Editorial Board

A Refereed Monthly International Journal of Management

Employee Relationship Management (ERM) and its Significance- A Systematic Review

Author

Girish Prasad Das Research Scholar Dept. of Business Administration Berhampur University, Berhampur, Odisha.

Dr. Nihar Ranjan Mishra Reader, Dept. of Business Administration Berhampur University, Berhampur, Odisha.

Narayana Maharana Research Scholar Dept. of Business Administration Berhampur University, Berhampur, Odisha

Abstract

This paper is mainly dealing with the systematic review of different studies carried out on the subject of employee relationship management and its impact on organisation development and other Human Resource related benefit. The study incorporates a critical review of literature ranging from a wide range of countries and industries. However, there exist some limitations of availability, accessibility and annexation of all the existing and relevant works. From the human resource point of view, research on employee engagement and development has got high relevance in recent years. Employee motivation and retention are the buzzwords of the present business world and all the organisations are endeavouring to motivate and retain employees through employee relationship management. The scope of employee relationship management is vast and as such, standardising ERM strategies across industries and business environment is a critical task. The study simply attempts to gather information to provide some input to the researchers and academicians regarding the different trends in Employee relationship management practices

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management, Organisational Development, Employee Motivation, Employee Engagement, Review of Literature.

Introduction

A healthy management-employees relationship is essential for the positive growth of an organisation. Moreover, the performance of employees depends upon the organisational atmosphere largely. Autonomy of the employees in delivering their duty in the presence of hierarchical control by immediate superiors and maintaining a balance between these two elements need a good employee-employer relationship. The management constantly trying to maintain harmony, motivation, loyalty and satisfaction among their employees to ensure steady growth and peaceful functioning of the enterprise. Job satisfaction of employees is more essential for the retention of key and valuable employees of an organisation. Hence, understanding the nature of the management-employee relationship and nurturing this relationship is very essential in the part of the management. Therefore, the present study is exclusively designed to discuss the needs and impact of ERM practices in any organisation. There are few important questions leads to this paper. Firstly, how far employee relationship management is necessary for an organisation? Secondly, what are the pre-requisites for establishing employee relationship? Thirdly, what is the impact of employee relationship management? The major findings and the identified gaps are discussed after a thorough review of different pieces of literature.

Objectives

This study aims at the following objectives:
1.	To explore the importance of ERM in different private and public sector enterprises.
2.	To examine the effect of ERM on employee’s performance 
3.	To identify the issues and challenges faced by organisations while implementing ERM.
4.	To provide suggestions on how to overcome different hurdles and apply ERM in the organizations.

Significance

The worth of the research comes from the following aspects: 
1.	It explores the ERM concept which is currently emerging trend and there are a little knowledge and agreement about it.
2.	To offer some useful information about ERM to be used for empirical research that can contribute to building up researcher’s knowledge and understanding of ERM concept. 
3.	This study helps different public and private sector organizations to achieve a high level of performance by applying efficient ERM strategy.
4.	This study provides different researchers and academicians across the globe a hand full of readily available information about ERM concept, process and implementation.

Methodology:

The study is basically a review of existing published and unpublished research works collected from various sources and databases. Importantly, the review is done on Employee relationship management strategies and its impact on the different aspects of an organisation. The critical review of different researches is done by accessing several research articles, journals, magazines, newspapers, websites, e-library databases like Inflibnet, Google Scholar, ProQuest, EBSCO host etc. the collected research papers sorted out depending on various parameters and keywords, and then the gist of the papers are collected and rearranged to provide a clear and concise view of the works. At the end of the paper, a list of the most referred and cited works its findings are represented in a tabular form.

Defining Employee Relationship Management:

