Do learning partnerships reduce conflict in the workplace? Web view · 2013-09-23If a...

Do learning partnerships reduce conflict in the workplace? 2013

Do learning partnerships reduce conflict in the workplace?

Tony Bennett Senior Lecturer in Employee RelationsIROWE Lancashire Business School

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http://www.ufhrd.co.uk/wordpress


Table of Contents

Executive summary 3

1. Introduction 6

2. Sources of conflict in the workplace 72.1 Defining conflict 72.2 Causes of conflict 72.3 Training and development and cause of conflict 92.4 Effects of conflict 92.5 Solutions to conflict 10

3. Promoting partnership through learning 11

4. Methodology 134.1 Research strategy 134.2 Pedagogic strategy 14

5. Findings 145.1 Context: a changing government agenda? 145.2 Learning and conflict: Common themes 155.3 How learning partnerships address workplace conflict 185.4 The potential impact on individual conflict in the workplace 255.5 The potential impact on collective conflict in the workplace 31

6. Discussion and conclusion: implications for strategy and practice 366.1 Managing individual conflict through learning 376.2 Managing collective conflict through learning 386.3 The role of TUC Unionlearn 396.4 Recommendations 406.5 Summary 40

7. Recommendations 41

8. References 42

List of Tables

1. Table 1: Background of respondents 132. Box 1 – TUC Unionlearn and union support 24

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Executive Summary

Despite the change in government in May 2010, and more significantly a change in employee relations policy and strategy in contrast to the previous government, the on-going commitment to the Union Learning Fund demonstrates that the added value that union-led learning brings to the economy continues to be recognised (Union learning fund, 2012). That said, most union respondents to this study reported that in order to successfully maintain that financial support a key element of the learning agenda was to achieve clearly identifiable outcomes in terms of members’ learning and its impact on themselves, their organisations, the economy and increasingly their communities. In that sense all interviewees stressed the importance of a clear learning strategy for their union and their organisation with equally clear benefits in terms of the ‘bottom line’. This imperative to justify funding and achieve targets did not, however, pre-empt for the majority of union respondents the scope to derive other benefits from the learning agenda, which is supported by the research of Heyes and Rainbird (2011). In terms of the context of workplace learning, unsurprisingly, the current economic climate and the pressures it has put on organisations was to the fore in most discussions. In the public sector in particular, potential causes of conflict were the current round of staff cuts. Although all respondents cited the key role of learning when dealing with some of the consequences of economic pressures, primarily in managing larger scale redundancies. This is an area of potential collective conflict that figures significantly in the report.

Greater links with the community through extending access and, therefore, the benefits of learning were cited by all respondents. Equally, was the scope and need for innovation, driven very often by TUC Unionlearn, to develop new vehicles for facilitating learning such as digital inclusion and the collective learning fund. In the context of this report, discussion with all interviewees suggested that they saw the potential for a common learning agenda in the workplace to also impact positively on employee relations generally in the organisation.

Crucially, the original remit of the researcher to define and investigate the impact of learning on individual conflict (as measured through absence, staff turnover, grievance and discipline) and collective conflict (as measured collective disputes) was redefined through the analysis of the data. It became clear in the analysis, and is a significant finding of the research, that learning impacted on both individual and collective employee relations in many other ways. This potential effect of a joint union management learning and development strategy, therefore, was captured through a number of key themes, which included:

The significance of the learning centre as a fulcrum for supporting the learning partnership

The importance of the collective learning fund in sustaining learning in all case study organisations.

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Crucially, the reduction or pre-empting of performance and discipline issues by supporting worker skills and knowledge acquisition through learning and development

The impact of learning on the ‘well-being’ of the individual and its consequential positive impact on individual conflict (for instance, health and safety and the management of stress)

The impact of learning on other key measures of individual conflict reduction such as morale, commitment, trust, managing job loss and recognition (in addition to more formal measures like absence and resignation)

The impact of learning on the collective elements of conflict: managing change, better communication, more extensive consultation, managing redundancy and redeployment and building greater trust and understanding between management and the unions through partnership

In terms of union organisation, findings also indicated that the learning agenda facilitated greater co-operation and less conflict between the different unions. Respondents also reported that union reps were generally more confident in their dealings with members and management and that learning initiatives had had a positive impact on branch organisation in terms of recruitment and member activity.

However, it must be stressed that the aim of this report has not been to postulate that learning is in any form a ‘cure all’ for the conflict that is an inevitable part of any employment relationship. Rather, it has been to argue that given the common aims and objectives that a workplace learning partnership can realise, an important added outcome of that strategy could be less individual and collective conflict within that organisation.

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It’s not a soft option becoming a union learning rep, it’s not a soft option talking about the learning agenda. Because the learning agenda and the skills that you’re giving future workers helps them in what is their market, basically, which is the jobs market. If people are looking at redundancy and people are looking at trying to find a job, then that’s really important stuff to everyone, isn’t it? Definitely, to be more employable, to increase someone’s portfolio on a regular basis, to let them believe that their learning and development will take them somewhere, is so important to them. It’s not a soft option. It’s a really hard-nosed option. There’s nothing more hard-nosed than somebody losing a job and not being able to find employment and that affecting their family and their loved ones.

UNITE project worker

1. Introduction

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Conflict management in the workplace has long been acknowledged as a key challenge for all organisations (Ridley-Duff and Bennett, 2011). Similarly, the value of promoting learning in the workplace and, in the context of this report, specifically through partnership between trade unions and their management, has increasingly gained justifiable recognition (Shelley, 2007; Saundry et al, 2011). What is less well researched and, it can be argued, is of key concern in evaluating human resource development (HRD) strategy is the potential effectiveness of learning in also reducing conflict in the workplace.

The aim of this report, working with TUC Unionlearn in the North West, and with the support of the University Forum for Human Resource Development, is to capture and critically analyse the views and experiences of a cross section of managers and trade union representatives on this question across the North West region; people who have worked together on a number of particularly successful learning projects.

Crucially, the key objective is to establish the degree to which such programmes of learning not only increase the individual and collective knowledge and skills of those organisations but also tangibly reduce the level of individual and collective conflict in the workplace. The other key objective of the research is to subsequently raise awareness amongst business practitioners and trade union officers and activists of the potential added value of HRD to organisations in terms of its positive impact on the employee relations climate.

A key counsel from a number of the people interviewed, however, and particularly in the unions, was that the study needs to remain objective and realistic. As they stressed, we are in a period when the unions are under increased pressure to respond to the outcomes of government policy and strategy on employers. Furthermore, it may be rightly suggested that some in the union movement see learning as less of a priority when other more pressing employee relations issues arise. The analysis has been carried out with this ‘reality check’ in mind. It looks at the possible, and what respondents felt is actually achievable in terms of the learning agenda also having a positive impact on the employee relation climate in their respective organisations or sector. It might be argued that the employee relations climate could be worse still if not for the activities of promoters of learning1? The study is approached in this context and with these key questions in mind.

The report is based on face to face interviews, and a smaller number of telephone interviews, with thirty management and trade union representatives2 in order to gain their views on the impact of learning within a cross-sectoral sample of organisations in the North West. The report is structured to first offer an overview of current research and thinking on learning and conflict in the workplace. This is then followed by a critical analysis of the data collected in terms of a number of cross-cutting themes. The report closes with a critical review of the findings and recommendations on how the TUC, its affiliates and the HRD Forum might usefully utilise the report’s findings in their respective HRD strategies for teaching, training and service delivery. The report is accompanied by a separate guide for tutors offering suggestions on how to best utilise the report in their teaching.

1 To paraphrase an oft quoted retort by union learning reps to the question ‘why should I train my people if they may then just leave’, is to ask ‘What will happen if you don’t recognise their learning needs?’ 2 In working across a number of sectors and organisations it was of value to also draw on the knowledge and experiences of a sample of members of the Unionlearn team who support the unions in those sectors

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2. Sources of conflict in the workplace

2.1 Defining conflict

In order to discuss the causes and effects of workplace conflict it is first necessary to clearly define the term:

A process that begins when one party perceives that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something the first party cares about. Typically conflicts are based upon differences in interest and values, when the interests of one party come up against the different interest of another (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2007: 764).

This definition is useful because it captures key aspects of conflict and the potential for learning, certainly when a jointly agreed process between management and the unions, to reduce that conflict. Crucially, conflict is often about different perspectives and that if both parties can be assisted to better understand the others perspective this may result in the resolution of that conflict. Similarly, conflict can arise because of different interests. Again, if the parties in dispute can gain a better understanding of the others interests, the conflict resulting from those different interests may be reconciled to the satisfaction of both parties. It can be argued that it is the task of managers and unions to devise and utilise processes, practices and a working relationship that will aid the management of this conflict in the workplace. In terms of this report, the learning agenda is potentially seen as one of those practices and ways of working.

2.2 Causes of the negative aspects of conflict

Conflict is more often associated with its negative effects and can arise for many reasons:

A key cause of conflict in the workplace is poor communications. Not fully thought out or fully explained actions by management can often be the source of conflict in an employment setting.

For instance, implementing change in terms of work organisation, roles and responsibilities or payment to individuals without prior consultation with the worker or workers involved can lead to an individual feeling aggrieved and thus in conflict with management; or could lead to a collective grievance if the action has affected a group of workers.

Such action can have a damaging effect on employee relations in the workplace, leading to workers’ reaction both overt and covert in nature [see below]. For writers like Marchington, regular ‘downward communications’ that inform and seek to ‘educate staff so that they are more likely to accept management plans’ should be a standard element of ‘good management practice’ (2001:235).These processes could include:

One to one discussions with individuals.

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Emails. Team briefings. The use of collective channels of consultation when appropriate.

If channels, like collective bargaining or joint consultation committees, are not utilised when available to discuss, and when appropriate negotiate on, the reasons for and objectives of management actions this can certainly lead to conflict. There are a number of other potential causes of conflict in the workplace that it is important to consider (Watson, 2006):

Poor management skills or style of management Perceived lack of promotion opportunities or development (see more below) Poor personal relationships between staff or with their manager Downsizing, and in particular the poor management of redundancy, has been seen

as potential cause of conflict. This is certainly so if not just the effect of resultant job losses but also the rationale and ‘fairness’ of the overall process is not clear to the workforce (Redman and Wilkinson, 2009).

