The Chipton NHS Hospital Trust - Essay Example

Employee Relations Table of Contents Ques 3 Ques 2 10 Ques 3 13 Ques 4 15 References 18 Bibliography 19 Ques The Chipton NHS Hospital Trust is a health service provider trusted by all for long 15 years.  In a medium sized town, it operates having localized business communities. The trust has large local hospitals which provide hospital services for the local areas that cover 80 square miles. Government introduces targets, so as to increase the number of patients and raise quality service, efficiency & effectivity. In order to increase the targets, the trusts had used “outsourcing” on its service functions. SWOT is a part of strategic planning and formed from two parts of environment i.e. internal environment & external environment. SWOT stands for S - Strength, W - Weaknesses, O - Opportunities, T - Threats and the analysis done through these four segments and is popularly known as SWOT Analysis. It helps in knowing the firms capabilities in the competitive environment in which it operates. The following diagram shows SWOT Analysis framework. SWOT Analysis Framework Environmental Scan           / \            Internal Analysis       External Analysis / \                  / \ Strengths   Weaknesses       Opportunities   Threats | SWOT Matrix (Quick MBA,n.d.). In case of Chipton NHS Hospital Trust, SWOT analysis can be as follows: Strengths The Trust employed around 1,000 staff in its Operations Supportive departments, which provides the technical, operational & professional and staff workers for the services like security, cleaning, maintaining the estate, managing the car-parking and also catering.   Unions’ rates up to 60%, having a membership of Unison, GMB, and TGWU represents the crafts work and skills of the employees. Unions’ relation is good, along with 2 monthly meetings between the management and unions forms into a multi-union forum.  In the hospital, management teams have developed communication policy, this results in improving in the feedback of staff through attitude surveys because of the relation with the top management. It is stated that the management will provide information to the staff about the changes which are going to prevail and what the reasons for such changes. Around 60% of the employees are stable in the job for more than 8 years. The Trust staff members have good employee voice as they are having bi-monthly meetings with the management about their policies, problems and etc. The staff members and management of the trust had good communication with the unions, regarding their basic demands to the management. Weaknesses   The groups work in an independent manner from each other and even from the organizations itself. In an effective way of management, the workers are developing demarcation and differentiating factors and their representatives of union are changing. There are issues regarding the delegatory, communicating, team-building, and employee empowerment from the low to middle level of the members.  Those issues are subjected to be heated discussions among managers, union representatives and workers, particularly the changes which are “pushed” than negotiated.  There is a bad tendency of some supervisors and middle level managers to remove few people of the management from their responsibilities as they are untrained or are paid more than their responsibilities. Mainly in the operation department, a role of ambiguity and inconsistency about the management arrangements are cleared within the supervising levels in the organization.  Rigid jobs along with a multi-structuring differentiation in bonus system, seems to reinforce inflexible practices.  Intra-group co-operation has severely constraint with “silo mentality” embedded in the teams.  Lethargically reporting structure, weak communication, with undefined limit of authorities and accountabilities that result to ambiguity, insecurity of job, less morale and poor motivation in the operations departments mainly at operations level.   Opportunities   The Trust had outsourced some of its services and kept some contracts for the internal management teams. Threats The Managing Director discuss about the changes, with the government on the cut-backs in the budgets, therefore savings cost, less jobs and flexibility in the job roles are on the cards.  The management will be looking for “contract “and “outsourced “which will be more cost effectively. Competition for government agency-The Trust always competed for the government agency therefore outsourcing from external sources has been introduced. PESTLE Analysis PESTLE means P- Political, E- Economic, S-Sociological, T- Technological- L-Legal- E-Environmental factors that affect the business. PESTLE analysis is effective as an audit for an organization’s environmental influences with a purpose of using the information for guidance of strategic decision-making.  Political – According to the governmental policy, other health providers in the nearby region, and due to the recession, government fiscal policy and government budget deficits even more than demand. The trust expects for real cuts in this region by 10%.  Economic-Due to recession, the government’s funding is expected to fall by 10%. Mckinsey 7s  The trust has the following implication if the framework of McKinsey is implemented in the case of the hospital trust. (12Manage, n.d.). Strategy - About 60% of trust staff members have good relationship with unions like unison, GMB and etc. The management staff is developing communicating policies, this for surveying the attitude of the members towards the top management of the trust. The management aims at providing information about the forth coming changes. Support staff teams are divided into 4-6 groups and shift has placed for 8 hours each to each group. The work hours are divided to the staff team members for better management. Style - The trust mainly depends on government budget, government have some targets for the hospital management, to fulfill such targets trust had outsourced some of its services and contracts signed with the internal departments. Some of the top management teams work independently not taking into consideration the management. Sometimes group-culture practiced in the environment of the management. System - Membership with union is 60%, with Unison, GMB, and etc represents the crafts and skills of the workers.  2 monthly joint meetings are held between the management and unions.  