What Is Employee Relations

I’ve read about HR people who handle employee relations. What does that encompass exactly? Employee Relations, whether it’s “done” by a specialist or a generalist, is always an HR function.

In one company (large health care system) employee relation specialists interpret policies, coach managers, advise employees and management on issues concerning them, train groups on various subjects (policies, sexual harassment, workplace violence prevention, etc.), coordinate our internal problem solving complaint process, answer outside charges (EEOC, etc), maintain positive labor relations, conduct investigations into complaints of try to maintian a balance between the needs of the employee with the needs of the manager and the needs of the organization.

In smaller organizations, these functions are often done by HR managers or HR generalists, but with 10,000+ employees, we are large enough to allow specialization in this area.

Employee relations doesn’t belong in HR. HR should teach management how to address issues but employee relations belongs to management. When HR gets involved in employee relations, they more often than not set themselves for not getting a seat at the strategic planning table. The average “Employee Relations Specialist” has less clout than the average manager which is a disaster waiting to happen. Thus, HR suffers with credibility issues and the organization suffers from poor expertise. HR needs to get out of the employee relations business and into the business of developing their employees.

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