Employee relationship is a special kind of interpersonal relationship. The concept of ERM has its origin to the 20th century coined to refer the relationship of right and obligation, and management between the enterprise and the employees. Employee relation is largely influenced by the economic, political, legal and socio-cultural background of the society (Yongcai, 2010). Employee relationship is mainly dealing with the internal relationship between the employer and employee in an organisation, this internal relationship is focussed on theories of human behaviour (Liao et al., 2004). Therefore, it can be defined as the relationship between the employer and employees or the manager and the staff, aimed towards creating good morale, trust and a productive and conducive work environment (Bajaj et al., 2013). ERM concept is generally understood as a strategy, program or technology to manage relationships in an organisation. At times ERM is equalised with the concept of Customer Relationship Management, but the reality is the ERM is a derived concept of CRM (Lagergren & Andersson, 2013). According to Yongcai, (2010) ERM can be presented as a special subject of human relationship management. It is the process of adopting different control methods and regulatory frameworks to manage relationships among the company, the management staff and the employees in order to achieve the organisational objective (Jing, 2013). As per the words of Bergeron (2003), “ERM is a dynamic process of managing the relationship between knowledge worker and corporation such that knowledge workers elect to continue a mutually beneficial exchange of intellectual assets for compensation in a way that provides value to the corporation and is dissuaded from participating in activities that are unprofitable to the corporation” Oluchi (2013) defined ERM as “a process that companies use to effectively manage all interactions with employees, ultimately to achieve the goals of the organization. The human resources department can play a critical role in this process, both in terms of training and coaching managers and executives on how to effectively establish and nurture relationships with employees and in measuring and monitoring those relationships to determine whether objectives are being met.” Pareek & Rai, (2012), stated that ERM is all about organisational communication that should be effective enough to build employee confidence, trust and loyalty. It's an efficient tool that makes the employee give their best. Moreover, the concept of ERM enables the organisations to identify, differentiate, interact and personalize the relationship with their staff. Similarly, Yongcai, (2010), levels ERM as the very aspect of Human resource management with special emphasis on management of communication between the employer and employee to improve staff satisfaction, support enterprise to attain the organisational goal. “ERM is a term that refers to relationship development and management between employers and their employees. There are a lot of different issues that can affect employee satisfaction, which has a direct result on employee productivity and overall corporate culture.” (employee surveys.com, 2013).

Elements of Employee Relationship Management

The review of different ERM models revealed several important components or elements of Employee relationship management are discussed hereunder.

HR Practices: the first element in employee relationship management is human resource practices. It is the HRM department which looks after the proper maintenance of the ERM and its functioning that resulted in enhancing the quality of the organisation. As quality in productivity and output related to employee motivation and commitment that can be achieved through job satisfaction, participative management, career objective and development etc. improved and quality training policy can improve the satisfaction of employees in an organisation. The increase of job satisfaction level depends upon different factors that are mainly internal to the organisation. ERM is one of the factors that result in improved job satisfaction. Participative management, on the other hand, suggests that the management does not take much interest in understanding the issues relating to employee satisfaction and the consequence greatly affect the ERM status. Lastly, performance appraisal and wage policy are two vital aspects that determine the motivation level, job satisfaction and productivity of the employees and has a direct link with the employee relationship management (Bajaj & Sinha, 2013).

b.Communication: communication is the lifeline of any organisation which serves as a link between individuals or groups within and outside the organisation. Interactive or two-way communication is the most important factor in creating a relationship among people. Thinking of any relationship without any communication is quite impossible. Daniel, (2003), Claims that for building trust between employees, communication is essential. The level of communication indicates how well the employees and the employer is informed about the issues persisting in the enterprise. According to Noordin et al., (2010) communication keeps the employees well informed about the organisational matters as well as about their job-related issues that enable them to deliver their duty efficiently and better able to share ideas and knowledge with their colleagues. Chinomona & Sandada, (2013), makes clear by their study that, communication strengthens the relationship between employees and departments by creating a sense of trust and institutional harmony. Informal communication plays a credible role compared to formal communication in establishing a relationship through open discussions, better flow of information, efficiency and productivity.

c. Trust: Dirks & Ferrin, (2002), claim trust as an important factor that has a bearing on effectiveness, efficiency, performance and productivity. Trust travel through different phases of ups and downs in a relationship. More trust makes the length of the relationship longer and individuals are likely to understand each other by providing more opportunity for learning and knowledge sharing (Huang & Guo, 2009). Several pieces of studies argue that trust is based on two factors; integrity and reliability. Therefore, trust in a relationship is very much essential as like oxygen for the survival of any living organism (Herington et al., 2009). If the employees do not trust the management and the managers do not trust their subordinates then, it creates an invisible barrier in communication and negatively hampers the growth and development of both employees and organisation (Daniel, 2003).

