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Engaging for success: Enhancing performance through employee engagement
intermediaries; employees were often fearful of admitting to their manager that
they could not read a spreadsheet for example, but would talk to their union rep
about it. The development of a substantial workplace learning strategy centred on
union learning reps has been at the heart of Mersey Travel’s engagement strategy
with unions and employees. “Engagement over learning has impacted positively on
industrial relations generally; it has helped to break down barriers and build trust, and
well as focusing efforts on one of our strategic priorities – improving staff training and
development,” said Personnel Manager, Peter Hughes.
47 According to UNITE, the presence of a trade union voice in the workplace can help
boost important aspects of engagement. In a 2006 survey, individual members in
workplaces with a trade union voice responded more positively to questions around
control of the working environment, whether or not their jobs were interesting and
whether they were treated with dignity and fairness at work, than those where no
voice was present. 126
48 There are synergies between engagement approaches and partnership working
between unions and employers, where trust, co-operation and information sharing
are key; many organisations with partnership agreements emphasised to us that it
complemented and enhanced their engagement strategies.
49 The NHS, for example, is putting considerable effort into encouraging the
development of partnership relationships between unions and managers at local
Trust level, at the same time as supporting the roll-out of employee engagement as
a key strategy in delivering improvements in patient care.
50 There are also well known examples of partnership working as an integral part of
employee engagement in the private sector; Tesco has a long standing partnership
agreement with USDAW, which other unions and employers have used as an
exemplar.
126
UNITE membership survey, 2006
100