Equal at Work: Changing HR Practice and Policy

Equal at Work: Changing HR Practice and Policy

– Challenges and Successes

Gráinne Healy, Independent Project Consultant

and

Finbar McDonnell, Hibernian Consulting, Project Evaluator

Access and Diversity: A New Vision of Work

Croke Park, Dublin

25 September 2003

1. Introduction

Equal at Work is one of 21 projects funded under Round 1 of the EQUAL Programme in Ireland. The Programme aims to pilot new ideas to combat discrimination and inequality in relation to the labour market across the EU. While the amount of money spent by EQUAL is tiny compared to the spending of mainstream HR and labour market programmes[1], the idea is that EQUAL provides a space for new thinking and innovation, with good ideas that emerge being transferred into mainstream practice and policy.

Equal at Work focuses on organisations’ HR practices and policies, and aims to cause changes in these areas that promote equality. This paper reviews Equal at Work in three sections:

• Section 2 looks at the challenges the project set out to address and describes the nine actions it adopted to achieve its aims;
• Section 3 reviews progress made to date, i.e. in the year to September 2003;
• Section 4 outlines some of the key challenges facing Equal at Work in the remaining period of its life.

The paper was prepared by Gráinne Healy and Finbar McDonnell. Gráinne was involved in developing the project concept for Equal at Work, and turning that concept into project actions and structures. She now acts as an independent advisor on the general direction of the project and on project management issues. Finbar works with the project as an ongoing evaluator, supporting the planning, implementation and mainstreaming of actions and providing independent evaluation inputs.

The title of the paper refers to the “challenges and successes” of Equal at Work. Over the first half of the project’s lifetime, the challenges have loomed large, both those of developing the project actions, and the practical challenges in getting the project started and into implementation. However, there have also already been successes, and the potential remains for Equal at Work to have a long-term positive impact on organisations’ HR practices and policies.

2. The Challenge of Equal at Work

2.1 Promoting Equality through HR Policies and Practices

The co-ordinating partner for the Equal at Work project is the Dublin Employment Pact, which brings together some 100 organisations from the public, private and community and voluntary sectors to address labour market issues in the Dublin area. The origins of Equal at Work arose from a series of workshops facilitated by Gráinne Healy in 2001. These indicated that a range of inequalities arise from the HR policies and practices being adopted by organisations in all sectors. They also indicated that EU funding programmes in Ireland over the years have generally funded the training of identified target groups, supporting them in re-entering the labour force, without looking at the HR practices of the organisations that might offer them employment, which might also act as barriers to labour market integration.

What can be the effects of poor or absent HR practices?

• They mean that people who want to work are prevented from getting jobs by outmoded recruitment practices.
• They mean that people who work in entry-level or lower-grade jobs are prevented from progressing by inflexible and unnecessary HR policies, or by a lack of personnel to “cover” for them if they take training time.
• They mean that many people who work in organisations on Community Employment or Jobs Initiative schemes cannot progress to full-time jobs in the same organisations.
• They mean that organisations often function at less than 100% of their potential because they are not getting the most out of their employees.
• They mean that organisations may sometimes breach national equality legislation due to a lack of awareness of their duties and obligations.

The Dublin Employment Pact workshops indicated that many organisations have HR policies and practices (“ways of doing things”) that have developed over the years. Usually, these were originally put in place for a good reason at the time. However, at least some of these practices may no longer by necessary. Organisations may see such practices as “neutral” when, in fact, they may both be restricting individuals and the organisations from achieving their full potential.

Given the potentially large impact of the issues involved, the Dublin Employment Pact, and the associated organisations that had taken part in the workshops, decided to submit an application for funding under EQUAL. It did so under the Adaptability “pillar” of the programme, which funds projects piloting ideas around lifelong learning, inclusive work practices, and encourages the recruitment and retention of those suffering inequality in relation to the labour market. The consequent “Development Partnership” for Equal at Work comprises 49 organisations from the Dublin area, and its Action Plan was approved for funding in Summer 2002[2].

2.2 The Components of Equal at Work

Specifically, Equal at Work is piloting nine actions in relation to the HR practices of employers in the three areas of Dublin’s labour market, i.e. the private, public and community/voluntary sectors. The nine actions are grouped into five “sites”:

• two sites working with HR practices in the public sector;
• one working with HR practices in the private sector;
• one working with practices in the community and voluntary sector; and
• one looking at equality and diversity issues across all sectors.

