Accompaniment,Workplace Representation and Disciplinary Outcomes in British Workplaces — Just a Formality?

The Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 provides data that, for the first time, measure the extent to which workforce representation is part and parcel of grievance and disciplinary processes in British workplaces. This article explores the impact of the introduction of the statutory right to accompaniment at grievance and disciplinary hearings on rates of disciplinary sanctions, dismissals and employment tribunal applications. It concludes that there is little evidence to suggest that either the right to accompaniment or the operation of formal grievance and disciplinary procedures moderates disciplinary outcomes. Instead, it argues that trade union and employee representatives may be influential in facilitating the resolution of workplace disputes.     

Workplace Industrial Relations under Different Regulatory Systems: A Survey-Based Comparison of Australia and Britain

The focus of the paper is upon the extent to which different national regulatory systems give rise to different institutions and outcomes at the workplace. It uses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and the third British Workplace Industrial Relations Survey to examine a number of hypotheses which suggest that the different regulatory systems of these countries have produced distinct patterns of industrial relations at the workplace. It is concluded that, while there is substantial evidence that the countries' different regulatory systems have had distinct effect on industrial relations institutions and outcomes, these are not as straight forward as earlier work has suggested.     

Unions and Workplace Closure in Britain, 1990–1998

This paper assesses union effects on workplace closure in the private sector in Britain between 1990 and 1998 using panel data from the 1990–98 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. On average, unions raised the chances of workplace closure in Britain in the 1990s, in contrast to the 1980s. However, the size and statistical significance of union effects differ across dimensions of unionization and type of workplace. Furthermore, the results are sensitive to the definition of workplace closure.     

The Determinants of Performance Appraisal Systems: A Note (Do Brown and Heywood's Results for Australia Hold Up for Britain?)

This article offers a replication for Britain of Brown and Heywood's analysis of the determinants of performance appraisal in Australia. Although there are some important limiting differences between our two datasets — the Australia Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS) and the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) — we reach one central point of agreement and one intriguing shared insight. First, performance appraisal is negatively associated with tenure: where employers cannot rely on the carrot of deferred pay or the stick of dismissal to motivate workers, they will tend to rely more on monitoring, ceteris paribus. Second, employer monitoring and performance pay may be complementary. However, consonant with the disparate results from the wider literature, there is more modest agreement on the contribution of specific human resource management practices, and still less on the role of job control.     

Workplace Bullying,Psychological Perspectives and Industrial Relations: Towards a Contextualized and Interdisciplinary Approach

Workplace bullying is increasingly recognized as an important area of debate, particularly among researchers adopting a psychological perspective of work. This paper examines definitions of workplace bullying and explores less orthodox approaches within a British context. It focuses primarily on managers as perpetrators, and comments on the ‘bullying organization’, the relevance of human resource management and of gender. Context, the workplace balance of power, workers’ collective resistance and trade unions are then emphasized as significant factors and the potential for developing a contextualized, politicized and interdisciplinary approach to workplace bullying is suggested. Links with mobilization theory are explored, and the issue is also examined within the UK public sector environment.     

Is Job Insecurity Higher in Leveraged Buyouts?

This article assesses whether job insecurity is higher in leveraged buyouts (LBOs) than elsewhere. It draws on matched employer‐employee data from the British 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study linked to data from the Centre for Management Buyout Research. The analysis finds no consistent evidence of higher job insecurity in LBOs as measured by workforce reduction practices (redundancy rates, job security/no‐compulsory redundancies policies and redundancy consultation), dismissal rates, labour use practices (non‐permanent employment contracts and outsourcing) and employees’ job security perceptions. Job insecurity is no higher in either current or former LBOs than elsewhere. Contrary to what might be expected, it is also no higher in private equity (PE)‐backed LBOs, management buy‐ins or high‐debt LBOs and there is only partial and weak evidence of higher job insecurity in short‐hold LBOs. Job insecurity is also no higher in perfect storm LBOs (PE‐backed management buy‐ins that are short‐holds with high‐debt). Concerns over the negative implications of LBOs for job security thus appear misplaced.     