d. Leadership Style: according to Wang et al., (2005), leadership has a significant impact on the performance of employees and managers in an organisation. Managers use different leadership styles or management styles to deal with their subordinates or employees. Armstrong, (2009), says different leadership styles determine the relationship between the employer/manager with the employees. Different styles of management impact the relationship differently.

e. Shared Goals and Values: according to Herington et al., (2009), the organisation goal is something that is common in the context of each and every employee of the enterprise. A common organisational goal creates a sense of value between the employee and employer. Shared values represent how far the organisational objectives and beliefs are common, the appropriate and inappropriateness of behaviour, policies and goal. Kantabutra & Avery, (2009) argue that the crux of shared goal lies in the relationship among employees and their participation in different undertakings. Chinomona & Sandada, (2013), says sharing goals makes the employees toward putting their maximum effort in achieving organisational goals and all this is possible when mutual collaboration and cohesion persists among employees. Moreover, sharing of common goals positively influence employee’s productivity and organisational goal. Similarly, another study by Pulakos & O’leary, (2011), shared goals makes employees understand how work is related across different departments and in the organisational hierarchy. It helps in aligning the duties of employees on strategically priority basis.

Effects of ERM

Employees are the vital and intellectual resources of any organisation which supports in its competitive advantage. It is highly essential for an organisation to have an effective ERM practice to enable the management of the employees in an efficient way. Efficient employee relationship management ensures the success of organisations and invariably ensures growth in the long run. Any issues relating to productivity and growth which are unidentifiable to some extent can be tackled well with the help of employee relationship management (Vineet et al., 2013). ERM has a significant impact on the employee’s performance (Yongcai, 2010). A win-win situation between the enterprise and the employees is possible through employee relation. By maintaining a healthy relationship between employer and employee, the organisation can easily maintain organisational capability and ability to identify and share knowledge and adapt to changes rapidly (Wargborn, 2008). According to Gegax, (2006), the effect of enriched employee relationship in an organisation brings more positivity in all aspects compared to merely employee’s performance.

Ngari and Agusioma (2013), studied the role of employee relationship on the organizations' performance by taking 160 employees of top middle and lower level in the universities of Nairobi, Kenya. The finding of their study suggests that a healthy relationship ensures a positive work environment that instead helps in achieving individual or group targets efficiently. Moreover, employees who practice an open line communication with their superiors are more likely to establish good work relationships and improved productivity. They also stressed the role of human resources department in the establishment of a healthy ERM.

The study of Gillenson et al. (2011), on the ERM practices and highly complex organisational setup with a constituency-based, inwardly focussed and IT-enabled self-service delivery and production environment. The results of the study suggest that the ERM system helps largely in providing good opportunities for increased efficiency among employees and greater job satisfaction. Moreover, technology-based self-service enables the simplification of the organisational communication system among employees and staff thereby increasing the effectiveness.

Herington et al. (2009), analysed the strength of the firm-employee relationship in Australian firms to propose a conceptual model. The model comprises seven elements that are depth and magnitude of a relationship, it is cooperation, balanced power, communication, attachment, shared goals and values, trust and absence of conflict. The study proposes that a higher level of relationship leads to value creation among employees and leads to better job performance and employee satisfaction. Again, they claim that trust is the key element of relationship management of employee's strength model.

Wargborn (2008), attempted to understand the role of employee relationship management on work motivation among employees by interviewing 12 managers of 12 different organisation having a head office at Portugal and Scandinavia in Norway Sweden and Finland. His study suggests that individually managed relationships between employer and employee create an environment of motivation. It not only helps in ensuring job satisfaction but also builds a sense of commitment towards the organisation. Again, he also argues that ERM is a process which gives a long-term benefit as far as motivation in work is concerned.

Daniela et al. (2008), in their research in the tourism industry of Timisoara, Germany about the impact of ERM on employee performance revealed that there exist a strong influence of career advancement opportunities, training and healthy relationship between the manager and employee, on the overall performance of the employees. Similarly, another study by Foley et al. (2008), in China on strategic human resource management, employee relationship and firm performance by taking around 600 Chinese enterprises revealed that there is a direct impact of Human resource practices and strategies on the financial and operational performance of the organisations and employee relationship climate either. As such, more efficient Strategic HRM practices resulted in better organisational performance. Again, a positive employee relations climate is likely to give a better outcome to the firm compared to those firms practising a very critical working climate lack of worker involvement and cooperation in decision making and communication.

