Background on Energex
Sustaining healthy and well-comprehensive employee relations in an organization is regarded as a pre-requisite for organizational achievements. Employee relation strategies generally exhibit high degree of propensity to deal with avoiding as well as resolving areas of complexities concerning individuals which tend to emerge through the influence of the work scenario. Well-established employee relation further implies that employees must develop a sense of positivity related to their identities as well as about being associated with the organization (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). Thus the importance of strong and comprehensive employee relation within organizations is considered to be immensely essential and thus is recognized as a critical factor for ultimate success within an organization (Chester 2015). The following paper explicitly examines the significant employee relation strategies implemented by Energex, one of the renowned electric power distribution companies in Australia. The paper will further cast light on the way Energex has been working on employee safety and welfare approaches along with other employee relation risk management strategies and approaches which the company has been employing in order to maintain a smooth functioning within the organization.
Energex Limited, an energy supply company purposes to construct, operate, sustain and further regulates electricity distribution network in South East Queensland. The company is recognized to provide its services primarily to homes and business enterprises. The energy supply company formerly known as South East Queensland Electricity Corporation Limited changed its name in the year 1997 and currently operates as a subsidiary of Energy Queensland Limited (Energex.com.au 2018).
Energex’s mission and purpose primarily lie on providing safe, reliable as well as affordable and economical electricity supply to homes and business organizations in the areas of South East Queensland. As a highly favoured supplier of integrated energy service suppliers, the company aims to provide its customers with choice and control in order to attain the highly increasing energy needs and demands Energex.com.au 2018). Energex comprises great degree of commitment and dedication in engaging proficiently with its customer base and further to deliver effective market reform, innovation as well as agility that is required to develop the industry into the future.
Energex exhibits high level of commitment in effectively establishing its organization whereby customers would tend to show high level of willingness to be associated and further create a constructive environment which facilitates the achievable implementation of the business strategy (Energex2018). Employee Relations Strategy of Energex has been implemented in 2008 in order to provide the source for sustaining the persistent discussion between the company and its employee base along with their union representatives (Energex.com.au 2016). Such a well-comprehensive Employee Relation Strategy has aided the company to maintain open lines of communication both with its employees and unions and to effectively develop resolutions of industrial negotiations and disputes.
Energex’s Mission and Purpose
` Several reports have revealed that over the recent years, Energex has funded heavily in its recruitment and employee selection approaches. The company has emphasized on recruiting highly proficient dealers along with other technical staff vital for the critical program of work (Beaton-Wells 2015). It has been noted that around 760 new dealers have been employed with the development of accelerated dealer employment program in 2005 till 2013, whereby the purpose was to provide adequate proficient internal and external resources in order to accomplish the demands of an important network program of work.
The Australian Energy Supplier has attained flexibility in the work durations for a specific segment of agreement-based staffs through the terms of a ‘Non Executive Employment Agreement’ which purposes to provide a range of remuneration as well as non-salary related employee benefits and advantages (Gollan and Kalfa 2013). The adaptation to this agreement has facilitated the company with an effective method for employee engagement and retention of highly proficient staffs in a specialized market domain by further efficiently delivering flexible work hours, patterns along with the scope for the employees for salary compensation for other vital employee benefits (Energex.com.au 2016).
Energex’s Employment and Workforce Planning
The workforce planning and employment procedures have been underlined through a distinctive identification of a highly proficient workforce which emphasizes on the enduring renewal and suitable employee induction and training that further ascertains adequate staff capacity within the organization in order to substitute the retiring or voluntarily terminated sections of the workforce (Beaton-Wells 2015). It has been noted that till 2013, Energex comprised over 4,090.2 full-time equivalent (FTE) staffs (Energex.com.,au 2018).
- 15 positions constituting the position of ‘senior executive’ role
- Over 150 FTE staffs assigned to executive contractual roles
- Around 45 employees engaged with Individual Employment Agreements program
- Over 3,550.9 full time employees covered by the Union Collective Agreement of Energex, 2013
Energex’s initiative to employ Collective Employment Agreements (2008) primarily focused on the development of an inclusive Maturing Workforce Strategy which further aims to efficiently encompass a wide range of work regulation practices and provide integrated strategies and regulations in order to enhance the level of job engagement, contribution and welfare of growing employee base by further aiming to ensure effective employee knowledge from the retiring staffs (Energex.com.,au 2018).
Employees covered by Energex’s initiated framework agreement may not be liable from the set of conditions constituted in Part 5 of the agreement (Wages and Wage Related Matters) along with Part 6 which focuses on Working Hours, Shift duty and Weekend Work) of the Energy Industry Award and are covered by arrangements and provisions comprising replacement conditions of service (Energex.com.au 2016). It has been observed that Energex efficiently preserves the authority at its complete discretion whether or not to adhere to the process of renegotiation of the concerned employee reward (Energex2018).
Employee Relations Strategy of Energex
Through the Union Collective Agreement, it has been observed that employee work efficiently in order to execute the assigned roles and responsibilities to accomplish the most demanded interests of Energex and further aim to avoid or mitigate any areas of conflict among the employees (Energex.com.au 2018). During the rise of any conflicting situations the employees of Energex are trained to
- Immediately inform their direct supervisor
- Confiscate them from any process of decision making which may have the tendency to involve themselves in any conflicting situations within the organization.