Globalization,Human Resource Practices and Innovation: Recent Evidence from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey

This study examines the triangular relationship that connects the degree to which a workplace is internationally engaged, the extent to which it innovates, and the human resource practices it adopts. By pooling various years of data from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey, a nationally representative data set, we found that certain practices, such as variable pay and autonomy training, are more likely to be used in international workplaces. We subsequently found that for an international workplace, the use of variable pay contributes very little to workplace innovation while autonomy training has a positive relationship with innovation.     

Unions, Safety Committees and Workplace Injuries

This paper exploits the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey from 1990 (WIRS3) to examine the determinants of workplace injuries for a sample of manufacturing establishments in the UK. A key focus of this paper is an assessment of the role played by union-appointed safety representatives and joint health and safety consultative committees in reducing the frequency of workplace accidents. We find that joint consultative committees, with all employee representatives appointed by unions, significantly reduce workplace injuries relative to those establishments where the management alone determine health and safety arrangements. However, an important role is also found for those joint consultative commitees where no employee representatives are appointed by unions.     

A New Voice or a Waste of Time? Wage Premiums from Using Computers for Communication in the UK Workplace

The paper uses the Workplace Employee Relations Survey data on workers to investigate the wage premium from using e‐mail in the workplace against other more traditional forms of communication. I try to discern whether the existence of a premium from using e‐mail is the product of the workplace encouraging worker productivity through voice, or represents unobserved worker skills in using new technology. Results indicate that any observed premium from using e‐mail is likely to arise from unobserved worker skills, and that any premium associated with voice in the workplace is likely to result from management choosing to reward such worker involvement.     

How Does Workplace Monitoring Affect the Gender Wage Differential? Analysis of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey — A Research Note

This paper outlines the development of a new data source that combines workplace information from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) with employee data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). Illustrative analysis of the gender wage differential demonstrates how the inclusion of additional workplace characteristics collected from WERS can be utilized to understand better‐observed patterns in earnings within ASHE. Analysis reveals that monitoring gender equality at the workplace is not associated with a reduction in the gender wage gap. Matching WERS/ASHE provides the opportunity to investigate a wider range of workplace phenomena than would be possible based only upon the WERS Survey of Employees.     

The Effect of Trade Unions on the Provision of Training: Australian Evidence

This paper uses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey conducted in 1989–90 to examine the net impact of trade unions on the extent of formal types of employer-provided training. A net positive effect is found, but only where unions are active in the workplace and not merely de jure representatives of the work-force. The results also indicate, with respect to in-house training, that unions shift the emphasis towards work-forces with long tenure, a finding that is consistent with 'union voice' arguments.     

Does Employing Older Workers Affect Workplace Performance?

Using a panel of workplaces in Britain, we investigate the implications for businesses of employing older workers. Workplace labor productivity falls where the proportion of older or younger workers rises. These raw associations are attenuated somewhat after controlling for aspects of human capital. In contrast, there is no significant association between age shares and workplace financial performance, suggesting that any reluctance by employers to employ greater numbers of older workers may be misplaced.     

Trade Union Presence and Employer-Provided Training in Great Britain

Using linked employer-employee data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we find a positive correlation between workplace union recognition and private-sector employer-provided training. We explore the avenues through which union recognition might affect training by interacting recognition with the closed shop, the level at which pay bargaining takes place, and multiunionism. For non-manual-labor men and women, only union recognition matters. The various types of collective-bargaining institutions have no separate effect. However, the male manual training probability is significantly increased by union presence only through multiple unionism with joint negotiation. In contrast, for women manual workers, union recognition at the workplace has no effect on the training probability.     

The Influence of Stock Market Listing on Human Resource Management: Evidence for France and Britain

We use data from the Relations Professionnelles et Négociations d'Entreprise survey of 2004 and the Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 to analyse how far approaches to human resource management differ according to whether an establishment is part of a company with a stock exchange listing. In both countries we find that listing is positively associated with teamworking and performance‐related pay, while in France, but not in Britain, it is also linked to worker autonomy and training. Our findings are inconsistent with the claim that shareholder pressure operates as a constraint on the adoption of high‐performance workplace practices. The pattern is similar in the two countries, but with a slightly stronger tendency for listing to be associated with high‐performance workplace practices in France.     

