Course: OER: 801 Employment relations

Topic outline

General

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- News forum
- Employment Relations
Topic 1
- Welcome and overview
- Kia ora! Welcome to the Employment Relations paper 801. We hope you will enjoy discovering useful skills and knowledge.
  
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  This course gives you an understanding of the New Zealand employment relations framework. Our journey is with a fictional company, Naturally Baking Limited, and explores employment relationships, bargaining for employment agreements, and disputes and grievances resolution.
  
  Find out more...
- Tutor guidelines File
- What will you learn in this course? File
- How will you learn? File
- How will you be assessed? Page
- What do you need to get started? File
- Meet your tutors and find out how to contact them. Page
- Feeling stuck? There are team forums for every task, but you may have a question, a concern, or something to share that is not related to the team forums. If it is confidential, you are welcome to contact your tutor. It would be great if you could share anything else with the whole team because they may have similar questions or concerns. Use the ‘With a little help from your friends’ forum for this.
- With a little help from your friends. Forum
- Are you ready?
  
  Let’s have some fun while we get to know each other. This icebreaker will lead you to your online discussion forum. Find out what you need to do...
- Who are we — really? File
- Tutor icebreaker notes. File
- In business we work together to complete tasks. Now that you know yourself better, find out who's in your team. We will be using online forums to ‘talk’ to our classmates in our ‘virtual classroom’. Let’s meet each other in the ‘Who’s who?’ forum.
- Who’s who? Forum
- We cannot see facial expressions or hear voice tone when we are ‘talking’ online. If online discussions are new to you, you might like to read...
- Guidelines for online discussions. File
Topic 2
- Our past
- Employment relations sit within a political, social, and economic context. Economic pressures such as inflation, recession, depression, and unemployment affect working conditions. Social and ethical influences reflect society’s changing attitudes, and various political ideologies have also shaped the work environment. Our radio gives us an historical overview of some significant events that have helped shape our industrial situation...
- Your radio. File
Topic 3
- What are employment relations?
  
  Who's in the mix?
- Your address book. File
Topic 4
- Assessing a workplace. Working affairs?
- Naturally Baking Ltd is a small company distributing organic baking goods. The activities and tasks you complete will help you identify and provide realistic solutions for the company’s employment relationship issues. But first, let’s find out about the company...
- Introducing Naturally Baking. Who are the main players? File
- Learning about Naturally Baking’s workplace introduces us to relevant legislation and shows us some employment issues. Analysing this workplace will help you with the team task and assessment. Check out this video...
- Ready for expansion? File
- You can’t get far without finding out about the Employment Relations Act and the Human Rights Act. Tu’s got some advice for you.
- Your phone is ringing! File
- Looks like management has a few more issues. What to do?
- Exciting times ahead! File
- It takes two to tango. Let’s have a look at the Naturally Baking workers’ issues.
- The workers get together. File
- Employment legislation and policy is not always easy to understand. Here, we have simplified it for you. You can click on the drawers in the filing cabinet to get easy-to-read information that's relevant to employment relations law.
- It’s time to do some research in your office on employment legislation and policy. File
- You don’t need to know everything in the legislation at one time. A little bit goes a long way. This web treasure hunt takes you to the main employment relations websites and shows you the essential gems. Find out how to go hunting for your treasure.
- Let’s go hunting! File
- Share your findings in your team forum.
- Do you want sample answers for your web hunt? File
- Analysing workplace issues takes some practice. Working together helps you look at issues differently while sharing knowledge. This team task will help you to complete your assessment. Join in!
- Find out what you need to do. File
- Workplace analysis team forum.
- There is never a perfect answer, but we have provided an example analysis for you.
- Sample workplace analysis. File
Topic 5
- Negotiating individual employment agreements (IEA)
- Knowing what needs to be included in an employment agreement is essential to negotiating one. Let’s find out what our employment consultant thinks.
- Why do we need an employment agreement? File
- The next activity will help you create an individual employment agreement and understand the compulsory and optional elements.
- Let’s make an individual employment agreement. File
- We’ve made a sample individual employment agreement. Which do you think are the compulsory elements in the agreement? Email your answer to your tutor.
- Sample individual employment agreement. File
- IEA compulsory elements. File
- Negotiating good outcomes for an employment agreement requires a lot of skill. Watch this scene at Naturally Baking and observe the negotiation skills used and the issues and processes involved.
- Negotiating alone. File
- Knowing how best to negotiate is made easier by following the golden rules. This activity will help you negotiate better outcomes. Find out what you need to do...
- The golden rules of negotiation. File
- The golden rules of negotiating team forum.
- Negotiating collective employment agreements
- Negotiating a collective employment agreement can get a bit tricky. You need to know the process. Let’s have a look at how the Human Resource Consultant outlines the issues for Naturally Baking’s managers.
- Negotiating together. File
- Developing a negotiation strategy, style, and ground rules makes things run much more smoothly. Tu and Dave have some good ideas.
- Your phone is ringing! File
- There’s a lot to know about bargaining, isn’t there? We have outlined relevant information on the top shelf of the bookcase in your office.
- Let’s get back to your office for some research on negotiating and bargaining. File
- Let’s discover what we know about the bargaining process by doing a team task. Find out what you need to do for the task, then join your team’s forum.
- Bargaining task. File
- Bargaining team forum.
Topic 6
- The future...
- What might employment relations be like in the future? Let’s get into our time capsule and fly through the years to have a look at the future industrial situation. Your newspaper tells the story...
- Pick up tomorrow's newspaper. File
Topic 7
- Grievances and disputes
- Understanding how grievances and disputes are resolved is essential to good employment relations. In the next activities you will analyse a grievance and a dispute, figure out the difference between the two, and get to understand the process for resolution.
- Grievances
- What’s a personal grievance? Let’s hear from the aggrieved...
- Sticks and stones. File
- Now let’s hear what the aggressor has to say...
- Ain’t no problem like the one I got! File
- Look for information about grievances and disputes on the second and third shelves of your office bookcase.
- Come for some quiet research time in the office. File
- Disputes
- Without a few pointers, navigating your way through a dispute process can be like travelling without a map. Let’s have a look at how the Human Resource Consultant outlines the issues for the Naturally Baking Human Resource Manager.
- A stitch in time? File
- If things go wrong, we need to know about mediation and the disciplinary process. Tu’s calling with some more advice.
- Your phone is ringing! File
- Let’s find out what we know about disputes and grievances in our team task. Read what you need to do for the task and then join your team’s forum.
- Solving employment relations problems task. File
- Solving employment relations problems forum.
Topic 8
- Congratulations! You have completed the course.
  
  Check the course mind map to see what you have done.
- Course mind map File
Topic 9
Topic 10

Topic outline

General

Employment Relations

Topic 1

Welcome and overview

Are you ready?

Topic 2

Our past

Topic 3

What are employment relations?

Who's in the mix?

Topic 4

Assessing a workplace. Working affairs?

Topic 5

Negotiating individual employment agreements (IEA)

Negotiating collective employment agreements

Topic 6

The future...

Topic 7

Grievances and disputes

Grievances

Disputes

Topic 8

Congratulations! You have completed the course.

Topic 9

Topic 10