The management teams have developed the “communications” policy; this results in improving staff feedback regarding the attitude with the top management.   The management aims at providing information to staff members about the forthcoming changes. About 60% of the employees have service for more than 8 years.  The staff work in groups divided into 4-6 depends on their work, with a supervisor assign to 4 teams.  Teams are assigning to other departments of the hospital on a permanent note.  A job rotation through shifts of three 8-hour shift is in operation for the groups.  Size - The Trust operates in a middle sized town with a localized business community. It covers about 80 Sq miles with a hospital and health centers of the doctors. It is a middle sized business. Structure - It has Operational Supporting Departmental Manager, his responsibility is to look after support services, which includes, transport, security y& etc. Then there is, Operations Supporting Business Manager, his responsibilities is to report to the OS director about the everyday activities of the management. Being head of services, he looks after the support system for everyday’s management. Then the managers of different heads like security, estates, pottering & catering come into the structure. The supervisors of different heads like security, maintenance, transport, porter & etc. are there and lastly came the staff team members under them. It is an appropriate structure for a hospital management. Ques 2 Employee relationship is the simplest of relationship that deals in between the employees and the management with the policies and regulation formed by the management. According to Abhram Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it is stated that the needs are divided into five basic needs i.e. physiological, safety, social, esteem & self-actualization needs. People work to fulfill the physiological needs i.e. clothing, shelter, food, after fulfilling the basic needs they are motivated to safety needs, similarly they are motivating themselves to upgrade themselves and fulfilling the needs for themselves. On the other, the trust had rigid structural hierarchy, where the people of lower management do not get chance to fulfill their social & esteem needs but the middle and top management are getting all the ways to fulfill all the needs except the self- actualization needs. Here, given below the diagram showing the five basic needs of the people. (ACCEL, n.d.). Earlier the management fulfilled the targets by out sourcing some of its services and contracts are offered to the internal management teams for better retaining of money and services. It had 1000 supporting staff members operating in different fields. More than half of the staffs are a member of trade unions. 2 joint meetings are held between the management and the unions about the demands and obligations. Around 60% of the staff is stable as they have work for more than 8 years. People of middle level management always want to terminate workers who are untrained and receiving salary more than enough.Groupism prevails in the relations of the employees. The workers have good relationship with the trade union. There are issues regarding the delegation, communication among the workers, team-building, and employee empowerment mainly between the middle levels to lower level of the workers. These issues are the subject of heated discussion for the managers, TUs and employees, regarding the changes which are “pushed”  than negotiation.  The employers’ relationship with the employees in not equal, due to the discrimination, this is expected. HR management is controlled from centralized HR department, with areas of the people’s management practices, like recruitment, discipline, grievances and communication delegating to the teams for the group structure. This results to slacking report structures, weak communication, defined limits of the management and accounting that have results in ambiguity, job insecurity, lower morale and poor motivation in the operational department level. The groups work independently and even from the organizational level or immediately above them, with shows effectively management control and they have developed highly differentiated traditions, which their union representatives are reluctanting to agree to change.  Rigid job is established with a multi-structural differentiation bonus system, which tends to inflexibility in work.  There is intra-group co-operation which has become severely constraint with a “silo mentality” embedding in between the teams.    The MD implies further changes on the basis of government cut-backs in budgets, henceforth cost savings, this result to the need of staff to be more flexible in their job roles they are willing to take. The management will look into the options of “contract” reviewing on the functions carrying on the department to be “outsourced” more cost effectively than sourcing them from the house. Some changes in structure and approach from the management part in line with outsourcing. According to the case study, there is informal communication. It should be changed to formal and proper information among the employees should be maintained. Pay-Scales should not vary depending on the performance and working levels in the management. They should also get some benefits from the trust, so that they are motivated. Groupism should not prevail, because of the spreading of the rumors. Trade unions should not interfere into each & every matter of the organization. Some of the services, if the management cannot provide should be outsourced but not in internal environment. Rigid job opportunities should not prevail & hierarchical structures should also not be rigid, depending on their performance, their pay and working level should be increased, this helps the workers to motivate and fulfill their basic needs. Employee relations are to be seen mainly as a set of skill or philosophy, more than a management function. Employees relating to skills with competency are shown by employers critical to achieve the performance benefits focusing on involvement of the employee, commitment and engagement.  