If a company has not included their equality responsibilities under law in all relevant policies and procedures, for instance ensuring that no aspects of their human resource practices such as recruitment or promotion are discriminatory, then this could result in poor management actions leading to a claim of discrimination against that company.

Similarly, if measures have not been taken to ensure that all managers and employees know about their rights and responsibilities under equality law, this again could lead to a person or persons being treated unfairly and so raising a grievance against the company3.

If there are inadequate rules and regulations in place in the organisation to ensure the health and safety of staff and other people on site as set in The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and other associated regulations and codes of good practice.

In general, if clear policies and procedures are not in place with respect to all elements of managing the employment relationship then this can lead to uncertainty for all parties which again can lead to conflict. From the discussion so far it is clear that conflict in the workplace has many sources. The goal of the union representative, it can be argued, in negotiating agreements with their employer is to identify the most appropriate solution to avoid or resolve that conflict. It is of worth to also consider next the specific training and development issues that can cause conflict to arise.2.3 Training and development and the causes of conflict

There are many ways in which conflict in the workplace and its relationship to training and development, or the lack of it, can become apparent. A key cause of conflict is often inadequate training. This can be due to individuals feeling that they have not been given sufficient training and development to effectively carry out a role or tasks they have been

3 Currently unfair treatment under discrimination legislation covers: gender, race and ethnic background, disability, age, religious belief and sexuality. It is of note that ignorance is no defence and organisations’ have a vicarious liability in the case of discrimination. Harassment, either of a discriminatory nature e.g. sexual harassment, or more bullying in nature can also lead to conflict.

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allocated. Alternatively, it could be due to an individual feeling that they have not been offered appropriate opportunities to develop and gain skills and knowledge within the organisation. In either case this can lead to conflict between that individual and their manager. As noted by ACAS, in terms of personal development and training, ‘conflict at work can often be caused when employers ignore the needs of employees or set unrealistic expectations’ (2006:10). In terms of these employee ‘needs and expectations’ (ACAS, 2006), it might be reasonable to suggest that a training needs analysis and subsequent assessments of individuals’ skills gap could reduce the likelihood of conflict. Similarly, a clearly defined and regular system of employee appraisal or personal review could go some way to matching the expectation of both parties with respect to this particular aspect of the employment relationship. The absence of these key human resources development processes can all lead to conflict.

2.4 The effects of conflict

Having considered some of the main causes of conflict, it is important to consider its potential consequences. A number of writers have usefully highlighted the consequences of industrial conflict, both in a collective and individual sense (Blyton and Turnbull, 2004; Rollinson and Dundon, 2007). The outcomes of collective conflict are various and but generally more visible. At their most extreme, it can result in the withdrawal of collective labour in the form of the strike. Less extreme, but arguably no less damaging to the organisation is the slow-down of work through ‘work to rule’ action. Where workers avoid the use of any usual initiatives and typically ‘stick strictly to the rule-book’ as agreed by contract and agreements. Overtime bans are another good example of the partial withdrawal of goodwill by the workforce that has an immediate effect on the flexibility of labour normally open to the organisation.

In the context of learning and its impact on conflict are perhaps the less visible incidences of ‘industrial action’ that can be taken by the individual. Kersley et al. (2006) in their analysis of the 2004 workplace employment relations survey cite absenteeism and voluntary resignations as ‘potential indicators of discontent’ reported by respondents to the survey. They suggest that, ‘studies have clearly indicated how absenteeism and resignations may be used by employees as alternative means of expressing discontent when …[other forms]… of expression are either unavailable or are less attractive’ (ibid:230). Crucially, Dunn, C. and Wilkinson, A. (2002) highlight the growing realisation within organisations of the damaging effects of a lack of effective management of staff absence in terms of causes and consequences. Blyton and Turnbull (2004: 350) highlight other examples of more ‘spontaneous and reactive’ actions such as sabotage and at its more extreme violence. The disenchanted worker may on occasion react with physical violence against their manager or a co-worker. Sabotage, in contrast, is covert and can vary from physically disabling the means of production to more subtle acts of purposively holding back valuable information or sending in reports late, which can have an adverse effect on the management decision-making process.

Conflict caused by individuals being or feeling themselves harassed, bullied or discriminated against can lead to a severe degradation of their quality of life. This in turn can have an adverse effect on their health and well-being – occupational stress, for instance, is a growing

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concern within the field of health and safety practitioners to the point where organisations who do not have effective harassment and bullying policies and procedures can leave themselves open to improvement notices under the health and safety legislation (HSE/ACAS, 2009).

There is a point where the causes and effects of conflict are harder to delineate – one might sit equally well in one list as in the other. Williams and Adam-Smith, in their assessment of its damaging effects on the organisation and its members, have termed this ‘unorganised conflict’ (2010: 344). If, for instance, employees do not feel fully informed, valued or respected, this can lead to lower morale amongst the staff and crucially a loss of trust between management and the workforce. These can be both the causes and consequences of conflict depending on the employee relations environment of the organisation. Operationally, lack of trust and low morale can lead to a less committed and motivated workforce that will potentially have a negative effect on the quality of work and the productiveness of the organisation as a whole.

In summary, the effects of conflict in the workplace can be measured in wasted time and resources, bad feeling amongst staff and negative cost implications for the bottom line. This is often the result of poor relations between management and staff in terms of each other’s expectations. A shared learning agenda, it can be argued, may be a valuable vehicle in breaking down those barriers to understanding, and so have a positive impact on employee relations in addition to its explicit objective of improving individual and organisational learning and effectiveness.

2.5 Solutions to conflict

Writers like Salamon have noted that different players may adopt different perspectives on the rationale of conflict. It can be argued then that there are a number of potential solutions to managing conflict in the workplace. For instance from a unitarist perspective, that views the organisation as a haven of harmony and trust (Salamon, 1998), and where conflict is seen at best dysfunctional, greater effort by management to articulate the common aims of the organisation and its legitimate role in pursuing those aims through better communication to the workforce is seen as the ‘best’ solution (See above reference to Marchington. 2001). Alternatively, whilst recognising this as a legitimate but incomplete perspective of the workplace, in contrast the pluralist view (Salamon, 1998) argues that in reality all organisations, indeed society itself, is made of many often competing groups and thus conflict is inevitable.

The solution from an employee relations focus is to recognise those competing aims and the legitimacy of the trade union to represent and speak for and negotiate on behalf of the workforce (Williams and Adam-Smith, 2010). From this perspective greater emphasis on consultation and joint decision-making over issues of common concern is a key solution to resolving workplace conflict (See also Rollinson and Dundon, 2007). For the purposes of this paper, a pluralist perspective of the employment relationship has been adopted . A key element of managing both individual and collective conflict has been recognised by writers reporting on the impact of redundancy programmes (Redman and Wilkinson, 2009; Ashman, 2012). This is particularly the case if the consultation, selection process and overall

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management of the process are perceived to have been unfair in any way by the workforce (ibid.). The impact of the learning agenda on the management of redundancy figures significantly in this report. In addition, for many organisations the formal routes to conflict resolution remain grievance and discipline procedures (Saundry and Jones, 2012).

Another area growing in prominence in recent times with respect to managing workplace conflict is the notion of alternative dispute resolution (Roche and Teague, 2012) and, in particular, the practice of mediation. Mediation is a model of dispute resolution, it is argued, which lends itself particularly well to situations where the parties have become entrenched in their positions. From a practical perspective, it is a method of resolving workplace disputes that, it is further argued, seeks to avoid a more formal and often more confrontational route, such as grievance and discipline procedures, and rather than attribute blame looks to rebuild damaged relationships for the future (ACAS, 2011: Ridley-Duff and Bennett, 2011).

Given the theme of this report is learning partnerships, and its focus is on both individual and collective solutions for when conflict occurs, ADR does not figure in the discussion. Rather, the emphasis is on the extent to which training and development, and learning partnerships in particular, can impact on workplace conflict. The next section considers the development of the union learning agenda.

3. Promoting learning through partnership with the trade unions

Arguably, one of the most successful recent initiatives by the union movement has been the development of a network of union learning representatives (ULRs) trained to give advice and guidance to employees and employers in areas of training and development and lifelong learning (Moore, 2009; Stuart et al., 2010). It is an initiative that has arisen partly in the context of the continuing pressure on the UK government and employers to find supply-side solutions to the increasing demand for the new and updated skills needed to remain globally competitive (Stuart, 2007). As a part of a government-sponsored strategy for learning partnerships, dedicated union learning funds (ULF) for Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales have been in operation for over a decade to allow unions to bid for resources to initiate and run learning projects.

Reviews of the ULF have reported many positive outcomes in terms of learner engagement and benefits to the organisation in improved productivity (Stuart et al, 2010a, 2010b). Specifically in relation to managing conflict, Stuart et al. also note the additional but ‘less reported’ outcomes of ULF projects that have particular significance for the discussion that follows:

The findings are equally positive for employee outcomes and industrial relations matters. Around four out of ten employers claim that union learning has contributed to an increase in staff morale (42 per cent) and employee commitment (39 per cent). Turning to the wider industrial relations environment, the findings offer strong support for the contribution union learning can make to improving levels of trust between management and unions (42 per cent) (2010b:17).

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It is of further note that a number of surveys of unions have highlighted that ‘the achievements of union learning reps should not be underestimated’ (Hollinrake et al., 2008: 407) and offer evidence that ULRs ‘represent a substantial boost to union workplace activity’ (ibid).

