Power swings from one end to another

Here are the answers of the questions :

Do you think the individual is always at the receiving end and the "bargaining power" is always shifted in favour of employer?

Bargaining power is the power used by one party to influence the exchange in offerings between two parties. In the context of individual organizational relationship, both employer and employee can use the bargaining power depending on the situation. During the initial phase of the career, the employee accepts whatever is given to him. Here the employer uses its bargaining power. Also during recession when company are laying-offs, employees are at the receiving end as employer exert their bargaining power to make the employee work according to their likings.

After gaining some experience, the employee might have become the critical resource of the company. He might be handling some business units by himself. At this time he can bargain and fulfil his demands.

Based on the email, what are your observations on "bargaining power" in the context of individual - organizational relationship?

Darrell Hair uses the bargaining power in the form of non-negotiable offer. His contract was terminated based on some wrong decision made in Sri-Lanka Pakistan match. Umpiring is a very subjective job. It might have been a bad day for Darell. ICC can never prove that it was intentional. So he was able to put this non-negotiable offer to ICC.

Both the individual and organization uses the bargaining power based on their self interest. Sometimes it creates bad relations between employer and employee. It is all situation based.

Would you be able to make similar non-negotiable offer to your employer in any point of time in your career?

Coming to the third question, I feel at some point of time in our career, one has the opportunity to make similar non-negotiable offer. Let me just give some experiences of my previous company – Texas Instruments India Pvt. Ltd. I believe the bargaining power is more in the hand of people who are up in the technical ladder rather than those who are in the managerial ladder. If you are the important resource who is very critical for some project and you have all the technical know-how of the project. And if you put a non-negotiable offer at that time, the company will accept it to save the project. The employee should be wise enough to put the non-negotiable offer at the right time.

Putting a non-negotiable offer sometimes leads to bad relations among the employer and the employee in future.

Also, if you were to receive a similar one time non-negotiable offer from your employee, how would you handle this issue?

Being an employer, I would first try to find out the answer of these questions:

· What is the job description of the employee? Is there anybody having the same job description?

· Whether the demands are valid?

· What will be the demerits of accepting the offer like relation between the employer and the employee, work environment among the peer groups etc.

· What will be merits of accepting the offer like project completion on time, importance of resource in the market etc.

After evaluating all these, we might terminate employee contract. If we come to a conclusion that he is important resource for the company, then I should have a one to one meeting with to discuss why these demands arises and if something can be negotiated.