Creating a professional employee representative committee that works effectively requires a couple of key things … which are sometimes overlooked.
Having trained and supported Employee (Staff) Representatives in thousands of organisations across the past 25 years, at Jaluch, we’re uniquely placed to see and hear what is changing, what is needed, and what the challenges are when it comes to employee representation within the workplace.
Unless you want us to deliver an effective employee representation course, here are a few of our thoughts on why employee forums can fail, and most importantly, provide you with some solutions when it comes to creating an effective employee forum.
The challenges
There are some significant pressure points currently:
- The unions are active and feeling powerful. As a result, many unions are putting pressure on employers to formally recognise them. Setting up or revamping an employee consultative forum instead is a sensible option for many.
- Employees are unsettled, many in new roles, with constant change, the cost of living crisis, and strikes are impacting them outside of work. Employee Representatives have often been used for communication, to listen to the employee ‘pulse’, letting the leadership know of where the challenges may lie.
- A recession is forecast, meaning that many employers will be considering their strategic moves in respect of recruiting, development and even potential redundancies, all amid a need to reconfigure or innovate in order to stay viable as a business.
Our experience: why employee forums fail
Whilst many organisations have representative committees, not all find that they are working satisfactorily or effectively. In fact, there is often a lot of frustration around how to unlock the value from a group of representatives so that the organisation, employees and representatives themselves all benefit.
A common refrain from employers
They (the representatives) expect too much, they don’t understand business issues, they’re not organised, they just communicate with a small circle of associates, staff don’t know who represents them, they come to meetings with an ‘us and them’ attitude, we didn’t set up a forum only to discuss parking and the quality of the loo rolls.
A common refrain from employees
It’s all a bit pointless, I don’t know who my rep is, meetings seem infrequent and outcomes always vague, the committee has no teeth, I don’t know who puts items on the agenda, my rep was nominated rather than volunteered, so doesn’t even want to do the job.
A common refrain from representatives
The company isn’t listening to us, we have no power, whatever we suggest is rejected, my manager thinks time off for this is a waste of time, other staff have no respect for what I’m trying to achieve, we lack focus, I don’t know what I should be doing, I don’t know the other reps, I feel used.
The different groups of elected representatives
We find there are typically 3 kinds of groups we work with:
- Newly set up forums/committees.
- Established forums/committees that are not as effective as they could be.
- Representatives elected solely for an acquisition, merger or business reorganisation.
Many workplace challenges – but here are our solutions
Employees want to be heard
Employees love to know that someone is asking for their opinion and listening to what they say. Having an effective forum that is part of that ‘listening’ process is as critical as doing employee surveys, exit interviews and upwards feedback during performance reviews.
Action – Set up or revamp your representative committee
Employees want to feel included
This means that representatives need to be visible, communicating with everyone rather than just with those they work closely with, they need to be asking for opinions, communicating back after meetings, and demonstrating their value.
Action – Help your committee/forum with its ‘PR’ to ensure the necessary visibility and communications
Employees want to know that they are properly represented
The unions offer this in spades with their training and certifications of union reps, but employee representative groups are often too understated or vague in their role to be able to impress on their colleagues that they know what they are doing and can properly represent them.
Action – train your employee representatives so they understand the role, the parameters of the role, how to support in formal meetings, how to influence the organisation, how to gather employee views and how to provide feedback after meetings, etc.
Employees want to be taken seriously
They feel duped when there is a forum that they see their line managers not taking seriously, when their representatives complain about having no power and not being listened to. That feeling of being duped escalates if they see their HR team or senior management team not taking the committee seriously.
Action – Communicate with your HR team, your leadership team and management team too, so that everyone understands and values the work your representatives do. If you don’t have understanding and alignment about the purpose and value of the committee across the organisation, you have probably failed at the first hurdle”.
A professional approach for a professional role
Planning and preparation will hugely impact the outcomes you can achieve when putting in place a representative forum. As part of this, we recommend a job spec, an FAQ document for new reps, a clear constitution/remit for your forum, plus training, of course, as this is such a new (and pretty scary) role for most newly elected representatives.
A little feedback from representatives
Here is ‘one word’ feedback from representatives following a recent training session – this will give you a feel for what they valued.
- Prepared
- Well informed
- Empowered
- Confident
- Aligned
- Better equipped to support
- Supported
- Ready!
And finally
An aligned, informed committee of employee representatives can be a powerful force for good within your organisation. The benefits can be huge when it all works well, you’ll see improved communications, employee relations, relationships, decision making, collaboration etc. All it often takes to get it working well is a little time spent getting the paperwork together, training your representatives and communicating with managers about the value you place on having a successful forum.
If this is outside your skill set, resourcing abilities or even perhaps outside your comfort zone, then please do get in touch. Jaluch can support not just with effective training for representatives but also coaching for Chairs and Co-Chairs, supporting with representative elections, drafting constitutions, resolving employee representative fallouts and working with/educating managers to ensure the value is understood.