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Since the 2008 financial crisis, the UK workforce in general has experienced a period of stagnant and falling wages in both nominal and real terms. The main parties involved remain unsure of the consequences from such a historically unusual phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the main effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of those employees who had experienced pay reductions (nominal wage cuts or pay freezes under a positive inflation rate) as compared with those who experienced nominal pay rises during the recent recession; and second, to examine the moderating effect of employee involvement (EI) practices on that relationship. This was done by using aggregated employee perception data to measure organizational EI practices.

Employee-employer matched data were used, involving 8,489 employees and their associated 497 organizations (medium or large sized). The number of employees from each organization was between 15 and 25. The data used were extracted from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study in the UK to which the authors applied hierarchical linear regression in STATA 13.

The results indicate that when compared with those employees who had nominal pay rises during the recession, employees who had wage cuts or freezes (with 5 percent inflation rate) are significantly and negatively associated with their job satisfaction and organizational commitment, even when controlling for important variables such as perception of job insecurity and the degree of adverse impact caused by recession on the organization studied. That is to say, facing the same perception of job loss, those who experienced pay reductions are significantly unhappier and less committed than those who had pay rises. However, the adverse effect of pay reductions on employees’ work attitudes is much less in workplaces characterized by a high, as opposed to a low level, of EI practices.

Implications, limitations, and further research issues are discussed in light of current employment relations’ practices.

The intention is to extend the current debate on employment relations under adverse changes such as pay reductions. Thus, the unique contribution of this study is to examine the value of EI in modifying extreme employee reactions to adverse changes.

Studies comparing the consequences of payroll cost reduction methods (i.e. cutting pay and downsizing) have been limited, with no studies comparing these methods' impact on job-seeker attraction. The current research tries to close this gap by comparing the effects of cutting pay and downsizing on job-seeker attraction outcomes.

Two studies are conducted. The first study compares the effects of the two payroll cost reduction methods (i.e. cutting pay vs downsizing) on job-seeker attraction through a within-subject design experiment of people in the United States. The second study analyzes secondary data in South Korea to compare the two methods' effects on the number of job applicants applying for job openings.

The results demonstrate that organizations with a history of pay cuts yield more favorable job-seeker attraction outcomes than organizations with a history of downsizing.

Although firms that choose to downsize may better maintain the morale of surviving employees, the decision of downsizing can have long-term costs, such as having a worse capability to attract job-applicants than firms that choose to cut pay and share the pain as a group.

The research provides an insight into which payroll cost reduction method yields better outcomes in terms of job-seeker attraction. The research responds to the call in the payroll cost reduction method literature of identifying a feasible alternative to downsizing in terms of various outcomes other than the morale of current (or remaining) employees.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how initial employment experiences of new entrants to the labor market, which results from changes in organizations employment practices affect individuals’ expectations from their future employers (their anticipatory psychological contracts and anticipated job insecurity) and to explore the implications of these effects for theory and practice.

The paper focussed on four common experiences and tested the hypotheses about their effects using data collected by a relatively large survey among mature college students with work experience (n=1,164).

Individuals who had been exposed to the experiences of being laid off, witnessing layoffs and having to accept reductions in pay or status held higher transactional and lower relational expectations from their future employers, in comparison with individuals who had not been exposed to such experiences. They also anticipated a higher level of job insecurity in their future employment.

In order to mitigate the potential negative consequences of the phenomenon discovered on employee retention and organizational performance, organizations have to develop and implement specific HR practices to deal with cohorts of new members, who have been exposed to the employment experiences investigated. Of particular importance are orientation and socialization practices that address new recruits’ concerns and expectations, and exposing new members to training and learning experiences that increase their employability outside the organization.

This is one of a few studies that documents empirically the (anecdotally based) claims about the effects of changes in the economic environment on individuals’ employment expectations and perhaps the first study to focus specifically on the effects of initial experiences of entrants to the labor market. It extends psychological contract research by focussing on the antecedants and formation of the psychological contract rather than on its consequences and on the anticipatory contract rather than on employees’ current psychological contracts.

This chapter examines the evolution of the number of days spent on sick leave following the 2011 reform which halved the maximum sick benefit provided by statutory health insurance in Hungary. This policy change sharply decreased benefits for a large group of high earners, while leaving the incentive to claim sickness benefits unchanged for lower earners, providing us with a “quasi-experimental” setup to identify the incentives effect of sickness benefits. We use a difference-in-differences type methodology to evaluate the short-term effect of the reform. We rely on high-quality administrative data and analyze a sample comprised of prime-age male employees with high earnings and stable employment. Our results show that the number of days spent on sick leave fell substantially for those experiencing the full halving of benefits. Estimating the response of the number of sick days with respect to the fall in potential sickness benefits, we find a significant elasticity of −0.45.

Little research has explored how best to reduce labor costs when the economy turns down. A recent phone survey of CEOs and senior executives at 20 “Fortune 100” companies suggests that CEOs are now concerned and confused about how best to shrink their workforce. It also indicates that they would rather use layoffs than pay cuts to reduce labor cost. But these senior executives realize they cannot “shrink to greatness.” Eventually these successful companies must again begin to add staff. So planning strategically now for both the growth and shrinkage of the workforce is essential to providing a high‐performance workforce and workplace.

