Meaning & use
employee representative
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountablebusiness
A person who is chosen to speak or act for the employees in a workplace, especially in meetings with management.
Grammar: Countable: an employee representative, several employee representatives.
Patterns
- employee representative on a committee
- elected as an employee representative
- meet with employee representatives
The employee representative raised the issue of working hours.
She was elected as an employee representative for the factory.
Management met with employee representatives to discuss the new schedule.
Word forms
| plural | employee representatives |
|---|
Common combinations
- elected employee representative
- The elected employee representative attended the board meeting.
- employee representative body
- The employee representative body voted on the proposal.
- consult employee representatives
- The company must consult employee representatives before making changes.
- employee representative on the safety committee
- He serves as the employee representative on the safety committee.
Synonyms and how they differ
- union representative
- A union representative is specifically from a labor union; an employee representative may or may not be a union member.
- workers' representative
- This is a close synonym, but 'employee representative' is more formal and common in official documents.
Word family
- represent verb
- to speak or act for someone
- representation noun
- the act of speaking or acting for someone
- representative noun
- a person chosen to act for others
Commonly confused: employee representative or employer representative?
employee representative vs employer representative
An employer representative speaks for the company, while an employee representative speaks for the workers. They are on opposite sides in talks.
Practice
Who is an employee representative?
Choose one answer.
An employee representative is chosen to speak or act for the employees. The other options describe owners, customers, or inspectors, not someone representing workers.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “employee representative”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.