The two public sector sites are piloting three actions between them.

The first relates to recruitment policies for clerical officer grades in local authorities. At present, local authorities require applicants for clerical officer positions to have a Leaving Certificate qualification. Many people who left school without a Leaving Certificate, but subsequently developed skills in the workplace, feel this requirement is unfair. It certainly acts as a barrier to those who may have the required skills for the job, but who lack the formal qualification. The action is reviewing whether it is possible to partly or fully remove this requirement, opening these positions up to many more potential applicants, while maintaining, or even improving, the quality of employees’ skills. Other public sector organisations, such as Dublin Port Company, are also involved in this action.

The second public sector action relates to the progression of people on Community Employment or Jobs Initiative schemes into local authority employment. At present, progression routes for people completing such schemes are often badly defined. This action will try to improve the progression, using South Dublin County Council as a pilot organisation.

The third public sector action relates to the progression within organisations of people already employed at lower-level grades. This includes a review of practices such as mentoring and coaching and of options for life-long learning. It also pilots a work-based learning model, with an element of distance learning, for specific Medical Secretary training in Tallaght Hospital[3] - to support people working at Grade 3 in the hospital to progress to Grade 4.

The private sector site is piloting two actions.

A successful pilot action in the 1990s under the EU EMPLOYMENT Initiative led to the establishment of the Fastrack to Information Technology (FIT) programme in Ireland. This provides intensive IT training to people without formal technical qualifications (mainly young people) from disadvantaged areas and has been very successful in enabling participants to move into jobs for which they would not otherwise be considered. However, several years on, if these people want to progress within these jobs, or to change jobs, their lack of a recognised third-level qualification acts against them. This Equal at Work action involves the project working with DCU to see if a modular course can be developed for this target group, which would take account of prior FIT learning, and any work experience that people have gained, thus hopefully allowing some credit for FIT graduates and a possible exemption from the first year of a three-year degree course.

The second private sector action addresses the long recognised need to increase the level of ongoing training provided by Irish companies to their employees. This lack of training prevents employees from upskilling and progressing within a company, prevents new recruits from taking entry-level jobs and can hold back company development. A potential way to tackle these issues simultaneously has been developed in Denmark and is being piloted by Equal at Work. Job Rotation removes employees for a certain period for tailor-made, enterprise-determined training and replaces them with people trained to undertake the work while the regular employees undertake the training. The idea is to provide training in hard and soft skills to the existing workers while providing job experience, and perhaps the possibility of a job, to unemployed people. The Job Rotation idea is being piloted in two private sector companies in North Dublin.

The community and voluntary sector site is piloting two actions.

The first is reviewing the HR practices currently being employed in a range of organisations in the community and voluntary sector. The objective is to build an understanding of the range of practices in operation and to identify good practices. Good practices identified will form the basis for development of a HR training module for the sector, in association with the National College of Ireland.

The second community and voluntary sector action relates to the array of funding relationships which organisations in this sector have with government departments and agencies. The aim is to review the current arrangements and identify models of good practice, with a view to clarifying and improving the relationships of community and voluntary sector organisations with the arm of the state that funds them. The aim is also to establish that good HR practices, such as training, should be an integral part of the activity plans of NGOs, and that the expertise of people in the organisations is properly recognised.

The fifth Equal at Work site brings together organisations from all sectors to look at issues relating to equality and diversity. The Equality Authority and the National Support Structure for EQUAL also sit on this site and input into its ongoing work.

The Equality and Diversity site has two aims.

The first is to develop training materials for organisations in relation both to the equality legislation and to the general benefits of HR policies that promote equality and diversity. Ireland has seen considerable change in recent years in its equality legislation and this creates obligations for organisations in terms of compliance, as well as opportunities to benefit from embracing diversity within the organisation.

As well as developing training materials, the Equality and Diversity site is auditing two organisations in relation to equality issues. These are the Dublin Port Company and a community and voluntary sector organisation that works with Traveller issues (Exchange House). The work will also draw on equality audits being undertaken by local authorities in the Dublin area. This action will hone the concept of an equality audit in the context of different types of organisations in Ireland and, it is hoped, allay any fears organisations may have and show the benefits of audits as an equality tool.

