ben

For the last four years, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has delivered amongst the safest services in the Country for its patients whilst also achieving the highest employee engagement scores in the NHS. These achievements were capped by the recent CQC Inspection establishing the Trust as only the second in the country to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ rating. The only other Trust to achieve this rating is Frimley Park, which also has amongst the best engagement scores in the NHS.

A corner stone of our success has been the 2008 launch of a Quality Improvement Strategy which was aimed at reducing harm and mortality.  At the heart of all this work has been the desire to make fundamental improvements in the quality of care for all patients at Salford Royal and the delivery of  these improvements has focussed on working with our teams at the front line of care, using established Quality Improvement Methodology to safely test, evaluate and implement changes. We use several Quality Improvement Methodologies such as The Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Breakthrough Series Collaborative Model, lean methods and tools and Microsystems coaching.

The feedback from our people about how involved they feel in change within the Trust is amongst the highest in the NHS and the results of this model of deep colleague engagement has produced significant results, which has taken the Trust from amongst the poorest performers 12 years ago to now being amongst the 10% safest places to be treated in the NHS, seen a 90% reduction in clostridium difficile and a 51% reduction in cardiac arrests and results in 90% of patients rating their care to be very good or excellent.

This hasn’t all just come about through engagement – there had to be a focus to all this work, which stemmed from a big and bold objective set by the Trust Board, which was to become the ‘safest place in the NHS’.  At the time of setting this goal in 2008, it seemed like an over ambitious one, especially considering the performance at that time. The progress however since this bold objective has been significant and shows what you can do with a big, memorable goal (all our colleagues can easily remember the goal and understand the day to day part they can play in this) and then a method of truly involving and trusting front line colleagues to make the right changes.

A proven ability to involve colleagues of all levels in the pursuit of excellence

As discussed above, at the core of the methodologies used by Salford Royal is the engagement of front line teams in the development of solutions to the problems that face them. During quality improvement projects of all kinds, teams are taught the ‘Model for Improvement’ and ‘Plan Do Study Act’, these methodologies are fundamental in empowering all levels of colleagues to make changes in their areas in the pursuit of improving quality and safety.

To complement this approach, we have throughout all three of our Quality Improvement Strategies had a commitment to developing our workforce at all levels. As part of our capability building we provide colleagues with training opportunities to develop quality improvement capability, this includes:

A suite of modules which cover the basics of many aspects of quality improvement including:

The Model for Improvement

Managing Improvement Projects

Patient Safety

Reliable Care

Measurement for Improvement

Human Factors

Clinical Quality Academy

A comprehensive deep-dive into improvement methods and techniques

A 12 month programme offered to clinician led teams

Bespoke quality improvement training as requested by divisions, wards and departments to support local quality agenda

Implementation of Clinical Microsystems Coaching on a rolling programme

A patient-centric approach

At the centre of Quality Improvement at Salford Royal is the patient, they are the reason that we want to improve care, whether it is reducing harm and mortality or making care more reliable, ultimately the outcome is: how does this affect the patient.  Since the first strategy we have also involved patients in Quality Improvement projects where appropriate, inviting them to be part of project steering groups and learning sessions so that they can help us to understand how the changes we want to make will affect them. We have also had a comprehensive programme of collecting patient stories. The purpose of these stories is to set a tone of patient centeredness and to put the patient at the centre of any decision making.

Finally, in January 2013 Salford Royal launched a project aimed directly at improving patient, family and carer experience. This project has been designed to deliver what matters most to our patients and is part of our wider Patient Experience Strategy. A fundamental element of this Patient Experience Strategy has been the development of Always Events. These are an Institute for Healthcare Improvement Methodology taking the concept of Never Events – i.e., things that should never happen in a health care environment and flipping them around. Always Events are something that our patients should always expect to receive when they come into our Trust. The Trust Always Events were developed through focus groups with our patients and their families.

We firmly believe that our significant engagement levels have only come about following the whole organisation rallying around a single, memorable cause- to become the safest place in the NHS – and our commitment to support all colleagues in making improvements, not matter how big or small, to ensure that everyone feels able to contribute to this cause.

Paul Renshaw is Executive Director of Organisational Development and Corporate Affairs at the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.

The union movement came together last week for TUC Congress to discuss the challenges and opportunities that the coming year will bring.

The most pressing challenge is undoubtedly the Trade Union Bill. The Conservative manifesto promised a minimum statutory threshold for strike ballots of 50%, and an additional threshold for ‘essential public services’ where 40% of eligible members would have to vote for action.

The bill though – which recently passed the first hurdle in the Commons – goes far further than the manifesto commitments. Employers would be allowed to bring in agency workers to cover striking employees, allowing them to nullify the impact of industrial action. It also introduces significant and burdensome new restrictions on picketers, for example requiring them to give two weeks’ notice if you intend to use a loudhailer or a banner. It even makes unlawful picketing a criminal offence.

Irrespective of the wisdom of the measures, there seems to be little evidence of the need for them. Britain already has some of the most restrictive strike regulations in Europe and these proposals would make us even more of an outlier. The Government claims to be protecting people from the impact of strikes. Yet levels of industrial action are at a historic low. The annual average of days lost to strikes is under a tenth the level of the 1980s. There is also little evidence of intimidation of non-striking workers; the Government’s Carr Review into this failed to make recommendations citing an overly politicised environment. This bill seems to be aiming to solve problems that do not exist.

A broad and growing coalition of organisations have expressed concern about the Trade Union Bill. As one might expect, the TUC is vehemently opposed to the measures, but there is much broader unease about the bill. Over 100 industrial relations academics signed a letter highlighting the lack of an evidence base for the Bill. Liberty, Amnesty International and the British Institute of Human Rights have called the bill a ‘major attack on civil liberties’. The Government’s own advisory body – The Regulatory Policy Committee – has raised concerns over the impact assessment and the failure adequately to make the case for the changes. The CIPD which represents the HR community has raised concerns with Peter Cheese calling it an ‘outdated response to the challenges of the modern workplace’. The IPA shares these concerns.