The work of Carstens and Barnes (2004), intended to analyse the leader-employee relationship and its impact on business performance. The study compared the performance with their leader/ employee relationship of 45 area managers of a major listed bank of South Africa. The findings argue that a positive relationship between the manager or leader and employee leads to higher business performance. They also posit the importance of Trust among leader-employee in improving the business performance. Moreover, the study inferred that there exists a significant relationship between employee involvement and relationship management in decision making and overall business performance.

Tansel and Gazioglu (2013), analysed the relationship between job satisfaction, firm size and management-employee relations in the department of trade and industry, Britain. The workplace employee relation survey data is used for the study which includes the database of 28240 employees of 3000 established firms of Britain. The study results suggest that a decent management-employee relationship is necessary for better organisational performance and improved employee engagement. Firms lacking quality ERM practices are like to face low employee satisfaction. They also claimed that larger firms are having poor ERM practices compared to the smaller ones.

Kuzua and Ozilhan (2014), studied the impact of employee relations and knowledge sharing on the employee’s performance of the five-star hotels of Antalya, Turkey. The results of the empirical investigation suggests that, employee relationship and knowledge sharing have a moderate level of association with the employee productivity, whereas, this relationship can be strengthened by the factors like job satisfaction, working atmosphere, motivation etc. the study also claimed that employee-employer and employee-organisation relationship are necessary for building trust and organisational effectiveness.

Onyango (2014), analysed the effectiveness of ERM practices in large Civil Society organisations in Nairobi, Kenya. By using a descriptive analysis method with 1880 samples of 18 large civil society organisations with a structured questionnaire reveals that employee involvement in decision-making process induces a kind of togetherness and happiness among employees. The amount of support of the employer by means of training, encourage the employees for the qualitative development of employee relations

Prerequisites of ERM

A study by Bajaj (2013), in to provide suggestions regarding the implementation of HR practices in the public sector undertakings in India, he tried to explore the status of employee relationship management practices and its relationship with its various determinants. The findings of his research propose that a healthy relationship between employer and employee is important for the growth of the organisation. He also makes the point clear that compensation plays a vital role in building ERM of an organisation. To ensure a healthy ERM a company needs to pay its employees according to their performance. Proper HR practices and the role of Top-Level management is significant in building motivation among employees and improve ERM status.

Another identical study carried out in some public sector organisations in Madhya Pradesh, India by Bajaj et al. (2013). The authors aimed to understand the role of HRM in building good Employee relationship reveals that employee relation is healthy if there is a feeling of togetherness among employees and with the management of the organisation. The findings claim that employees need to have job satisfaction to build a healthy ERM status in the organisation and to have job satisfaction employees should feel more motivated through the policy decisions and pay related variables in an organisation.

Yang et al. (2011), Pioneered the concept of applying IT-based customer relationship management practices in studying employee relationships. The findings reveal that the concept of employee relationship management system intended for employee satisfaction is mainly designed to availing benefits and other services to employees which are largely influenced by the functions of system quality and its utility. Precisely, they concluded that a high-quality system's execution does not ensure a high degree of employee satisfaction with ERM systems unless it is highly useful. This unless the necessity of user requirement from the needs of human resource-based support system for implementation of employee relationship management.

Liao et al. (2004), claim that Knowledge is a very imperative resource for maintaining valuable heritage, problem-solving, learning new things, building core competencies, and for introducing innovative situations for both individual and organizations. Therefore, sharing of Knowledge i.e. the brainpower or intellectual capital requires Relationships and ensures competitive advantages. The study conducted in Taiwan finance and securities firm reveals that a good employee-owner relationship encourages the employee to share working knowledge and experience with co-workers voluntarily and unconditionally. Similarly, a poor relation of employees with the management of the firm makes the employees reluctant to share experience and knowledge. In other words, the findings pointed out that the success of knowledge sharing in an organisation depends both on the technological means and behavioural factors of employees equally.

Dumisani et al. (2014) paper aim to list out the importance of the employer-employee relationship and its impact on business growth. The study also highlighted the role of job satisfaction in stimulating favourable relationship with employee and employer and provide scope for the better management of the relationship. The findings depict that, job satisfaction is an accurate indicator of a healthy employee relationship in organisations. Employee-owner relationship plays a significant role in the growth and development of business, high level of job satisfaction among employees.