This strategy, however, has not been without its critics in terms of both delivery and, it is argued, ‘the weaknesses inherent in a supply-side strategy for vocational training and skill development’ (Stuart and Cooney, 2008: 347). Furthermore, for some commentators, a partnership strategy built around learning consigns unions to a more junior role in terms of the balance of power with employers. McIlroy (2008), for instance, is highly critical of the notion of workplace learning in its current form as a means of union revitalisation. He argues that the evidence available suggests rather that the TUC is reduced to the role of ‘state agent’ for learning, and the notion of social partnership is mere rhetoric whilst any legal requirement for training remains absent from the collective bargaining agenda (ibid.: 297). More recently, Keep and James (2012) have been critical of the current strategy of work-based learning in the UK. They question the quality of the training available, facilitated to a degree through the union learning route, to really equip workers with new skills and knowledge that could make a tangible difference to their working lives. The extent to which the ULR role can specifically revitalise trade unions has also attracted critical comment in the literature. Hoque and Bacon (2008; 2009) counsel caution in overestimating the influence of the ULR. Their studies found only a weak link between ULR activity and recruitment of new members.

In contrast, Warhurst et al. report that some new ULRs were attracted to the role, ‘believing it to involve less confrontation’ (2007: 19). They also report that ‘there was evidence of ULRs going on to take up other, broader representational roles’ (Warhurst et al., ibid.). Likewise, in terms of renewal, recent research suggests that the learning agenda is allowing the unions to build up new partnerships with different bodies and establish some degree of collective bargaining over learning objectives (Stuart and Wallis, 2007). Similarly, the research by both Shelley (2007) and Perrett and Martinez Lucio (2008) highlight the potential of union co-ordinated learning centres as catalysts for greater engagement with local communities. However, they also stress the vulnerability of this initiative for revitalisation in terms of its dependency on employer support and, crucially, long-term funding.

Overall, having gained statutory rights in 2002 (Wallis et al., 2005) the ULR is now well established at union branch level, with unions having clear strategies for recruiting, training, organising and supporting ULRs. Furthermore, recent research has revealed that learning has both enabled the unions to utilise these new resources in terms of being better organised to support their members more generally, and so offers an opportunity to revitalise their broader position in collectively representing their members in the workplace (Heyes and Rainbird, 2011; Findlay and Warhurst, 2011). In terms of unions also being better able to manage both the causes and consequences of conflict, these studies will be valuable in critically assessing the findings that are reported below. Stuart et al (2010a, 2012b) evaluations of the effectiveness of the Union Learning Fund initiative will also inform the discussion that follows.

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4. Methodology

4.1 Research strategy

An initial study of existing reports, and discussions with officers at TUC Unionlearn in the North West, helped identify a number of potential case study organisations and union projects which were seen as representative of successful learning partnerships in the region.

Table 1: Background of respondents

Organisation Respondent and roleULF project Project manager and two

project workersSME engineering company MD and lead ULRAcute Trust HR manager, T&D manager,

union convenor and lead ULRLocal Authority Lead ULR, second ULR and

workforce development director

Large food manufacturer Operations manager, T&D manager, lead ULR

Large public transport organisation

HR director, union convenor, lead ULR and project worker

GMB ULF project Project managerCross sectoral sample of TUC Unionlearn support officers and union project workers in North West

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Total Thirty respondents

From this initial research, the subsequent study was based on semi-structured interviews with a cross-section of thirty managers and union learning co-ordinators from the case study organisations, and union project workers and TUC officers who have supported those organisations. The majority of meetings were face-to-face with a smaller number conducted by telephone. Interviews averaged an hour in duration. Table 1 gives a breakdown of the respondents.

4.2 Pedagogic strategy

A key aim of the research was to not only offer new insight into how learning in partnership impacts on the employee relations climate within an organisation, but also how those findings could usefully inform the teaching of human resource development within both business schools and trade union education units. To this end the final report has been

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supplemented by a separate teaching guide with suggestions of how best to utilise the report as a medium for learning. After discussion with all respondents and it was decided to anonymise the organisations involved. Key areas of discussion with respondents included:

The causes and consequences of conflict The state of employee relations pre and post establishing the learning agreement The type of learning initiatives taking place in the organisation The impact of learning on individual conflict in the organisation The impact of learning on collective issues around conflict in the organisation

5. Findings

5.1. Context: A changing government agenda?

Despite the change in government in May 2010, and more significantly a change in employee relations policy and strategy in contrast to the previous government (BIS, 2011), the on-going commitment to the Union Learning Fund demonstrates that the added value that union-led learning brings to the economy continues to be recognised (Union learning fund, 2012). That said, most union respondents to this study reported that in order to successfully maintain that financial support a key element of the learning agenda was to achieve clearly identifiable outcomes in terms of members’ learning and its impact on themselves, their organisations, the economy and increasingly their communities. In that sense all interviewees stressed the importance of a clear learning strategy for their union and their organisations with equally clear benefits in terms of the ‘bottom line’. This imperative to justify funding and achieve targets did not, however, pre-empt for the majority of union respondents the scope to derive other benefits from the learning agenda, which is supported by the research of Heyes and Rainbird (2011). In terms of the context of workplace learning, unsurprisingly, the current economic climate and the pressures it put on organisations was to the fore in most discussions. In the public sector in particular, potential causes of conflict were the current round of staff cuts and work reorganisation in general. In this context, all respondents cited the key role of learning when dealing with the consequences of economic pressures, primarily in managing larger scale redundancies. This is an area of potential collective conflict that figures significantly in the discussion that follows.

Greater links with the community through extending access and, therefore, the benefits of learning were cited by all respondents. Equally, as we will also see further below, was the scope and need for innovation, driven very often by TUC Unionlearn, to develop new vehicles for facilitating learning such as digital inclusion and the collective learning fund. In the context of this report, discussion with all interviewees suggested that they saw the potential for a common learning agenda in the workplace to also impact positively on employee relations generally in the organisation. This potential effect of a joint union management learning and development strategy can be usefully captured through a number of key themes that will now be considered on more depth.

5.2. Learning and conflict: Common themes

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5.2.1 Causes of conflict

‘A coalition of the willing’ is how one TUC support officer succinctly defined the potential of management and workers through their unions to come together in partnership in pursuit of a common learning agenda. This common purpose found its articulation in a number of key areas. However, before considering these elements of the learning agenda it is of value to compare and contrast what respondents from both the management and the union sides first saw as the main causes of conflict. As cited above, for most respondents the current economic climate was a key catalyst for conflict, particularly when those economic pressures meant change in work practice and potential downsizing. The contribution from one Unionlearn support officer captured this general sentiment well:

Well certainly at the moment it is essentially cuts isn’t it, redundancies in jobs threats and redeployment and so on, certainly.. [at some of the NHS trusts she supports].. It is things around not compulsory redundancies but around changes to the work and also things like putting everything on an electronic record. The medical record staff have gone through massive changes and stuff like that so it changes both in work practise but public sector cuts are probably the overwhelming issue at the moment.

Linked to this was the general feeling, certainly amongst trade unionists, that poor communication was often also a key reason for conflict in the workplace. This could manifest itself in a number of ways:

Management style and lack of skills Lack of or late consultation on change Lack of support for and understanding of the learning needs of employees by

management

Contributions from two union officers in the food industry capture this perception of some management well:

- Well bad management, managers that don’t listen, sometimes poor health and safety standards. It does generally come back to too many chiefs and not enough Indians, they have too many managers that know basically nothing about the industry that they’re coming into and they try to make changes what are not necessary.

- Graduates coming along who have come from university not knowing anything about the food industry and they walk in and try to make changes that simply won’t work. They don’t listen to the workers who have done them jobs for numerous years, so they know it like the back of their hand, and they just try to implement changes that are not necessary.

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This type of ‘poor’ communication and it effects were also recognised by most managers in the research. As the MD from the Engineering SME conceded, this can then lead to lack of trust on the part of the workers:

I think there are other areas where communication is poor, and where the change or the substance or the issue gets poorly communicated or gets out, gets converted from, you know, whatever the original tension was into some conspiracy or something much more draconian and, you know, and then everybody gets upset about it, and then you if you like, you’re way down the road trying to pull people back to what was originally intended.

Similarly, in concurrence with her union counterparts, a training manager at the food manufacturer recognised the tension between the workforce and its management. Although interestingly this varied depending on the manager:

So I think that, you go in the workplace, you’ve always got somebody lording it over you if mind the pun, and so there is always a natural resentment, especially if you are 50 and your manager is 30 and just come from university and is asking you to do something and you can get people going ‘well bloody hell, he knows nothing, wet behind the ears’. I think that’s a natural conflict, I don’t think you would ever get away from that. We do try, managers and employers share the same canteen, there’s no difference, they have break systems, there’s no difference. And a lot of our managers have good working relationships with their lines. [Depending on the manager] ..If you were to interview people downstairs and ask people what they thought of their managers, they would be very favourable.

Furthermore, many union respondents argued that often it was the lack of consultation over initiatives that management felt were necessary to address pressures arising out of the current climate that precipitated resistance from the workforce. In the context of the findings below, learning partnerships and the concomitant need and willingness to share information, and be more trusting, for most respondents on all sides do pre-empt this type of dispute arising. A perceived vulnerability of workers in employment was unsurprisingly also a key feature of discussion with union participants. As two project officers from USDAW explained in the context of the challenge to get members into learning:

But retail is such a hard sector to be in. You’ve got to be flexible to work there, You’ve got to ...I mean, there’s hardly anyone works full time now in retail. It’s all four hour, six hour and twelve hour contracts, which is terrible, isn’t it? so that’s been a bit of a conflict for getting people into learning, as well.

From just normal kind of grievances that you’ll hear from our members when we go out and about, it is kind of, the hours, the pay, and the working conditions, the way that they get treated. It’s because they feel that they’re only a number, and they’re quite dispensable. Because if you want somebody to sit on a check-out, the way the

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current economic job market is now, you can get someone [new easily] to sit on a check-out. So I think they feel like they are numbers.

Other union respondents concurred with these sentiments. Similarly, in terms of work pressure and conflict, many union respondents highlighted the significance of performance management. As another USDAW representative reported:

I used to work for XXX call centre, managed performance was coming in just before I left and that is so easy to manage people out of the business. It is absolutely unbelievable. Warehouse and distribution, anywhere where there’s a target on what you do. So you’ve got a pick rate in warehouse, so if you’re not hitting that, they will performance manage you. If you’re not answering enough calls in a call centre, they will performance manage you.

