Key Concepts

Chapter 7:

Training: tends to be more narrowly focused and oriented toward short term current performance concerns
Development: tends to be oriented more toward broadening an individual’s skills for future responsibilities
Training and Development: recognizing the combination of activities organizations use to increase the knowledge and skills of employees
Chief Learning Officer: a high-ranking manager directly responsible for fostering employee learning and development
Orientation: Concerned with the why of the organization. The formal process of familiarizing new employees with the organization, their jobs, and their work units. It outlines the organization’s philosophy and is designed to influence employee attitudes about their role and the work they will be doing
Onboarding: The process of systematically socializing new employees to help them get “on board” with an organization. Intended to make employees feel in the fold and mitigate culture shock.
4 Phase Training Process:

Needs Assessment

Training is best suited when employees have a high desire to perform but low job knowledge,skills, or abilities
Organizational Analysis: An examination of the environment, strategies, and resources the firm faces so as to determine what training it should emphasize. Typically concerned with information on the quality of goods or services they provide, absenteeism, turnover, and number of accidents to determine what type of training is needed
Task Analysis: The process of determining what the content of a training program should be on the basis of a study of the tasks and duties involved in the job. The types of skills and knowledge that trainees need can be determined by observing and questioning skilled jobholders or by reviewing job descriptions
Person Analysis: Involves determining which employees require training and, equally important, which do not. Also helps managers determine what prospective trainees are able to do when they enter training so that the programs can be designed to emphasize the areas in which they are deficient

Designing Training Program

Design of training programs should focus on at least four related issues: (1) the training’s instructional objectives (desired outcomes), (2) readiness of trainees and their motivation, (3) principles of learning, and (4) characteristics of instructors
Principles of Learning: Psychological principles that help employees grasp new material, make sense of it in their own lives, and transfer it back to their jobs.
- Self-Paced Learning (Part of Whole-vs-part learning): Used to break down learning into sequences for employees to learn at their own pace
- Principle of Distributed Learning (Part of Massed,continuous, and distributed learning): Spacing out the training will result in faster learning and longer retention
- Behaviour modification (Part of Feedback and Reinforcement): A technique that operates on the principle that behaviour is rewarded, or positively reinforced, will be exhibited more frequently in the future, whereas behaviour that is penalized or unrewarded will decrease in frequency
- Spot Rewards (Part of Feedback and Reinforcement): Programs that award employees on the spot when they do something particularly well during training or on the job. Encouragement is most effective when it is given immediately after a trainee successfully accomplishes a certain task.

Implementation of Training Program

If material is mostly factual or designed to shift employee attitudes, then methods such as lectures, classroom, or online instruction may be fine
If the training involves a large behavioural or skill component, more hands-on methods such as on-the-job training or special job assignment are likely to work better
Blended learning is a combination of the two
Traditional classroom instruction delivered by lecturers continues to be the number one training delivery method for formally training employees. However, blended learning is the second most commonly used method.

Evaluation of Training Program

Reactions: Whether they enjoyed the training, what content and techniques they found most useful, critique of the instructors, suggestions for how to improve it
Learning: Testing the knowledge and skills of trainees before and after a training program
Behaviour: Transfer of training (i.e. the effective application of principles learning to what is required on the job)
Results/ROI: Revenue, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, employee turnover as a result of training
- ROI = benefits of training ÷ training costs

Chapter 8:

Performance management
- The process of creating a work environment in which people can perform to the best of their abilities
Performance reviews
- A process in which a manager evaluates an employee's performance relative to the requirement of the job and uses the information to show the person where and how improvements can be made
Developmental, administrative purposes of a performance review
- Developmental: Concerned with employee development such as identifying individual training needs and providing performance feedback
- Administrative: Concerned with the organization as a whole, such as evaluating a training program in place and making retention, termination and layoff decisions
Performance standards
- Standards which described the accepted level of performance to be achieved by an employee
- Most accurate when described in a measurable and specific manner (SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic)
- 4 Basis Elements to Consider:
- Strategic Relevance: the extent to which the performance standards relate to the strategic objectives of the organization in which they are applied
- Criterion Deficiency: The performance standards should capture the entire range of an employee’s performance
- Criterion Contamination: factors outside an employee’s control that can influence his or her performance
- Reliability: the extent to which individuals tend to maintain a certain level of performance over time
Halo Error: When a manager takes the effect of one positive event and overshadows all the negative events as a result
Horn Error: The counterpart of halo error
Error of central tendency: a performance rating error in which all employees are rated about average
Leniency or strictness error: a performance rating error in which the appraiser tends to give employees either unusually high or unusually low ratings
Temporal (recency) error: Evaluation is based largely on the employee’s most recent behavior rather than on behavior through the evaluation period. Having the rater routinely document employee accomplishments and failures throughout the whole evaluation period can minimize the recency error
Contrast error: A performance rating error in which an employee's evaluation is biased either upward or downward because of comparison with another employee just previously evaluated. Most likely when raters are required to rank employees in order from the best to the poorest.
Similar-to-me error: When an appraiser inflates the evaluations of an employee because of a mutual personal connection. Can be powerful and when the similarity is based on race, religion, or gender, it can result in discrimination
Forced distribution (Forced Ranking): Managers are required to place a certain percentage of employees into various performance categories (like a bell-curve)
Peer ranking: Employees in a work group are ranked against one another from best to worst
Trait Methods
- Designed to measure the extent to which an employee possesses certain characteristics—such as dependability, reactivity, initiative, and leadership
- Graphic rating scale: each trait or characteristic to be rated is represented by a scale on which a rater indicates the degree to which an employee possesses that trait or characteristic
- Mixed-standard scale: Rater is given three specific descriptions of each trait. These descriptions reflect three levels of performance: superior, average, and inferior. Supervisors evaluate employees by indicating whether their performance is better than, equal to, or worse than the standard for each behaviour
- Forced-choice: Requires the rater to choose from statements, often in pairs, that appear equally favourable or equally unfavourable but are designed to distinguish between successful and unsuccessful performance. The rater then selects one statement from the pair without knowing which statement correctly describes successful job behaviour. Because it’s not immediately clear which response results in a higher rating, less bias results
- Essay: requires the appraiser to compose a statement that best describes the employee’s strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations for his or her development. Typically used in tandem with other appraisal methods
Behavioural Methods
- Specifically describe which actions should (or should not) be exhibited on the job
- critical incident
- Behavioural Checklist: requires the rater to check statements on a list that describe characteristics of the employee’s behaviour
- Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS): consists of a series of 5 to 10 vertical scales—one for each important dimension of performance identified through job analysis. These dimensions are “anchored” by behaviours identified through a critical incident job analysis. The critical incidents are placed along the scale and are assigned point values according to the opinions of experts
- Behaviour Observation Scale (BOS): designed to measure how frequently each behaviour has been observed
Results Methods
- evaluate employees’ accomplishments
- Productivity Measures: measures how much value an employee produces for their organization. Different for every role
- Management by Objectives (MBO): Employees establish objectives (such as production costs, sales per product, quality standards, and profits) by consulting with their superiors. Employees are then evaluated based on these objectives
- Balanced Scorecard (BSC): Takes into account four related categories: (1) financial measures, (2) customer measures, (3) process measures, and (4) learning measures. The scorecard allows each individual to see clearly how his or her performance ties into the overall performance of the firm

Chapter 9:

Financial Compensation
- Direct: wages incentives, bonuses, commissions
- Indirect: benefits supplied by the employer
Non financial compensation
- Employee recognition, organizational support, work environment, etc.
Total Rewards: Sum of financial and non-financial compensation
- Expectancy Theory
- People will be motivated to perform in those work activities that they find attractive and that they feel they can accomplish
- People will exert effort if they can realize work related outcome
- Expectancy:
  - The probability that you will put in the effort to achieve what it is you want to achieve
- Instrumentality
  - The probability that you achieve a work related outcomes
- Valence
  - The probability that the work related outcome will be what the worker wants to achieve
- Motivation = Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence
Equity Theory: Individuals form a ratio of their inputs (abilities, skills, experiences) in a situation to their outcomes (salary, benefits) in that situation. They then compare the value of that ratio to the value of the input/output ratio for other individuals in a similar class of jobs either internal or external to the organization. If the value of their ratio equals the value of another’s, they perceive the situation as equitable
Piecework: Work paid according to the number of units produced
Job Evaluation Systems:
- The systematic process of determining the relative worth of jobs to establish which jobs should be paid more than others within the organization
- Job Ranking: Arrays jobs on the basis of their relative worth. One technique used to rank jobs consists of having the raters arrange cards listing the duties and responsibilities of each job in order of the importance of the jobs. Ideal for smaller employers with no more than 15 jobs
- Job Classification: Jobs are classified and grouped according to a series of predetermined grades. Successive grades require increasing amounts of job responsibility, skill, knowledge, ability, or other factors selected to compare jobs.
- Point System: A method for evaluating jobs based on the total points assigned to them, which are calculated using compensable factors such as skills, responsibilities, and working conditions. These factors can be weighed according to their importance to the organization, and may include more contemporary elements like leadership and project accountability
Wage and salary survey: A survey of the wages paid by employers in an organization’s relevant labour market. The wage and salary survey permits an organization to maintain external equity—that is, to pay its employees’ wages equivalent to the wages similar employees earn in other establishments
Wage Curve: The wage curve represents the relationship between the relative worth of jobs and their wage rates and can be constructed graphically using scattergrams. The shape of the curve can vary and is used to determine the relationship between the value of a job and its wage rate at a given point
Pay Grades: A set of jobs that all fit in a specific salary range
Rate Ranges: The range of salaries that makes up a pay grade
Red Circle Rates: Payment rates above the maximum of the pay range
Competency-based pay: Compensates employees for the different skills or increased knowledge they possess rather than for the job they hold in a designated job category.
Wage-rate compression: Has its roots in low salary budgets. Occurs when less experienced employees earn as much as or more than experienced employees due to high starting salaries for new employees. Typically due to high demand and low supply of skilled workers.

Chapter 10:

Individual Incentive Plans
- Piecework:
- Straight Piece Work: Employees receive a certain rate for each unit produced
- Differential Piece Rate: Employees whose production exceeds the standard amount of output receive a higher rate for all their work than the rate paid to those who do not exceed the standard amount
- Standard Hour Plan: Sets rates based on the completion of a job in a predetermined standard time. Rewards employees who complete a task quicker then its standard time (get paid for 5 hours but finish in 4).
- Bonuses: Incentive payment that is supplemental to the base wage
- Spot Bonus: Unplanned bonus given for employee effort unrelated to an established performance measure
- Merit Pay (Merit Pay Raise): When base pay is increased due to an employees success in their job
- Lump-Sum Merit Pay: Employees receive a year-end merit payment, which is not added to their base pay
- Incentive Rewards (Non-Monetary): Most effective as motivators when the award is combined with a meaningful employee recognition program.
- Sales Incentives:
- Straight Salary Plan: a compensation plan that permits salespeople to be paid for performing various duties that are not reflected immediately in their sales volume
- Straight Commission Plan: a compensation plan based on a percentage of sales
- Combined Salary and Commission Plan: a compensation plan that includes a straight salary and a commission. This is the most favorable and flexible
- Salary + Bonus Plan: a compensation plan that pays a salary plus a bonus achieved by reaching targeted sales goals
- Incentive for Professional Employees:
- In some organizations, professional employees such as engineers,scientists or attorneys cannot advance beyond a certain point in the salary structure unless they are willing to take an administrative assignment
- Double-track wage system: Professional who do not aspire to become administrators still have an opportunity to earn comparable salaries
- Executive Incentives:
- Executive compensation plans consist of five basic components:

Executive Base salary
Executive Short-term incentives or bonuses

Bonuses take the form of cash or stock and may be paid immediately (most cases), deferred for a short time, or deferred until retirement
Deferred bonuses are used to provide a source of retirement benefits or to supplement a regular pension plan

Executive Long-term incentives or stock plans

the largest portion of executive pay is received in long-term incentive rewards and bonuses→ most common is stock

Executive Benefits

various programs for extended health insurance, life insurance, retirement plans, and vacations are common

Executive Perquisites: special non-monetary benefits given to executives (perks)

private plane, chauffeur service, health club
Group Incentive Plans
- Team Compensation:
- Team incentive plan: A compensation plan in which all team members receive an incentive bonus payment when production or service standards are met or exceeded
- Scanlon Plan: Emphasizes participative management and encourages cost reductions by sharing with employees any savings resulting from those reductions.
- Improshare: Variation of gainsharing → based on the number of finished goods that the employee work teams complete in an established period
- Gain-Sharing: Programs under which both employees and the organization share financial gains according to a predetermined formula that reflects improved productivity and profitability
Enterprise/Organizational Incentive Plans
- Profit Sharing: Any procedure by which an employer pays, or makes available to all regular employees, in addition to base pay, special current or deferred sums based on the profits of the enterprise
- Stock Options: Employees are given the option to purchase shares in the company at some future date, at a set price, which they would exercise if the market price rises to exceed this price
- Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs): Stock plans in which an organization contributes shares of its stock to an established trust for the purpose of stock purchases by employees
- Employee Stock Bonus Plan: An employer provides company shares to employees at no cost to the employee by just granting them
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan: allows employees to purchase shares but not pay full market price for those shares

