The development of more complex organisational forms – such as cross organisational networking, partnerships, alliances, use of external consultants for core as well as peripheral activities, multi-employer sites and the blurring of public/private sector divide – has implications for both the legal and the socially constituted  nature of the employment relationship.

The idea of a clearly defined employer-employee relationship becomes difficult to uphold under conditions where employees are working in project teams or on-site beside employees from other organisations, where responsibilities for performance and for health and safety are not clearly defined, or involve more than one organisation.

This blurring of the relationship affects not only legal responsibilities, grievances and disciplinary issues and the extent of transparency and equity in employment conditions, but also the definition, constitution and implementation of the employment contract defined in psychological and social terms.

Do employees perceive their responsibilities at work to lie with the wider enterprise or network organisation? And do these perceptions affect, for example, how work is managed and carried out and how far learning and incremental knowledge at work is integrated in the development of the production or service process?

So far the investigation of both conflicts and complementarities in the workplace has focused primarily on the dynamic interactions between the single employer and that organisation’s employees.

Introducing notions of multi-employer relationships on the employment relationship also calls into question the single employer assumptions underpinning both the approach to employment law and employment rights and to the management of the employment relationship.

The questioning of the appropriateness of the assumption of a single employer in employment law adds a further dimension to the debate about how to provide effective protection for employees in a period of diversifying employment statuses.

That diversity can be seen to include complex multi-employer relationships and not simply issues of atypical employment contracts.

The recognition of multi-employers and multiple organisations also adds a further complexity to the notion of organisational commitment, a concept already under pressure due to increased job insecurity and the growing likelihood of boundaryless rather than bureaucratic careers as the dominant employment form of the future. Here the problem is not just one of short time commitment to an organisation but of the presence of multiple employers leading to potentially contradictory pressures for organisational commitment.
In these circumstances, it would be sensible not to place too much faith in the power and the pervasiveness of notions of commitment, as evidenced in the doctrines of human resource management. The introduction of multi-employer relationships calls into question any notion of a single best way or best approach to employment management.

Employment law in the future may have to take into account these multi-employer relationships, thereby creating problems for managers establishing ‘best practice’ routines or systems designed to ensure against any need for direct recourse to the law for individual employees.

Where employment relationships span more than one employer, such systems may be more difficult to design and implement. Similarly, in the field of human resource management, it may be impossible for managers to avoid making more use of direct contractual systems of control while at the same time increasing the autonomy of employees to take charge of and manage complex relationships.

Information technology can only provide at best a partial solution to these control problems. It is possible that inter-organisational relationships will continue to depend upon a dual approach, based on contract and on status.

About Contributor
Dr Tim Baker is managing director of WINNERS-AT-WORK, a human resource development consultancy based in Brisbane. Dr Baker can be contacted at tim@winnersatwork.com.au