Drive For Change Website
Last updated: 24/3/2006
In all of the four case studies, managers, employees, trade unions and service users - the main stakeholders - were involved in helping to design service improvements. The case studies show that engaging stakeholders at a preliminary stage ensures that different levels of expertise and perspectives are brought into the process.
Joint support for the need for service improvement is a key part of the process for delivering change through employee engagement. Without acceptance of the need for change in the first place, it will be difficult to get agreement on the detail further down the road.
Managers and unions representatives should spend time with staff and service users explaining the need for the service to improve and involving them in planning the way forward. An organisation will be able to deliver more effective services with the backing of its employees and users if it wins agreement on the need for change. This depends on employee and user engagement right from the outset.
The use of a stakeholder analysis at a preliminary stage in a new project is one way of building an agreed approach to service improvements.
There are many ways of engaging with stakeholders to get their views on service improvement. A stakeholder analysis works by identifying all the parties who have an interest, in the work of an organisation, or in any of the changes involved.
Workshops were held at HM Prison Holloway to bring managers, staff and trade unions together in looking at service improvement. The stakeholder analysis approach was used in these workshops to agreed a way forward around the implementation of a new self harm policy.
Prior to this, operational managers and union representatives had been working together on new procedures for the prevention of self harm. However, progress was being hindered because of a lack of confidence in joint working. The stakeholder exercise was used to instil confidence in joint working and reach consensus on how the service could be redesigned for the benefit of the service. This initial process helped to lay the foundations for the future success of the project.
Tom Appadoo explained that through the workshops, the team reached a joint agreement about the implementation of the self harm policy with a joint action plan. Leading from that a Partnership Board was set up between the POA, other recognised unions and managers to jointly work on different service policies, which he says is a completely different approach to any seen at the prison before. Governor Tony Hassall explained that the workshops enabled the project team to reach the critical decision that the management team must involve unions in service issues and that unions must be able to exercise their rights. While the governor and the union representatives reflect that there is still a long way to go in instilling full employee and union engagement, real progress has been made in changing the culture and putting past difficulties aside.
The stakeholder analysis is created by answering two initial questions:
These questions will help to identify the key stakeholders who should be involved in the project.
External facilitation can play a key role in helping this process to take place.
By working together within agreed 'rules of engagement' which respect differing points of view, both sides should start to develop mutual respect which in turns leads to greater trust.
It is important that both sides acknowledge that they have legitimate interests which may not always coincide. Managers may be answerable to elected councillors or board members and trade union representatives are accountable to their membership. Effective joint working means avoiding putting either party in untenable positions and finding acceptable ways to resolve problems.