But alongside this legislative challenge to trade unions, the movement faces an existential threat in declining union membership. In 1979 – the year Thatcher entered Downing Street –13 million people belonged to a union. Today, despite a larger workforce, there are just 6.4 million members. Union density has fallen in public sector and in the private sector just one employee in seven is a member. Unions are finding it particularly difficult to recruit younger workers. Two in five workers are under 35, but just one in five trade union member is. The proportion of union members over 50 has almost doubled in just 20 years. Unions need urgently to address this decline, and identify effective solutions to recruiting members, particularly younger workers and those in the private sector.

But why does this matter? Trade unions are essential actors in our modern labour market. First, unions give working people a voice. The UK has the second lowest level of employee participation in the EU – beaten into last place by Lithuania – and just one in five say their employer is good at allowing them to influence decisions. Unions are vital outlets for employee voice, allowing working people to have a say and influence decisions at work.

Second, unions are crucial for promoting fair pay. Members benefit from a ‘wage premium’ with average hourly income 16.7% higher than non-members. On a wider level the rise and fall of union membership closely mirrors the proportion of income going to the top 1%. Unions help increase the bargaining power of working people; a strong union movement means fair pay, a greater proportion of GDP going to labour. By making the workplace fairer, unions make society fairer.

Finally, unions can play a central role in driving up productivity in the UK. Following the recession, productivity stalled and levels are now 17% behind the pre-crisis trend. Unions can be part of the solution to the productivity puzzle and recent research by NEF has set out how important a strong trade union movement is to a sustainable economic recovery. Some of our most productive industries – from automotive to aerospace – are amongst the most heavily unionised. These industries show the ‘global race’ need not be a race to the bottom. The best way for us to compete internationally is based on a high value economy, characterised by high skills, good pay, and extensive employee involvement.

Instead of seeing trade unions as ‘the enemy within’ whose powers need to be curtailed through legislation, unions should be seen as essential partners in delivering a fairer and more productive economy. The government should look to work in partnership with both trade unions and with employers to address common challenges in the British labour market, and build an economy which is fairer and more productive.

Joe Dromey is Head of Policy and Research at the IPA. The IPA are soon to launch a research project looking at trade union membership and recruitment. If you want to find out more about the project, get in touch with Joe Dromey (0207 759 1004, [email protected])

 

Back in 2004, I said of the introduction of the Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) regulations that “These new changes from Europe mean that employees now have a right to be told what’s going on and a right to be heard. It should put a stop to the bolts from the blue…”

And when advice on the Regs was published on the Acas website, employers and employees were told that “information and consultation are the basic building blocks of every effective organisation … because they help you to manage change.”

But have we been proved right? Have the ICE Regs helped managers and employees create the right kind of voice arrangements, and what have we learned about employee voice for the future?

Many of you will be familiar with the recent Acas analysis of Workplace Employment Relations Studies (2004 and 2011), looking at the state of ‘joint consultative committees’ (JCCs) under the Regs. The headline findings show that in the period since the Regs, arrangements for consultation have not changed dramatically in Great Britian. In many areas we have seen a steady state, and in medium sized firms there has been some growth in JCCs, though there has also been a decline in joint consultative committees at the ‘higher level’, argubaly where some of the most significant decisions are made (falling from 29% to 20% between 2004 and 2011).

It seems a majority of managers still favour hearing employee views: in the 2011 WERS, 80% of managers (up from 72% in 2004) said they like to hear employee views before introducting change. But perhaps the nature of consultation has also changed. There are signs of a ‘shallower’ approach to consultation: managers increasingly say that they are using these committees less to seek feedback on a range of options (down from 45 to 39 per cent) and more to get feedback on a preferred management option (up from 9 per cent to 28 per cent).

We need to know more about the kind of consultative arrangements that work for employers and employees – to see how best to operate in the context of the Regulations in a way that offers mutual gains, and responds to the modern workplace. In the light of this it’s worth picking up on one or two issues that have been largely overlooked in recent discussions. The first concerns attitudes, and the second is about the impact of new technology and social media.

In terms of our attitudes, I think that effective consultation assumes a certain kind of mindset: all those involved need to recognise the benefits (and the parameters) of sharing information and collaborative working; and ensure that consultation truly involves listening to employee concerns. This means that suggestions are considered, and there is a dialogue and exchange around proposals. The Regs set the framework – it’s up to the individuals to determine the behaviours.

We must be honest: opening up the conversation in organisations does not mean that everything will be rosey in the garden. Indeed, it often means some of the tricky questions come to the surface. As Duncam Adam said in a Acas blog post last year, the process of consulation “necessarily produces conflicts and reveals tensions”. But overall the evidence suggests that despite these potential areas of friction, managers are seeing the benefits of consultation. WERS found that workplaces that were least affected by the recession were more likely to be actively looking to their employees for solutions; and that ‘active consultation’ in which employee views were sought before final decisions were made was linked with greater trust, and a sense that consultative arrangements were influential. The Acas report concluded that ‘consultation can thrive when dealing with meaty issues’.

The second issue is how technology and the use of social media fit with our view of the process of consultation. For example, according to the WERS survey (van Wanrooy et al, 2013) managers increasingly have a preference for direct forms of communication, often at the press of a button: the greatest area of growth was in communication by email, rising from 35 to 49 per cent of workplaces. This kind of ongoing communication has its strengths – perhaps it reducing the ‘bolt out of the blue’ approach to decisions that I mentioned earlier – but I am less sure it holds quite the same value as the kind of two way communication and engagement that perhaps we envisaged under the ICE Regs.

Some people have argued that the problem with the ICE Regs was their complexity: although the intention was laudable the devil lay in the detail.  But I don’t think that the Regs were ever supposed to offer a complete answer to the question of employee voice and representation.

For my part, time has partially changed my perspective. I still see an optimum voice mechanism as one that embraces communication, consultation and negotiation. But these days, of course, any voice mechanism needs to use a variety of channels and representative structures to achieve the desired benefits for both employees and employers – everything from old fashioned sitting round the table to online forums. 

In an ideal world we would be able to look out of the window and know what to expect from what we see: rain when the clouds are heavy and grey and sunshine when the sky is blue. But the working world is not so straightforwad any more, with complex outsourcing and contractual arrangements typifiying many workpaces. And workers and managers expectations have changed, both in tems of the pace of decision making, and preferences for forms of engagement.

