HR & Labor Relations Consultants

gain valuable insights with employee relations

Employee Relations Assessments

Listening to Your Employees is an Essential for Success

Research consistently shows that the best way to improve employee relations and productivity is to LISTEN to what your employees have to say; to understand their perceptions of what works, areas of concern, and their ideas for improvement.

“Executives who don’t listen will lose the support of their employees, and once you’ve lost that support, it’s almost impossible to get it back… organizations that don’t listen to their people will fail”

CEO Fortune 500 Corporation

Identify Concerns and Opportunities for Improvement

In addition to reaffirming that management values and appreciates their employees’ ideas and suggestions, the benefits derived from our employee relations assessment process typically include the following:

  • Learn how employees honestly view the company and management
  • Gain valuable insights and suggestions for improving employee relations
  • Identify obstacles to communications, engagement, and cooperation
  • Understand reasons for employee turnover and potential remedies
  • Identify ways to help ensure successful labor contract negotiations (union)
  • Assess vulnerability to possible union organizing attempts (nonunion)
  • Reduce the risk of employee grievances, litigations, and other conflicts

Our Focus Group Process

Using a proven focus group process, our experienced facilitators from our employee relations consulting firm meet with several small groups of employees to talk about (1) what is working well, (2) areas of concern and (3) and their suggestions for improving employee relations. We typically like to meet with about 20% of the workforce in order to achieve a representative sample. Each session consists of approximately 15 employees and can be completed in less than three hours. In addition to meeting with employees, our employee relations consultants recommend conducting similar sessions with company supervisors, and union stewards (at union represented locations), to ensure our labor relations consultants capture all points of view.

Paper Surveys Do Not Work (Talking with Employees is the Best Approach)

For many years, businesses have employed the practice of handing out paper surveys to their employees in the hopes of learning how the company is perceived by its workforce. Unfortunately, while paper surveys can generate massive amounts of data and produce attractive charts, our employee relations consulting firm has observed that they provide very limited insights as to the reasons behind employee responses. Also, participation rates with paper surveys can have wide variances, which often skews the data, causing the results to be unreliable. Clearly, a much better approach is to sit down with several small groups of employees and have a good conversation.

“Aside from gaining valuable insights, your process was well received by both employees and union leadershp, and helped to reinforce that management values their opinions and suggestions for improvement”

New Hampshire Electric Corporation

Union Workforce: Set the Stage for Productive Union Contract Negotiations

For over 35 years, our union contract negotiators have had the privilege of helping many of the world’s best companies successfully negotiate new “win-win” union contracts, and often under challenging circumstances. One of the keys to our success has been the use of our labor relations assessment process and the valuable insights that it provides.

By understanding the issues and working to improve relationships with union leaders and employees well in advance of labor contract negotiations, all parties are better positioned to have constructive conversations during the union contract negotiation process. The result is often a new competitive labor agreement that positions both the company and its employees for future success.

Nonunion Workforce: Reduce Risk of Union Organizing

For those organizations that have a non-union workforce, special emphasis will be placed on discreetly determining the company’s vulnerability to potential union organizing. Having worked with both union and nonunion companies over the past 35 years, our labor relations consultants have learned to identify key warning signs and recommend proactive steps to reduce your risk of a union organizing campaign. Failure to recognize these warning signs can result in having to engage in a costly and disruptive union campaign, which can create deep and long-lasting divisions within the workforce; not to mention the economic consequences should the union prevail.

Independent and Experienced Assessors

Our employee relations consultants have decades of experience conducting employee relations assessments. We are skilled listeners and understand how to make employees feel comfortable during the process, ensuring good participation. Upon completion, our labor relations consultants present management with insightful results, and prepare an effective action plan to address key areas of concern.

Using our independent assessors provides two key advantages. First, without question, our employee relations consulting experience has shown that employees participating in the focus groups are far more comfortable to speak freely, as it eliminates any fears about possible retaliation. Second, it ensures total objectivity on the part of the assessors, avoiding any possible bias or subliminal influence to minimize potentially unpopular feedback.

Reassure the Board of Directors and Shareholders

As an added benefit, our employee relations consulting firm’s objective assessment process can help to reassure the Board of Directors and Shareholders that management has been proactive in identifying and addressing areas of concern that could adversely affect company performance. As we all know, restrictive work practices, lagging productivity, and costly disruptions can all negatively impact stock price and company valuation.

“The assessment process was extremely helpful, providing our team with meaningful insights from our employees, making it possible for us to address areas of concern and to reduce the risk of union organizing”

CenturyLink

For a complete list of our services please visit our services page.