The big question on everyone's mind is: Will representation elections increase or decrease in 2011?  The answer without a doubt is YES! Union Elections will increase.  The key question is by what mechanism?

In our last issue, we reported that everyone should expect an increase in requests for neutrality agreements.  We stand by that prediction.  A neutrality agreement can still have an election component.  In these cases, the union has simply convinced the employer to play a second tier role and not seek victory.  So, if neutrality agreements increase, elections will increase.

But further, we expect a large number of employers, especially auto part suppliers, healthcare providers, and retailers to decline neutrality agreements.  When they do, the unions in question will file petitions with the National Labor Relations Board and a government supervised election will follow.  So again... YES, elections will increase. 

Employers must ask themselves if they are ready for a union campaign: 

• Do you have a pre-petition checklist?
• Do you have an election checklist? 
• Do you have a post campaign checklist? 
• What would you do if a union showed up at your front gate or front door step tomorrow soliciting your employees? 

We expect union organizing efforts to increase in several sectors including automotive, healthcare, retail, grocery, light and heavy manufacturing, and restaurants, to name but a few.  All employers would be well served by an internal assessment of your work climate to determine if employees feel like they are being treated fairly.  If employees feel like they are being treated fairly, your risk of unionization is lower.  If your employees feel like they are getting the short end of the stick and are frustrated by certain conditions at work, the greater the frustration the more likely they are to look to an outside entity, like a union, for help.

Many people talk about "change management" and doing it effectively.  It would probably not shock you to learn that when our firm is called to assist with a labor relations situation (election, grievance resolution, climate assessment), it is often as a result of a couple of key issues.  One issue is the relationship of leaders with employees.  The other issue is typically change management. 

Mismanaged change or at a poor outcome of change often leads to a "riled up" work force.  Therefore our role in change management is often that of "change management fixer."  In other words, some companies, who implement change unsuccessfully or at least the change appears to be unsuccessful, find themselves in situations  where the result is negative.  Now they must change this perception.  Negative change management is especially hurtful to the productivity and morale of the effected business unit.  The company must quickly reverse this trend. Sometimes the missteps are minor and easy to correct.  On other occasions, more work is required. 

We assist in this reversal or recovery, which is often done in crisis mode, as the company is not only dealing with the impact of an undesirable outcome of the change but also labor unrest.  We enter the situation, assess management perceptions of employee issues, collect employee perceptions of key issues, calm down the workforce, stabilize the management team and help implement communications initiatives to right the ship and create engagement.

We have lived through many realities and horrors on the back end of poor change implementation.  Therefore, we are very good on the front end helping organizations avoid these issues, as we have done on several occasions.  We prefer operating in this proactive manner, but we cannot deny that we have performed some great rescues. 

Our recommendation, if you are looking at major change in your organization, consider letting us help you avoid pitfalls by applying our knowledge that we have acquired in crisis resolution before you ever reach that point.  As you can imagine, it is much better to be proactive when we are helping people adjust to the change, rather than the other way around.  Some services we offer include:

Climate Assessments/Employee Focus Groups/Gap Analysis:

• We solicit feedback from management and employees about the nature of the change and workplace issues to develop a situational snapshot so all can understand the environment
• We allow managers and employees (usually in separate forums) to ask questions and provide responses so they can feel engaged and gain greater confidence/trust in the organization.  Employees inherently know change is beneficial to management as they assume management would not do themselves harm.  The issue for employees is how proposed changes might affect the workforce.  (We also have a process for joint/blended employee-management focus groups.) 
• Our focus groups create a degree of transparency that employees crave and leaders benefit from.  We can also provide a Gap Analysis so management can understand the difference in issue perception between employees and management.  Issue alignment tends to denote understanding and/or satisfaction.  Differences in perception reveal miscommunication, dissatisfaction, and frustration that may lead to employees looking outside the organization for a solution or resisting change all together. 

Management skills training programs on managing change

• Depending on the situation any number of areas could be touched on such as strategic and tactical planning, the role of a supervisor, effective communications, relationship building, conflict resolution, team engagement and more.
• Business Objective Communication Teams - We encourage employers to form onsite communications teams to deal with key issues.  We can advise and assist in effective message creation and delivery.  These communicators become the prime factors in engaging the workforce and aligning interests.  It is a powerful tool especially if the metrics used to gauge effectiveness of the communications strategy are tied to business results.

To implement change, you must overcome resistance and create engagement.  It is not enough just to counteract resistance.  That can still leave you dead in the water.  By inviting employees to participate and including them in discussions/decisions, you overcome the workforce's leading objection to most issues (not being included or "feeling in on things"). 

We have been very successful at helping teams understand resource constraints and developing solutions within the acceptable business parameters.  You have to tell employees and managers why and how (a) being engaged, (b) being interested (focused) at work and (c) implementing change is going to help them. 

Remember, if you are asking someone to change, they automatically think the change is good for you, the personal question for them is... "Is your change good for me?"  They want to know WIIFM - "what's in it for me?"  What we do is help explain the change so it can sell itself.  Good change sells itself.  This gives you a good result.

• Positive Employee Relations
• Focus Group Facilitation
• Satisfaction & Alienation Audits
• Improving Labor-Management Relations
• Union Free Intiatives
• Supervisor Training 
• Employee Training
• Online Training
• Communications Support
• Collective Bargaining
• Contract Administration Training
• Noncontract grievance resolution
• Workplace Investigations
• Representation Elections

We work in all areas Employee Relations to help you arrive at a solution to better your workplace.