth method by which management can induce employees to take a live interest in the affairs of the company and particularly in the matter of production, is a Suggestion Programme. In the absence of such a scheme employees confine themselves to a general criticism of the management as a whole or of a departmental head and more often of the sectional supervisors.
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Participants