Fundamentally, lack of trust on both sides was an oft quoted reason for conflict in the workplace. The following contribution from one union project manager captures that feeling well, and the potential for a joint strategy to learning to build an element of trust shared by all sides:

I would say with my experience that the greatest key conflict is actually probably a lack of trust by both parties. And anything that can be done to foster trust and a better working relationship between both parties and also to develop a shared understanding of a vision for the enterprise and for the agenda that trade unions hold and where they’ve a common ground. Then in my view you’re more likely to see a more dynamic and forward looking organisation and a more engaged work force in the process

Stress was also a key outcome of conflict cited by a number of union representatives. As one TUC support officer outlined in the North West:

I think one of the biggest things now you know and I think it’s coming out more is people under stress you know like mental health issues. You know if you look at the cost you know to employers where people have got mental health issues, you’re talking about in the region about twenty three billion pound you know a year, thousand and thirty five pound per employee and all of that I think that generates conflict because I think now people are going off sick, people are having to cover when those people have gone off sick. There’s no recruitment and again when people are going off sick and you have got people who’re expected to do the same job with less people I think that is the type of thing that’s generating you know a lot of the conflict.

Significantly, the health and well-being initiatives instigated by TUC Unionlearn through the learning agenda were highlighted by many respondents as a key tool for identifying and addressing causes of individual conflict in the workplace. In summary, respondents were generally in concert with the potential causes of conflict identified earlier in the report and

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articulated a clear link to the possible positive effect that learning in the workplace could bring to those disputes.

5.3 How learning partnerships can address the causes of workplace conflict

5.3.1 Winning over recalcitrant stakeholders: Making the business case

Participants from both management and the union side stressed that promoting learning in the workplace was an iterative process and not without barriers to be overcome. Winning over colleagues in the union branch, line managers and senior management were all seen as challenges to be faced by proponents of workplace learning. Indeed very successful projects, as developed at the large food manufacturer, were often based on the pragmatic recognition, as articulated by one operations manager, that:

Here, there’s two levels. Because for the senior team there’s quite a lot of kudos in having a well accredited training centre. But for a number of years it was in spite of that. Okay, it’s been done by a couple of core, the training managers, the training team, the unions, and we’ve done it and the senior management team have, have supported it by not, not stopping it basically.

Similarly, a GMB project manager captured the ‘metaphorical’ business case for learning well in stressing the ‘bottom line’ argument to put to managers reluctant to see the value of a learning partnership with their unions. This was in the context of his team’s work with East European workers to enhance their learning – a key element of his project - but the sentiment was universal amongst all union respondents:

Sometimes I say it to employers when I first meet them that they may have a particular view about trade unions but I take my view from my eastern European colleagues who say you know we don’t want to slaughter the cow that we want to milk tomorrow.

This view was supported by all TUC officers. As one argued, even in the context of managing redundancy, companies need to look long-term with respect to staff training:

I know people say ‘well how do we motivate people into training when we’re making people redundant?’ Well yes you will because you know by saying that you’re going to train them first of all, you’re going to give them skills which are transferrable anyway. The other thing also is that what we want to do is make it that way you know where we’ve got a workforce that are skilled up to move on once we come out of the recession.

For most respondents this type of approach was fully supported. This was particularly the case in terms of developing new skills for the future such as competency with computer technology:

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I think looking at the company, there’s going to be changes as we move forward, and there’s going to be working with new technologies, there’s going to be computer systems, there’s going to be more literacy and numeracy. There’s going to be more probably written instructions, and certainly from a health and safety perspective people then, you know, they start to understand it but can probably make them changes a lot easier once they’ve gone through these processes (Convenor and lead ULR at the Engineering SME).

The practical advantages of learning in partnership and the bottom line are captured to good effect by two union project workers:

It gives people confidence, it boosts staff morale massively, and how can I word it? I just think having learning on site is fantastic for both company and management because you’ll end up having a more productive workforce and they’re more likely to stay and progress within the company.

I mean, they were having, they were losing thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds because staff were sending too much cheese out [from the factory], because they couldn’t read the scale. And it was proved that, when they did the maths and English, that that wastage really, really dropped.

For the union convenor at the Trust, recognising the unique contribution of cleaners towards achieving a core aim of health care, the reduction of infection through better cleaning standards, was again a core business argument for investing in the learning and development of all staff. His insight is particularly interesting in that the Trust had only in the last two years decided to take back from an outsource company all of its cleaning staff in order to improve that element of service to their patients:

We’re in the business of delivering patient care. So I think there were two drivers. It didn’t make economic sense to keep them outsourced to the contractors, and I think there was a general desire to improve quality, including through staff development, and unless you’ve got direct control over your workforce that can be difficult.

Similarly, for the training manager at the food manufacturer, wining over colleagues to the value or the learning partnership was about changing the culture of their site:

We have a learning culture now. When we started on our learning journey, we decided to do the ‘learn for you’ centre. It was more just to get people interested and that, because NVQs hadn’t started off. It was more to get engagement, as a way to engage our workforce. So it was used then for links, but then at the same time the government then was bringing in skills for life, the government were also bringing in NVQs, and then our union learning reps started. So that’s when we realised then that we actually had people whose reading abilities weren’t what they should be, maths abilities weren’t, and then we soon quickly realised if we brought

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those abilities up our manufacturing would improve, their lives would improve and they would feel more valued.

Crucially, as we reflect on how the business case can also be clearly linked to the benefits for both employer and employee, and as considered in depth below in potentially addressing conflict between those two parties, the following contributions capture the rationale of that argument well:

From the union side, if I was asked to speak at a function I would actually spend a lot of my time stressing the business case of what the employer has done because it wasn’t necessarily about trade union rights and everything else, I think the point I was trying to get over was it benefitted the business because it has reduced the sickness rate, it has made people more motivated, it does really that they’d got a future in the organisation. So if they want to put the effort in they will get rewarded for it (Convenor at the transport organisation).

Well, every trust at the moment is looking for improvements in productivity and efficiencies. So, the more we can equip staff to undertake the tasks that we need them to undertake to develop and go on and undertake new roles, and to gain promotions and things like that, the better it’s got to be for the organisation. It’s got to have an impact on well-being. It’s got to have an impact on engagement. So, there are gains all round I think (HR manager at the Trust).

In summary, respondents from both management and the unions saw real value in the learning agenda in addressing both long and short-term needs for their organisation. This was in terms of greater productivity and quality or ensuring that the organisation has the appropriate skills set amongst its workforce for the future.

5.3.2 Strategies and overcoming barriers

Having considered respondents’ perspective on the causes of conflict, and the further view that one element of reducing that conflict may be to articulate the benefits of working in partnership in addressing ‘bottom line’ challenges, this section develops the discussion by highlighting the key strategic and practical tools employed by the case study organisations and others in the North West to achieve those aims and objectives. The most successful of those strategies included: a well-functioning onsite learning centre, a dedicated ULR co-ordinator, funding sources (particularly a collective leaning fund), apprenticeships and innovative projects led by TUC Unionlearn.

The key role of the learning centre

For readers familiar with the union-led learning agenda, the learning centre is not a new concept. Commentators have long noted its importance as a catalyst for learning in the workplace (Shelley, 2007; Perrett and Martinez Lucio, 2008). For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the concept, out of all the case studies, the one that captures the essence of this shared resource best was the learning centre at the large food manufacturer. After

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recent refurbishment, the learning centre was located next to the staff canteen, which proved an ideal ‘catchment area’. Designed specifically as a ‘drop in’ centre, the visitor is struck immediately by its ‘welcoming’ design. Open plan with comfy seating and an array of computers which are used by a cross-section of staff. The walls were bedecked by the certificates of staff who had successfully received accreditation for their studies.

The learning centre offered both vocational study, for instance ICT and NVQ training, but also, as evidenced for instance by a number of guitars on display, a broader learning experience. The learning centre also had an arrangement with the local library for staff to borrow books on site and was supplemented by a DVD on-loan service. Crucially, there were also staff on site to support learners and potential learners in addressing their learning needs. Fundamentally, it can be argued that the learning centre was a tangible practical asset but also a symbol of the partnership between and commitment of company and union to their employees/members.

Funding

Unsurprisingly funding was a key challenge for all respondents tasked with promoting the learning agenda. Given that the learning projects at the case study organisations were all based on a learning partnership, facility time for ULRs what not a reported issue. In deed the learning agreements drawn up by the partners set out ‘time off’ to do learning duties as a key component of making the partnership work in practice. In relation to others organisations and supporting other research findings (Hoque and Bacon, 2008), however, many union respondents reported that this remained an issue for many ULRs. As one TUC support officer noted:

I think you’d always have to have the management buy-in or the employer buy-in for the employees to actually take the whole thing on board because there’s still that sort of, you know if the employer doesn’t release people for time or doesn’t, you are not going to get it no matter how much the unions seem to be fighting time off is a big issue and it’s only through the employer that you get that time off.

Interestingly, for some union respondents, they felt that it is sometimes hard to get union learning fund money down to the branches to support their local initiatives. For many this was seen as a communication problem particularly between national and regional levels that needing addressing within their union. A number of respondents commented that they were often expected to contribute to achieving ULF targets but those targets did not necessarily relate to the learning needs of their members. The locating of ULF objective to local branch needs certainly is an issue that warrants further consideration by the TUC and its affiliates.

Collective learning funds

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A key initiative originally piloted by TUC Unionlearn, and utilised at all of the case study organisations, is the collective learning fund4. Recent research has shown that where a CLF is in place it can have a significantly positive effect on learning in term, of both staff engagement and achievement, including the acquisition of accredited qualifications (Stuart et al, 2011). This was also the case as reported by all respondents to the study. Consistently, the CLF was cited as a vehicle for greater staff engagement and, crucially, as a means of funding training that would not otherwise be available. For most it was also a symbol of the partnership that existed between the employer, its staff, learning providers and the unions. As one TUC support officer explained:

One of the fundamental things that this does is initially to map stakeholder involvement, both internal stakeholders and external stakeholders. So you look at the five key players, so you look at the employer, the individual, the provider, the union and the state. So you look at all those and see what they’re contributing, which identifies the people that are contributing but equally identifies the gaps. So it makes you look at the relationship, who’s the most important in that relationship, who can contribute what, be it cash, resources, time, so it’s a good way of, it’s a framework of operation for them to focus on.

