Everything about Employment totally explained
Employment is a
contract between two
parties, one being the
employer and the other being the
employee. An
employee may be defined as: "A person in the
service of another under any
contract of
hire, express or implied,
oral or written, where the employer has the
power or
right to
control and
direct the employee in the
material details of how the
work is to be performed."
Black's Law Dictionary page 471 (5th ed. 1979).
In a
commercial setting, the employer conceives of a
productive activity, generally with the intention of creating
profits, and the employee contributes
labour to the
enterprise, usually in return for payment of
wages. Employment also exists in the
public,
non-profit and
household sectors. To the extent that employment or the
economic equivalent isn't universal,
unemployment exists.
Employer
An employer is a person or institution that hires employees or workers. Employers offer
wages or a
salary in exchange for the worker's
labor power, depending upon whether the employee is paid by the hour or a set rate per pay period. A salaried employee is typically not paid more for more hours worked than the minimum, whereas wages are paid for all hours worked, including
overtime.
Employers include everything from individuals hiring a
babysitter to
governments and
businesses which may hire many thousands of employees. In most western societies governments are the largest single employers, but most of the work force is employed in small and medium businesses in the
private sector.
Although employees may contribute to an enterprise, the employer maintains control over the productive base of
land and
capital, and is the entity named in
contracts. The employer typically maintains ownership of
intellectual property created by an employee within the scope of employment and as a function thereof. These are known as "
works for hire".
An employers’ relative level of power over employees is dependent upon numerous factors; the most influential being the nature of the employment relationship. The relationship employers share with employees is affected by three significant factors – interests, control and motivation. It is up to employers to effectively manage and balance these factors to ensure a harmonious and productive working relationship.
Interests can be best described as monetary constraints and economic pressures placed on organizations in their pursuit of profits. It covers facets such as labour productivity, wages and the effect of financial markets on businesses.
Wood et al (2004, p 355) describe control can as being either output focused, focusing on desired targets with within managers defining, and using, their own methods for reaching targets, or process controls, which specify the manner in which tasks will be achieved (Ibid, p. 357). Employer and managerial control within an organization rests at many levels and has important implications for staff and productivity alike, with control forming the fundamental link between desired outcomes and actual processes. Thus employers must balance interests such as decreasing wage constraints with a maximization of labour productivity in order to achieve a prolific employment relationship.
Motivation is the third and most difficult of the factors in the employment relationship for employers to effectively manage. Employee motivation can often be in direct conflict with control mechanisms of employers, and can be broadly defined as that which energizes, directs and sustains human behaviour (Stone, 2005, p 412). Dubin (1958, p 213) further elaborates on this, noting motivation as “something that moves a person to action, and continues him in the course of action already initiated.”
The employment relationship is thus a difficult challenge for employers to manage, as all three facets are often in direct competition with each other, with interests, control and motivation often clashing in the equally important quest for individual employee autonomy,employer command and ultimate profits.
Employee
An employee contributes labour and expertise to an endeavour. Employees perform the discrete activity of economic production. Of the three
factors of production, employees usually provide the labour.
Specifically, an
employee is any person hired by an employer to do a specific "job". In most modern economies the term employee refers to a specific defined relationship between an individual and a corporation, which differs from those of
customer, or
client.
Becoming an employee
Most individuals attain the status of employee after a thorough process of interviews with several departments within a company. If the individual is determined to be a satisfactory fit for the position, he's given an official offer of employment within that company for a defined starting salary and position. This individual then has all the rights and privileges of an employee, which may include medical benefits and vacation days. The relationship between a corporation and its employees is usually handled through the
human resources department, which handles the incorporation of
new hires, and the disbursement of any benefits which the employee may be entitled, or any grievances that employee may have.
Types
There are differing classifications of workers within a company. Some are
part-time and Some are
full-time and permanent and receive a guaranteed
salary, while others are hired for short term contracts or work as temps or
consultants. These latter differ from permanent employees in that the company where they work isn't their employer, but they may work through a temp-agency or consulting firm. In this respect, it's important to distinguish
independent contractors from employees, since the two are treated differently both in
law and in most
taxation systems.
Many companies further classify employees as
exempt or
non-exempt. This designation is used to separate employees that are eligible for overtime from those that are not. An
exempt employee is one that's typically salaried and isn't eligible to earn overtime.
Non-exempt employees are typically paid hourly and are eligible for overtime pay.
Titles
While the terms
accountant,
lawyer and
photographer might refer to professions, they're not
employee titles, which may include Controller, President, Vice President of Legal Affairs, Other Managers, and Head of Media Development.
Corporate titles are titles conferred on individuals as a means of identifying their function in the
organization. Titles vary by the type of organization, the
sector that it is, whether it's
for-profit or
non-profit,
public or
private,
partnership or
sole proprietorship. Some sectors, such as educational institutions]], have particular titles. Titles are an important aspect of
corporate governance.