Disability and Perceptions of Work and Management

Matched employee–employer data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey are used to examine differences in work‐related perceptions between disabled and non‐disabled employees. Even after accounting for differences in personal, job and workplace characteristics, disabled employees are found to hold more negative views on the treatment of workers by managers and, consistent with this, they express less job satisfaction and commitment towards their organization. The influence of disability is also examined across workplaces defined by sector, the presence of disability‐related policies and practices, and employee views of management to explore the role of corporate culture.     

The Wage Effects of Computer Use: Evidence from WERS 2004

Computers and ICT have changed the way we live and work. The latest Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 provides a snapshot of how using ICT has revolutionized the workplace. Various studies have suggested that the use of a computer at work boosted earnings by as much as 20 per cent. Others suggest this reported impact is due to unobserved heterogeneity. Using excellent data from the WERS employer–employee matched sample, we compare ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates with those from alternative estimation methods and those which include controls for workplace and occupation interactions. We show that OLS estimates overstate the return to computer use but that including occupation and workplace controls, reduces the return to around 3 per cent. We explore the return on different IT skills and find a small return to the use of the ‘office IT function’ and the intensity of computer use as measured by the number of tasks a computer is used for.     

Look Who's Talking: Sources of Variation in Information Disclosure in the UK

The article examines the correlates of variable levels of information disclosure by management to employees in the UK. It develops several hypotheses that are tested using 1998 and 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey data. The results show that managerial perceptions of goal alignment by employees and the existence of direct participation mechanisms are positively associated with disclosure at both dates. The size of the workplace has a generally negative relationship at both dates, but less so in 2004 than in 1998. Other variables such as financial distress and the presence of trade unions and joint consultation have more complicated relationships over the two time periods. The article discusses theoretical and policy implications of the findings.     

Ownership and Pay in Britain

Drawing on principal–agent perspectives on corporate governance, the article examines whether employees’ hourly pay is related to ownership dispersion. Using linked employee‐workplace data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011, and using a variety of techniques including interval regression and propensity score matching, average hourly pay is found to be higher in dispersed ownership workplaces. The premium is broadly constant across most of the wage distribution, but falls at the 95th percentile to become statistically non‐significant. This contrasts with earlier papers which indicate that higher level employees are the primary beneficiaries of higher pay from dispersed ownership. The dispersed ownership pay premium is not readily explained by efficiency wage perspectives but is consistent with a managerial desire for a ‘quiet life’.     

From annual ritual to daily routine: continuous performance management and its consequences for employment security

Management control in the workplace ultimately rests on the power to dismiss employees who are deemed to be underperforming. This article examines a more recent trend away from annual appraisal and towards continual monitoring and review. Based on a study of specialist proprietary performance management (PM) software packages and interviews with the consultants who market them, the contention is that these developments are driven by the need to control dismissal. In the case of the UK, we argue that the adoption of PM systems needs to be understood as a means of ‘retiring’ older workers who might otherwise remain in employment. The systems studied here draw on a range of data, allowing managers considerable discretion in how this evidence is used. Specifically, by dispensing with explicit ranking methods, these systems suggest a new employer confidence in the use of subjective evidence.     

From monopoly to voice effects? British workplace unionism and productivity performance into the new millennium

Britain has featured prominently in debates about unionism and productivity. This article suggests a recent revolution in the productivity effect of British unionism. A thorough review of extant evidence at various levels of aggregation indicates that whatever the broader cost to employee welfare and well-being, the hollowing and erosion of workplace unionism under Thatcherism delivered a one-off productivity dividend. However, by the turn of the millennium, extant Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) analysis shows that workplace unionism, where it remained, was no longer robustly linked to poorer productivity performance. Our private sector analysis of WERS2011 confirms this, while our analysis of the WERS2004–2011 panel indicates that stronger workplace unionism now positively promotes private sector productivity. A thorough contemplation of the shifting concomitants of modern British unionism suggests a variety of processes which may underlie our striking panel findings, underscoring the suggestion that there has been a revolution in British unionism's productivity implications, but also indicating mechanisms which may underlie positive productivity effects of joint regulation already apparent in other countries.