Comparing Employee Relations in Great Britain, Sweden, and South Africa

Abstract

Building positive employee relations can attract and retain employees, improve employee productivity, increase company loyalty, and exert other positive effects on business organizations. This essay compares welfare states and labor laws in Great Britain, Sweden, and South Africa. Several studies have compared welfare states, statutory working-time regulations, employment protection legislation, statutory pay minima, and statutory work councils across various regions. Here, we define and compare employee relations with industrial relations in addition to our comparison of welfare states and employment laws in three countries; we outline the factors affecting the development of employee relations accordingly. The constructs of welfare state and employment law developed in this study may have a noteworthy impact on future research.