Top Trucking Company Case Study

Find out the Employment Relation at Top Trucking Company that is mentioned in Constructive Relations at Top Trucking Company Case Study.

 
Asnwer:

Introduction
Human resource management (HRM) is an important activity for managing the employee relationship and maintaining employment relation (Godard, 2014). The purpose of this study is to find out the employment relation at Top Trucking Company that is mentioned in Constructive Relations at Top Trucking Company case study.
Effective HRM highly cares about the value of the employees, which can definitely lead to good employment relation. This report will explain the new workplace practice, which has been introduced by new yard manager. The report will discuss the risks, which the organization can face to sustain the change of the organization, when George and new yard will manager move on. Apart from that, the public or service sector unions will be compared with the tough blue collar unions for their engagement in the change of organization.
New Workplace Practice
Workplace practice examines the nature, types and structure of the work environment in an organization. Moreover, it is the building block of good work environment within an organization. According to Nettleton et al., (2016), good workplace practice encourages the employees towards enhancing their productivity with good support of the leaders. McGrath-Champ et al., (2015) opined that effective workplace practice fosters employee commitment towards achieving the common goals of the organization. The former yard manager was quite autocratic in his leadership. He was also not much supportive to the workers. Hence, the workplace practice was quite discouraging for the workers. However, the new yard manager of the organization is highly communicative and democratic in his leadership. He has initiated new workplace practice for the workers within the organization. The nature of new workplace practice of Top Trucking Company is explained below:
 
Openly Communicative Workplace
The new yard manager of the organization always communicates openly with the workers and union of the workers. For the benefits of the organization, the manager is always flexible towards sharing the most information with the workers and unions. Moreover, the manager has brought a harmonization among the employees towards leading them in achieving organizational goals. On the other hand, due to open nature of the workplace practice, the workers are more capable of raising their issues and get solution to the problems immediately.
Autonomy to Workers
As per Marginson, (2015), successful businesses always dedicate the workers some level of authority to control their own jobs. Neuhaus et al., (2014) stated that effective workplace practice ensures sufficient autonomy for the worker to deal with their jobs. In Top Trucking Company, the new yard manager never treats workers like children. Moreover, he provides enough freedom or autonomy to the workers for making them more responsible towards performing their jobs. Apart from that, the new yard manager demonstrates high level of concern for developing the skills of workers. Moreover, he always provides regular training and development programs for developing workers’ skills so that they can deal with their jobs by their own.
Safe Workplace
The new manager is always focused on the occupational health and safety issues with the workers. As a part of this initiative, the manager has introduced effective training and development programs for the drivers, which are related to technical as well as customer service skills. In this way, the drivers are safer now in their driving by avoiding any physical harm. Moreover, enhanced technical skills can also assist the workers towards complementing each other in their workplace. Furthermore, the new uniform and rejuvenating trucks of the organization have also brought a feeling of pride among the workers.
Continuous Learning Environment and Shared value
According to Mencl and Lester (2014), shared workplace environment can foster more creativity and innovation within the workplace. On the other hand, Ogbonnaya and Valizade, (2015) opined that shared workplace environment foster workplace collaboration towards better achievement of organizational goals. The new yard manager never hides the successes as well as the pressures of the workers. Moreover, he never unnecessarily blames others without checking the things out and exploring the hindrance preventing the organizational success. Apart from that, the yard manager always used to go out of his way for consulting with the work union with the same effort towards enhancing the organizational productivity.
 
