At the heart of employment relations is the desire of both management and employees to create an ideal and  efficient and effective organisation. However, this does not always happen, and both employers and employees  and their representatives share the blame. For employees and their representatives, the us against them attitude is a catalyst for distrust. For employers, inflexibility and autocratic leadership styles make effective human resource management extremely difficult. Through interviews with management and union representatives, this experimental research explores causes of distrust, offers solutions and ends by suggesting the adoption of the Soft Human Resource Management (SHRM) approach as a solution to enhance trust in employee relations. The study focused on trust in organisations that have unionised workers.

Lydia Mhango is a PHD student at the Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia.  She is the head of Business and Management studies at the Directorate of Distance Education and Open Learning (DDEOL) of the Copperbelt University.  This will be her first exposure at an international event such as this one.  She has a few other publications in collaboration with colleagues at the Copperbelt University and other universities in Zambia.