Getting the Union Relationship You Deserve - Richard Goff

A sun-spattered Wednesday morning in Manchester begins with an excellent session chaired by IPA's Nita Clarke chairing Christine Smith-Gillespie of Thames Reach and Jenni Myles from G4S.

Nita, formerly Tony Blair's unions adviser, always has insight to spare, and she starts the session reminding us that days lost to union action this decade are significantly less than in the 90s, and considerably less than in the 70s and 80s. Trade union membership is down across the economy - including in the public sector - at 25% across the workforce (at its high in 1982, the UK workforce boasted 13 million union members). Often, Nita added, it's not the union that's the problem but issues such as retention, absenteeism, disaffection and disengagement. Unions can help with those, given the right relationship; but as Nita warned in her opening remarks, "you get the relationship with the union you deserve".

G4S are an organisation which deserve more attention. They're the second biggest private sector employer in the world, and in Jenni Myles, one of their HRDs, they have one of the most engaging and thoughtful speakers on union relationships around. On global differences, for instance: "In Europe, we talk and talk and talk and when we can't talk any more, we fight. In the US, they fight and fight and fight, and when they can't fight any more, they talk."

Jenni then went on to describe how to make union relationships work. "You're not going to get a sustainable relationship unless there's something in it for both sides." At G4S, it turned out that 10% of the workforce never voted on strike action because they weren't union members. They also tended to be more moderate voices. So G4S HR gave union members access to their induction programme so they caught new arrivals, thereby boosting their membership and revenues; but also ensuing strike ballots were voted on by a greater percentage - and a broader range of views. "If you want to avoid pressing the mutual self-destruct button, you've got to accept the hiccups, agree to disagree sometimes and still move on.

All three speakers came back to this point - that empathy and emotional intelligence is key. It's probably one of the key themes of this conference - that making the judgement calls about people and their interface with business, as CIPD's Lee Sears would say, is the unique insight that HR brings. "You need a 'relationship map'", suggested Jenni, "to understand what drives the bahviour of varying different stakeholders."

An element of this is of course real candour in how you speak to unions, and unions to HR. Jenni: "What does good look like for them? But also, they need to understand, 'Unless you support me, I'm not going to support you.'"

Relationships, as we all know, require considerable resources of imagination and effort: no input, no output. And frequently union-HR relationships, or union-manager relationships, have a history of mutual antagonism that needs to be addressed before progress can be made. But with the kind of honest dealing and skill showcased in this session, they can clearly be moved forward - for mutual benefit.

Richard Goff