USDAW, for instance, because of the geographical dispersion of many of its retail members, operate a regional CLF model. Members receive a learning voucher that a network of providers will accept. As one officer outlined:

It’s based on a 50%, £50 or 50%, so if the course is £100 they were given a £50 voucher as a subsidy. So the individual is contributing. If the course is less than £50 they get 50% contribution, so it’s a £50 course, short course, they’ll get £25 off that entitlement.

Interestingly, a further innovation by USDAW has been to secure the part-time secondment of a team of ‘mobile ULRs’ to go around the region supporting members into learning.

‘Champions’ on both sides

A key finding of the research is the central role of the ‘learning champions’ on both sides. There was clear evidence in all case study organisations that not only had a genuine partnership been crucial but also that both a lead manager and a ULR co-ordinator were instrumental to that success. From the management side it was, as in the case of the Food manufacturer, the Engineering SME and the Transport Company, a senior manager who

4 ‘Arrangements where employers, employees, unions and colleges contribute to a central fund in different ways. Employers might provide cash loans, time off to study or in kind provision like a learning centre. Employees could study in some of their own time or contribute to course fees. Colleges might subsidise courses and provide laptops. Unions can put in resources and time, and union learning representatives can support learners’ (Unionlearn, North West, 2010).

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championed the learning agenda across all level of management. Similarly, training and development managers also played a pivotal role in working closely with their lead ULR counterpart.

From the union side, evidence overwhelmingly suggests that in all of the case studies a dedicated union co-ordinator for learning and ULRs was fundamental to the success of the learning project. Sometimes this was their main role. In other organisations they might also be a convenor or shop steward. What was clear was given the right person in terms of their drive, enthusiasm and passion, and the facility time to exploit those qualities, employees and organisations were both benefitting from a sound learning strategy. Furthermore, as we consider below, this also had a positive impact in many cases on the broader employee relations environment in those organisations. Speaking about the ULR co-ordinator, both the convenor and the training manager at the Trust expressed well the significance and centrality of her role and efforts:

A lot of this come down to her personal skills because she obviously did encounter line managers particularly of manual staff who said ‘no my staff I do not need this qualification so they are not going off the job for half a day a week’ or whatever particularly with some of the portering staff. So she did a lot of work on engaging them and making sure that they were clear on the trust’s commitment to letting those people go and get that qualification and actually dealing with individuals who may have been standing in the way (convenor).

They were some sort of major obstacles to overcome, from the workforce themselves, from some of the managers and so on but one way or another, and absolutely no doubt in my mind that that was due to the, the chief ULR who sold that to the workforce. Because they could identify, she is not a manager (Training manager).

‘Basically if it hadn’t been for TUC Union Learn it wouldn’t have happened’.

‘If it hadn’t been for TUC Unionlearn’ was an oft expressed refrain from respondents on all sides and reflects the consistently reported satisfaction with the work of the TUC’s learning arm. As outlined in box 1, all respondents on both side valued the support of the TUC in a number of key areas. One UNISON project worker recalled in relation to the initial funding: and setting up of a project:

I mean in any project like this there are key people or key groups. I mean the support of the Chief Exec at the time. On the union side obviously I played my part, but all the help and advice we got from the TUC Learning Services and then Union Learn as it was, and obviously the impact of the bid. If we hadn’t had that initial bid approved with the money that came in to be able to set the learning centres up and most important of all in a way, to appoint the staff, it wouldn’t have happened. So their role with that was fundamental.

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Apprenticeships

Another area of learning that figured heavily in terms of strategy was the support for the government apprenticeship scheme, primarily to engage older workers in training and acquiring accreditation for their knowledge and skills.

Box 1

TUC and union project worker support

Innovations- Collective learning fund- Digital inclusion- Use of technology – tablets at member sessions- Apprenticeship strategies- Working in the community- Learning centre strategies

Sources of knowledge from other organisations and unions Chance to network at events and share good practice Advice on funding sources Advice on managing projects Sector specific knowledge

Working in the community

Promoting learning in the community was another growing area of union activity cited by many respondents. The promotion of greater ‘digital inclusion’ not just in the workplace but also in the broader community was seen as a key objective of the learning partners. Furthermore, whether it was in relation to agreeing access with their employer for family and friends to the learning centre, a far more embedded approach to learning is captured well by one union project worker:

In one in the area where they’ve a job club and they’re run by volunteers who are both ULRs and people who live and work in the community and the unemployed who, who live in the, live in the community. In them local communities who act as the volunteers and they support them just by really basically doing the same as what we do with our ULRs on site. We’re passing information regarding the learning agenda, what’s available, contacts, such as Union Learn, and contacts through our providers that we already work with in the region.

5.4 The potential impact on individual conflict in the workplace

Unsurprisingly, incidents of conflict for respondents traversed the individual and collective, given that a union’s key role is to represent their members in both circumstances; and also as employer action can and does impact both on the individual and the workforce as a

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whole. Indeed, as Blyton and Turnbull argue, ‘while organised conflict is seen to be both formal and collective, and unorganised conflict both informal and individual, [in reality] there is a considerable grey area in between (2004: 351). In the context of developing a model of promoting learning amongst UNITE organised sites, the following contribution from a UNITE regional officer is instructive of the individual issue of conflict and the impact of learning captured in the research:

I think this will be a good model it’s improved morale your productivity is going to go up, there’s going to be less sick time, hopefully there’s going to be less conflict in regards to people being disciplined for doing things wrong because they might not have understood instructions and things like that. So these are the benefits obviously from our perspective, we are helping our members out, we are empowering them

Preventing disciplines and performance management issues

A significant finding from the research is that learning and development have a clear impact on pre-empting potential performance issues for individuals. It is argued that this can happen in a number of ways. For one TUC officer, the ULR can be the first point of contact and disciplinary and learning:

I think one of the, one of the things in there is that before it escalates, you know again I’ve seen a lot where, you know anything that is happening in the workplace they’ve come to the, they might not have gone to the stewards but they have come to the union learning rep and said actually this is happening and I don’t know what to do and so then the union learning rep has gone okay then let’s go to the.. and sort of thing let’s see what it is or what is happening.

Interestingly for two union project workers, specifically in the context of discipline and performance management issues in the workplace, it was:

To do with either employees not having the right skills to do the job which then ends up with them not being able to perform properly which then puts them in a position where the manager then pulls them up for you know the job, for performance issues. Things you know like as well low motivation, especially if you’re looking at maybe areas, like low pay, low hours and they are going in and they don’t feel like they are worth what they should be and obviously you’ve got then the management again coming up with performance issues or conflict, that’s my main things that I think. You know there is always the other things you know with the behaviours and lateness and things like that but that is I think a learning avenue has a real effect on performance issues which [otherwise] brings conflict.

Sometimes a lot of the conflict can be about the learning side of it. You are looking at somebody who is going through disciplinary, one of the things with the disciplinary is that they might not be trained properly, who has trained them. They might have been shadowing people or they think that, or you think they know the

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job but deep down they mightn’t know the job. And that could be a way where you know they are not performing properly. So one of the first things, where it used to be put them on a warning and then first warning and nobody has ever asked. I think with the Learning Agenda it’s like well ‘do you know what you are doing, do you think we could help you in any way?’ And then it becomes a bit more, ‘Well actually no, I am a bit low confidence on my literacy so when I am looking at them boards, you know I can’t really read them’. Things like that and I think that then becomes well okay rather than them finishing up on a disciplinary, you sort of like say well okay well can we make any reasonable adjustments to help this individual. And I think it is looking at that side of it.

The value of regular appraisals was also a key theme for addressing potential individual conflict through learning and development identified by all respondents. Discussion with a number of union representatives highlighted many good examples of how learning can also address potential discrimination against individuals or groups. As one union project worker reported working with her HR manager:

When I was the ULR, the actual HR manager she gave me free rein of anything in the learning centre. he actually went to another site that I cover and did exactly the same up there, she paid for 10 people to do British sign language because they’d got people that were deaf on the shop floor. And we highlighted that they were being discriminated against because they couldn’t communicate. If they had an accident, if they needed assistance from HR they couldn’t communicate without bringing in an interpreter. So we highlighted that, she agreed to pay for it, I sourced a very good provider who went on site to deliver it, so there’s people there now that have got the level two in British sign language.

Similarly for her, working with employees for who English was not their first language raised similar challenges and solutions:

I said you really can’t do that because if somebody’s at an entry level and you need to get them to a level one that could take quite a lot of time and they’d not had anybody to sit down and explain this to them, so we are starting ESOL classes there in September.

The link between learning, discrimination and personal conflict is particularly highlighted by the following contribution from a GMB rep:

I had one lad who did seem to have a lot of conflict with management [right] and when we were looking at the numeracy and literacy he had a problem on his literacy….. I mean he has only just been found this lad actually but it looks like he might be dyslexic…He is going to have you know at the lifelong learning. It was then I approached management about the situation ‘a lot of what you have been

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giving the lad has been written and this lad might not have fully understood it’ .. The font could have been wrong and he has got himself all worked up because he did not fully understand the instructions because they were mainly given out written. The supervisor in question now does speak to the staff as well as handing any paperwork out and it has been dealt with better and this lad in question is having less conflict with management.

