This comprehensive study provides a perceptive portrait of workplace employment relations in Britain and France using comparable data from two large-scale surveys: the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) and the French Enquete Relations Professionnelles et Negociations d'Entreprise (REPONSE). These extensive linked employer-employee surveys provide nationally-representative data on private sector employment relations in all but the smallest workplaces, and offer a unique opportunity to compare and contrast workplace employment relations under two very different employment regimes. An insightful read for all academics and students of employment, the findings also have implications for practitioners and policy-makers keen to identify and promote "best practice".

Based on the primary analysis of the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004), this is the fifth book in the series which began in 1980, and which is considered to be one of the most authoritative sources of information on employment relations in Great Britain. Interviews were conducted with managers and employee representatives in over 3,000 workplaces, and over 20,000 employees returned a self-completion questionnaire. This survey links the views from these three parties, providing a truly integrated picture of employment relations. This book provides a descriptive mapping of employment relations, examining the principal features of the structures, practices and outcomes of workplace employment relations. The reader can explore differences according to the characteristics of the workplace and organization, including workplace size, industrial sector and ownership. Current debates are examined in detail, including an assessment of the impact of the Labour Government's programme of employment relations reform. A key reference from a respected and important institution, this book is a valuable 'sourcebook' for students, academics and practitioners in the fields of employee relations, human resource management, organizational behaviour and sociology. Visit the Companion website at http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/0415378133/

Have configurations of labour-management practices become embedded in the British economy? Did the dramatic decline in trade union representation in the 1980s continue throughout the 1990s, leaving more employees without a voice? Were the vestiges of union organization at the workplace a hollow shell? These and other contemporary issues of employee relations are addressed in this report. The book reports the results from the series of workplace surveys conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Economic and Social Research Council, The Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service, and the Policy Studies Institute. Its focus is on change, captured by gathering together the enormous bank of data from all four of the large-scale and highly respected surveys, and plotting trends from 1980 to 1999. In addition, a special panel of workplaces, surveyed in both 1990 and 1998, reveals the complex processes of change.;Comprehensive in scope, the results are statistically reliable and reveal the nature and extent of change in all bar the smallest British workplaces.

Have configurations of labour-management practices become embedded in the British economy? Did the dramatic decline in trade union representation in the 1980s continue throughout the 1990s, leaving more employees without a voice? Were the vestiges of union organization at the workplace a hollow shell? These and other contemporary issues of employee relations are addressed in this report. The book reports the results from the series of workplace surveys conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Economic and Social Research Council, The Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service, and the Policy Studies Institute. Its focus is on change, captured by gathering together the enormous bank of data from all four of the large-scale and highly respected surveys, and plotting trends from 1980 to 1999. In addition, a special panel of workplaces, surveyed in both 1990 and 1998, reveals the complex processes of change.;Comprehensive in scope, the results are statistically reliable and reveal the nature and extent of change in all bar the smallest British workplaces.

The last thirty years have seen the world of work transformed in Britain. Manufacturing and nationalized industries contracted and private services expanded. Employment became more diverse. Trade union membership collapsed. Collective bargaining disappeared from much of the private sector, as did strikes. This was accompanied by the rise of human resource management and new employment practices. The law, once largely absent, increasingly became a dominant influence. The experience of work has become more pressured. The Evolution of the Modern Workplace provides an authoritative account and analysis of these changes and their consequences. Its main source is the five Workplace Employment Relations Surveys that were conducted at roughly five-year intervals between 1980 and 2004. Drawing on this unique source of data, a team of internationally renowned scholars show how the world of the workplace has changed, and why it has changed, for both workers and employers.

The last twenty-five years have seen the world of work transformed in Britain. Manufacturing and nationalized industries contracted and private services expanded. Employment became more diverse. Trade union membership collapsed. Collective bargaining disappeared from much of the private sector, as did strikes. This was accompanied by the rise of human resource management and new employment practices. The law, once largely absent, increasingly became a dominant influence. The experience of work has become more pressured. The Evolution of the Modern Workplace, first published in 2009, provides an authoritative account and analysis of these changes and their consequences. Its main source is the five Workplace Employment Relations Surveys that were conducted at roughly five-year intervals between 1980 and 2004. Drawing on this unique source of data, a team of internationally renowned scholars show how the world of the workplace has changed, and why it has changed, for both workers and employers.