We know that employees want to have a voice at work. And our research around the ICE regs have taught us that while the quantity of voice and representation is very important, so too is the quality of voice. We need to rediscover a deeper understanding of employee voice – one that will help us to develop more effective and productive employment relationships in the future. From an Acas perspective, employee voice has recently been indentified as one of the seven levers of workplace productivity. So maybe now is the time to restart the debate.

 

Sir Brendan Barber is chair of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) Council

 

 

 

Government to go ahead with strike reforms

The biggest changes to trade union rights for 30 years have been unveiled by the government. Under the new law, strikes affecting ‘core’ public services like education, firefighting, transport, border security and energy sectors will need the support of 40 per cent of union members to go ahead, and all union ballots will need a turnout of over 50 per cent for any resulting strike action to be considered valid.

CBI deputy director-general Katja Hall said: “We’re glad the government has brought forward this Bill, as the CBI has long called for modernisation of our outdated industrial relations laws to better reflect today’s workforce and current workplace practices.” The government’s proposals have been criticised by unions, with TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady saying the bill “is a slippery slope towards worse rights for all.” Paul Kenny, General Secretary of GMB warned that the proposals would “poison industrial relations in the UK since they removed all incentives for employers to heed their own workers and settle disputes.”

The National Living Wage to replace minimum wage by 2020

In the Budget this month, the Government announced the introduction of a National Living Wage next April. The National Living Wage will be a new minimum wage for employees aged 25 and over, and it will start at £7.20 and rising to £9 an hour by 2020.

This is partly to moderate the impact of in-work benefit cuts. It is a large increase from the current minimum wage which is £6.50 for those aged over 21. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the move is expected to boost the wages of six million people in work but the Government have acknowledged that it may have a small negative impact on employment. It marks a shift away from the traditional approach to the minimum wage which was set independently of government by the Low Pay Commission.

The TUC welcomed the Living Wage announcement but said the Chancellor was “giving with one hand taking with the other” and “massive cuts in support for working people will hit families with children hardest.” Business groups gave Mr Osborne’s Living Wage announcement a mixed reaction, with the Institute of Directors saying it was “time for companies to increase pay” but Katja Hall, director general of the CBI saying: “The chancellor is taking quite a gamble by introducing a living wage…what happens if there is an economic shock?” Others have highlighted the fact that the National Living Wage will be below the Living Wage – the amount calculated by the Living Wage Foundation according to the cost of living, which stands at £7.85 an hour, or £9.15 in London.

Union crackdown could impact productivity

Joint research from professors of HR Management, Nick Bacon, from Cass Business School, and Kim Hoque, from Warwick Business School found that union crackdown could be disadvantageous to increase UK productivity. Their research, based on the government-sponsored Workplace Employment Relations Survey data (WERS 2011), proposed that reducing trade union facility time is likely to have a negative effect on UK workforces, especially in the public sector, where trade union membership is still high. Additionally, they also found that public sector staff performed better when a union representative was present in the workplace.

Prof. Nick Bacon said: “The steps laid out by the government [to change trade union rights] do not appear to take into account evidence, using data the government itself has sponsored, pointing to the positive effects that workplace trade union representatives have in the public sector.” However, Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary said: “Trade unions have a constructive role to play in representing their members’ interests but our one nation government will balance their rights with those of working people and business.”

What ‘Brexit’ could mean for employment law in the UK

With the introduction of the government’s European Union Referendum Bill for an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, there is increasing attention on what a ‘Brexit’ could mean for employment law in the UK. In a recent article for CIPD’s People Management, Elizabeth Slattery, a partner in the employment department at Hogan Lovells highlighted potential changes that could result from a British exit from the EU.

The article identifies potential changes around the Working Time Directive and the Agency Workers Directive which are described as being particularly disliked by employers. However, there are less likely to be changes in areas such as anti-discrimination and parental leave as changes in these areas are seen as being ‘politically unattractive’, and existing rights already go beyond the EU baseline.

Elizabeth argues that, whilst there may be some significant changes, ‘political considerations make it relatively unlikely that core employee rights would be significantly reduced following an exit.’

The IPA recently released a report examining the role the EU has played in strengthening and extending rights at work in the UK.

 

A fifth of Britons ashamed of their organisations

A new study from the PRCA, in conjunction with Opinium Research, reveals that a fifth of workers across the UK have been ‘embarrassed’ or ‘ashamed’ about the industry they work in or company they work for.

When it comes to seeking new employment and deciding upon an organisation to work for, a company’s reputation is one of the top three most important factors for Britons – and is seen as more important than flexibility of work, benefits offered, culture, and the organisation’s location.

John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Virgin and Apple scored highly as organisations that had great employer brands. 67 per cent of respondents said that the technology sector was seen as the industry with the best reputation, 33 per cent of those actually employed by the sector said they were embarrassed to work in it – one of the highest recorded.

Commenting on the findings, Tony Langham, chairman of the PRCA, said: “Organisations with strong reputations are more able to recruit and retain the best talent and to get the most from their workforce.”

 

Pay growth at highest level since 2007 but skills gaps worsen

Official figures from ONS show that annual wage growth is at its highest since 2007, with average real term pay rises at 2.7 per cent. David Kern, chief economist of the British Chambers of Commerce, said that increase in pay growth shows that living standards are rising and “households will be really starting to feel the benefit.” However, Mark Beaston, chief economist at the CIPD, urged caution and said: “Of greater concern is that we are still not seeing the productivity growth required to make real pay rises sustainable.”

ONS also reported that employment continued to rise, with 31.05 million people in work, 114,000 more than for the 3 months to January 2015 and 424,000 more than for a year earlier.

Alongside rising employment rates, there are growing concerns over skills gaps. According to a new CIPD/Hays study, more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of HR professionals are struggling to recruit suitably skilled staff for their organisations. Respondents said all types of roles were now more difficult to fill, with managers, specialists and technical staff vacancies the most difficult to fill. Recruiters said that finding candidates with specialist or technical skills topped their list of challenges.

Unite holds a number of good Information & Consultation Agreements negotiated with a number of manufacturing companies. Many are in the print, paper and packaging sector. Recently Unite reached new I&C Agreements with other manufacturing companies and in engineering. In order to make sure our Reps understand their rights, Unite has been holding training courses for Reps on European Works Councils and on the ICE Regulations, demonstrating how the two are linked. The reaction we are getting from our Reps is extremely positive.

So why haven’t the ICE Regs taken off across UK industry?

