Employee and Labour Relations

Employee Relations refers to the broad spectrum of workplace activities that comprise employer/employee relationships. Good employee relations result in satisfactory productivity, motivate your employees and ensure positive employee morale. Poor employee relations have the opposite effect and will cost you both time and money.

Some components of positive employee relations are:

• open communications – keeping people aware of what’s going on in your organization
  and how each person fits in


• ensuring that each person knows what their job is and the value of their contributions


• treating your employees fairly and consistently


• having systems in place for employees to have their concerns addressed


• providing a safe workplace.

Labour relations is everything that employee relations is plus the activities you need to undertake if you’re unionized. In unionized workplaces the Labour Relations Act directs certain aspects of how you interact with your employees. You are obliged to enter into collective agreements, have a formal grievance process and labour-management meetings. Certain aspects of the Occupational Health and Safety Act are applied differently where there is a union.

With more than twenty-five years of experience in labour relations, all on the management side, Joan Sandwith can help you manage your workplace, both the non-union and unionized groups. Joan has successfully led bargaining teams to achieve collective agreements. She has overseen the grievance, mediation and arbitration processes. To date, Joan has never lost at arbitration.

One of the consequences of job losses and wages being frozen or reduced through this recession has been significant reductions in revenues to labour unions. To fill their coffers, they’re looking for new members. If you’re union-free, you want to stay that way. We’ll help you with strategies to keep unions out of your organization.