Larger scale redundancy programmes were, sadly, also a regular topic of discussion with respondents in the context of conflict and learning. However, the majority of the interviewees from both management and the union side were agreed that learning can impact positively in managing individual instances of dispute as generally understood both practically and in research (See Blyton and Turnbull, 2004, Redman and Wilkinson, 2009 and early discussion in section 2; collective disputes and redundancy are considered further below). As one union project manager explained:

My project workers have gone in initially to do, where it’s GMB membership they’ve gone into do assessments and just made sure we were present and that’s opened a whole dialogue with people. The factory almost closed overnight, the family of eighty odd people and two of the villages there faced a crisis because most of them lived in those villages. We were there on the Tuesday morning, it closed on the Friday, by that weekend we had notices in churches, community lampposts, announcements and we were in the receivers office inside the building when staff came, when the workers came back in the factory to be told their fate. Yes, quite a few through the network were able to find a job. We know six or seven that went to another furniture company. We supported quite a number through the response to redundancy, I think about forty or fifty came through the response to redundancy programme directly. A number did retire straight away, took the opportunity, were close to retirement and took the resources they’d got and retired. So you know there has been positive outcomes because again using the network effectively on our website we’ve started to advertise jobs that we’re aware of to people. So we’ll say ‘go and log on the website and just have a look at what’s happening’. We’ve got guys tipping us off about vacancies and we’ll tip other people off that these vacancies are coming up so that people maybe get an early warning and an early sign so they get maybe a better chance of getting their applications in quickly.

Similarly supporting members through retraining for redeployment was seen as a key outcome of the learning agenda at all those sites faced with downsizing. As the union co-ordinator at the Trust reported:

I mean we've got staff now who are on the At Risk register and are managing to secure employment as a healthcare assistant, and I'm just signing up at the minute

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clinical healthcare support apprenticeships, so they're all signing up to do the Level Two because it's giving them that expertise. I had one member of staff who's just, her job ceased to exist, she's got a job as a pharmacy assistant, she's just started on the Level Two pharmacy apprenticeship.

Maintaining the ‘psychological contract’ (Conway and Brinner, 2005)

A key theme from the findings was the almost universal belief amongst respondents that learning and development are crucial for maintaining and where possible enhancing the employee perception of how they are valued by their employer. This occurred in a number of ways but it was argued if done effectively it could impact on staff motivation and engender greater trust in the employer. The opportunity to engage in learning, sometimes after initial reluctance, was cited by many as a key outcome that enhanced the employee’s self-worth and ‘ambition’ to succeed. The following comment from one ULR at the Engineering SME is typical:

I've seen people come through who’ve embraced going through the literacy and numeracy programmes, whether it’s been bolted onto whatever course it has been. But not just embrace it but they’re keen to move onto the next, you know, to the next one. And that’s been really, really pleasing because these are success stories that nobody really hears too much about. So I think that’s been good, and like I said there has been a few people like that who’d fail the level one maths and literacy when we first started, but now because they’ve achieved and they’ve got a certificate at the end of it, they want more.

Similarly, as the union convenor at the Trust stressed:

I don’t know but one of the others things, and it may or may not play an important part of what [our lead ULR] done, but I certainly believe, I was sick of this label unskilled, that’s completely incorrect today. A domestic is skilled, they are skilled in what they do and they must be properly trained. And yet they were almost walking round with this huge label on their back unskilled.

In terms of enhancing the psychological contract, it was felt that these ‘under-valued’ workers were thus accorded more recognition:

They got a better knowledge of infection control, and the training they were given made them understand it, and understand the consequences if it wasn’t done properly. And then made them take pride in what they were doing because they were part of the team who were fighting them infections, they weren’t just the cleaner (Lead ULR at the Trust).

Furthermore, in terms of greater self-worth, the learning agenda had allowed them more control of their work than they had previously had as an ‘out-sourced’ worker:

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Yeah, so gradually they, well even to some extent working for the trust where they felt they had no control over what they were doing, they had no authority, they couldn’t speak with authority, they couldn’t challenge something, even where they believed that the instruction they were given was wrong. So it’s given them I think some of the confidence necessary to challenge that and to give them a feeling that they’ve got some control over their own working lives, which gives them a degree of pride in what they do (Convenor).

Health and safety

Health and safety is related to both the collective and the individual management of conflict and is a key element of the psychological contract between employer and employee (Rousseau, 1995). However, well-being and stress, it is often rightly argued, has its focus more typically on the individual (HSE/ACAS, 2009). One TUC officer explained how they were integrating this potential cause of individual, and collective, disputes into the learning agenda through supporting unions and employers in addressing the negative aspects of stress in the workplace:

The health and well-being agenda demands an input from the learning agenda because: how does one know how to keep yourself healthy? How does one know what an employer might do to maintain your health in the work place? How does an employer know the benefits to itself of keeping the work force healthy? How does an employer break open this big problem that they might have if high numbers of people are going off with stress and so on. A council UNISON branch began to look at the stress policies that the employer had and to comment on them. They only could do that once they’d understood why you would have such a policy, what it was for, what it was seeking to do and that there were alternatives that were currently implemented arrangements. So once having had that kind of awareness raising and that education of their own through their own officers as a union branch, they then could do things which allowed their members to become more resilient in the face of stresses which they couldn’t obviate in the short term, but also have a commentary upon those things which management behaviour could have an impact upon if you wanted to reduce stress in the work place. So they kind of, through their learning, managed to articulate an argument to management that was a bit like, we know you’ve got this policy, we know you’re well-meaning but it could be improved.

Crucially, it is legitimate to see stress as a precursor to conflict because it could cause staff to raise grievances, go off sick or leave the organisation (See Blyton and Turnbull (2004) and Rollinson and Dundon (2007) on sources of conflict). It is of note that TUC Unionlearn has also innovatively developed tablet-based ‘apps’ to help ULRs work with members to identify and address potential stressors in their life as part of the broader learning agenda. As one

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TUC officer reports, addressing individual conflict can be done very effectively by what we might term a ‘learning and lifestyle approach’:

We’ve done lots of promotions especially again through Learning at Work day so we’ve promoted the likes of healthy eating, anything that was done through the themes that worked which again has come down through local, like government. We did sort of like cycle to work and the unions were an intricate part of that, they brought in somebody why was able to show people how to you know cycle, fix punctures and things like that, it was like bike maintenance and people have started like cycling in. I think they got loans as well through that, they sort of got loans to actually cycle into work which then you’d hope that’d make them a bit more fitter, obviously a bit more lively. People are then you know got more energy. They’ve done other things where they have done the likes of social, not social, sort of like Slimming World. I’ve been involved in like learning at work days where the unions through learning at work day have brought in the likes of someone who can Zumba, someone who has got, you know Slimming world and things like that so looking at the healthy eating and helping individuals checking their BMI, how to maybe just how to exercise properly if they are sitting at their desk so there’s lots of things like that that you think would alleviate that.

In closing this section, the expectations of employers and employees of the unwritten ‘psychological contract’ (Rousseau, 1995; Conway and Brinner, 2006) has been a useful tool to assess the degree learning can impact on those expectations. Learning itself is an aspect of those less tangible, though no less important, expectations of any employment relationship. From the employee’s viewpoint, linked to that desired outcome of their employment is career development. Evidence from the research suggested that increasingly this was seen by all partners as a key aspect of their learning strategy and agreement. A good example was at the food manufacturer, where shop-floor operatives needed to pass a maths and English test to progress to the next grade. Previously, ‘failure’ left the individual isolated and therefore disillusioned. Both the training manager and the union co-ordinator stressed that the learning centre now offered employees an opportunity to be coached to prepare and be better placed to subsequently pass the test.

From the employer’s perspective of the psychological contract, key elements are less absenteeism and continued commitment to stay with the organisation (ibid.). All respondents reported that in their view both these measures of a ‘good’ psychological contract and effectively managing individual conflict had seen a positive change attributable to a better relationship between management and staff emanating out of the learning agenda. What was not possible to ascertain were firm metrics on the degree to which this was happening. A potential strategy for gathering this data remains an area for further consideration in the future for the TUC, its affiliates and management.

5.5 The potential impact on collective conflict

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With respect to the impact on collective conflict, the results of the research support earlier findings from a survey of participants in ULF projects over a number of years that recognised, ‘the [significant] contribution union learning can make to improving levels of trust between management and unions’ (Stuart et al, 2010b). For respondents from both management and the union side, that greater trust was borne out of a genuine commitment to learning, as witnessed at all case study sites by the signing up to a learning agreement. In addition, it was felt by the majority of those interviewed that suspicion on both sides based on previous experiences were assuaged by agreeing to work to a ‘common agenda’ and ‘shared objectives’.

This was evidenced in a number of key elements of managing collective employment relations which could otherwise have been sources of subsequent conflict. These included promoting better communication and consultation, managing change and dealing with redundancy. In terms specifically, of union organisation, union respondents also reported that a key outcome of the learning agenda was to be better organised generally as a union at the local level to deal with other aspects of employee relations in the workplace. As Blyton and Turnbull (2004) rightly argue, conflict can be both individual and collective. This is very much so in terms of negotiation over job losses and redundancy. Despite legal obligation on consultation, often the timing of the decision to downsize or the rationale for that strategy are not shared with the workforce due to poor communication. In contrast, the following contribution demonstrates how the learning agenda can positively affect communication and, therefore, assists in reducing potential collective conflict. In relation to downsizing and redundancy, sadly a theme of the report given the economic pressures on organisation, evidence suggests it is a key element of collective disputes that learning initiatives by the union can help in part to address.

If you are in a redundancy situation you start thinking don’t you what’s happening, is it my job, they are not telling us, they are keeping that secret. It might be that they don’t know but you know you start sort of thinking they are trying to get me out, it’s going to be me and there’s all that isn’t it, the fear factor and people tend to think that people are doing something that is not right and doing it under board and should be transparent and open and anything like that, any organisation that has a transparency I think across the board of this is what we are doing, this is why we are doing it, this is how we are doing it, this is what’s going to happen while we are doing it. I think you get a lot of people buying into the process because, and especially if they are asking the employees well what do you think about this, what do you think about anything that’s going on, they have a good communication avenue and then seems to be a better transition (TUC support officer).

Project workers from across the TUC and all the unions involved in the research consistently cited the need for early access to workers facing redundancy and the possibility for that early intervention to then facilitate more options for those workers in terms of retraining, redeployment, assistance with CV and generally feeling less ‘powerless’ than they might otherwise of felt. As one union project worker suggested:

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It's more direct, for example if, if a branch secretary or a full time official rings me up and says, ‘Fred we've got … we've, we've just had an announcement, there's going to be hundred redundancies, we've got staff that have never done CVs, they’ve, they’ve difficulty with literacy, numeracy etc., can you help us?’ I don’t then have to go running round wondering who I'm going to upset, I'll say, ‘Yes’, I'll look at my team’s diaries, tell them … arrange with the branch secretary and full time official, bang, that’s it and away it goes.