Setting up an ICE structure within a company can be extremely onerous with workers having to establish a 10 per cent interest of the workforce by a petition and they almost certainly face a negative response from their employer. Our previous experience has been that employers sometimes find and dust off some form of ancient “Works Committee” structure set up many years ago or they work hard to undermine the request for ICE structures as they believe it would interfere with their “rights to manage”.

Equally, it is fair to say that Unions had also been lukewarm towards setting up ICE structures for a number of reasons, not least the fact that you need dedicated and expert support to go through the procedures and ensure they operate properly.

There is also a large amount of logistical work needed in organising a ballot to elect the negotiating committee and ICE committee and the fact that ICE covers all employees in an undertaking which means Unions sometimes have no influence over staff who are not our members.

I believe that this is one of the reasons why there needs to be a fundamental review of the ICE Regs if they are to be used in an effective manner.

The TUC’s recent report “Democracy in the Workplace” is based on a study of information and consultation in Germany, Sweden and France. The structures for setting up information and consultation bodies in these countries are much simpler and are better understood by Unions, workers and companies.

The UK regulations can only be activated once 10 per cent of the workforce have requested them in a ballot, and that is having had to find out where the workforce of any company is actually based!

In Germany, Sweden and France it is widely accepted that having a workers voice has significant benefits in promoting loyalty among the workforce and allowing management to understand the key concerns of workers and listening to their views on the company’s prospects. In France companies are legally required to establish ICE procedures. 

In Sweden and Germany they are legally required if one or five workers respectively request them. In its report, one Swedish Trade Unionist wondered; “why wouldn’t managers want to speak to their workforce?  For the workforce information and consultation can provide real protection”. He went on to say “it is surely no coincidence that a Swedish multinational has a much lower proportion of agency workers in the plant with strong information and consultation than in the plant that doesn’t.”

 

We know that in France employers cannot simply “hire and fire” in the way that they do in the UK and we also know that the cultures of Sweden, France and Germany support a better balance between the needs of the company and those of the workforce in Britain.

We believe first of all the 10 per cent trigger mechanism in the UK must be scrapped and workers desiring ICE structures should be allowed to automatically have them if a minimum of 5 employees request them irrespective of the size of the company.

Employers must be obliged to negotiate and agree ICE arrangements if requested to do so by a recognised Trade Union – and where agreement cannot be reached standard fall back provision should apply.

The TUC also has a view that it might also be appropriate for the UK to consider requiring all companies to establish ICE arrangements where a specified number of workers are employed by the company without a trigger mechanism.

UK ICE Regs need to have much tougher sanctions on companies who fail to comply with the legislation and that Tribunals should be able to order companies to set up structures or reverse decisions by companies until meaningful consultation with a view to reach an agreement has taken place with workers representatives.

We also need to do a number of other things.  ICE arrangements should no longer be based on “undertakings” but on establishments.  And all workers should be counted as individuals and not “half a person” in the case of part-time employees and that the government should provide widespread publicity on rights to set up ICE structures and there should also be a standard fall back provision should companies fail to comply.

However having studied structures in other European countries, there is no doubt that the UK lags behind and the failure to have proper structures does affect – in my opinion – how companies perform and their productivity.

The German economy did not collapse in the same way as the UK did in 2007/2008 because it has strong checks and balances and recognises the role that working people and Trade Unions have in ensuring that companies are successful and provide decent employment.

We need a new deal at work – stronger ICE Regulations would be part of an overall restructuring of basic employment rights that we also need.

Tony Burke is Assistant General Secretary of UNITE.    

The IPA are currently working on a project looking at the impact the ICE Regulations have had on the UK labour market since their inception 10 years ago, and how they could be used to strengthen employee voice. If you would like to get involved, please contact: [email protected]

 

Why has productivity stalled? Our view is that what actually happens on a day to day basis in our workplaces, public and private, may provide a compelling insight. Put simply, too many employees find their abilities and skills underutilised at work; they may be working extremely hard, but ineffective business organisation and processes means much of this effort is wasted. Ineffective or positively dysfunctional managers add to the problem; and organisations that fail to explain their purpose find it unsurprisingly hard to motivate staff. Resistance to change is endemic across organisations, and most employees characterise their organisations as low trust. Very few organisations really listen to their employees and consequently have little idea about life on the ground, and fail to invite or follow up on employees’ ideas about product or process improvement.

A recent survey of thousands of employees across 20 countries found the UK had the third lowest levels of engagement, 10% behind the global average. What a waste of people’s potential, what a loss of productivity and what a cost to the nation. 

So better employee engagement may offer part of the answer and part of the solution. Employee engagement, according to the Institute of Employment Studies, is ‘a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee is aware of the business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation.’ 

There is increasing evidence of the link between engagement and productivity – on an individual and an organisational level. There is a strong relationship between engagement and both employee advocacy and customer satisfaction and loyalty. In a massive survey of over 23,000 business units, Gallup found that those with engagement scores in the highest quartile were 18 per cent more productive than those in the lowest quartile. 

How are we to explain this link? Innovation may be central to this. Engaged employees are more innovative; they seek to continuously improve processes, look for new ways of adding value to their work and are more likely to suggest and follow through on new ideas. In 2007 Gallup found that 59 per cent of the more engaged employees said that work brings out their most creative ideas, compared to just 3 per cent of the less engaged. 

So what are we to do? It may be worth looking back at the four enablers of engagement – a strategic narrative, engaging managers, employee voice and integrity – identified in our report Engaging for Success (2009). 

Strategic Narrative

The strategic narrative is about having ‘a strong, transparent and explicit organisational culture which gives employees a line of sight between their job and the vision and aims of their organisation.’  Employees need to find meaning and purpose in their work. They need to see how their individual graft and toil contributes to something greater, something that they can buy in to and believe in. Otherwise work becomes merely contractual and transactional – you come to work and do what you’re told just because you have to. 

Looking at the Workplace Employee Relations Study (WERS) – a large survey of the UK workforce – there seems to be some way to go here. Two in three employees (65 per cent) agree or strongly agree that they share the same values as their organisation. But just 16 per cent strongly agree, indicating some room for improvement. 

