Solving problems in the workplace

When we meet we do a lot of talking but we also do a lot of listening. So we ask questions about what the issues are, where they've come from, maybe things that have been tried in the past that have or haven't worked. So we get a really good feel for the exact problem and maybe some ideas for what might resolve the problem. We can use our expertise and our experience of what may have worked elsewhere to give employers ideas and to offer advice. But we never tell organisations what to do, they've got to want to do it, they've got to own it themselves. We run joint workshops with organisations, so it might be with teams or it might be, for example, with trade union reps and management to look at ways to improve relations and to build on relations perhaps where they've been difficult. We believe that where employers and employees or their representatives or trade unions work together you're more likely to come up with a good solution, you're more likely to come up with a workable solution because you're going in the same direction and therefore there's less likely to be conflict further down the line. In a joint workshop we might ask the group to identify what they see as the key elements of good employment relations and typical themes that come up are things like communication, consultation, fairness, trust, respect. And so what we do then is to ask the group, you know, what's working well, what's not working so well and we're getting them to define the problem and then to start identifying, you know, what can be done in terms of resolving those issues. You cannot underestimate the power of an independent voice, i.e. ACAS, to come in and actually summarise what staff are saying, or summarise in a powerful way, this is how your organisation, this is what your organisation thinks of you. A key part of our job as ACAS advisors is to really probe and question and make sure that we're really unpicking what the issues are and really testing out that there's consensus in the room when we do get to the actions which the group are going to take away. One of the best action plans I must admit we've ever put into place, it puts staff at the heart of the organisation, realising that if you put staff at the heart of the organisation, you know, the performance and the productivity will come. The sorts of feedback that we have had from participants has included things like a better understanding of each other's roles, improved communication, better quality of consultation, better engagement with staff, improved levels of trust, improved performance. The ultimate aim of our intervention is that the employer and the representatives have the tools and the knowledge and the expertise to take this forward for themselves and become self-sufficient in problem solving going forwards. If there are organisations that are struggling in terms of organisational culture and staff engagement, pick up the phone and talk to ACAS. You know, absolutely, that would be my recommendation. They were there for us and I'm sure they can be there for other organisations and if we can do it and I know how poorly we were performing, then other organisations can do it.