US Seminar 5 2021

P31793 Managing Employment Relations in a Global Context
Managing employment relations for high performance in global

perspective
This seminar comprises three activities:
1. Reflections on the lecture material. In advance of the class think about the
following questions, and prepare some notes which address each of them.
During the class we will explore your responses to these questions, and enable
you to clarify any queries you have about the lecture material.
(i) How important is exercising control over employees when it comes to

managing employment relations effectively? What’s the most effective
way of securing employee compliance?
(ii) What are the main issues and challenges involved when using AI and
algorithmic techniques in managing people at work? To what extent do
you agree with Kellogg et al (2020) when they say that algorithmic
management has the potential to transform managerial control in
important ways? Can algorithmic management be used in an ethical
manner? And, if so, how?
(iii) How important is eliciting the consent and cooperation of

employees when it comes to managing employment relations
effectively? What can managers do to secure employees’ consent and
cooperation?
(iv) How might the use of high commitment/performance HRM vary

from country to country? What explains any such variations?
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2. Managing employment relations in the United States. During the class we
will explore these questions:
What are the main employment relations issues and challenges

affecting the United States? Critically assess the implications for
managing employment relations in the US.
In advance of the seminar class all students are required to read something
from the list of recommended reading on the United States contained in the
module handbook (see pp.20-21 – reproduced below); and to make at least
one page of written notes reflecting on the questions above.
Devinatz, V. (2015) ‘Right-to-Work laws, the southernization of US labor

relations and the US trade union movement’s decline’, Labor Studies
Journal, 40, 297-318.
Feurer, R. and Pearson, C. eds (2017) Against Labor: How US Employers

Organized to Defeat Union Activism, University of Illinois Press.
Frege, C. and Kelly, J. eds (2020) Comparative Employment Relations in the

Global Economy, Abingdon: Routledge (chapter 14).
Katz, H. and Colvin, A. (2015) ‘Employment relations in the United States’,

in G. Bamber, R. Lansbury, N. Wailes and C. Wright (eds), International and
Comparative Employment Relations: Globalisation and Change, 6th edition,
London: Sage.
Katz, H. and Colvin, A. (2020) ‘Employment relations in the United States’,

in G. Bamber, F. L. Cooke, V. Doellgast and C. Wright (eds), International
and Comparative Employment Relations: Global Crises and Institutional
Responses, 7th edition, London: Sage.
Gall, G., Wilkinson, A., and Hurd, R. (2011) The International Handbook of
Labour Unions: Responses to Neo-liberalism’ Cheltenham: Edward Elgar
(chapter 13).
Greenhouse, S. (2008) The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American
Worker, New York: Alfred Knopf (especially the chapter on trade unions).
Logan, J. (2006). ‘The union avoidance industry in the United States’.

British Journal of Industrial Relations, 44, 4, 651-75.
2
Milkman, R. (2013) ‘Back to the future? US Labour in the new gilded age’,
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 51, 4, 645-65.
Moody, K. (2013) ‘Beating the union: union avoidance in the US’, in G. Gall
and T. Dundon (eds), Global Anti-Unionism, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 143-62.
MacDonald, I T. (2014) ‘Towards neoliberal trade unions: decline, renewal

and transformation in North American labour movements’, British Journal
of Industrial Relations, 52, 4, 725-52.
Warner, K. (2013) ‘The decline of unionization in the United States: some

lessons from Canada’, Labor Studies Journal, 38, 110-138
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3. Case study exercise and discussion (time permitting): ‘HRM and the angry
knowledge worker’. In advance of the class please read the case study below.
During the class we will reflect on and discuss the following questions:
What’s the role of HR in Avatar? What does it seem to be trying to

achieve? How effective are its interventions? Why was employee morale
so low? How do you account for the apparent paradox of low
organisational commitment and high work performance at Avatar?
What are the implications of this case for understanding the
management of employment relations?
HRM and the ‘angry knowledge worker’

Adapted from: Cushen, J. and Thompson, P. (2012) ‘Doing the right thing? HRM and
the angry knowledge worker’, New Technology, Work, and Employment 27, 2, 79-92.
Avatar Ireland (a pseudonym) is the Irish subsidiary of ‘Avatar Group’, a

publicly listed multinational corporation. It employs about 850 full-time,
permanent employees, most of whom held a Master’s degree or above.
Avatar is a market leading provider of high-technology, knowledge-based,
premium-priced products and services. It is one of the largest, most financially
successful organisations in the world, consistently ranking highly within
publications listing the world’s largest, ‘most innovative’, ‘best known brands’,
and ‘great places to work’. At the time of the research (2007) both the Avatar
Group and Avatar Ireland generated significant profits; however the Group
had promised financial markets that it would increase shareholder returns.
This created a need to free up cash, and consequently operating costs were
continually targeted for reduction. This resulted in job losses in Avatar Ireland
through voluntary redundancies, outsourcing and work centralisation.
Avatar Group HR worked with leasing consultancies to design leading edge

