JOB-RELATED WELL-BEING

The 2004 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS, 2005) covering 700,000 workplaces and 22.5 million employees surveyed 21,624 employees in workplaces employing more than 10 people on how they felt at work. The results are summarized in Table 14.1.


This does not present an unduly gloomy picture. The percentage of people feeling either tense or calm some, more or all of the time was much the same. An equal number of people were never relaxed or worried, and rather more were never uneasy. Sixty-nine per cent were content all, most or part of the time. The WERS survey also revealed that job-related well-being was higher in small organizations and workplaces than in large ones, higher among union members, fell with increased education and is U-shaped with regard to age (ie higher amongst younger and older employees than amongst the middle-aged).

The employment relationship

This chapter explores the nature of the employment relationship and the creation of a climate of trust within that relationship.

THE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP DEFINED

The term employment relationship describes the interconnections that exist between employers and employees in the workplace. These may be formal, eg contracts of employment, procedural agreements. Or they may be informal, in the shape of the psychological contract, which expresses certain assumptions and expectations about what managers and employer have to offer and are willing to deliver (Kessler and Undy, 1996). They can have an individual dimension, which refers to individual contracts and expectations, or a collective dimension, which refers to relationships between management and trade unions, staff associations or members of joint consultative bodies such as works councils.