Employee relations are strategic in nature in relation with managing business risk, both risk of not-compliancing with the employment law, and the fails to deliver a maximum business performance. Nearly about two-thirds of unionized employers had the relationship with the management and the unions are very positive. Ques 3  To achieve business goals and strong financial returns much depends on the performance delivered by the front-line employees. ‘Engagement’ is described as an amalgamation of committing and having organizational citizenship. There is evidence about people managing policies and also practice that contributing to build employee engagement programme. They are as follows, according to the research for CIPD. Firstly, it is shown that the managers are more convinced than a decade ago that involves and produce business benefits. This is confirmed by the range of methods for direct communication processes and is recognized by individual employees contribution to that of HR departments that implements and operates. Secondly, training, team-work, supervisors training in employee related matters and solving problem groups are associating with one another. In combined, the practices are construed as a structure of direct employee participating in decision-making system. Thirdly on the policies on balancing, work-life are used by employers for positive work place behaviors. Different surveys regarding employee attitudes, for e.g. Guest & Conway, linked between work-life, committing and performing, and there will be a support for the employers for the present legislation giving the employees right to request flexibility in working environment. Communication is primarily the main connection that creates policies real and without this they are not effective. Communication is a two-way process, which involves a dialogue than an instruction, it is well established. Many organizations perform worst’s, and fail to communicate with the priority, it deserves. Right communication involves professionalism and persistency. The qualities that requires that include focus on positive behaviors and results, taking a positively, solving the problem approach, recommends solutions and able to offer good advice to senior managers about implementing. Negotiating with the skills is useful and is often needed. More knowledge is required, with the skill to apply, which includes surveys and interpretation of attitudes of employees, communicating and handle conflicts with the management. Very important is having the abilities to ‘fit’ policy and practice to suit the organization’s goals and the characters of the workforce. Only in public sectors, trade unions always retain their strength and influence in workplace. This is mainly through the existence of institutions regarding collective consultation, in-compliance with the continuance relied in many case on industry-level bargains and public policies emphasizing on the term ‘partnership’. Union influences in private sector, on the other hand, continued to decline. The vital areas of private sector were industrial disputes, which are experienced, for e.g. public transport, are the one full of public or political interest. ‘Employee relations’ in terms remain ambiguous, having no transparent boundaries. It always helps the managers to focus on to increase performance. Employers are in role of ‘joint control’ and ‘rule-making’ for employees, trade unions has replaced through employing employment regulation and organizations values. Commitment to the organization and engagement are crucial on performance but are not consistent to be at its peak in the hierarchy of the management. The “Employee Information and Consultation Regulations” will be helping in raising the profiles of employee’s voice & involvement. There should be much focus within organizations on formulating strategies and planning, and also on implementing and deliveries. The concept of engaging and helping in promoting interest in measuring the HR outputs, which includes the numerous use of employees attitude surveys and also of performance in management’s appraisal systems (CIPD, 2009). Ques 4 Hence, the Chipton NHS Hospital Trust is a service provider, which provides quality health services to its customers. Employee relation was fairly good depending on the levels of working; because of lack of proper information. Employee relation with TUs was good. A rigid hierarchy was found depending upon the changes prevailing in the organisation. Taking into consideration the relations with different departments was poor, communication was extremely poor, HR department cannot properly handle the grievances of the employees, or conflicts held within the organisation. Depending on the budget of government’s fiscal policy, they change their plans looking into the profits of the trust and not the workers. Proper pay-scales are not given to the employee that is the reason the employees are not motivated. Inequalities in payments of workers result to discrimination in pay-scales. Workers of middle-level management try to remove those workers who are untrained, these cases should be handled by the HR department, or this may create conflicts among them. On commencing, the management also looks into the matters of workers having problem and solve employee relations that can tie relationship with the management. The trust should also train the employees before employing them to their organisation. There is no place for indiscrimination in the organisation. Proper hierarchy and organizational structures should be maintained. TUs should not interfere with the organisation policies and goals. The trust should maintain performance appraisal system for motivating the employers to work. Having all such malpractices, should be avoided among the organisation, so that the there should be good employee relation with the organisation as well as within themselves. Hereby, concludes to the fact that each & every reputed organisation faces certain problems, but they should have strong control over the problem to handle it, on the other, while some problems are created on their own, but problems had their own solutions. In this case, the problem was a mess among the workers of different levels, but it is the same, some adequate measures are to be taken. Taking into consideration the facts that the employees are motivated and conflicts do not arise, this affects the reputation of the organisation and the workers themselves. Henceforth, it would be better to handle such cases with care; obligations always will be there while doing something, but proper mode of control is needed to handle such complicated cases, as they are merely depend on the organisation. 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