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Last updated: 05 March 2010
The Getting Better Together project was launched in the Social Care and Health Department, aimed at creating better public services, workplaces and working lives. The impetus for the project came from various sources, including a Comprehensive Performance Assessment critical of level of employee consultation and poor star ratings for the social services department. More specifically, employee and union dissatisfaction with some workforce policies converged with a wish among senior managers to improve employee and union involvement.
Caroline Johnson from Unison acknowledged that the trade unions were initially suspicious about working jointly on attendance policies. She says this was due to a general dissatisfaction with the policies and the manner of their implementation by managers. Trade unions and employees perceived that the policies themselves were too stringent and were not applied fairly across the department. "We have always taken the line that there should be more carrot than stick."
through employee wellbeing
While the focus was initially directed at the department's attendance policies, managers and trade union representatives working on the project came to the realisation that addressing employee wellbeing as a whole would have a more powerful impact on quality of service than the narrower focus on policies.
Caroline Johnson explained: "The unions jointly took the decision to support the project. It was a matter of trust and credibility and we had a lot to lose. The breakthrough came with external facilitation from the Partnership Institute which helped break down the barriers between unions and management. This helped us realise we had a common aim of service improvement and we both wanted to look more broadly at employee wellbeing."
Maria Gavin said that tackling wellbeing includes looking at the totality of employee experiences at work, especially work-life balance. "It's clear that some styles of working aren't attractive. Lack of flexibility is certainly damaging to people's personal and family lives. We need managers to acknowledge that this has an impact on recruitment and retention."
involving managers, staff and trade unions
A Reference Group was set up to oversee the project and included departmental and human resources managers and trade union representatives. The group's launch event, attended by Birmingham City Council's Chief Executive concentrated on mapping out the broad priorities for the future of the Social Care and Health Department.
The Reference Group authorised a smaller working group made up of department and HR managers and trade union representatives to take forward the work. In turn, the work was divided into four major workstreams:
With their work overseen by the working group, the four workstream groups undertook various activities, including focus groups, work-life balance questionnaires, reviews of council policies, examining internal communication routes and looking at previous research on staff wellbeing.
In total, the workstream groups made 45 recommendations to the working group, which condensed these into six themes:
Building on the recommendations, the department is developing a policy to support and develop the wellbeing of staff. These include improved health promotion and access to facilities and services that promote health and policies around improving physical state of working conditions. Other outcomes include revised attendance policies and improved management guidance on the policies and the support mechanisms available for people returning to work.
The Working Party is looking at ways of helping employees organise their own work to mutually benefit service provision and their own wellbeing. For instance, the council agreed to pilot a self-rostering project within the elderly person's team. This was aimed at providing staff with a better work-life balance while ensuring that changes in shifts suit clients' needs.
for the future
Maria Gavin and Catherine Griffiths from the management team and Caroline Johnson from Unison agreed that the real test of whether the department has really embraced joint working and employee involvement will come with the full implementation of the recommendations made by the four workstream groups. They say this will prove that Birmingham City Council is really ready to "walk the walk".
The next test will be embedding employee involvement in service improvement issues. They recognise that trade unions and employees will lose faith if policies or changes are made without staff involvement. Yet as Catherine Griffiths says, Birmingham City Council is a huge organisation and social services and health is a big department and change can be slow to occur.
A big issue facing the department is the staff and management time needed to engage practically in service improvement issues. Caroline Johnson says that unless time and staff cover is guaranteed, this will threaten the credibility of any joint working initiatives.
The project has trialled a new working of working and created the environment to show joint working on service improvement can work. The challenge now is to mainstream employee involvement in service improvement issues.