Engaging Managers

Line managers are absolutely crucial to employee engagement. We identified the importance of having engaging managers who ‘offer clarity, appreciation of employees’ effort and contribution, who treat their people as individuals and who ensure that work is organised efficiently and effectively so that employees feel they are valued, and equipped and supported to do their job. 

Again, while the headline figure from WERS is reassuring – with two third (64 per cent) saying that relationships with managers are good/very good – just one in five (21 per cent) believe they are very good. 

Employee Voice

Voice is central to employee engagement. We defined voice as having a situation whereby “Employees’ views are sought out; they are listened to and see that their opinions count and make a difference. They speak out and challenge when appropriate. A strong sense of listening and responsiveness permeates the organisation, enabled by effective communication.’ 

There is evidence of a voice deficit. ETUI rate the UK as second bottom of the league in the EU in terms of employee participation – beaten into last place only by Lithuania. Evidence from WERS shows that just one employee in two (52 per cent) says that managers are good or very good at seeking their views. Fewer still – just one in three (32 per cent) – say that managers are good or very good at allowing employees to influence decision making. 

This is a significant cause for concern. If employers are to benefit from the expertise and experience, the ideas and innovation of their employees, they need to allow and indeed encourage them to speak up. 

Many of our most productive industries tend to buck the trend of low voice and low involvement. Take the automotive industry or the aerospace sector, where high levels of union membership, and high levels of employee involvement go alongside incredibly high levels of productivity. 

Integrity 

The final enabler of engagement is integrity. This is defined as ‘a belief among employees that the organisation lives its values, and that espoused behavioural norms are adhered to, resulting in trust and a sense of integrity.’ 

Again, there is evidence of some work to do here. WERS shows that just one in two employees (50 per cent) agree/strongly agree that managers keep their promises. Only slightly more (58 per cent) agree/strongly agree that managers deal with employees honestly. 

The UK faces a productivity puzzle. Employment relations could in part be the missing piece. If employers in the UK were better able to engage with their employees, we could both improve the quality of work for people, and drive up productivity for the benefit of all.  

David MacLeod OBE and Nita Clarke OBE are co-chairs of the national Employee Engagement Task Force 

The IPA is proposing a programme of research investigating UK’s productivity deficit, and factors that might address the problem. If you would like to get involved, please contact [email protected], 0207 759 1004

Well, that was a surprise. Following five years of coalition government, we’re back to one party rule. Confounding the expectations of the commentators, the bookies, and – according to Nick Clegg – Cameron himself, the Conservatives won a slim majority in May’s General Election. At his first Cabinet meeting following the election, the Prime Minister claimed that the Tories were now ‘the real party for working people’. But what does the new government mean for the world of work?

Sajid Javid MP, a rising star in the Conservative Party, has been promoted from Culture, Media and sport to Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills, replacing Vince Cable who was unseated in Twickenham. Tipped as a future leadership contender, Javid will be in a rush to make a name for himself, ahead of the competition to succeed Cameron who will make way for a new leader before the 2020 election. He is seen as an ardent Thatcherite, recently tweeting a picture of the former PM that now hangs on his office wall at BIS. The new Employment Minister will be Priti Patel MP, has moved from her role as Exchequer Secretary at the Treasury to replace Esther McVeigh who lost her seat. Another member of the 2010 intake, Patel is seen as being on the right of the party and co-authored a book Britannia Unchained which described British workers as ‘among the worst idlers in the world’.

Their plans for the coming year will be set out in the Queen’s Speech next week – the first by a majority Conservative Government since October 1997. But we can glean some of the likely changes from their recent manifesto.

The new Government clearly has a clear de-regulatory zeal. The Queen’s Speech will include an Enterprise Bill that will aim to cut red tape by at least £10 billion. In their view, one of the key barriers to growth, particularly for small business, is excessive regulation. In his first major speech in the role, Javid promised to back small businesses and ‘sweep away burdensome red tape’. Much of this regulation originates from the EU, and this looks set to be one of the key battlegrounds for the renegotiation of our relationship with the EU ahead of the promised referendum. However, as recent research by the IPA has shown, the UK labour market is already one of the least regulated in the developed world.

With the cost of living one of the key political battlegrounds in recent years, the Tories have made a number of pledges to ease the squeeze on those at the bottom. A key promise of the campaign was to enshrine in law the principle that nobody working 30 hours on the Minimum Wage should pay any income tax. This extends the policy of increasing the tax-free alliance, borrowed from their now discarded and much diminished coalition partners. But there with a target of £12billion annual savings in the welfare bill, the vast majority of which are yet to be revealed, there is concern that the benefit for low-paid workers of this change will be more than out-weighed by the reduction of in-work benefits. Ian Duncan Smith retains his role at the Department of Work and Pensions. He will face the daunting task of identifying £12billion of welfare cuts and completing the long-delayed roll-out of Universal Credit.

Whereas Labour seemed to be advocating a more active role for the Low Pay Commission, the Conservatives are somewhat less radical, but they have expressed a desire for real terms increases, and hope it will be ‘on course’ for a Minimum Wage of over £8/hr by 2020. There was not a single mention of the Living Wage in the Conservative manifesto.

Part of the cause of stagnant living standards in the last parliament was the stall in productivity. Despite the recent improvement in the economy, productivity remains a major concern, and it remains 16% below the pre-crisis trend. The Chancellor George Osbourne has promised a ‘laser-like focus’ on raising productivity and living standards in his upcoming budget, including through creating more apprenticeships.

Asides from these promises, there are pledges to halve the disability employment gap and reduce the gender pay gap, but little detail on how these will be achieved. With Labour having made banning ‘exploitative’ zero-hours contracts a central promise of their campaign, the Conservatives have pledged merely to take action to outlaw exclusivity clauses under which employees are unable to take up other offers of employment.

In the public sector, things look set to get increasingly tough. The Coalition failed in their aim of eliminating the deficit in the last parliament – it fell by just one third. But in their manifesto, the Tories promised to turn this deficit into a surplus by 2019, whilst also ruling out increasing income tax, national insurance and VAT. As well as ruling out significant tax increases, there are some substantial tax cuts promised – for example on the basic rate of income tax and inheritance tax. Some areas will be relatively protected, with, for example a pledge to find the £8billion that the NHS needs according to NHS Employers’ Five Year Forward View. But this just means that the huge burden of deficit reduction will fall disproportionately on unprotected areas of government spending such as local government and policing. This will lead to cuts that dwarf even those experienced between 2010 and 2015. The next five years look set to be incredibly tough for the public sector, with a likelihood of continued pay restraint, job losses, and industrial action.