Furthermore, with management more fully communicating with the union and its members, all respondents consistently stressed the real value of union led learning initiatives in addressing the broader consequences of downsizing. This manifested itself in two distinct ways. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, making workers redundant is only one of a number of options under downsizing (Redman and Wilkinson, 2009). Redeployment is a key alternative open to management that was identified by respondents as a strategy strengthened by the intervention of union learning reps in the workplace. As the branch secretary at the trust explained in terms of managing what could have become a collective dispute:

A prime example of why it was necessary to work together in partnership, one prime example, and I think there are lessons here for everybody. Medical records were going to shut completely. There was about 50 odd people working in medical. Now as a result of the technological change all that was going to change, there’d be no need to store the record. It’s all stored electronically. So as a result of that their jobs are going to disappear, what do you do with them? Luckily enough there was a lead in time for this, and what it gave both the union and the employer time to do was to sit down and think how we were going to manage that situation. If we’d have done nothing that place would have closed and the staff would have been redundant. Now we all, both the employer and the union early on, recognised that that’s not a desirable outcome. We didn’t want our members to lose their jobs, and the employer I suspect didn’t want to have the additional cost of a redundancy. So we developed a plan. Now where this fits in, retraining was part of that. Where the opportunities for redeployment could have been limited, but because we had the wherewithal and the will and desire to start saying well we’ve got to put other things in place, training, taster sessions and so on, and again there’s people like our lead ULR who’s able to sell that to the workforce,

Interestingly, another TUC officer reported how a car manufacturer in the region rather than wholesale redundancy took another approach:

They just thought, well beyond this, they just thought well if these people are going to go out the door, we need to get as much training as we possibly can for them, so that they’ve got a future. So what people did was retrain and when there was an upturn in the market, that company started recruiting some of them back. So obviously the retraining will have helped them. The thing about retraining, when

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you feel as if you can master new skills. What they did. Instead of making people redundant, they put lots of people, many of whom would have ordinarily been made redundant on short time working, but gave them a training element, to the remainder of their full time work. So whilst they weren’t earning, they were learning. That allowed them to weather the economic changes during that down turn and then when they came back onto full time production again they had new skills and could improve matters.

From the discussion so far in this and the previous section, it is clear that redundancy is a key element of collective and individual conflict. Evidence suggests that if it is handled and perceived to be handled fairly by staff – and the learning strategy is timely and effectively applied – it can help reduce that conflict. This it may be argued is in terms of those who remain at the company, thus countering the possibility of ‘survivor syndrome5’. Conversely, so that staff leaving the organisation feel that they have been fairly treated and supported through the process. As one ULR opined:

Yes I think one of the things, especially as I say with the redundancy situations, it is also had an effect where, where the organisation was involved and the union were involved it had like two ways, one the union got good press because then if that person went into another organisation it would be well the union did this to me, you know for me and I was like able to you know, they helped me find either a job or skills or whatever. So hopefully when they go into another organisation the first thing that they will do is join the union because they think that’s part and parcel of

it. So we are hoping that the capacity and they stay as union members. The other side is that working with the union and the organisation then the good news syndrome is like well yes they did have to make us redundant but they gave us time to sort of, you know CV writing, interviewing skills, they helped us, be it through the union but obviously they got time off to do that and they feel that the organisation has then given them, you know, allowed them that time and they feel a bit like well okay you know I have made redundant or took voluntary or whichever but I did get help through there. And then the ones that are left are like well okay they didn’t just get the door shut on them and they did try to help and integrate them if anybody wanted.. Would then help them sort of be saying well okay they weren’t, they didn’t just shut them out the door, there was a process and it was a positive process to help people find either upskill

Organising and the learning agenda

A key interest for trade unionists and commentators in recent years has been the degree to which the learning agenda can contribute to union organisation at grassroots level with respect to membership recruitment and increasing member activity (Heyes and Rainbird,

5 Survivor syndrome is a term given to the workers who remain after a redundancy but hold concerns about the process and their subsequent treatment by the organisation.

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2011). The research suggested that the learning agenda does potentially have a positive impact on organisation in a number of ways. It is pertinent first, however, to note one union project manager’s counsel that government funding for the ULF probably did not include strengthening union structure and process beyond its ability to promulgate learning in the workplace. In contrast, it could be argued that the better organisation of unions through ULF projects is an added bonus to the more specific learning and development targets agreed between BIS and the TUC. For as Milne (2012) amongst many others (O’Grady. 2012; Coats, 2012) has argued, in developing a fairer more equitable and more democratic society, the problem is that currently ‘the unions are not strong enough’. Furthermore, specifically in its effect in improving workplace democracy and so reducing conflict, one ULR reflected the views of all union respondents:

The learning agenda can mean that the branch is more organised and has got more activists. Then it should be able to represent its members better and by association that should reduce the conflict, or the conflict should be managed in a better way.

Similarly, for the lead ULR at the food manufacturer, there was clear evidence of positive union organisation through the learning agenda:

So the branch are more than happy with what we do here and it does, you know people understand that but it’s interesting that they don’t mither, I mean the branch are not demanding, I mean I suppose they would do if there was no benefits or anything. I don’t know whether they’d admit to this as well that membership over the last, well since the [learning] centre opened in 2008 which is what, four or five years. If you were to ask him [the branch secretary] about recruitment of membership, the largest amount of that where it’s come from, it would have come from the lifelong learning agenda here, without a doubt. I don’t hesitate that that would be the case and the reason behind that. So you know when, going back to your question in regard to organising and learning, they fit hand in hand don’t they?

Most union respondents reported that because of a better relationship with management, developed through the learning partnership, this had also impacted positively on the greater sharing of information and more meaningful consultation on employee relations generally. In addition, a number of union reps noted that greater knowledge and confidence through learning equipped reps to be more effective on works councils. As one union project worker concluded:

Learning partnership engender an environment where employers are more ready to consult with their unions and their unions more receptive to those exchanges of ideas.

Interestingly, and specifically from a more strategic approach to learning and its impact on the employee relations environment, for one senior TUC officer:

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Learning if it is done in the way that we’ve been discussing this morning [at a cross-union training event], can take us from a position based bargaining situation to an interest based bargaining6 situation. We’ve discussed this on two levels, it’s using learning to give greater confidence to the activists and the branch, but also give more knowledge and skills to the members so they feel less threatened, given whatever the environments going to ... we are talking about a two prong thing now.

Finally, and significantly, it was argued in all case study organisations and union projects participating in the research that the learning agenda had allowed the unions themselves to work more closer to together. The following contribution from the convenor at the transport organisation is an instructive example of what this had meant for employee relations matters in the organisation:

Tomorrow we’ve got a full day’s schedule with senior management and four of the trade union side looking at if we can agree on things like a harmonised grievance policy etc.. Now again we wouldn’t have had that two or three years ago. In fact the way it would have worked two or three years ago. It would have been if, for example, the management proposed say a new absence management policy, they would have emailed it or shown it to me as the UNISON branch secretary and I would have taken it to my Branch Executive Committee. You would have had to do then the same with the one union committee, then joint shop stewards committee and then they would have done it again with a separate negotiating committee. So I think this is where the argument gets interesting because by establishing from our side the trade union we’ve now got a better communication between ourselves and we can hopefully take a collective view on issues. From the management side it’s benefitted them as well because it’s actually more efficient and it saves them a lot of time and money because they are now dealing with one body.

In closing this section, better communication, greater consultation, improved handling of change and dealing with redundancy and redeployment were all elements of managing collective conflict that respondents made reference to with respect to ‘the other’ outcomes of learning partnerships in the workplace. The contribution from the training manager at the food manufacturer captures that overall sentiment well:

I’d say it’s brought about trust and respect, and you just can’t do without that. As I said before on the tape you will get people go ‘oh the company this, the company that, the company the other’. The company is something that’s high up in the sky and nobody ever sees. Managers and their employees have a very good mutual respect, they’ll respect each other, and there’s a trust there as well. The managers will trust that their direct reports are doing what they say they’re doing in the learn for you centre if they’ve got to go off and do an NVQ, they go and they do waste streams, they do mappings, they do all sorts of things that will help the company

6 An example of an interesting use of terminology more often associated with workplace mediation strategy (Bennett, 2012)

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make money. And the managers trust the employees to do that, and the employees trust the managers to be left to be doing that. So there’s the value, there’s the trust and there’s respect, so you’ve got three things there.

6.0 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION – IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE

There is an extensive and critical account of the impact of union-led initiatives, and management and union learning partnerships, with respect to the development of both individual and organisational learning in the workplace (Warhurst et al., 2007; Hollinrake et al., 2008, McIlroy, 2008, Hoque and Bacon, 2008, 2009). Furthermore, the early discussion in this report has reflected on the many options open to employee relations protagonists when confronted with a dispute; from formal procedures such as grievance and discipline to, increasingly, alternative dispute resolutions approaches like workplace mediation (Saundry and Jones, 2012; Bennett, 2012). In contrast, the focus of this study has been to assess the degree to which learning initiatives may have an impact on the managing of conflict in organisations, be that individual or collective disputes.

A review of the literature on conflict suggested that individual conflict could include lack of motivation and commitment, absence or resignation (Ridley-Duff and Bennett, 2011, Bennett, 2012). Whereas collective conflict, it is argued, manifested itself in terms of poor communication, lack of consultation, union-led dispute negotiation and downsizing and redundancy. However, the reality as noted by Blyton and Turnbull (2004) and others is that there is practical and theoretical overlap between the two which has also informed the analysis of findings in this research.

This final section of the report will focus on a number of key findings arising out of the research and closes with some potential actions for the TUC and its affiliated unions to consider if the evidenced ‘added value’ of union-led learning and its impact on managing conflict are to be more fully realised. Conversely, the discussion critically reviews the extent to which learning can ever fully address the underlying causes of conflict in the workplace.