Chapter 11:

Flexible Benefits Plans (Cafeteria Benefit Programs): Benefits plans that enable individual employees to choose the benefits that are best suited to their needs. Employees are provided an account with a set dollar amount, which they use to pick out their benefits. This approach increases administrative costs.
Employee Benefits Required by Law (Mandatory Benefits):
These amount to approximately 12% of the benefits packages that Canadian employers provide
CPP/QPP: both require employers to match the contributions made by employees; retirement pensions, disability benefits, and survivor’s benefits
EI - payable to claimants who are unemployed and are actively seeking employment; employees who resign from their jobs or who are terminated for cause
Workers’ Compensation Insurance: insurance provided to workers to defray the loss of income and cost of treatment resulting from work-related injuries or illness
Discretionary Major Employee Benefits:
Healthcare Benefits: prescription drugs, dental, optical and mental healthcare
- Employee assistance programs and wellness programs can help organizations cut the costs of healthcare benefits
- Employers are increasingly using healthcare spending accounts to cover employee benefits
Payment for Time Not Worked: additional vacation time, personal use days, severance pay, sick leave (most employers offer short and long-term disability plans)
Life Insurance: group life insurance is the benefit most commonly provided by an employer; it provides financial security to the dependents of the employee in case of the employee’s death
Retirement Programs: silver handshake (an early retirement incentive in the form of increased pension benefits for several years or a cash bonus)
Pension plans: Used to supplement the protection provided by government-sponsored programs
- RRSPs: allow growth tax free until funds are withdrawn
- Vesting: a guarantee of accrued benefits to participants at retirement age, regardless of their employment status at the time
- Portability: employees who leave an organization can leave their locked-in funds in their current pension plan, or they can transfer those funds into a locked-in RRSP or into their new employer’s pension plan
Employee Services:
- Services offered by employers to make life at work more rewarding and to enhance the well-being of employees
- Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs): Services provided by employers to help workers cope with a wide variety of problems that interfere with the way they perform their jobs such as provide diagnosis, counseling, and referral services for alcohol or drug problems, emotional problems, and financial or family crises

Chapter 12:

Occupational Injury: Any cut, fracture, sprain, or amputation resulting from a workplace accident or from an exposure involving an accident in the work environment
Occupational Illness: Any abnormal condition or disorder, other than one resulting from an occupational injury, caused by exposure to environmental factors associated with employment (includes COVID-19)
Due Diligence: Establishing a comprehensive occupational health and safety management system, providing competent supervision, training, and instruction, and taking every reasonable precaution in the workplace for the health and safety of workers
Right to refuse unsafe work:
- Employees can refuse unsafe work without fear of reprisal. (Some professionals, such as police, firefighters, teachers, and healthcare workers, have only a limited right of refusal, the logic being that their work is inherently dangerous.)
- Procedure to Refuse Work:

The worker immediately reports unsafe circumstances to the employer who must immediately investigate
If the matter is not resolved, the employer should involve both the worker and another designated person in the investigation
If there previous steps fail, should involve contacting a WorkSafe Prevention officer, who will make a determination

Workplace Health and Safety Committee (WHSC): Applied to workplaces with 20 or more employees
- Responsibilities include: Ensuring adequate records are kept,Investigate and resolve employee complaints,Monitor health and safety programs, develop,establish, and promote health and safety programs and procedures
Industrial disease: A disease resulting from exposure to a substance relating to a particular process, trade, or occupation in industry
Workplace violence:
- Threatening behavior, violence, bullying
Emergency Action plan: a plan an organization develops that contains step-by-step procedures for dealing with various emergency situations
Bullying: The unwanted and ongoing negative actions of one or more persons against another within the workplace. Typically perpetrated by authority figures.
- Ontario has Bill 168 in place to protect employees from this type of behaviour
Cumulative Trauma Disorders: Injuries of the muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, and spinal discs caused by repeated stresses and strains
Chemical Hazards:
- Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS): A common information system for labelling hazardous substances
- Based on Labels, Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs), and Training.
Stress:
- Any adjustive demand caused by physical,mental, or emotional factors that require coping behavior
- Eustress: Positive stress
- Distress: Negative stress
- Burnout: The most severe stage of distress, manifesting itself in depression, frustration, and loss of productivity