On this last point, perhaps the most controversial proposals are those that would tighten the rules regarding industrial action. Under the Government’s proposals, strikes would only be legal if the turnout was over 50%. Tougher still rules would apply in health, education, fire and transport where 40% of all members would have to vote for a strike to make it legal. So, for example, if there were to be a ballot in the NHS, with 55% responding (on the high side for such ballots), and a clear majority of 70% voting in favour, the strike action would not be lawful.

Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the TUC called the changes ‘the most aggressive assault on basic labour rights anywhere in the developed world’, arguing they were designed to make legal strikes close to impossible. This, she claims, would mean workers would be reduced to having ‘as much power as Oliver Twist brought to the negotiating table’. Conversely, she also warned that these measures may also lead to more illegal wildcat action.

In addition, the Conservatives have promised to allow employers to hire agency staff to cover for striking workers – reducing the potential impact of industrial action, and to ban ‘rolling’ strike action, and tighten rules of facility time.

Joe Dromey is Head of Policy and Research at the Involvement and Participation Association

The UK’s productivity problem is nothing new. We have often struggled in terms of output per hour compared to our continental and global competitors. What is new – and indeed worrying – is the extent to which productivity has plateaued following the recession. The normal pattern whereby productivity springs back following the shock of a downturn has not played out. Productivity growth has stalled since 2008; it is now 16 per cent below the pre-crisis trend. Having almost caught up, we are now 17 per cent below the average for the rest of the G7.

So why has productivity stalled? Explanations tend to focus on the traditional economists’ fare of education and skills, investment – both tangible and intangible, corporate governance, and the financial system. Employee engagement may offer part of the answer. And indeed, part of the solution. Employee engagement, according to the Institute of Employment Studies, is ‘a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee is aware of the business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation.’

There is increasing evidence of the link between engagement and productivity – on an individual and an organisational level. There is a strong relationship between engagement and both employee advocacy and customer satisfaction and loyalty. In a massive survey of over 23,000 business units, Gallup found that those with engagement scores in the highest quartile were 18 per cent more productive than those in the lowest quartile.  

How are we to explain this link? Innovation may be central to this. Engaged employees are more innovative; they seek to continuously improve processes, look for new ways of adding value to their work and are more likely to suggest and follow through on new ideas. Gallup (2007) found that 59 per cent of the more engaged employees said that work brings out their most creative ideas, compared to just 3 per cent of the less engaged.

So what are we to do? It may be worth looking back at the four enablers of engagement – a strategic narrative, engaging managers, employee voice and integrity – identified in the MacLeod report Engaging for Success (2008).

Strategic Narrative

The strategic narrative is about having ‘a strong, transparent and explicit organisational culture which gives employees a line of sight between their job and the vision and aims of their organisation.’ Employees need to find meaning and purpose in their work. They need to see how their individual graft and toil contributes to something greater, something that they can buy in to and believe in. Otherwise work becomes merely contractual and transactional – you come to work and do what you’re told just because you have to.

Looking at the Workplace Employee Relations Study (WERS) – a large survey of the UK workforce – there seems to be some way to go here. Two in three employees (65 per cent) agree or strongly agree that they share the same values as their organisation. But just 16 per cent strongly agree, indicating some room for improvement.

Engaging Managers

Line managers are absolutely crucial to employee engagement. The MacLeod report identified the importance of having engaging managers who offer clarity, appreciation of employees’ effort and contribution, who treat their people as individuals and who ensure that work is organised efficiently and effectively so that employees feel they are valued, and equipped and supported to do their job.’

Again, while the headline figure from WERS is reassuring – with two third (64 per cent) saying that relationships with managers are good/very good – just one in five (21 per cent) believe they are very good.

Employee Voice

Voice is central to employee engagement. MacLeod and Clarke defined voice as having a situation whereby “Employees’ views are sought out; they are listened to and see that their opinions count and make a difference. They speak out and challenge when appropriate. A strong sense of listening and responsiveness permeates the organisation, enabled by effective communication.’

There is evidence of a voice deficit. ETUI rate the UK as second bottom of the league in the EU in terms of employee participation – beaten into last place only by Lithuania. Evidence from WERS shows that just one employee in two (52 per cent) says that managers are good or very good at seeking their views. Fewer still – just one in three (32 per cent) – say that managers are good or very good at allowing employees to influence decision making.

This is a significant cause for concern. If employers are to benefit from the expertise and experience, the ideas and innovation of their employees, they need to allow and indeed encourage them to speak up.

Many of our most productive industries tend to buck the trend of low voice and low involvement. Take the automotive industry or the aerospace sector, where high levels of union membership, and high levels of employee involvement go alongside incredibly high levels of productivity.

Integrity

The final enabler of engagement is integrity. This is defined as ‘a belief among employees that the organisation lives its values, and that espoused behavioural norms are adhered to, resulting in trust and a sense of integrity.’

Again, there is evidence of some work to do here. WERS shows that just one in two employees (50 per cent) agree/strongly agree that managers keep their promises. Only slightly more (58 per cent) agree/strongly agree that managers deal with employees honestly.

The UK faces a productivity puzzle. Employment relations could in part be the missing piece. If employers in the UK were better able to engage with their employees, we could both improve the quality of work for people, and drive up productivity for the benefit of all. 

Rise in recruitment trends but worker productivity remains a concern

The recent BDO’s Business Trends report shows that firms continue to have high expectations for hiring this year and the trend is expected to grow. A reading of 100 in the BDO’s employment index indicates jobs growth ‘above the long-term trend’. The reading for March 2015 was 113, which follows on from an equally high reading for the preceding month at 113.1. The report suggests that the two months’ strong data means employer’s hiring intentions are now “sky high”.

However, this news comes at a time when new figures from the ONS show that UK productivity growth has been weakest since the Second World War, with a 0.2 per cent decrease in productivity in the third quarter of the financial year, leaving output per hour worked little changed on the previous year and slightly lower than in 2007, before the UK’s longest and deepest modern recession. With workers producing less than they did in 2007, Britain’s productivity gap with its major economic rivals, such as the US, Germany and France, has widened. Peter Hemington, Partner at BDO said:  “While it is encouraging to see strong business confidence, the UK’s continuing poor labour productivity performance is a very significant concern.”