‘best practice’ HR structures and processes. The company featured in ‘best HR
practice’ publications produced by the CIPD. The Group won awards for its
employee communications which were described as ‘stunning’ and ‘inspiring’.
The Avatar Ireland HR department was larger than typical for an organisation
of its size and sector, and its HR practices ranked in the top 5 per cent in the
Irish ‘Great Places to Work’ competition. The workplace, a bright atrium
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building described as a ‘state of the art corporate village’, was decorated with
dramatic imagery and text depicting the Avatar ‘employer brand’.
Top management, HR and corporate documents all expressed the strategic

importance of having a workforce which was committed to the organisation
and happily engaged in their work. HR was tasked with implementing the
practices to achieve this. The Avatar employer brand, titled ‘Brand Essence’,
claimed that the organisational culture was ‘passionate’, ‘reliable’ and
‘innovative’, and that employees should embody a series of related
behavioural attributes including ‘empathy, best in class, challenging, inspiring,
creativity and optimism’. Brand Essence originated in Avatar Group marketing
following an initiative that involved interviewing customers about the Avatar
brand. Group HR decided that what customers described as being positive and
unique about the brand could be harnessed internally to extract commitment
from employees. All had to complete Brand Essence training, and were
provided with reading material and DVDs outlining how they should behave in
an ‘on brand’ manner. The HR director described how Brand Essence was
aimed at ‘living the brand from the inside out’.
Avatar used a range of ‘best practice’ HR techniques aimed at promoting

organisational commitment, including: an online performance management
and competency system, a sophisticated array of mechanisms for
communicating with employees, an employee assistance programme and the
provision of extensive opportunities for ‘e-learning’.
However, employees seemed to reject the HR structures and processes

associated with the Brand Essence initiative. Engagement levels were low
even before redundancies and outsourcing took effect. The level of
satisfaction with elements of the employment deal was markedly lower than
the average for comparable Irish firms. Interviews with employees uncovered
a deep-rooted, almost universal rejection of the HR management approaches
developed by the company, along with earnest denials of commitment to
Avatar. As a result, HR looked for an alternative explanation for the failure of
HR practices to yield expected results, such as the poor implementation of
these practices by line managers. Avatar directors and HR claimed that
although line managers were implementing the HR practices, the specific
problem was that they were not very effective at convincing employees about
how good it was to work in Avatar. The message apparently got ‘stuck’ at the
management level despite the best efforts of HR. As a result, the CEO and
directors held a ‘people manager’ away day in a hotel to ‘help’ managers
improve ‘employee engagement’. The day ended with those attending singing
an ‘Avatar song’ composed by hired musicians.
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Instead of feeling in control of their destiny, as the Brand Essence approach
encouraged them to do, employees claimed that their employment was
defined by financial, career, and job insecurity. They attributed this insecurity
to the financial structures, often remarking that management decision-making
was oriented towards the interests of shareholders, to the detriment of
employees. They didn’t object to the pursuit of profit; nor did they harbour
nostalgia for a ‘job for life’ or automatic career and financial progression.
Employees did, however, express dissatisfaction with the depth of insecurity
they experienced. The optimistic narrative expressed through Brand Essence,
and the HR practices associated with it, transformed this concern into anger
and vitriol. Some saw it as an affront to their intelligence:
For professionals like me or relatively intelligent people, it really is

insulting...it’s like, ‘where’s my school uniform?’ when I’m getting up in
the morning. I’m a professional, I’ve been to college and I’ve qualified;
and there’s people even more qualified than me and they’re suffering
this.
Given the organisation was so financially successful, employees felt underpaid

and under-valued. There was a pervading sense among employees that they
were bearing the brunt of Avatar’s obligations to financial markets and that
management insistence that the organisation needed to reduce costs was
exaggerated. Managers who tried to adhere to the Brand Essence narrative
faced a backlash from employees, who in addition to being dissatisfied over
salaries also disliked the flat career structure. People were often expected to
continuously accept additional responsibilities without additional
remuneration on the basis that it would enhance their ‘employability’.
Employees expressed considerable unease about their level of job security,
something that seemed at odds with the HR narrative expressed by the
company:
It’s very hard to swallow, extremely hard; they’re telling you one day
how important you are to them and the next day they’re making more
redundant...It’s just hypocrisy after hypocrisy; they don’t eat their own
dog food basically.
Employees claimed that senior managers hid behind the HR narrative