This paper aims to present an analysis of the nature and drivers of company‐level concession bargaining during the financial crisis 2008‐10 in Germany.

The paper is based on five company case studies. Data collection methods include document analysis and semi‐structured interviews.

Using the five cases, it was possible to identify different ways in which companies were affected by the financial crisis itself, by various company‐level adjustment strategies, and by various implications of the crisis and the collective agreements resulting from it. The author found that company‐level social partners, supported by public policies, were able to avoid redundancies and keep employees in work, while helping the company to survive.

The findings show that social partners at company level are able to agree on cooperative solutions to reduce labour costs in order to ensure the company's viability.

The findings are important for understanding key aspects of the German “job miracle” both during and after the global financial crisis.

Fiscal stress has spurred city governments to search for ways to reduce costs. Human resource professionals and municipal budget officers have been searching for ways to reduce personnel-related costs because this is where the greatest savings can be realized. This paper identifies and examines different personnel cost-containment strategies pursued by a national sample of 90 large U.S. cities. It focuses on hiring, wages and hours, employee benefits and other HR-related actions. Results indicate that jurisdictions whose municipal fiscal conditions are considered to be fair or poor are more likely than cities whose fiscal conditions are perceived to be good to excellent to use many of the cost reduction strategies. Other demographic and organizational variables had some limited relationship with the use of strategies, but were not as significantly associated with costcontainment actions as city economic climate.

This study investigates the mediating role of wage and workforce adjustments, along with the moderating influence of collective bargaining system and employees’ localization, in elucidating the relationship between the COVID-19 shock and workplace employee relations (ER) tension.

Survey data from 1,483 enterprises across 21 prefectural cities in China’s Guangdong Province are collected. The hypotheses are tested by logistic regression.

The study reveals a positive correlation between the COVID-19 shock and workplace ER tension across crisis-hit enterprises, irrespective of their size or industrial sector. Wage reduction and mass layoffs emerge as significant mediators, while the collective bargaining system (CBS) and employees’ localization act as moderators.

The measurement of ER is limited in a single-item scale. Representation of China is also limited since the study exclusively focuses on Guangdong province. The study offers some contributions that firm-level data reveal the pathway through which COVID-19 creates ER tension.

On the one hand, the authors recommend the establishment of an effective communication system between employers and employees. On the other hand, managers should consider the role of informal institutions. Furthermore, the authors suggest implementing tailored strategies at the enterprise level.

Intense external shocks result in widespread layoffs and increased wage reductions within workplaces, and under such circumstances, formal or informal institutions may be insufficient to alleviate ER tension. In this case, the state authorities – including governments and other public agencies or bodies – are necessary to intervene in to organize tripartite dialogue.

While numerous emerging studies on COVID-19 explore how different countries manage industrial relations tension at the national level, few focus on ER at workplace level, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how workplace ER evolve during external shocks and identifying institutional measures to mitigate their negative impact is crucial for future crisis management.

This paper aims to present an empirically driven crisis management framework of complementary human resource management (HRM) bundles that can be utilized in simultaneously managing the health crisis, financial crisis and disruptions to business operations through lockdown and other government restrictions propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The framework is developed employing qualitative methodology, drawing from the successful HRM practices adopted by 26 Sri Lankan companies in battling the many crises of COVID-19 and using the soft HRM approach as the theoretical basis.

The findings report a framework that consists of three key HRM bundles (health and safety bundle, cost-saving bundle and employee motivation and engagement bundle) entailing an array of inter-related, internally consistent, complementary and mutually reinforcing HRM practices and HRM activities. These HRM bundles and the HRM practices as well as the HRM activities therein, indicate how a softer approach to managing employees can be used during a crisis.

The framework will inform the HRPs of the HRM bundles, HRM practices and HRM activities that can be used to manage the multiple crises created by COVID-19 and other similar pandemics.

The study contributes to and expands the knowledge of HRM in crisis management generally and HRM in a global pandemic more specifically.

This paper has two purposes. First, it aims to explore how Australian universities used calculative rhetoric and practices through accounting numbers to persuade employees and legitimize their financial recovery plans to alleviate the financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, it aims to analyze how the accounting-based solutions were legitimized through a well-blended pathos, logos and ethos rhetoric.

Building on a rhetorical theory of diffusion, we employed a qualitative research design within all 37 Australian public universities involving Internet-based documentary analysis.

This study finds that in an urgent crisis like the fiscal crisis caused by COVID-19, universities again found rescue in accounting tools, in particular budgets, as a rhetorical device to justify their operational and strategic choices such as job-cuts, programs closures and staff pay-cuts. However, in this crisis, the same old accounting-based solutions were even more quickly to be accepted by being delivered in management’s colorful blending of pathos–logos–ethos rhetoric.

While this study is constrained to Australian public universities’ financial responses, its findings have implications for university decision-makers and higher education policymakers across the globe when it comes to university management using calculative devices in persuading employees to work their way through financial hardship caused by an extreme health crisis-like COVID-19 pandemic.

This study adds more evidence that the use of budgets as a calculative tool continues to play a key role in organizations in the construction, mobilization and preservation of certain strategic and operational choices during volatilities. Especially, the same way of creating calculative-based solutions can be communicated via the colorful blending of different rhetoric to make it acceptable.