Risk for Sustaining Change
Gap between Strategy and Execution
According to Zhao et al., (2014), lack of poor leadership can result in huge gap among the strategy formation, process of work, communication between the departments and process execution. On the other hand, Bromiley et al., (2015) opined that poor leadership also results in cognitive gaps between the strategy making and strategy execution. In case, if the new manager of Top Trucking Company moves on, then the workers can face absence of control in performing complex jobs. Moreover, the employees can also face lack of proper direction in performing their jobs as per the changing workplace culture. Moreover, the workers can face confusion regarding the uncertain things in the changing workplace without proper leadership. It can ultimately create gaps in strategy execution.
Possibility of Workplace Conflict
According to van den Heuvel et al., (2014), trade union plays noteworthy role in managing the harmonization between the workers and managers. Trade union always assists in maintaining positive work environment through proper collective bargaining between the management and group of workers. On the other hand, Schaffer et al., (2013) opined that trade union also communicate the interests of the work groups to the management for their fulfillment. In such extent, if George-union delegate moves on, the workers of this organization can face huge challenges towards communicating with the management and resolving their issues.  On the other hand, the worker group can also lose the legal support from the trade union in fulfilling their interest. In this way, this situation can ultimately lead to workplace situation.
High Chance of Job Burnout and Turnover
According to Allen et al., (2013), proper managerial support is highly required towards maintaining the success of organizational change. In this situation, if the new manager of this organization is replaced, then it can create poor management in the organization. Lack of support from proper manager can create job stress for the employees in the changing environment.
In this way, if the new manager moves on, then it can create job burnout for the workers, which can ultimately hamper the organizational change. On the other hand, Meyer et al., (2016) opined that increasing complexity level of the jobs in organizational changes can also decrease the employee morale. Likewise, the workers of this organization can also feel de-motivated with complexity level of the jobs in the organizational change, if the manager moves on. Hence, this situation can also lead to high turnover in the organization.
 
Lack of Work Efficiency
According to Smits and Bowden, (2015), effective leadership always focuses on employee development towards increasing their work efficiency and maintaining the success of changes brought in the organization. In this situation, if the new manager is replaced, it can create lack of skill developmental programs for the workers. In this way, this situation can ultimately reduce the work efficiency level of the employees towards maintaining change in the organization.
Blue Collar Unions VS Service or Public Sector Union
Organizational change is always related to technological advancement, organizational structure and business process (Allen et al., 2013). These factors are less likely to impact on blue collar workers and more likely to impact on service or public sector employers. Hence, the service or public sector unions are more willing to show resistance for the change in organization than tough blue collar unions.
While seeing the organizational change at Top Trucking Company, the changes have been incorporated as new rejuvenated fleets, new uniforms and cleaned up yards for the drivers. Apart from that, the organization has also appointed new encouraging yard manager for bringing some fresh air in the workplace. The cleanup yard leads to highly hygienic workplace for the workers towards their increasing productivity.
On the other hand, the modern facilities incorporated in the rejuvenated fleets have actually increased the flexibility of the drivers towards operating the fleets. Hence, all the organizational changes seem to be helpful for the blue collar employees of this organization. Therefore, tough blue collar unions are less likely to raise resistance for the organizational change. However, the organization has also incorporated new computerized system in the business process. Hence, while collar employees can be highly influenced through this change, which may require to develop new skills for the employees. Therefore, white collar employees are more likely to resist changes than blue collar workers.
Public or service sector unions most often deal with the employees, who are frequently promoted or demoted from their current position due to any organizational change. Hence, public or service sector employees are more influenced by the organizational change in regards to organizational power distribution (Bromiley et al., 2015). Therefore, public or service sector unions are high resistant towards accepting the organization changes, when there is chance of demotion for the employees.
 
On the other hand, tough blue collar unions mostly deal with the workers, who do not usually have more chance of promotion.  Therefore, the organizational change cannot much influence the public or service sector workers, which it deals with power distribution in the organization. Hence, tough blue collar workers are less likely to show resistance towards accepting the organizational change.  
Apart from that, organizational change can have direct impact on the white collar employees. Therefore, they are more scared about accepting the organizational change. It creates more resistance from the part of public or service unions towards accepting the organizational change. On the other hand, blue collar workers are only indirectly influenced from any change in organization. Therefore, blue collar employees are more willing towards engaging in organizational change, if it seems to be beneficial to them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be found that the new yard manager of Top Trucking Company is highly open towards communicating with the workers and union. He has initiated shared work environment in the workplace, where workers are given more value as per their contribution. On the other hand, the manager always shares vital organizational information with the workers and union towards achieving organizational success. However, there can be a huge gap between the strategy formulation and strategy execution in managing the change organization, if George or yard manager are changed. Furthermore, the tough blue collar unions are more tended towards engaging in the change of organization than the service or public sector unions
 
References
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