UK workers expect to work beyond retirement age

Research findings from Canada Life Insurance group show that around three in five (61 per cent) of UK employees will work beyond the retirement age of 65, up from 32 per cent in 2012. Almost nine in ten respondents (88 per cent) cited financial worries as the reason they are likely to work beyond 65 while a third (32 per cent) said their pension savings will not be sufficient to fund retirement. As Paul Avis, marketing director of Canada Life Group explained: “The recent recession has no doubt taken a toll as employees accept that their current savings and pensions are unlikely to cover the cost of retirement, but improvements in health also mean that people are able to work longer.”

The survey also found that 69 per cent those aged between 21 and 30 believed they will work after 65 compared to those aged 50 to 60. Canada Life believes that the younger generation has been particularly hard hit by the recession and that employers need to be prudent in how they offer suitable benefits and flexibility to support the entire workforce.

Flexible working on the rise amongst UK firms

A study by the recruitment company Robert Half has revealed that remote working in the UK has increased by more than a third (37 per cent) in the last three years. Public sector employees were most likely to work flexibly, with a 47 per cent increase in remote working.

 The bi-annual survey of more than 200 interviews with senior HR executives showed that 60 per cent of HR directors believe that giving employees the option to choose their working arrangements could boost their productivity. More than half of the respondents said that giving them greater autonomy would increase creativity amongst their staff while 45 per cent said it would make employees easier to manage. Phil Sheridan, managing director at Robert Half, said: “Employees can work just as effectively remotely, especially now that advancements in technology have enabled us to share files, communicate with colleagues and collaborate on projects, without the added burden of a commute or distractions in the office.” However, he also suggests that before implementing a flexible working initiative, companies should ensure that they have proper structures in place “so that benefits for employees are balanced with business needs.”

 

How much ‘say’ should employees have in the running of organisations and what form should this ‘voice’ take? These are perhaps the oldest and most important questions in employment relations. 

Answers to these questions also reflect our fundamental assumptions about the nature of the employment relationship, and inform our views on almost every aspect of HR policy and practice: how rewards are distributed, how health and safety are managed, how secure people’s jobs are and so on. 

For some, employee voice is a synonym for trade union representation.  However, we take a much broader view and suggest that employee voice and related terms such as worker participation define an important debate about how organisations should be managed. Three main approaches are apparent.

First, the managerial idea of Employee Involvement is associated with enlightened employers identifying inventive ways of involving ordinary workers in the pursuit of organisational goals.  Popular examples might include Profit-Sharing, Consultation, Teamworking, Empowerment, Total Quality Management, and most recently, Employee Engagement. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, is the radical idea of Workers Control. While this perspective is also in favour of voice and participation, it supports something quite different.  In this view, conventional capitalist organisations are run for shareholders, against the interests of employees and thus cannot allow genuine voice. This can only develop if workers own and control the organisation.  Experiments with Self-Management, Worker Co-operatives and the well-known Mondragon network are all examples of this.

For us, the key voice debate is now between direct, management-led Employee Involvement initiatives and models of collective Representative Participation, but this raises several important questions.  Can Employee Involvement offer real influence or is the voice offered tokenistic and superficial?   Can Representative Participation find some legal or voluntary means of bringing independent collective representation back into the heart of work organisations?  Are Employee Involvement and Representation best when they are combined, and can the ‘democracy at work’ and ‘business case’ arguments ever be reconciled?

In an attempt to answer some of the above questions, our book brings together essays by leading international researchers to offer a critical assessment of developments in employee voice. Specific themes include: the changing nature of the employment relationship and the scope for cooperation, as well current concerns regarding equality and diversity and employee engagement.  It also considers the role and future of trade unions, and in particular options for union renewal including Organising and Partnership models.  Finally, European models of voice are assessed, including the impact of statutory EU Regulations concerning European Works Councils and Information and Consultation. 

For us, effective voice needs to provide employees, as a collective, with a real say and the opportunity to genuinely influence management decision making. But many of the most fashionable systems seem to fall far short of this.  Perhaps more problematic is that managerially-led voice is only worthwhile as and when employers perceive some benefit from it: employees work harder; stay with the company longer etc.  Potentially then, voice may become an ‘optional extra’ for high-skilled or customer-facing workers, but not something for low-skilled, low paid worker on a zero hour contract; when from a moral perspective they need it most of all.

Indeed, one of the strengths of a statutory framework is that it sends a very strong signal that voice must be a universal priority and locks employers into serious, credible, and hopefully enduring voice institutions.  The argument is particularly compelling in rich advanced economies which already set basic minimum standards in areas such as discrimination and minimum pay.  Organisations operate within the rules laid down by democratic societies: perhaps these rules should include more ambitious minimum standard for employee voice for all workers?

It is hard not be pessimistic about employee voice if certain trends continue.     Our hope is that the analysis offered in our book will contribute towards putting effective employee voice at the centre of public policy – where it used to be.

Stewart Johnstone, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management (Newcastle University) and Peter Ackers, Professor of Industrial Relations and Labour History (Loughborough University).   

Finding a Voice at Work?: New Perspectives on Employment Relations is published by Oxford University Press and is now available to buy by using the link: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199668014.do

 

The case for Britain’s membership of the EU has, to date, focused primarily on the benefit to businesses. Business groups such as the CBI and the EEF have been the foremost advocates of Britain’s role in the EU and the most trenchant critics of a ‘Brexit’ referendum. The Labour Party has repeatedly cited its pro-EU position as evidence of its pro-business credentials. Labour’s criticism of the proposed referendum has repeatedly attacked the uncertainty that it creates for business.

These are fair arguments, and business is entitled to have a voice in the debate.  Businesses employ plenty of people and carry out a number of critical services, so what’s good for business is often good for the country as a whole.

But there are other reasons to support EU membership, including the vital rights that UK workers enjoy as a result of EU policies. The recent IPA paper ‘Common Rights in a single market’ highlights how the right to paid holiday, a lunch break, a maximum working week of 48 hours, paid maternity leave, freedom from discrimination and fair treatment for agency workers all originated at EU level.

