Small Business Glossary and Definitions

Employee Relations (also called “industrial relations” or “employment relations”) refers to the relationship between an employer and its employees and often is a major focus of a company’s personnel or human resources department. The concept began during the Industrial Revolution, with the creation of large corporations with a large number of employees, who soon began organizing into formal labor unions to contest low wages, long hours, dangerous work and abusive supervisors. The approach also was viewed a way to establish a middle ground between free market economics and socialism or Marxism. The concept no longer is widely taught in business schools, having been replaced a focus on human resource management.