The company has been evaluating global regulation and directive approaches and establishing associations and networks with other distributors in order to develop a level of awareness of the alignment process or negotiations with Energex’s strategic direction (Energex.com.au 2016). Furthermore, the company has initiated its approaches and relevant strategies for the upcoming regulatory proposals aimed for 2020 which incorporates vital benchmarking analysis in order to comprehend cost drivers as well as other probable efficiency developments (Energex.com.,au 2018).
Organizational policies, standards and practices of Energex fundamentally underline factors of gender diversity to the degree to correspond with the energy industry. The company further purposes to enhance the demography of its workforce in order to more reflective of the base they provide services (Gollan and Kalfa 2013). As women are observed to be highly overlooked and underrepresented in domains of power-engineering and electrical trades, Energex efficiently aim to aid personnel that reveals high level of consistency with industrial diversity policies and standards (Energex.com.,au 2018). Workforce reports indicate the implementation of Energex on series of policies in order to ascertain execution of equal employment strategies that incorporates work life balance, employee inductions, development of exploitation or harassment knowledge to the employee base along with significant inclusion of employee policy statements (Quezada et al. 2014).
The company in 2011 has sustained organization-wide knowledge and awareness sessions in order to successfully update its staff base on areas of equity and diversity areas and other relevant policies (Energex.com.au 2016). Furthermore, other vital official consultation directives have been implemented by the company to develop Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and introduce other diversity policies throughout the organization and further continue to work with diverse authoritative agencies to establish and advance EEO initiatives and approaches.
Purpose- Energex has exhibited high level of commitment to the persistent development of a strategic and reliable enterprise-centric approach to employee relations risk management which has further been supported by risk-aware culture (Energex.com.au 2018).
Policy Standards-
- Employee relation risk management must form and safeguard value of employee relation and associations and further aim to emphasize on any forms of uncertainty, conflicts which may have the propensity to impact the success of Energex (Parliament.qld.gov.au 2018).
- Standards of Employee Risk Management must be distinctive and comprehensive for all relevant internal stakeholders-employees in order to ascertain effective management of risk (Energex.com.au 2018).
- Employee Relations Risk Management Strategy of Energex aims to facilitate through proper employee induction, knowledge and development, persistent supervision, communication and cooperation (Quezada et al. 2014).
Energex has adopted risk management process as explained in Australian Standard Risk Management guidelines. Such a process has been established in the Enterprise Risk Management Framework to ensure effective employee relation process within the organization (Energex2018).
There has been witnessed certain essential operating initiatives along with developing risks under management across the human resources services program of Energex which incorporate:
- Current workforce development programs that aims to guarantee retention of highly important and proficient staffs (Energex.com.au 2016).
- An employment value proposition with adequate skill management processes in order to enhance the section of suitably proficient and experienced employee base to compensate leadership and vital roles necessitated for Energex’s business in the future (Chester 2015).
- Decisive approaches in order to optimize employee efficiency productivity by further ensuring employee safety and welfare (Quezada et al. 2014).
- Energex must purpose at effectively aligning individual behaviour and performance of its workforce to its business purpose and values.
- Fixed remuneration or wage policy for Agreement encompassing employee regulated by the Energex union Collective Agreement must assign its employees job family, evaluation as well as employee classification (Beaton-Wells 2015).
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that Energex has been immensely committed to systematic and sustainable effective values and practices in regards to the implementation of employee relation strategy and approaches. The paper has explicitly focused on Energex’s employee relation approaches along with focusing on Energex’s Union Collective Agreement and the benefits obtained by employees covering the framework of the agreement.
References
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Beaton-Wells, C., 2015. Private Enforcement of Competition Law in Australia-Inching Forwards. Melb. UL Rev., 39, p.681.
Chester, L., 2015. The privatisation of Australian electricity: Claims, myths and facts. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 26(2), pp.218-240.
Energex., 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.energex.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/283680/Annual-Report-2014-15.pdf [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].
Energex.com.,au., 2018. [online] Ausgrid.com.au. Available at: https://www.energex.com.au/about-us/our-commitment [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].
Energex.com.au., 2016. Our Connected Future ANNUAL PERFORMANCE Report 2015/16. [online] Energex.com.au. Available at: https://www.energex.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/372624/Annual-Performance-Report-2015-16.pdf [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].
Energex.com.au., 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.energex.com.au/about-us/we-are-energex [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].
Energex.com.au., 2018. Our safety resources – Energex. [online] Energex.com.au. Available at: https://www.energex.com.au/home/safety/our-safety-resources [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].
Energex.com.au., 2018. Selection process – Energex. [online] Energex.com.au. Available at: https://www.energex.com.au/about-us/contact-us/careers/working-for-us/selection-process [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].
Gollan, P. and Kalfa, S., 2013. Australia’s industrial relations system and the need for organisational agility. Australia Adjusting: Optimising national prosperity, p.190.
Parliament.qld.gov.au., 2018. [online] Parliament.qld.gov.au. Available at: https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Documents/TableOffice/TabledPapers/2010/5310T3182.pdf [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].
Quezada, G., Grozev, G., Seo, S. and Wang, C.H., 2014. The challenge of adapting centralised electricity systems: peak demand and maladaptation in South East Queensland, Australia. Regional environmental change, 14(2), pp.463-473.
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