The influence of social dialogue on the organization's performance.

Popescu, Luminita ; Popescu, Virgil ; Iancu, Anica 等

1. INTRODUCTION

The human resources of an organization must not be considered just a certain number of persons that work daily in conformity with the attributions specified in the operational charts, but they must be seen like an assembly of individuals made out of heterogenous groups of persons with their own different interests, objectives and points of view that must be harmonized with the organization's interests or general objectives. Therefore, the leadership of any organization must organize institutional structures that allow an active and participative social dialogue necessary for achieving and maintaining an organizational environment favourable for individual and organizational development/evolution.

Development of negotiations at organizational level represents a fairly recent phenomenon that refers to the assembly of human resources management and favors the discovery of some solutions adapted to the concrete problems. (Manolescu et al., 2007)

Being such an ambiguous notion, the social dialogue has many aspects, the definition generally accepted being that of a process of informing, consulting, consensuality, negotiation and even co-decision, in some cases.

2. INFORMATION

The new challenges of the contemporary world related to globalization, aging process of the population, reorganization of the work process, determine an analysis of the dialogue as a whole, with references to the national practice and the future perspectives of dialogue in the context of new social actors' emergence.

The notion of social dialogue has a positive signification: in the era of communications, the dialogue is a resource to capitalize on. The interest shown to the dialogue in the social domain can not be denied, since dialogue plays an essential role in detensioning the conflictual situations that can occur between employers and employees.

The social dialogue represents a factor of socio-economic progress, essential for the promotion of some decent work conditions and for the reduction of poverty. It has a central role in the European social policies, since it is manifested to all levels (Lefter et al., 2007):

* At interprofessional level, reuniting representatives of different professions at national scale;

* At professional branch level, grouping the representatives of the activities with common economic characteristics;

* At enterprise's level.

Within the Convention of the European Economic and Social Committee from 1999, the organized civil society was defined as representing an integrated and organized assembly of actors from the civic, economic and social life, inclusively the social partners - unions and syndicates, and organizations representing other socio-economic interests. The dialogue that is set between the social partners or between those and other groups of socio-economic interests is called social dialogue. (Manolescu et al., 2007)

Though the society of nowadays can be considered secure, there is a powerful feeling of insecurity perpetuated daily within its structure, due to the difficulty to protect oneself from the basic classical social risks the potential industrial, sanitary or ecological risks, this being the reason why we are witnessing a growing number of requests for protection adressed to the State.

The process by which the public authorities are consulting the citiznes is one of the viable means to reduce these feelings of insecurity when confronted with impredictible risks

The social dialog can be perceived like one of the evolution dimensions of the public action in the light of contracts, regularization structures and decentralization development. (Popescu et al., 2008)

The main objective of the social dialog is to favor the democratic participation and the consensus. Its functionality might assure the solving of social problems, the good management of public actions, social stability and stimulation of economic progress.

There are at least four reasons for which the social dialog can be successfully used as an public governance instrument.

* the social dialog allows the amelioration of public decision process. Taking into account the various opinions of all the parts interested permits to establish a common diagnostic and to identify possible decisions and to take the best decisions.

* the social dialog favors the acceptance of the decisions taken by the public authorities, the consultancies and debates serving for the prevention of the resistance to the decisions taken.

* the negotiation process allows the creation of added value. Negotiation is the privileged instrument to establish a dialog when complementary and antagonist interests are at stake.

* the governance without social partners can prove to be unproductive, especially in regard to reforms.

But, as we can talk about social dialog as an succesfull public governance instrument, we must admit and understand its limits:

* The social dialog is an instrument, not a target by itself.

* The political factor can not give up responsibilities. The work relationships, characterized by the report of force between employers and employees might need an intervention from the political factor to restore the balance. In addition, it is not always possible to organize a frame for social dialog.

* The collective negotiation is not an adequate instrument because the social partners can establish agreements in the detriment of the State.

* The social dialog is also an expensive process and time consuming for all the parts involved: administration, trade unions, employers, enterprises. In oder to take place, the dialog needs to set in motion important resources: the work time of the parts involved, expenses for organizing the meetings and sustaining the technical secretary or for financing studies that will represent the base of the discussions.

So, the notion of social dialog covers a lot of forms, mechanisms, procedures, and all these can lead to certain ambiguity.