associated with the Brand Essence approach. There was poor attendance at
many communications events. One employee explained:
Sesame Street is what it’s like at these events; they treat you like kids
and they expect you to react like children as well. No more will I ever
go to any of those.
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Employees continually called for more honesty in the depiction of the
employment deal at the company:
Just talk to us like the professionals that we are, and say you’ve got to
make money.
Despite these issues, Avatar Ireland was a ‘successful’ organisation which had
achieved, and often surpassed, performance targets consistently for several
years. Low commitment to the firm was synonymous with high performance.
Directors were concerned about engagement, not because of productivity
concerns, but because Group HR had targeted subsidiaries with achieving
certain ‘engagement’ results. Employees claimed that they were committed to
their work; most pointing out that this was not an expression of commitment
to Avatar. Instead they demonstrated a commitment to their professional
knowledge and skills:
I’m very dedicated not because of Avatar but because I love what I do. I
don’t know how to not do a good job...This place takes me away from
my children for the majority of the day, week. So at the very least I’m
going to feel good about what I do. That’s my attitude; that’s purely
personal.
Employees regularly separated their appreciation of their work from their

view of Avatar. Work represented the only aspect of their employment that
employees felt positive ownership over:
My morale is extremely low, but having said that I think I’m the kind of
person that I work hard and I will continue to do that
regardless...You’re under so much panic and stress the only thing really
keeping you going is actually coming in and working. It’s like, ‘OK it’s
total shit in here, the best thing to do is to sit down and work. It’ll just
take my mind off it, to everything else that’s going on.
The financial and HR structures made employees feel insecure and angry, and
work emerged as the primary activity from which a meaningful sense of
agency could be derived. The Avatar case demonstrates how employees can
be insecure, angry and high performing all at once.
Avatar believed that in its search for committed, high-performing employees it

was doing everything ‘by the textbook’. It had the brand, vision, and extensive
communication mechanisms; the bundles of inter-related, best practices; and
an HR department at the core of strategy and operations. Yet the outcome
was scepticism and often barely disguised contempt from the kind of
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employees who are usually thought to be particularly open to the charms of
soft, culture-led HRM policies.
There was no evidence from Avatar that under-performance was a concern;

rather it was engagement the company was trying to fix. HR blamed the lack
of engagement and commitment on a combination of employees’ flawed
sense of entitlement and poor implementation by line managers. But it was
hampered from doing anything by its own structural isolation; at Avatar, HR’s
gaze was firmly upwards, based on the belief that its legitimacy was
dependent upon corporate management believing in HR’s ability to support
and maintain the HR practices associated with the Brand Essence philosophy.
Low engagement was therefore somebody else’s problem. If HR did look
down, it was more as an internal marketer selling the brand than as an
effective regulator of the employment relationship.

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P31793 Managing Employment Relations in a Global Context

Managing employment relations for high performance in global

This seminar comprises three activities:

(i) How important is exercising control over employees when it comes to

(iii) How important is eliciting the consent and cooperation of

(iv) How might the use of high commitment/performance HRM vary

What are the main employment relations issues and challenges

Devinatz, V. (2015) ‘Right-to-Work laws, the southernization of US labor

Feurer, R. and Pearson, C. eds (2017) Against Labor: How US Employers

Frege, C. and Kelly, J. eds (2020) Comparative Employment Relations in the

Katz, H. and Colvin, A. (2015) ‘Employment relations in the United States’,

Katz, H. and Colvin, A. (2020) ‘Employment relations in the United States’,

Logan, J. (2006). ‘The union avoidance industry in the United States’.

MacDonald, I T. (2014) ‘Towards neoliberal trade unions: decline, renewal

Warner, K. (2013) ‘The decline of unionization in the United States: some

What’s the role of HR in Avatar? What does it seem to be trying to

HRM and the ‘angry knowledge worker’

Avatar Ireland (a pseudonym) is the Irish subsidiary of ‘Avatar Group’, a

Avatar Group HR worked with leasing consultancies to design leading edge

Top management, HR and corporate documents all expressed the strategic

Avatar used a range of ‘best practice’ HR techniques aimed at promoting

However, employees seemed to reject the HR structures and processes

For professionals like me or relatively intelligent people, it really is

Given the organisation was so financially successful, employees felt underpaid

Employees claimed that senior managers hid behind the HR narrative

Employees regularly separated their appreciation of their work from their

Avatar believed that in its search for committed, high-performing employees it

There was no evidence from Avatar that under-performance was a concern;

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