This essay is in two parts. The total word count is 3000. Each part should be 1500 words.

Part 1 (1500 words)

Critically analyse, with reference to appropriate theory, the employment relationship within your current organisation or one that you have previously worked in or another organisation of your choice. Pay particular attention to the strengths and weaknesses of different analytical perspectives.

Part 2 (1500 words)

Choose one of the following topics and using appropriate theory critically analyse that topic in relation to historical trends and more specifically the organisation used in part 1.

1. Trade unions and industrial action
2. Employee involvement, employee voice and employee participation

Part 1:

Employee relationship can be referred to as the relationship between the employees and the business organisation. In a business organisation, the employees play an important role in performing all the operational functions or activities. Any business organisation if want to maintain a progressive low, must emphasis on the positive employee relations. Thus every business organisation must focus on the approach of employee relationship with the company. The essay below highlights the impacts of an organisation’s approach towards employee relation. An analysis is critically detailed on the importance of employee relationship with an organisation.  It analyses the relationship of Aldi with its employees. It focuses on the unitarism, pluralism and Marxism perspective of the employees.

Aldi is one of the leading supermarket chains that deal with foods, beverages as well as sanitary products. The company also deals with the household products. It has been observed that the company has a total of 104,400 numbers of employees (Aldi 2018). The company has a total of 10,000 stores globally. It has also been seen that the company has a sale of £7.7 billion and there are approximately 761,000 customers across the globe. However, it has been noticed that currently in the year 2017, there has been a drop of sales rate by 1.8% (Aldi 2018). 

Discussion of Unitarism, Pluralism, Marxism 

There are various perspectives of the employment relationship with a company that can be categorised into three parts. The three categories of employee relationship perspectives are unitarism, pluralism, and Marxism. A detailed description of all the three perspectives is given below.

The unitary perspective of employee relation is generally based on the assumptions where the company includes an integrated group of people within a single head. In this approach the employees, management and all the other members' shares the common objective, purpose, and interest within the organisation. This perspective says that the management and staff members of an organisation perform as a unit (Ahmad 2015). The impacts of employment laws and trade unions are less as compared to the other approaches. Aldi, as one of the top retail company, follows the unitarism perspective of the employment relationship. The employees of Aldi are enough skills for managing and performing the operations efficiently. The communication between the employees and the organisation of Aldi helps in improving the employee relationship with the company (Conley 2014).  

The pluralism perspective of employee relation can be referred towards those organisations where the employees are divided under divergent and powerful subgroups. The pluralism approach is little different from that of the unitarism approach. The pluralist perspective presents the scenario of an organisation where the company has two or more heads or subheads. An issue in this perspective is that this approach has high chances of conflicts among the employees (Barry, Skinner & Engelberg 2016). This approach creates a diversification among the employees of the company. The pluralist companies have different sources of authority and loyalty in the form of trade unions and groups. Since Aldi follows the unitarist approach of employee relation, it has fewer chances of conflicts and issues in them (Countouris 2016).

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