Some of the most common titles are
chief executive officer (CEO),
Founders,
chairman of the
board of directors,
Co-president are often used interchangeably.
Associate is a term used by some companies instead of
employee.
Big box and
retailers like
Wal-Mart and
Home Depot and
Shaw's Supermarkets, for example, use this term for non-
management employees. Other firms use terms such as
teammate or
team member instead of
employee.
Organizing
Employees can organize into
trade unions or labor unions, who represent most of the available work force in a single organization. They utilize their representative power to collectively bargain with the management of companies in order to advance concerns and demands of their membership.
Ending employment
An offer of employment, however, doesn't guarantee employment for any length of time and each party may terminate the relationship at any time. This is referred to as
at-will employment.
Employment contract
In the
United States, the standard
employment contract is considered to be
at-will meaning that the employer and employee are both free to terminate the employment at any time and for any cause, or for no cause at all. However, if a
termination of employment by the employer is deemed
unjust by the employee, there can be legal recourse to challenge such a termination. In
unionised work environments in particular, employees who are receiving
discipline, up to and including termination of employment can ask for assistance by their
shop steward to advocate on behalf of the employee. If an informal
negotiation between the shop steward and the company doesn't resolve the issue, the shop steward may file a
grievance, which can result in a resolution within the company, or
mediation or
arbitration, which are typically funded equally both by the union and the company. In non-union work environments, in the United States, unjust termination complaints can be brought to the
United States Department of Labor. In
Australia there's the highly contraversial
Australian_Workplace_Agreement. In the
Canadian province of
Ontario, formal complaints can be brought to the
Ministry of Labour (Ontario). In the province of
Quebec, grievances can be filed with the
Commission des normes du travail
.
Criticism
Employment is almost universal in
capitalist societies. Opponents of capitalism such as
Marxists oppose the capitalist employment system, considering it to be unfair that the people who contribute the majority of work to an organization don't receive a proportionate share of the profit. However, the
Surrealists and the
Situationists were among the few groups to actually
oppose work, and during the partially surrealist-influenced events of
May 1968 the walls of the
Sorbonne were covered with anti-work graffiti.
Alternatives
When an individual entirely owns the business for which he or she labours, this is known as
self-employment. Self-employment often leads to
incorporation. Incorporation offers certain protections of one's personal assets. Laws of incorporation vary from state to state with Delaware having the most incorporated businesses of any state in the U.S.
Workers who are not paid wages, such as
volunteers, are generally not considered as being employed. One exception to this is an
internship, an employment situation in which the worker receives training or experience (and possibly college credit) as the chief form of compensation.
Those who work under obligation for the purpose of fulfilling a debt, such as an
indentured servant, or as property of the person or entity they work for, such as a
slave, don't receive pay for their services and are not considered employed. Some historians suggest that slavery is older than employment, but both arrangements have existed for all recorded history.
Globalisation and employment relations
The balance of economic efficiency and social equity is the ultimate debate in the field of employment relations. By meeting the needs of the employer; generating profits to establish and maintain economic efficiency; whilst maintaining a balance with the employee and creating social equity that benefits the worker so that he/she can fund and enjoy healthy living; proves to be a continuous revolving issue in westernised societies.
Globalisation has effected these issues by creating certain economic factors that disallow or allow various employment issues. Economist Edward Lee (1996) studies the effects of globalisation and summarizes the four major points of concern that affect employment relations:
- International competition, from the newly industrialized countries, will cause unemployment growth and increased wage disparity for unskilled workers in industrialized countries. Imports from low-wage countries exert pressure on the manufacturing sector in industrialized countries and foreign direct investment (FDI) is attracted away from the industrialized nations, towards low-waged countries.
- Economic liberalization will result in unemployment and wage inequality in developing countries. This happens as job losses in un-competitive industries outstrip job opportunities in new industries.
- Workers will be forced to accept worsening wages and conditions, as a global labour market results in a “race to the bottom”. Increased international competition creates a pressure to reduce the wages and conditions of workers.
- Globalization reduces the autonomy of the nation state. Capital is increasingly mobile and the ability of the state to regulate economic activity is reduced.
What also results from Lee’s (1996) findings is that in industrialized countries an average of almost 70 per cent of workers are employed in the service sector, most of which consists of non-tradable activities. As a result workers are either forced to become more skilled an develop sought after trades or become of this sector. Ultimately this is a result of changes and trends of employment, an evolving workforce and globalisation that's represented by a more skilled and increasing highly diverse labour force, that are growing in non standard forms of employment (Markey, R. et.al. 2006).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Employment'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://employment.totallyexplained.com">Employment Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