Kurt & Birgit (2006), conducted a study on 131 Austrian employees to investigate the relationship between interpersonal trust, employee satisfaction, loyalty, TQM and Business Excellence. Employee satisfaction is one of the significant drivers of customer satisfaction, quality and productivity in an organisation. Whereas, Employee relationship is the building block in ensuring employee satisfaction.

William & Lay (2000) in their study to examine the influence of the employee-organization relationship on temporary employees' job performance and attitude of Singapore employees. The data collected from 191 temporary employees are used to find out the influence of ERM on job satisfaction, affective commitment, the perception of fairness in work options, turnover intention etc. the findings highlight the significance of employee-organisation relationships in promoting the desired outcome of temporary employees. The study basically examined four types of employee-organisation relationships like quasi-spot, underinvestment, mutual investment and over-investment. It is concluded that both over investment and mutual investment relationships are responsible for higher performance and more favourable attitude among temporary employees whereas under-investment and quasi-spot relations are less productive. Further, a higher perception of fairness and work options, better job performance, and higher organisational commitment is witnessed in over investment relationships.

Wang, et al. (2018a), work discussed the whistle-blowing behaviour of employees that may be encouraged by good workplace relationships. The study provides mixed evidence regarding the employee's whistle-blowing intentions. The findings suggest that there exists a curve-linear relationship between interpersonal relationships and whistleblowing behaviour. When the person-group and person-supervisor relationship is high, the intention to blow the whistle decreases. Therefore, the study concluded that the relationship between whistleblowing and ERM is not linear but curvilinear.

Gambeta, et al. (2019), in their study investigated the orientation of organisational stakeholders towards its employees and its outcomes. The findings suggest that a strong firm-employee relationship contribute more towards higher exploitation rather than exploration. In addition to this, the firm-employee relationship has a contrasting effect on productivity relating to innovation and market value of the firm. On the other hand, the firm's relationship with its stakeholders found to have a moderating effect on aggravating both the positive and negative outcomes of firm-employee relationship.

The work of Kang & Sung (2017) on the mediating effect on the employee-organisation relationship on employee communication behaviour (ECB) and employee engagement taking randomly chosen 438 sales representatives. The findings of the study clarify that internal communication is linked with employee engagement which is related to employee communication behaviour and employee retention. Employee-owner relationships have a strong mediating effect on internal communication and employee engagement. Alegre et al. (2016), study examines the collective effect of employee-organisation, employee-supervisor, and employee-co-worker relationships on job satisfaction. The findings confirm that there are three different aspects of job satisfaction; "firstly, teamwork, identification with the strategy, and the absence of employee work-family balance; secondly, employee work-family balance, autonomy, and identification with the strategy; and thirdly supervisor support and identification with the strategy".

Kearney, (2017), investigated the simultaneous impact of front-line and back-office employees on customer-related organisational performance. The study carried out on 105 front-line sales employees and 77 back-office employees also examined the moderating effect of emotional intelligence on employee behaviour. The findings make clear that sales person's customer orientation has a direct impact on customer-related organisational performance and the emotional intelligence of sales personnel is directly related to customer directed citizenship behaviour of back-office employees. As such, front-line and back-office employee relationship has a strong bearing on organisational performance

Men, & Jiang, (2016) research based on the study of linkage between Employee-organisation relationship and internal communication, leadership and organisational culture carried out on United States industrial workers. The findings of the study reveal that organisational culture of supportiveness and trustworthy leadership are significant predictors of good employee-organisational relationship and internal communication system. Moreover, the internal communication system enhances the quality of the employee-organisational relationship.

Wang, et al. (2018b), researched the employee-organisation relationship (EOR) and employee unethical Pro-organisational behaviour (UPB). The findings reveal the significant relationship between employees with a higher level of moral value resulted from EOR and the weakening of UPB due to the high moral identity of employees. Strohmeier, (2013), Says “Employee relationship management (ERM) constitutes an emerging trend of managing human resources by building and maintaining individualized and mutually valuable relationships with employees based on information technology”. As the study is in its early stage, there exists a very limited knowledge base regarding the concept and influence of ERM in gaining competitive advantage. Strohmeier, (2013), study clarified the concept of ERM via customer relationship management and outlined the various interesting and ambitious implications of this concept in human relationships management through conceptual, theoretical and empirical investigations.

