Scribd
Upload
12 views

Lecture 5 2021 - Tutor Input #1-1

Uploaded by

Ariful Haidar Munna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
12 views

Lecture 5 2021 - Tutor Input #1-1

Uploaded by

Ariful Haidar Munna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 8

Managing Employment Relations in a Global

Context 2021-22

Managing employment relations for


high performance in global
perspective

Tutor input #1
Managing employment relations in global
workplaces
• Three key managerial
objectives in employment
relations: a key focus on
Control
maintaining control (and
worker compliance), but
managers also need to be
concerned with eliciting
Consent and
workers’ consent and co-operation
Performance
cooperation, and with
securing performance
improvements
Managerial control & worker compliance
• ‘Simple’ or ‘direct’ control:
based on personal, informal
relationships between
employers and employees
- e.g. post-communist Russia
(Ashwin, 1999, Ashwin and
Clarke 2003); Africa (Wood
and Brewster 2005)
- e.g. the ‘dormitory labour
regime’ in China (Smith and
Pun 2006)
Managerial control & worker compliance
Managerial control & worker compliance
• ‘Algorithmic management’ (AM):
how online platforms in the gig
economy (e.g. Uber, Deliveroo) use
data and algorithms to allocate,
price and evaluate workers’ labour
(Prassl 2018; Wood 2021)
• An algorithm used in technology is
often a set of rules that a computer
applies to make a decision.
• ‘…platform operators rely on
constant algorithmic monitoring to
ensure tight control over every
aspect of work and service delivery’
(Prassl 2018: 54). https://www.ft.com/content/88fdc58e-754f-11e6-b
60a-de4532d5ea35
Managerial control & worker compliance
• Workers based in South-East Asia and sub-
Saharan Africa, who use online labour
platforms to get work: not subject to direct
or intrusive supervision of their activities.
• However, ‘algorithmic management’ meant
that workers ‘were rated by their clients
following the completion of tasks. Workers
with the best scores and the most
experience tended to receive more work
due to clients’ preferences and the
platforms’ algorithmic ranking of workers
within search results. This form of control
was very effective, as informants stressed
the importance of maintaining a high
average rating and good accuracy scores’
(Wood et al. 2019: 64).
Managerial control & worker compliance

• The spread of AM techniques


beyond the gig economy and
online labour platforms (Wood
2021). Amplified by Covid-19??
• Performance pressures and
managerial efficiency – a key
driver?
• Intensifying and reinforcing
managerial control?
- ‘algorithmic technologies
have the potential to
transform managerial control in
important ways’ (Kellogg et al
2020: 367): directing, evaluating
and disciplining workers
Managing worker consent & cooperation
• The ‘contested terrain of algorithmic control’
(Kellogg et al 2020: 368)
- algorithms aren’t neutral tools, but are
designed, developed and used for the
purpose of effecting managerial control
- yet there is evidence of individual and
collective worker resistance to
algorithmic control (Kellogg et al 2020;
Wood et al 2019; Wood 2021)

You might also like