From an Employer's Perspective...

From the last few posts it’s very much evident that majority of us believe that either bargaining power depends on internal & external factors or it lies with the Employer…But I would like to differ a bit.

Most of our views are biased towards the circumstances that we witness in Top notch MNCs or other big organizations. But there is a contrasting situation in Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs). Most of the times, in these organizations, it’s the employees who have an upper hand when it comes to bargaining. (Here when I use the word employees, I am talking about skilled labor and not the unskilled one).

My dad and uncle, who are running a designing and advertising firm respectively, often face this problem whenever an employee thinks of switching to some other firm. Crisis could be attributed to two major reasons:

1. Unlike big organizations, SMEs don’t have the multiple employees doing same sort of work so it’s not easy for them to find replacement (or find a temporary backup).

2. Moreover small and medium organizations don’t have a bench sort of thing where they can put new employees and provide them training.

So for these organizations, a favorable market condition or government policy can’t do much in shifting the control into their hands. The only thing that comes to their rescue is the Bargaining skills that they possess. Still more often than not, it’s the employer who has to compromise.

As for the second part,

It’s too early to comment on the fact that whether I would make a non-negotiable offer to my employer or not. But one thing is for sure that my decision in this regard will definitely have some consideration upon the relationship that I share with my employer in the past, rather than being purely on materialistic gains.

On the other hand as an Employer If I face such situation, than I might compromise a bit (if the situation demands). But the relationship that I share with the employee involved, would never be the same. From then on I would start looking for the suitable replacement. And once I find that, I would like to go for another round of negotiation (with the same employee), making sure that this time ball will be in my court!!