This article is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (June 2008)

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as: "A person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed." Black's Law Dictionary page 471 (5th ed. 1979).

In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive activity, generally with the intention of generating a profit, and the employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually in return for payment of wages. Employment also exists in the public, non-profit and household sectors. To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is not universal, unemployment exists.

Employer

Look up employer in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

An employer is a person or institution that hires employees or workers. Employers offer hourly wages or a salary in exchange for the worker's labor power, depending upon whether the employee is paid by the hour or a set rate per pay period. A salaried employee is typically not paid more for more hours worked than the minimum, whereas wages are paid for all hours worked, including overtime.

Employers include everything from individuals hiring a babysitter to governments and businesses which may hire many thousands of employees. In most western societies, governments are the largest single employers but most of the work force is employed in small and medium businesses in the private sector.

Although employees may contribute to an enterprise, the employer maintains control over the productive base of land and capital, and is the entity named in contracts. The employer typically maintains ownership of intellectual property created by an employee within the scope of employment and as a function thereof. These inventions or creations become the property of the employer based on a concept known as "works for hire".

An employers’ relative level of power over employees is dependent upon numerous factors; the most influential being the nature of the employment relationship. The relationship employers share with employees is affected by three significant factors – interests, control and motivation. It is up to employers to effectively manage and balance these factors to ensure a harmonious and productive working relationship.

Interests can be best described as monetary constraints and economic pressures placed on organizations in their pursuit of profits. It covers facets such as labour productivity, wages and the effect of financial markets on businesses.

Wood et al (2004, p 355) describe control as being either output focused, focusing on desired targets with managers defining, and using, their own methods for reaching targets, or process controls, which specify the manner in which tasks will be achieved (Ibid, p. 357). Employer and managerial control within an organization rests at many levels and has important implications for staff and productivity alike, with control forming the fundamental link between desired outcomes and actual processes. Employers must balance interests such as decreasing wage constraints with a maximization of labour productivity in order to achieve a profitable and productive employment relationship.

Motivation is the third and most difficult of the factors for employers to effectively manage in the employment relationship . Employee motivation can often be in direct conflict with control mechanisms of employers, and can be broadly defined as that which energizes, directs and sustains human behaviour ( Stone, 2005, p 412). Dubin (1958, p 213) further elaborates on this, noting motivation as “something that moves a person to action, and continues him in the course of action already initiated.”

The employment relationship is thus a difficult challenge for employers to manage, as all three facets are often in direct competition with each other, with interests, control and motivation often clashing in the equally important quest for individual employee autonomy, employer command and control and ultimate profits.

Employee

Look up employee in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

An employee contributes labor and expertise to an endeavour. Employees perform the discrete activity of economic production. Of the three factors of production, employees usually provide the labour.

Specifically, an employee is any person hired by an employer to do a specific "job". In most modern economies, the term employee refers to a specific defined relationship between an individual and a corporation, which differs from those of customer, or client.

Becoming an employee

Most individuals attain the status of employee after a thorough process of interviews with several departments within a company^{[citation needed]}. If the individual is determined to be a satisfactory fit for the position, he or she is given an official offer of employment within that company for a defined starting salary and position. This individual then has all the rights and privileges of an employee, which may include medical benefits and vacation days. The relationship between a corporation and its employees is usually handled through the human resources department, which handles the incorporation of new hires, and the disbursement of any benefits which the employee may be entitled, or any grievances that employee may have.

Types

There are differing classifications of workers within a company. Some are part-time and some are full-time and permanent and receive a guaranteed salary, while others are hired for short term contracts or work as temps or consultants. These latter differ from permanent employees in that the company where they work is not their employer, but they may work through a temp-agency or consulting firm. In this respect, it is important to distinguish independent contractors from employees, since the two are treated differently both in law and in most taxation systems. In the United States, employers are required to withhold income taxes, withhold and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, and pay unemployment tax on wages paid to an employee. Employers generally do not pay or withhold payroll taxes on payments to independent contractors.

Many companies further classify employees as exempt or non-exempt. This designation is used to separate employees that are eligible for overtime from those that are not. An exempt employee is one that is typically salaried and is not eligible to earn overtime. Non-exempt employees are typically paid hourly and are eligible for overtime pay.