Chapter 13:

3 Regimes of Employment Law:
- Common Law: Implied contract terms judges read into employment contracts when the written contract does not expressly deal with the matter. Based on a collection of previous court cases which are used as a basis of judgment. (e.g. reasonable notice)
- Statutory Employment Regulation: In Canada, the government has passed a variety of employment legislation in order to address issues such as systemic discrimination, pay inequities, and unsafe working conditions. This legislation operates alongside common law and often modifies it, setting minimum standards that must be met in the employment relationship. It is generally not permitted to contract out of these protective employment laws, and an employee may choose to accept the statutory minimums rather than pursue their common law entitlements through a lawsuit. These laws cover a range of issues including discrimination, pay equity, employment standards, occupational health and safety, and labor relations.
- Employment Equity Legislation: Intended to address systemic discrimination against women, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, and members of visible minorities.
- Pay Equity Legislation: Addresses inequities in how men and women are compensated
- Employment Standards Legislation: Regulates the content of employment contracts by imposing minimum contract standards, such as minimum wage, maximum hours of work, and overtime pay
- Collective Bargaining and Arbitration Law: Facilitating a right of workers to organize into unions and bargain collectively with the employer with the aid of a professional union bargainer and by permitting workers to strike and employers to “lock out” the employees in limited circumstances to apply pressure to reach an agreement (Ontario Labour Relations Act)
- Collective Agreement: an employment contract between an employer and a union that sets out the terms of employment of a group of employees
- Labour Arbitrator: a person assigned to interpret and decided disputes about the meaning, interpretation, and application of a collective agreement governing employees
Constructive Dismissal: Occurs when an employer commits a significant or fundamental breach of the contract, such as eliminating an important benefit enjoyed by the employee, reducing compensation, or demoting an employee. The employee may treat the contract as having been terminated by the employer, quit, and sue the employer to recover either contractual notice or implied reasonable notice.
- To make a change to the terms of an employment contract without breaching the contract, the employer should do either of the following:

Obtain the employee’s agreement to the change and provide the employee with some new consideration (benefit).
Terminate the employment contract in its entirety by giving the required notice of termination and then offer a new contract on the revised terms.

Summary (Just Cause) Dismissal: When a nonunion employer terminates an employee without notice because the employee has committed a serious breach of the contract. Employer is responsible for proving just cause.
Wrongful Dismissal: The termination of an employee by a non-union employer without just cause or without giving the employee reasonable notice or compensation in lieu of notice
Progressive Discipline: Stronger/increasing degree penalties for repeated offenses

Verbal reprimand by supervisor
Written reprimand; with a record in file
1-3 day suspension
Suspension for 1 week +
Discharge for cause

Positive (Non-Punitive) Discipline: Focuses on early correction of employee misconduct, with the employee taking total responsibility for correcting the problem
- Must be in a cooperative environment
- Take a problem-solving approach
- Employee accepts that a problem exists and employee takes responsibility
- Nothing is imposed by management
- Documents suggested changes and employee’s commitments
- Follow-up ensure employee is keeping commitments
Alternative Dispute Resolution Procedures (ADR): A term applied to different types of employee complaint or dispute resolution procedures in non-unionized organizations
- Step-Review System: A process for reviewing employee complaints at progressively higher levels of management. It is typically structured with four steps, during which the employee's complaint is formalized in writing and managers are expected to provide a response within a certain time frame. Employees may bypass their immediate supervisor if they fear reprisal, but the decision of the highest level of management is usually not appealable. These systems may not always be effective, as employees may feel that management is slow to respond or that the response does not adequately address the problem. However, management can take steps to ensure the system is effective and provides the intended benefits.
- Peer-Review System (Complaint Committee): Consists of equal numbers of employee representatives and management appointees who work together to resolve employee complaints. It can be used as the sole method of resolution or in conjunction with a step-review system. The peer-review system is considered to be effective in creating a sense of justice among employees
- Open-Door Policy: Identifies various levels of management above the immediate supervisor that an aggrieved employee may contact; can extend to CEO. The last resort is typically the HR director or senior staff member. Problems with open-door policy are typically caused by managers' willingness to listen or inconsistencies between different managers.
- Ombudsperson: designated individual from whom employees may seek counsel for the resolution of their complaints. The ombudsperson listens to an employee’s complaint and attempts to resolve it by seeking an equitable solution between the employee and the supervisor. This individual works cooperatively with both sides to reach a settlement, often employing a problem-solving approach to the issue.
- Mediation: Employs a third-party neutral (called a mediator) to help employees and managers reach voluntary agreement acceptable to both parties. Mediators have no power or authority to force either side toward an agreement.
- Arbitration: The employee and the employer present their cases, or arguments, to an arbitrator, who is typically a retired judge. He or she then makes a decision that the parties have agreed to be bound by. Arbitration can save litigation costs and avoid time delays and unfavorable publicity.