Daniel, (2003) says supervisors and managers are key employees of any organisation who is responsible for maintaining healthy internal and external relationships. Creating a positive employee relations environment is one of the important objectives of every manager. When the relation is strong, the employees are found to be more satisfied and productive in their job. Employee relation helps in employee retention by strengthens employee motivation and commitment. Therefore, employees value creation by carefully understanding employee needs relating to economic, psychological and social requirements. As in ERM, the involvement of people is essential, the management of people during times of organisational restructuring, technological change, market slump, retrenchment and layoffs is difficult. The organisation needs to ensure and systematize the procedural and interactional equity through the active involvement of employees (Singh & Kumar, 2011). Human resources are one of the most significant departments in any organisation. The management is responsible for the planning, organising, coordinating and controlling the human resources in order to achieve defined organisational goals. This creates the necessity of maintaining a healthy and positive employer and employee relationship for the overall growth and development of an organisation (Bratton & Gold, 2003). Survival of any organisation dependents largely on its employees. Employees are the first customers of an organisation, so their needs to be fulfilled first. According to Kar et al., (2011), ERM is the mantra of employee retention and fulfilling the expectations of employees is a continuous process needed for maintaining employee relationships.

Debaawy (2011), have a view that employee relationship is more like an iceberg in which the visible part is only the tip of the iceberg known to the whole world whereas the invisible part has no clue of its size and significance. Similarly, in organisations, the most important factors that determine the quality of the relationship is like the lower part of the iceberg which is under water. These factors can only be explored when we go deep into understanding employee needs. Rai, (2013) depicts employees as the pillars of an organisation in the building of the relationship with the customers. A careful and well-thought-out inventiveness is necessary by the enterprises to build a strong base for a durable relationship among employees within the organization.

Bajaj & Sinha, (2013) theorize that satisfied employees can only able to contribute to employee relationship management. ERM can be understood by equating with employee satisfaction and employee satisfaction can be attained by understanding employee needs through various methods like Training, Job satisfaction, job rotation, career planning, participative Management, performance appraisal etc. On a similar note Prouse, (2004) also point that the fact that, ERM has the ability to intensify employee satisfaction, commitment and retention due to the better orientation of employees towards career goals and ambitions.

Chapman & Goodwin, (2001) claim that a good employee relationship can fill the gap in employee productivity by promoting employee’s personal effectiveness and output. When managers cultivate a good relationship with fellow employees and guide them in their work, employees are likely to deliver more quality in their work. In simple words they say “Only through good relationships combined with strong, sensitive leadership can a cohesive department be built”.

Swarnalatha & Prasanna, (2013) argue that from the footprints of CRM the concept of Employee Relationship management is evolved. They describe that CRM is external to an organisation that explains “why an organisation does business?” whereas, ERM is internal, explaining “how an organisation does business?” ERM comprises varied functions that include learning, guidance, workforce analysis and other human resource related operations.

Singh & Kumar, (2011) pointed out the importance of employee relationship management within the organisation in a competitive business environment. The main objective of ERM is to deliver a successful and world-class venture through building positive relationship among employees. Gillenson & Sanders, (2005) comments that in large companies, where the employees are in thousands in number employee relationship is an intimidating job. Even though employees have interaction with their immediate supervisor but that is not sufficient enough to create an earnest feeling among the employee that the company really cares about them. Moreover, they argue that a loyal customer can be created by and through a loyal and committed employee in an organisation.

Buttle, (2009) also discussed about the creation of a long-term relationship with valued employees through ERM and its significance. ERM helps the managers with their activities of recruitment, training and performance appraisal. Employers communicate with their employees, share information relating to the job and organisational objective to build a common understanding. Employee relationship management also provides job-related information, workflow procedures and helps in maintaining a collaborative environment among fellow employees.

Thorzen, (2011) also opined that ERM provides support to the employees by providing information and knowledge about the products, processes and technologies prevailing in an organisation. It also assists the employee in delivering their day to day task more efficiently.

Krill, (2008) discussed the cost of losing a key employee. Retention of employees is extremely essential when there is a competition in the market, especially for talent and knowledge. In such circumstances, losing a productive and extremely talented employee is devastating. Employee relationship management is meant to maintain trust among employees about the management and their approach in creating a happy work environment. ERM touches every aspect within an organisation create happily and committed employees who work with more dedication.