Many of these rights are quite unpopular with business lobby groups – even those broadly supportive of EU membership. Polling of CBI members in 2013 found that 71 per cent of respondents said that membership of the EU had a positive aspect on their business, while just 13 per cent said negative. CBI members also supported access to the single market by a margin of 76 per cent to just one per cent against, and common EU product standards by a margin of 52 per cent to 16 per cent.

However, 49 per cent felt that common employment rights across the EU were a negative for their business, against 22 per cent who felt they were positive.

It is important for anyone interested in either Britain’s membership of the European Union or rights for workers to acknowledge this contradiction in the business position – otherwise vital rights will go undefended while a potentially powerful weapon the pro-European arsenal will go undeployed. This is the focus of a new report by the High Pay Centre and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, A Force for Fairness,  based on polling carried out by ICM. The report highlights why the social case for EU membership must be a key part of the debate on Europe.

Firstly, people will be inherently suspicious of a campaign dominated by business leaders. It creates the risk of a perception that the benefits of EU membership are captured solely by big business and the super –rich.

Secondly, business leaders are likely to concentrate on the aspects of EU membership that they like best – chiefly, access to the biggest single market in the world – and neglect other aspects that they would rather do without, such as the common standards on workers’ rights agreed with EU partners, including the right to paid holiday, paid maternity leave and maximum working week of 48 hours.

There is a danger that this is already happening.  Our polling found that only 25% of respondents realised that key rights at work such as paid holiday and maternity leave are guaranteed by the European Union. 51% wrongly assumed they were introduced by the UK Government.

Obviously, these rights are incredibly popular. And there is a reason why they need to apply at EU level. Outside the EU, countries are incentivised to compete with our European neighbours to attract businesses and investment by cutting rights, wages or environmental protections in a race to the bottom. Within Europe, by contrast, we can agree common standards that ensure fair and dignified working conditions for everyone.  The position of Eurosceptic lobby groups underline this point – the Fresh Start group of Eurosceptic  MPs have attacked the ‘Working Time Directive’ while Business for Britain demand the removal of EU ‘social and employment’ regulations, effectively threatening workers’ rights to paid holiday and a lunch break. 

If pro-Europeans are to win the argument, this social aspect of EU membership needs to be more widely understood. The public already accepts the logic. The High Pay Centre polling found that respondents preferred common standards to competition with other EU countries by a wide margin

 

The European Union (EU) should set limits on bankers’ bonuses and protect certain rights for workers, in order to guarantee fair pay and working conditions for all workers across the EU and ensure that all companies operating in the EU play by the same rules	49%
Individual countries should not have to follow limits on bankers’ bonuses and rights for workers set by the European Union (EU) so that they have more control over their economic policies and are free to compete with other EU countries.	30%
Don’t know	21%

 

Concern about inequality and the power of big business and the super-rich is rising across the developed world. These trends are largely driven by global factors common to most industrialised countries including the increased mobility of capital, technological change and the weakening of organised labour.

Therefore, it is no surprise that there is considerable support for co-ordinated, European-wide action to deliver a fairer and more secure settlement for ordinary people. This needs to be a key aim of Britain’s European policy and a key argument for our ongoing EU membership.

Luke Hildyard is Deputy Director of the High Pay Centre, an independent think-tank researching top pay and income distribution. For more information, visit the High Pay Centre website or follow them on twitter (@HighPayCentre)

Budget 2015: What does it mean for HR?

The Chancellor George Osborne delivered the Budget on 18^th March 2015. This article provides summary of the key areas HR professionals need to be aware of: personal tax allowance will rise to £10,600 from April 2015 and to £ £10,800 from April 2016 rising to £11,000 allowance from April 2017. The increase in tax free allowance represents a tax cut for 27 million people which means 4 million of the lowest paid will pay no tax. The Chancellor added that: “the typical working taxpayer will be over £900 a year better off.” The National Minimum Wage will increase by 20p to £6.70 per hour from 1^st October 2015 and the apprenticeship rate will rise by an unprecedented 57p. The Chancellor also added that employment levels in the UK are at an all-time high of 73 per cent and unemployment fell to 1.86 million people. But critics said that much of this jobs growth was in low-paid or insecure work such as zero hours contracts, people setting up their own businesses, or that the majority of posts were in London. Mark Beatson, chief economist for the CIPD said that the government was right to cheer the rise in employment but that “it’s astonishing that productivity wasn’t referenced even once in the chancellor’s speech, and yet this is the biggest challenge that the economy and businesses face now.”

Number of women on board increases to 25%

According to the latest Women on Boards Annual Report of the Davies Review, the proportion of female board members in FTSE 100 companies now stands at 23.5 per cent, marginally short of this year’s target of 25 per cent. The government report found that there were now 263 female directors in FTSE 100 companies, meaning a further 17 women need to be appointed this year to meet the 25 per cent target. Business secretary Vince Cable said that this achievement needs to be celebrated and that “FTSE 100 boards have made enormous progress in the last four years, almost doubling female representation to just shy of 25 per cent.” But Dr Elena Doldor, co-author of the report, said she expected women’s representation on boards to stagnate at about 28 per cent. She described that there were still not enough women on executive committees and that “introducing aspirational and measurable targets for women at all levels is the only way to achieve real progress.”

However, this news comes at a time when a report from the UN’s International Labour Organization showed that the income of female workers across the world will lag behind men’s for another 70 years. But under a change to a law to be debated this month in the UK parliament, firms will have to reveal differences between average pay for male and female employees. Companies with more than 250 employees that don’t comply with the new rules could face fines of up to £5,000.

Research finds positive link between ‘collective voice’ and employee well-being

Research by Royal Holloway, Warwick Business School, Unite, University of London and Cass Business School has shown that having a union representative in the workplace can reduce employees’ stress levels, improve their work-life balance, and increase their overall well-being. More than 3,000 people across 174 companies were surveyed for the report and researchers found that respondents’ perception of job quality were more favourable in organisations where an onsite representative was present. Professor Kim Hoque, of Warwick Business School, joint author of the report, said: “having a union representative on site seems to help improve workers job quality; this could be an important finding for companies looking to improve productivity as well as conditions for workers.” He also pointed out that previous research had shown that higher level of collective voice inside an organisation had led to higher levels of job quality and that any attempts to weaken the rights of union representatives inside an organisation could be damaging.