Nina Moskovina, the HR-business partner of “Delovye Linii” company in the Southern District, shared her experience on preventing conflicts at the workplace.
In my experience at HRD, there have been many intricate and exciting projects related to the prevention of labour conflicts. I want to share the case that I remember most. I headed the HR department of the southern district in the GC “Delovye Linii”. The company survived the crisis of 2014 with dignity and continued to grow. But work with staff began only after lots of employees started to complain to the staff service that the company violated their labour rights. Let me tell you how we did not allow the conflict to grow and reach to the supervisory authorities.
Every day our company’s staff was beginning with an explanation to the individual employees how to read the pay slip correctly, what the work schedule is, how often you can go on vacation and other pressing matters. The company had 20 thousand specialists at that time, and most line managers had little to none knowledge in the field of labour law.
Most of the questions were emotional - people were afraid that they might have been deceived financially and socially. Sometimes employees wrote to the head office, sometimes they called the customer service hotline. Questions were exhausting, but those who received clarifications on time did not contact the labour inspectorate.
We did not have time to answer every question. Not all branches had personnel officers, so HR had to explain the basics. We did not wait for being with labour inspections and disputes. The HR department decided to educate employees of the company, from branch directors to the workers. So, this is how we chose to deal with it.
First, we structured the questions related to our staff. To do this, we launched the module in the operating system, where everyone could send a question to the HR service and get an answer within three business days.
The module received up to 50 questions from each branch per day. Our colleagues at the head office monitored issues and combined them into blocks. It turned out that most of the questions asked referred to work schedules and payroll.
We have combined efforts from our training service and our lawyers to the joint work, so they created a presentation of almost the entire Labor Code in a language that everyone understands. The presentation included cases on the interaction of personnel with the employer.
HRD from all regions gathered at the head office to launch the initiative. We went through the whole training and the next day we became trainers for one of the modules. District HRD also had to transmit the acquired knowledge to line managers.
To conduct training in branches, we formed the groups according to hierarchy. At first, they did training for branch directors, and gradually reached workers in teams. The training participants found out what risks could be caused by the errors in personnel documents, trained in filling out work schedules and discussed how to act if someone violated labour discipline.
Our company have always carried out work processes in accordance with the law. Therefore, our HR brand had supported labour law training: we emphasized that the company is an exemplary employer.
During the training, the audience showed no resistance, only lively interest and dialogue. We erased the border within the company between those who knew how to organize working interaction and those who didn’t.
Our HR team took about six months to run the entire project. Our goal was to reduce the number of questions about labour relations – and as a result, the number of questions from employees approached zero.
Thanks to this project, the company prevented reputational risks. HRs no longer spent time on non-production processes. Employees’ trust in the employer has grown as we improved the basic knowledge of managers and specialists about their rights and obligations. It was teamwork, and all of the HR staff was involved in this project.
Anna Minyagina, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Affairs at OPEN Group, shared her experience in resolving a labour conflict.
Use Alternative Ways to Resolve Labor Disputes
During one trial, we found out that the interests of the parties do not contradict each other. After the end of the case, the judge complained that the claimant had not even attempted a pre-trial settlement. To this, the former employee completely sincerely replied that he did not hope for a dialogue with the employer and simply did not know about the alternative to resolving disputes.
Few people know there is another way to resolve the conflict between the employee and the employer aside from contacting the State Labor Inspectorate and the court. This procedure is called mediation. Mediation is a method of resolving disputes with the assistance of an external expert or organization with the voluntary consent of the parties to the conflict (Articles 1, 2 of Federal Law dated 27.07.2010 No. 193-FZ).
In my practice, there was a case of a labour dispute with a pregnant employee. Her contract expired during the vacation period. The employer extended the contract until the end of pregnancy in accordance with the law. The employee turned to the court. In the process of mediation, it turned out that she only wanted to receive childcare allowance for one and a half years, she was not going to continue working after the maternity leave. The employer wanted to take another specialist in her place. The parties reached a compromise: they extended the contract until the end of maternity leave. As a result, the employee received benefits, and the employer reimbursed the costs with the help of the Social Insurance Fund.
The only drawback of the procedure is the cost of mediator’s services, as it is usually the company who pays for the most of the process. However, the costs of participating in litigation and supporting Inspectorate’s audits are higher than the cost of mediation. This tool can also become a corporate standard for employers: if the staff is aware of such a possibility of resolving conflicts, you can prevent labour disputes and not bring the matter to court or complaints to the State Labor Inspectorate.
