Employee relations roles

Employee relations specialists play a critical role in developing and maintaining trust between an organisation and its employees. By aligning organisational strategy with employee needs, they help develop effective people practices.

What does an employee relations specialist do?

Employee relations focuses on creating and delivering people practices which develop - and maintain - positive working relationships between an organisation and its people. Working closely with unions and employee representatives, you'll need to ensure that people practices are fair and transparent. 

Different working environments create different challenges, and so too will the changing circumstances of work. You'll need to understand:

• the impact these changes can make
• the forces that bring about change (from inside and outside an organisation) 
• how to work with employee bodies, ensuring polices are aligned to the employer brand
• employment law and how it’s created
• and maintain up-to-date awareness of legislation. This includes knowing how to respond when the employment relationship breaks down, while making sure the organisation learns from these experiences.

Your typical activities

Here are some of the activities you can expect to be involved in as an employee relations specialist.

• Creating people policies
• Dealing with complex cases, such as disciplinary grievances and appeals
• Supporting the organisation through restructures
• Ensuring engagement is maintained and managers act in a way that involves their staff
• Managing the relationship between the organisation and unions or employee bodies
• Dealing with disputes appropriately (for example, mediation or tribunal cases)
• Ensuring managers are upskilled to deal with people in a fair and effective manner
• Overseeing all people practices to ensure they are legally compliant.

Types of roles in employee relations

Here is a shortlist of the types of job titles you might find in employee relations. As you can see, employee relations specialists are at all levels of experience and seniority:

• Employee Relations Officer
• Employee Relations Advisor
• Employee Relations Manager
• Head of Employee Relations
• Director of Employee Relations