Organizing

Employees can organize into trade unions or labor unions, who represent most of the available work force in a single organization. They utilize their representative power to collectively bargain with the management of companies in order to advance concerns and demands of their membership.

Ending employment

An offer of employment, however, does not guarantee employment for any length of time and each party may terminate the relationship at any time. This is referred to as at-will employment. In some professions it is customary to offer 2 weeks notice when resigning for a job. However, leaving two weeks notice may not be legally enforceable.[1]

Employment contract

Australia

In Australia there is the highly controversial Australian Workplace Agreement.

Canada

In the Canadian province of Ontario, formal complaints can be brought to the Ministry of Labour (Ontario). In the province of Quebec, grievances can be filed with the Commission des normes du travail.

India

India is having Contact Labour Act, Minimum Wages Act and Provident Funds Act. The contract labour in India has to be paid minimum wages and a lot of facilities are to be provided to labour. But a lot of work needs to be done to fully implement the Acts.

United States

In the United States, the standard employment contract is considered to be at-will meaning that the employer and employee are both free to terminate the employment at any time and for any cause, or for no cause at all. However, if a termination of employment by the employer is deemed unjust by the employee, there can be legal recourse to challenge such a termination. Unjust termination may include termination due to discrimination because of an individual's race, national origin, sex or gender, pregnancy, age, physical or mental disability, religion, military status and in California because of your marital status, ancestry, sexual orientation or medical condition. Despite whatever agreement an employer makes with an employee for the employee's wages, an employee is entitled to certain minimum wages set by the federal government. The states may set their own minimum wage that is higher than the federal government's to ensure a higher standard of living or living wage for their residents. Under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 an employer may not give different wages based on sex alone.[2]

In non-union work environments, in the United States, unjust termination complaints can be brought to the United States Department of Labor.

Trade Unions in the United States

In unionised work environments in particular, employees who are receiving discipline, up to and including termination of employment can ask for assistance by their shop steward to advocate on behalf of the employee. If an informal negotiation between the shop steward and the company does not resolve the issue, the shop steward may file a grievance, which can result in a resolution within the company, or mediation or arbitration, which are typically funded equally both by the union and the company.

Culture and Social Considerations

Impact on Culture

Different societies place differing levels of importance on the concept of "going to work". In some societies, work is less important to perceptions of individual social connection or value, while in other societies an individual's sense of worth and social standing is connected strongly to what a person "does for a living".

In southern European climates when summer temperatures are very hot, the hours spent at work can change. It is not uncommon for shops to close at noon and, towards sun down when temperatures cool, open up again for a few hours in the evening.

In Western (the United States and Canada), work has been assumed to take priority and everything else relegated from the 1930s to the end of the 1990s, but changes in demographics have resulted in changing views on the value of work.

Ideological shifts in demographic eras

The Depression era

The Depression placed great emphasis on work when it was so scarce that to not work literally meant to starve. Families were separated as men went looking for work wherever it could be found, whatever it was, no matter how menial. Life expectancy in the 1930s was also not as long as the current (2008) expectancies, so the option for a family to "move back in with parents" wasn't worthwhile, as parents either weren't alive, or didn't have the investment environment to have had a "nest egg" to depend on.

World War 2

World War 2 dramatically flipped the supply and demand of both work and labour. Manufacturing of war supplies created plenty of work, but the absence of men due to recruitment opened the floodgates for labour demand that would be met by women and those who could not enlist and fight.

Post World War 2

In the post-World War 2 period, the workplace had changed as women who had reported for work during the war to replace the men who had gone overseas to fight remained in the workplace to a significant extent. While the demand for manufacturing wasn't as high once the war ended, the new optimism and new social phenomena including urban sprawl and a new "teen experience" created new demands for supply that would create new jobs in road-building, real estate development, etc. Work remained high in social value.

Babyboom competition

As the baby boomers left school and started working in the 1970s, the oil crisis and economic lag slowed their engagement in consumerism. As the 1980s dawned, the largest generation were now in their peak employment years, peaking in terms of income, and were now fully engaged in buying, whether homes, or vehicles, or investments for the future.

The sheer number of people in the workforce during this period created heightened competition for work, so that corporations who supplied jobs could be increasingly selective and demanding, and workers would do more and more to keep the job they had. As such, commitment to work became sacrificial, as having a good job and the social status it provided became all-consuming for many. This was the era marked most significantly by the standard introduction of "so, what do you do?"