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Engaging for success: Enhancing performance through employee engagement “There is a strong emphasis on skills development and training to enable our employees to fulfil their potential. This is self enlightenment at work, as a more skilled workforce is able to adapt more rapidly to organisational and technological change. These processes give our employees a voice in the process of change and restructuring and in the design of jobs and organisation of work.” The company has a range of consultation processes in place to deliver its industrial relations strategy. Management and trade unions meet on a regular basis through a structured meeting schedule. Twice a year the CEO, Ian King, briefs senior union representatives from across the business on the current business position and the challenges ahead. At the meeting there is an opportunity to ask the CEO questions about all aspects of the business. Trade unions are consulted on a wide range of issues including business strategy, pensions, training, employment policy, general organisation of the company and restructuring. The focus of consultation is through the BAE Systems UK Corporate Consultative Committee (CCC) meetings which are held quarterly and attended by union representatives and senior managers. Typically topics discussed at these meetings include business strategy, pensions, job loss mitigation, diversity, health, safety and environment, lobbying and government relations, apprentice training and education partnerships. Among the agreements secured by partnership and consultation have been changes to company pensions arrangements, a best practice guide on protecting jobs and handling rationalisation and a ‘New Start’ skills training initiative. According to Dave Ryan: “A modern industrial and employment policy, developed through partnership with the trade unions can help BAE Systems, its employees and the unions cope successfully with the challenges of a global defence market and sustain capabilities and high levels of technical skills in the UK. The continuation of the BAE Systems management and trade union partnership model will be a fundamental element in this process going forward.” 51 In recent years, the potential use of collective machinery in the workplace has increased. Employees have statutory rights to be informed and consulted over a wide range of issues, including major strategic business decisions; health and safety at work; workforce planning and medium term threats to employment; collective redundancies; the transfer of the business from one owner to another; major changes in work organisation or contracts of employment; aspects of working time policy; and changes to occupational pension schemes. Regulations providing for information and consultation (I&C) now apply to all workplaces with at least 50 employees. 127 127 BERR, The Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 www.berr.gov.uk/employment/employment.../ice/index.html – (last accessed 1 July 2009) 102
Chapter 4: Enablers of Engagement – What has to happen to make engagement work 52 The take-up of some of these collective rights has been patchy, and some commentators have questioned their effectiveness. Nevertheless, some employers have extended the remit of information and consultation forums or works councils to encompass detailed discussions on the way work is carried out, including job design, production methods and so on. Keith Thomson of Ultra Electronics described how, in the UK, the company uses I&C forums as an important strand in learning and action planning, alongside team and all-hands briefings. 53 Despite the long-term falls in union density and in coverage of collective bargaining, there is evidence of a continued appetite among British employees for a collective voice at work. Research by Professor John Purcell indicates that there are a substantial number of non-union reps in the UK perhaps equalling the number of union representatives. 128 They can be found in unionised as well as non-unionised workplaces. They can aspire to play a strategic role in the success of their employer: Vivo, the staff forum in Standard Life, has set the strategic goal of their partnership with the company as becoming the catalyst for increasing employee engagement. 54 In its evidence to the review, the IPA suggested although there were examples of good practice: “Management and employee representatives have not yet fully developed a role for collective representation in improving workplace effectiveness.” In particular, many of these collective arrangements constituted an underutilised resource; companies were investing significant sums in works councils or information and consultation machinery, but there was evidence that the lack of a focus on strategic issues around performance and productivity was leading to agendas being dominated by ‘tea and toilets’ issues. In other cases, discussions were confined to facilitating changes in HR policies. 55 Nevertheless, best practice examples demonstrate the potential role of collective arrangements in engagement. The TUC and CBI suggested in 2001: “Optimal results are achieved where there is a mix of direct employee involvement and indirect participation through a trade union or works council.” 129 128 Presentation to the UK Work Organisation Network (UKWON) ‘Future of Employment Relations’ seminar 2008 129 CBI-TUC, 2001. Submission to the Productivity Initiative, HMT (quoted in Edwards P.(2007) ‘Justice in the Workplace: Why it is important and why a new public policy initiative is needed’ Paper for the Work Foundation,) 103
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