When a conflict arises within your organization, you’ve got plenty on your mind as a business leader. Your first priority is to ensure that fair and swift action is taken, so that the issue doesn’t grow into something more permanent and damaging.
If that doesn’t happen and employees are left dissatisfied, a union campaign can be launched against your organization. Work unions have countless detrimental impacts on a business, many of which don’t even begin to surface until long after the campaign is underway. Keep reading for more insight on how work unions can impact a company!
Complaints are extremely costly. Negative employee relations take time, effort, and a lot of money to repair. Between attorney fees and investigation processes, your bill will start to add up quickly.
Leadership needs to be reassessed. You can only imagine how time-consuming it is to evaluate and re-train your frontline leaders if necessary. If your upper management is viewing the company through the lens of an hourly worker, rather than utilizing their business skills to manage and lead, communicating new concepts and practices will take time and patience.
Contract negotiations cost you and your business even more money. Work unions want you to back down and concede to the employees’ demands during the negotiation process. Complaints continue to roll in and pile up during this time, forcing you to outsource work or hire additional staff to manage the growing workload.
A strike is always a possibility with a work union. In the event that your employees decide to strike, you need to have a plan in place ahead of time to handle the damage. Not only will a strike cost you financially, but it could also impact the relationship between you and your customers.
Work unions impact your public reputation. During a union campaign, news of the event will undoubtedly spread. Although you’ll want to keep details of this workplace conflict private, word will get out and could harm the reputation of your business for good.
These are only a handful of the impacts work unions can have on your company. For a more in-depth look at how to avoid a union campaign, contact RWP Labor today!
