This section of the Guide deals with 'employee involvement', a phrase that is used to cover a wide range of ways in which employees can be involved in the business in which they work.
In some circumstances, employee involvement is required by law, in others it is wholly voluntary. The main methods of employee involvement are these:
- providing information to the workforce, either directly or through their representatives or both, on matters relating to the current and future operation of the company;
- consulting with employees or their representatives or both, to gather their views on issues relating to the company's current and future operation so that these can be taken into account in the company's decision-making;
- negotiating with a trade union on issues of relevance to the employees the union represents, from terms and conditions of employment through to broader issues such as job security and equal opportunities;
- facilitating employees' financial participation in the company's performance by, for example, offering them shares in the company.
Involving employees by negotiating with a union is covered elsewhere in this Guide ( Collective bargaining ). The section opens by summarising the benefits of employee involvement (benefits of employee involvement) and the ways in which it might be promoted (methods of employee involvement), and then goes on to examine the legal requirements.
Employers have various general and specific legal duties to inform and consult with their workforce. Starting with the general duties: a company that employs 100 or more people, or more than 50 employees from 6 April 2008, may be obliged to negotiate and operate an information and consultation procedure, if it has been asked to do so by 10% or more of its workforce (general duty to inform and consult). The other general duty applies only to trans-European employers, that is, companies or groups of companies that employ at least 1,000 people overall and have at least 150 employees in two or more countries in the European Economic Area. These employers may be obliged to set up a mechanism to inform and consult their workforce on transnational issues of concern to their employees ( trans-european employers).
All employers are under a legal obligation to consult their workforce if they are proposing to make large-scale redundancies or to take measures in connection with a business transfer. Other sections of this Guide explain when these obligations to consult are triggered and what the consultations must cover (collective consultation), (existing representatives ). This section explains what options employers have in terms of the consultation mechanism they use (redundancies and business transfers) .
All employers must also consult on health and safety issues. This section outlines employers' obligations in this area, which differ between those employers who have union-appointed safety representatives (safety representatives and committees ) and those who do not (consultation with unrepresented employees ).
Where an employer has been ordered to recognise a trade union under the statutory recognition procedure (statutory procedure for recognition) and a method of collective bargaining has been imposed, the employer is under a duty to consult with the union about training issues. This section explains that duty (training).
Employers also have a duty to provide employees with information about pensions (information on pensions) and to consult before certain pension changes are made (consultation on pension changes).