The participation of employees to the social dialogue within the organization is a manner to consolidate its management, permitting the attenuation and prevention of future conflicts. At organizational level, the participation of employees to social dialogue is possible to the following levels (Emilian et al., 2010):

* At the level of each employee's work station level, when its goal is to determine the work conditions and the content of the specific activities, in order to achieve a high productivity of work, concomitently with the satisfaction at work station of the employee;

* At the level of interhuman relationships, meaning between individuals situated on different hierarchical levels but also in the case of collective relations, through their representatives (unions, representatives of the employees etc.);

* At the level of providing for employees material and financial incentives, meaning that many directions are targeted so to offer some incentives to the employees in order to reduce the costs of production and the volume of activity, but also to determine the growth of the production's quality and work's efficiency;

* At the level of association to the decisional power, respectively the participation of the employees to the enterprise's social capital, a fact that emhances the degree of involvement - self-motivation of the employees.

The themes that make the object of social dialogue are permanently extending. The organization becomes more and more involved in problems related to the respect shown for human rights, environmental protection, public health, democracy or union liberty. The actors of social dialogue have begin lately to multiply: shareholders, suppliers, clients, consumers.

Consequently, new manners of consultation appear at the level of any organization, such as a dialogue extended towards the civil society. The new partners of dialogue are associating in local, national, european or international networks to debate the problem of economic actors' reponsibility and to define the social principles and the environmental protection ones that are accepted by the large majority.

3. CONCLUSION

The new challenges in the social dialog domain are multiple--new debate themes, new dialog frames, new actors, new expectations of the citizens from the State.

In Romania, construction of the social dialogue platform has debuted at national level in 1997 with the creation of the Economic and Social Council. This is a tripartite and autonomuous public institution of national interest and its main goal is to achieve and support the social dialogue at national level between unions, syndicates and government, but also a climate of stability and social equilibrium.

The Constitution of Romania (reviewed in 2003) defines the Economic and Social Council as a consultative structure for the Parliament and Govern in the specialized domains of activity stipulated by its law of organization and functioning. (C.E.S., 2010).

The Economic and Social Council has a consultative role in the elaboration of economic and social strategies and policies, in settling conflictual situations that have emerged at branch or national level between the social partners, as well as in the achievement, promotion and development of the social dialogue and social solidarity.

The State's action although contested can bring the amelioration, modernization and consolidation of the social dialog.

1. The consolidation of the functionaries sensitiveness to the social dialog, making from the receptiveness to the social dialog an element of evaluation.

There can be identified four elements concerning the promoting of a better relationship between the public authorities and the social partners: avoiding the formal debates when listening to the dialog partners is only pretended, setting real deadlines for the consultancy procedure, developing more transparent work methods.

2. The amelioration of the social dialog within the public administration, respectively the social dialog commissions.

There are three action directions regarding the relaunch of consultancy by a better coordinate action of the social dialog structures or the institutions involved, especially at local level, by the consolidation of negotiations and respecting the engagements taken, and also the "reorganization" of the social dialog so to allow the actors the debate of the problems of interest, to all adequate levels, with all the optimal means.

3. A better grasp of the realities concerning the social dialog.

The objective is the amelioration of the statistical data in order to elaborate a more precise diagnostic of the social dialog situation and for the amelioration of the information for the employees, the ones targeted by the social dialog results.

4. Creation of methodological norms on the practical modalities to develop the social dialog.

The objective is the consolidation of the consultancy process and making the social dialog efficient.

4. REFERENCES

Emilian, R.; Tigu, G. & State, O. (2010) http://www.bibliotecadigitala.ase.ro--Managementul resurselor umane (Human Resources Management), Accessed on: 2010-05-24

Lefter, V.; Mazurencu Marinescu, M. & Bogdan, A. (2007) Relatii de munca si dialog social: instrumente de masura si diagnostic (Work Relations and Social Dialogue. Measurement and Diganostic Instruments). Economie teoretica si aplicata, nr. 2 / 2007 (507), pp. 41-48, ISSN 1844-0029

Manolescu, A.; Lefter, V. & Deaconu, A. (2007). Managementul resurselor umane (Human Resources Management), Editura Economica, ISBN 978-973-709-2908, Bucuresti

Popescu, V.; Popescu, L.; Iancu, A. & Dirinea, D. (2008). The Social Dialog, Face to Face with the Challenges Launched by the New Social Actors and the Society's Development, Proceedings of Management International Conference, pp.217-228, ISBN 978-961-6573-99-, ISSN 1854-4312, November 2008, Barcelona

*** (2010) http://www.ces.ro--Consiliul Economic si Social, (Economic and Social Council), Accessed on: 2010-05-01