About the trust
Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was established on 1 January 2005. The Hospital has 570 beds and employs 3197 staff (at 31 March 2010). It serves a population of approximately 226,000, across an area coterminous with NHS Barnsley (the primary care trust) and Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council.
Background
Organisational change in 2007 had created a poor employee relations climate culminating in strike action and a large number of grievances. The project focused on promoting good partnership working and improving staff engagement to help rebuild relationships.
Project delivery
An external provider, The TUC Partnership Institute, worked alongside trade union representatives to promote an effective single voice with which to negotiate with management colleagues. The project promoted improved and effective negotiation, communication and consultation on difficult issues.
Outputs
A communications meeting between staff side and HR takes place every week to tackle immediate workforce issues and ensure that staff representatives and managers have an open forum to tackle problems and issues at an early stage. By having this continual dialogue any potential problems can be nipped in the bud.
Training delivered in partnership provides employees with confidence in joint ownership and gives weight to any new policy or change being introduced. A new draft Partnership Agreement has been formulated and a revised Organisational Change Policy has been agreed in partnership.
Joint statements, signed in partnership by staff representatives and management help to demonstrate the joint approach utilised by the trust to take forward key employee issues, such as on-call arrangements.
The improved climate of employee relations has seen the launch, in partnership, of new policies on sickness absence which have resulted in a reduction in sickness absence rates and this has, in turn, had a positive impact on patient care.
Top tips
- Be flexible – changes in management may mean a different approach has to be considered
- Keep going – there will be problems along the way but it’s important to keep talking and keep listening
- Learn from the past – accept and identify why things went wrong in the past and work with staff to find solutions
Contact:
Karl Hickman
Divisional HR Manager