What have you learnt?
As a first step, unions and employers should share their
answers with each other, along with their assessment of
their own and the other party's strengths and weaknesses
and the main issues for further discussion. This should
happen before the workshop on action planning so that each
side can consider the views expressed by the other.
If you plan to use any external facilitation this would be an
assessment undertaken by them. Facilitation can help bring
an objective perspective to the activity.
The following questions are designed to prompt a conversation
about how well you are doing in developing a dialogue about
service improvement.
- Do you have a shared understanding about the current
industrial relations climate?
- What, for each party, is the most striking finding from the
other's answers?
- What are you both doing well?
- What are you doing badly?
- Do you have a shared understanding of whether you are
devoting sufficient attention to service improvement
issues?
- Do you have a shared understanding of whether information
is being disclosed to the right people at the right time?
- Are there any major differences between the responses
given by the parties? For example, does the employer's
response suggest that the unions are engaged in strategic
discussions and the unions' response suggest that no
effective discussions take place?
- Do both sides agree on the extent to which your
performance management system encourages employee
and trade union involvement in service improvement?
- Having answered all these questions you are now ready
to answer the most challenging question. Just how close
are you to the best practice outlined in the principles and
standards? You will have done this already separately,
but now is the time for an honest and open exchange
between the unions and the employer.
The next series of questions should prompt you to
think about what you will do in the future:
- What steps do you need to take together to address some
of the weaknesses revealed by the analysis?
- Are there issues that you need to address individually?
- Do you all have the capacity and right skills to make union
and employee engagement an effective instrument for
positive change? If not then where are your skills gaps
and what do you need to do to fill them?
