Working with line managers and employees to build positive relations

Assessed under AC 1.4 of 7HR01 Strategic Employment Relations, this video addresses the practical mechanisms through which people professionals can foster positive employment relations by working alongside line managers, employees, and their workplace representatives. It examines why line managers occupy such a pivotal position in employment relations strategy, exploring how their day-to-day interactions shape the employment relationship and why capability, motivation, and opportunity are each necessary conditions for effective implementation. The video considers capability development approaches — including coaching, mentoring, action learning sets, and reflective practice — alongside structural factors such as workload expectations and the removal of administrative burdens that can erode managerial discretionary effort.

The video also addresses direct engagement with employees at both individual and collective levels, covering the design of channels through which concerns can be raised, information sought, and ideas contributed. Collective voice mechanisms receive particular attention, including trade union recognition, consultation bodies, employee forums, and representative committees. The treatment of trade union relationships distinguishes adversarial from collaborative models, and the video examines what constitutes genuine partnership working — contrasting authentic power-sharing arrangements with tokenistic involvement — with reference to information sharing, early involvement in significant changes, and demonstrating the influence of representative views on outcomes.

Running through both sections is the question of what good employment relations actually means in practice and what challenges undermine it. The psychological contract surfaces in the discussion of employee communication and responsiveness to feedback, while the risks of policy design outpacing line manager implementation are examined as a core tension for people professionals operating at a strategic level. The video treats these themes as interconnected, positioning the people professional's role as one of enabling relationships across the organisation rather than managing employment relations unilaterally from a central function.