Chapter 14:

Unfair Labour Practices (ULPs):
- Specific employer and union illegal practices that deny employees their rights and benefits under federal and provincial labour law. Charges of ULPs are filed with the labour relations board, whose duty it is to enforce labour relations legislation.
- ULPs by Employers:
- helping to establish or administer a union
- altering the working conditions of employees while a union is applying for certification without the union’s consent
- using intimidation, coercion, threats, or promises or exercising undue influence while a union is being organized
- failing to recognize or bargain with the certified union
- hiring professional strikebreakers (people who work despite the strike)
- ULPs by Unions:
- contributing financial or other support to an employer’s organization
- not representing fairly the employees in the bargaining unit
- bargaining or negotiating a collective agreement with an employer while another union represents the employees in the bargaining unit
- calling or authorizing an unlawful strike or threatening to do so
- threatening or intimidating workers to influence their support for the union
Management Rights: Decisions over which management claims exclusive rights. However, the union may challenge and erode these prerogatives at the bargaining table, through the grievance procedure, and through strikes.
Craft Unions: Unions that represent skilled craft workers, such as carpenters or masons. Include the International Association of Iron Workers, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, and the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters
Industrial Unions: Represent unskilled and semiskilled workers employed along industry lines. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is an industrial union, as are the Unifor, the United Steelworkers, and the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union.
Employee Associations: Represent various groups of professional and white-collar employees. Examples of employee associations include the Quebec Federation of Nurses and the Alberta Teachers’ Association. In competing with unions, these associations, for all purposes, may function as unions and become just as aggressive as unions in representing members.
Union (Shop) Steward: Employee who as a non-paid union official represents the interests of members in their relations with management. When stewards represent members during grievance meetings on organizational time, their lost earnings are often paid by the local union.
Business Agent: Normally a paid labor official responsible for negotiating and administering the collective agreement and working to resolve union members’ problems
Compulsory Binding Arbitration: For employees such as police officers, firefighters, and others in jobs where strikes cannot be tolerated; in this case, a neutral third party is appointed to resolve the deadlock (must adhere to the arbitrators decision)
Final Offer Arbitration: Method of resolving collective bargaining deadlocks whereby the arbitrator has no power to compromise but must select one or another of
- the final offers submitted by the two parties. The award is more likely to go to the party whose final bargaining offer has moved the closest to a reasonable settlement.
Interest Based Bargaining (IBB): Problem-solving bargaining based on a win–win philosophy and the development of a positive long-term relationship. Rather than using proposals and counterproposals as a means of reaching agreement (as with adversarial negotiations), participants use brainstorming, consensus decision making, active listening, process checking, and matrix building to facilitate the settlement of issues.
Bargaining Power: A party’s economic, political, and social influence used to achieve its demands at the expense of the other side
Grievance Procedure: A formal process used in Canada to resolve conflicts between a union and an employer. Typically initiated by the union when it believes that management has violated a provision of the collective bargaining agreement. It typically includes specific steps and representatives from both sides who are involved in hearings at each step. If the grievance cannot be resolved at one of these steps, it may be submitted to a third party, such as an arbitrator, for a final decision. Some collective agreements also provide for mediation as a means of resolving grievances before proceeding to arbitration. The grievance procedure is considered to be an important part of the collective bargaining process as it allows for the resolution of conflicts without resorting to strikes