Table-1: Brief Summary of the Reviewed papers:

SNo	Author (s)	Key findings
1	Bajaj (2013); Bratton & Gold, (2003); Carstens and Barnes (2004); Foley et al. (2008); Ngari and Agusioma (2013); Vineet et al., (2013)	Assist in the growth and development of an organisation, overall business performance/ Firms Productivity
2	Daniela et al. (2008); Gegax, (2006); Gillenson et al. (2011); Herington et al. (2009); Sinha & Bajaj, (2013); William & Lay (2000); Yongcai, (2010); Thorzen, (2011)	Helps in enhancing the Employee Performance, Efficiency
3	Chinomona & Sandada, (2013); Debaawy (2011); Holly (2014)	Better organisational Communication and management
4	Chinomona & Sandada, (2013); Herington et al. (2009); Singh & Kumar, (2011); Wargborn, (2008);	Assists in the Achievement of organisational goals/ objectives and capabilities
5	Chapman & Goodwin, (2001); Bajaj et al. (2013); Buttle, (2009); Krill, (2008); Kuzua and Ozilhan (2014); Onyango (2014); William & Lay (2000);	Induces a feeling of togetherness among employees, Cohesive atmosphere, collaboration environment; happy Work Environment
6	Bajaj et al. (2013); Dumisani et al. (2014); Herington et al. (2009); Kurt & Birgit (2006); Kuzua and Ozilhan (2014); Prouse, (2004); Sinha & Bajaj, (2013); Tansel and Gazioglu (2013); Yang et al. (2011);	Ensures job satisfaction/employee satisfaction
7	Armstrong, (2009); Wang et al., (2005);	Management approach and style, Leadership style is largely influencing ERM Practices in firms
8	Dirks & Ferrin, (2002); Daniel, (2003); Herington et al. (2009); Holly (2014);	Helps in Building Trust among employees and employers
9	Daniel, (2003); Gillenson & Sanders, (2005); Kar et al., (2011); Kuzua and Ozilhan (2014); Prouse, (2004); Wargborn (2008); William & Lay (2000);	Employee Retention, Motivation and Commitment, Employee loyalty
10	Huang & Guo, (2009); Kantabutra & Avery, (2009); Noordin et al., (2010); Pulakos & O’leary, (2011); Wargborn, (2008); Thorzen, (2011)	Helps in learning and knowledge sharing, Shared goals, clarification about job-related issues etc.
11	Liao et al. (2004);	Provides Competitive Advantage to the organisation.
12	Singh & Kumar, (2011);	Helps in change management in organisations
13	Wang, et al. (2018)	Enhances the Whistle-blowing behaviour of employees
14	Sinha & Bajaj, (2013)	Only satisfied employees can only able to contribute to employee relationship management
15	Swarnalatha & Prasanna, (2013);	ERM is internal, explaining “how an organisation does business?

Source: Authors own Interpretation

Conclusion

The assessment of the different studies carried out to understand the Relationship between Management and employees reveals the following points.
1.	Most of the studies agree to the fact that ERM practices ensure firm growth as well as employee productivity, satisfaction and commitment toward the organisation.
2.	Several studies also confirmed that without the presence of communication, trust, and effective leadership style in the organisation it is quite difficult to create and maintain a healthy employee relationship.
3.	Some researchers also confirm that sharing of knowledge, work-related information, and proper management of workflow is possible only in the presence of a good relationship among employees and employer.
4.	Moreover, it is also a fact that ERM creates a happy and sustainable work environment that motivates employees by creating a sense of togetherness and ensures organisational commitment.
5.	Rarely any study was found discussing the impact of ERM practices different firms. For example, how ERM works out in public sector firms and private sector firm, Comparative studies on the impact of ERM on employee’s productivity or competitive advantage gained by identical firms (i.e. Private and Public sector) belonging to the industry.
6.	Very few numbers of studies are there who claim about the whistle-blowing behaviour, Competitive advantage and change management is possible through proper management of employer-employee relationships.
7.	Hardly, any research is there that discussed the role of employees in the creation and maintenance of Employee relationship in an organisation, especially in Indian context.
8.	Very few researchers analysed about the impact of EMR practices of an organisation and its bearing on internal and external service quality management

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