Question

Several HealthCare Organizations have documented successful empowerment in a unionized environment. Why might the unionized environment be more challenging? What does empowerment do to the traditional union position ?

Answer 1

The unionized environment might be more challenging because of the following reasons:

• Companies need to prepare themselves for the negotiation process with the union and sometimes company need to train a manager for this process.
• Human resource management is accountable to ensure that the union dues paid and deductions made are administered correctly.
• Under the unionized environment, management is required to work through union while determining policies and resolving greviances which sometimes become challenging for the organization.

Empowerment does the following for traditional union position:

• Empowerment gives a chance to traditional union position to discuss ideas and concepts with the management related to job satisfaction of the employees.
• Empowerment has made good communication channel between union and the management that helps to create employee empowerment in the organization.
• Empowerment promotes a healthy environment both for union and management to discuss every aspect of business in honest and open manner.