6.1 Managing individual conflict through learning

Overall, the findings support earlier research that learning partnerships can have positive outcomes, both in terms of ‘staff morale’ and ‘employee commitment’ and in ‘improving levels of trust between management and unions’ (Stuart et al., 2010b). With respect to recognising and managing the causes and consequences of individual conflict the findings also support the recent guidance of the HRD/M managers’ professional body to its members. In their recent report on ‘the state of employee relations’ in the UK, the CIPD recognised the continuing relevance of employee relations and that collective disputes continue to be an aspect of the industrial landscape. However, it was concluded that this is no more than has been the case in recent years. Significantly for the findings of this report, is their further counsel to HRD/M managers in terms of managing individual conflict:

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Employers’ emphasis on policies to promote employee engagement, welcome as it is, may have to some extent distracted attention from the continuing need to manage workplace conflict. There is a clear negative link between workplace conflict and employee engagement. Both reflect directly on the quality of line management. People who are thinking of leaving the organisation, perhaps as a result of issues that have not been recognised or effectively tackled, are unlikely to be advocates for their organisation, or to go the extra mile. Improving the way that conflict is handled can increase employees’ trust and confidence in the organisation. (CIPD, 2012: 5)

It could be argued that, in addition to other strategies for greater employee engagement, firms might do well to also reflect on how engagement through commitment to and partnership in learning might also help address the consequences of conflict identified by the CIPD. An interesting and important theme to emerge from the findings was that, with respect to individual conflict, learning initiatives can help broaden our understanding of how that conflict can be better managed in practice. The analysis of the findings was able to extend our initial focus on manifestations of conflict such as absence and resignation to no less important areas of the employment relationship like health and safety, recognition and commitment. A key finding of the research, for instance, was the relevance of addressing employee ‘well-being’ through learning and lifestyle. The unions and the TUC had extended their remit by helping members to consider broader lifestyle issues (such as exercise and diet) that could impact on their well-being and ultimately reduce the pressure and stress in the workplace that can be often associated with individual conflict. There were a number of other key areas where management and union partnership in learning were identified by respondents as having a positive impact on the individual worker.

Project workers and ULRs consistently argued that if an employee is supported in identifying their learning needs, be they skills for life or more technical skills, then they have been able to support that learner in improving and addressing any skills gaps. In terms of individual conflict, this strategy has enabled the ULR to pre-empt their member otherwise facing performance management issues with their line manager. The impact of learning on other key measures of individual conflict reduction included important elements of the psychological contract, such as morale, commitment, trust, managing job loss and recognition. The majority of respondents maintained that when learning is perceived by the recipient as an acknowledgement of their development needs, and their contribution to the effectiveness of the organisation, this leads to a more motivated employee with ‘less gripes’ about her employer.

6.2 Managing collective conflict through learning

Crucially, the original remit of the researcher to define and investigate the impact of learning on collective conflict (as measured by collective disputes) was also redefined through the analysis of the data. It became clear in the analysis, and is a significant finding of the research, that learning also impacted on collective employee relations in many other ways. This potential effect of a joint union management learning and development strategy was captured through a number of key themes, which included:

Managing change,

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Better communication More extensive consultation Managing redundancy Managing redeployment Strategies in address discrimination through learning (for instance ESOL training for

non-indigenous workers ) Building greater trust and understanding between management and the unions

through partnership

In terms of union organisation, findings also indicated that the learning agenda facilitated greater co-operation and less conflict between the different unions. Respondents, confirming the findings of earlier research (Heyes and Rainbird, 2011), also reported that union reps were generally more confident in their dealings with members and management and that learning initiatives had had a positive impact on branch organisation in terms of recruitment and member activity.

Downsizing

Sadly, but unsurprisingly given the current economic climate and government strategy, a particular challenge reported by many respondents was dealing with downsizing. Discussion revealed that despite those challenges, utilising the learning agenda had proved useful in both first seeking to redeploy employees through retraining or, if necessary, equipping them with better skills and preparedness if they were forced to seek new work outside the organisation. Crucially, all union reps reported that when approached in this way, and with full consultation from an early stage by management, the ‘worst effects’ of downsizing had been easier to manage.. Mirroring Redman and Wilkinson’s (2009) analysis of downsizing and best practice, evidence suggested that when the learning resources of the union are employed in such a programme, the rationale, selection, communication and management of the overall process, and thus its outcomes are more likely to be seen as legitimate by the workforce.

Funding

Interestingly, for some union respondents, they felt that it is sometimes hard to get union learning fund money down to the branches to support their local initiatives. For many this was seen as a communication problem particularly between national and regional levels that needing addressing within their union. A number of respondents commented that they were often expected to contribute in achieving ULF targets but those targets did not necessarily relate to the learning needs of their members. The locating of ULF objectives to local branch needs certainly is an issue that warrants further consideration by the TUC and its affiliates 6.3 The role of TUC Unionlearn

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As the ‘learning arm’ of the union movement, TUC Unionlearn has long been acknowledged for its contribution to promoting training and development in the workplace and beyond (Stuart and Wallis, 2007; Stuart et al., 2010a; Findlay and Warhurst, 2011). As the nature of funding for union-led learning initiatives has moved more towards the control of individual unions in recent years (Stuart et al., 2010b), inevitably the role of Unionlearn has changed.It is of value, however, in the context of the findings of this research to reiterate the contribution of the work that it does as reported by all respondents to this research. It was significant, and I am sure gratifying for TUC staff, that the conclusion in relation to all case study organisations and union projects that contributed to this research outlined in this report was that, ‘it would not have happened without TUC Unionlearn’.

It is instructive then to briefly reconsider why this is so, certainly in the context of the argued added value in managing workplace conflict. Fundamentally, TUC support officers were seen as disseminators of information, experiences and knowledge across the union movement. Working across sector and within and across unions, respondents consistently expressed the value of TUC officers’ advice and guidance on what was working, in terms of accessing funds, establishing learning partnerships and negotiating learning opportunities with providers. In particular, it was noted that TUC Unionlearn held a unique position in also developing new learning tools and techniques in further supporting the work of ULRs on the ground. Key instances of these in operation, which it has been argued have had a real impact in managing individual and collective conflict, has been the use of new technology – for instance, ‘tablet’ applications to assess levels of well-being or the skills sets of members.

As has been argued, individual conflict is not just about the formal procedures of grievance and discipline. Morale, commitment, trust and recognition are all aspects of the less tangible employee’s side of the ‘psychological contract’ that TUC Unionlearn and its partners have addressed through programmes to address better well-being through learning to frontline help when individuals and groups are confronted with the spectre of redundancy and all its negative connotations. Similarly, in terms of supporting learning partnerships, and the learning centre that is a key element of that partnership, has been the establishment of the collective learning fund as an innovative way of sustaining employee learning (Stuart et al., 2011).

6.4 Summary

In closing, and mindful of the earlier counsel of a number of respondents that were alluded to in the introductory section, to be both objective and realistic, the aim of this report has not been to suggest that learning is in any form a panacea for the conflict that is an inevitable part of any employment relationship. Rather, it has been to argue that given the common aims and objectives that a workplace learning partnership can realise, an important added outcome of that strategy could potentially be less individual and collective conflict within that organisation.

In the ‘spirit of realism’, it is of note that managers participating in this research reported candidly that despite the success of their respective projects, not all their management colleagues were as unreservedly convinced as themselves of the impact of learning on

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employee relations. Significantly and pragmatically, the projects for a number of management respondents succeeded because senior management ‘allowed’ it to proceed. Similarly, union reps cautioned that in many unions colleagues still needed convincing of the value of learning above the many other employee relations challenges they faced on behalf of their members. Overall however, all respondents emphasised that learning had made a significant contribution to a better employee relations environment. Nevertheless, it is still recognised that the case study organisations that figure in this report were chosen because they had established themselves as examples of best practice in the region with respect to union/management co-operation in learning. However, it is this facet of best practice in promoting learning through partnership that, potentially, also offers a template, through a critical reflection on the evidence reported in this research, for its utilisation in a broader agenda of dispute resolution in the workplace. The balance of power in terms of union influence, it has been be argued, despite the current government’s support for the ULF, will always favour the employer more when the Labour Party is not in power (Coats, 2012). However, the findings suggest that the potential benefits of learning partnerships may to a degree transcend that inevitable divide. Furthermore, as Milne (2012) rightly argues:

A generation after Thatcher's assault on the trade unions, they are still treated as dangerous or embarrassing outsiders. In reality, they are not only far and away the largest voluntary organisations in the country, but now the only major area of public life where working class people are properly represented. Their agenda on recovery, jobs, services, inequality, privatisation, public ownership and the democratisation of economic life is closer to where public opinion is than the main parties' front benches.

The findings of this research suggest that that ‘democratic dividend,’ with the right support and common strategies, can also find expression in the work of union learning reps across the workplaces of the UK.

7 Recommendations

In light of the findings above, the following recommendations offer a number of suggestions on how the TUC, its affiliates and the University Forum for HRD might usefully utilise the report’s findings in their respective HRD strategies for teaching, training and service delivery.

1. Although acknowledged as of value by all parties only one of the cases study organisations had anything like tangible metrics to measure the impact of learning on conflict. It is suggested a rigorous system for recording tends in absence, staff turnover, grievances and disciplines should figure in all future learning project monitoring and evaluation

2. However, it is felt this should not devalue the qualitative evidence arising from the interviews in terms of learning and its impact on employee relations. It is

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recommended that it would be of value to also commission further studies to research other sectors and regions to substantiate the findings in this report.

3. From the above actions, it is further recommended that unions consider building in the positive impact of learning on employee relations (both individual and collective) as a targeted outcome of future ULF proposals

4. The locating of ULF objectives to local branch needs is also an issue that warrants further consideration by the TUC and its affiliates

5. The evidence conclusively shows the importance of the learning centre. It is recommended that in all funding bids or allocation of union funding that this catalyst for workplace learning is given major priority in all cases

6. Another fundamental finding of the research is the central role of a union ULR co-ordinator. Again, it is recommended that funding for all union–led learning projects factor in as a matter of even greater priority the need for a dedicated lead ULR at all sites of learning.

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