While these descriptions of the different Equal at Work pilot actions are brief in the context of this paper, they begin to give a picture of the different ways in which Equal at Work is attempting to change HR practices and policies, with a view to fostering greater equality in the workplace. The nine actions are summarised in Table 1.

Table 1: Equal at Work Pilot Actions
Equal at Work “Site” / Nature of Action
1. / Public Sector / Review of recruitment processes for CO (and perhaps other) grades
2. / Public Sector / Development of targeted training to help people working in organisations on state schemes to move into full-time employment
3. / Public Sector / Development of targeted training to support people working at lower grades to progress within their organisations
4. / Private Sector / Development of tailored third-level course for FIT graduates
5. / Private Sector / Piloting of Job Rotation with two private sector companies
6. / Community/Voluntary / Identification of good HR practices in the sector and consequent development of training module
7. / Community/Voluntary / Review of interactions between organisations and the state, and identification of good practice
8. / Equality and Diversity / Development of training modules around legislation and the benefits of equality and diversity
9. / Equality and Diversity / Undertaking of equality audits and review of equality auditing process

These descriptions demonstrate the scale of ambition of the Equal at Work project, particularly given the restricted timeframe and budgets for EQUAL projects.

2.3 Equal at Work as an EQUAL Project

In addressing the above challenges, Equal at Work is conscious that it does so as a project funded under the EQUAL programme. Two principles central to that programme are worth noting in particular.

All EQUAL projects are undertaken by a Development Partnership rather than by an individual organisation. In the case of Equal at Work, there are 49 organisations in this Partnership, from all economic sectors. Many of these organisations are represented at today’s conference. The idea behind having such a Partnership is that it brings a wide range of expertise to the table in undertaking the pilot actions, and also provides potential routes to disseminate models of good practice emerging from the project.

A second dimension to EQUAL projects is the need to have partners from other EU Member States. In the case of Equal at Work, the project has partners in Munich, Naples and Bordeaux. These transnational partners potentially provide sources of ideas in relation to the issues Equal at Work is trying to address, as well as providing potential opportunities for other cities to learn from the experience of Dublin.

The idea therefore is that both the local Development Partnership and the transnational partnership provide extra dimensions to strengthen the project.

3. Progress to Date: September 2002 to September 2003

3.1 Implementation of Equal at Work Actions

The different sites within Equal at Work spent the Autumn of 2002 developing Action Plans for each of the nine actions described above[4]. This process included setting out in some detail how each action would be undertaken. A learning point from this process was the usefulness of having the wider DP members involved in planning. These identified potential problems that might otherwise not have been identified until the implementation or even the dissemination phase.

Having prepared the Action Plans, Equal at Work moved to implementation at start-2003. The following paragraphs set out key aspects of the work undertaken since then.

The public sector sites decided that the first step in potentially re-engineering its recruitment processes was to undertake an audit of the work undertaken by people at the Clerical Officer grade. This will identify the competences and skills needed for their jobs, meaning the recruitment process can potentially be directed at finding people with these skills, rather than requiring a particular academic qualification. It was also decided to undertake audits for the General Operative grade, with a view to improving the recruitment process for this grade, although it does not now demand specific academic qualifications. The methodology for undertaking the audits was agreed with the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commission (which has undertaken similar audits elsewhere in the public sector) and training for the people who will undertaken the audits was provided at start-September 2003. The staff undertaking the audits come from the organisations involved, and the process is overseen in Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council by committees involving union and management representatives. Over 300 General Operatives and Clerical Officers are currently having their jobs analysed, and interviews are also being undertaken with senior managers in the two local authorities about how work within the two grades is evolving over time. It is hoped to have Draft Competency Frameworks for the two grades prepared by November 2003.

For people working for public sector organisations on CE or JI schemes, focus groups were held in May 2003 with participants and scheme supervisors from nine CE schemes in the (pilot) South Dublin County Council area. These found that participants undertake a range of tasks similar to those undertaken by people working at General Operative and Clerical Officer grades in the Council, including technical, administrative and customer service tasks. Some former participants had progressed to full-time work in public sector organisations but there is a general lack of information on vacancies and skills required. The training provided appears to be poorly linked to such progression, and there is a lack of career guidance. Some participants and supervisors felt that they sometimes seem not seriously considered for employment by South Dublin County Council, even for jobs they already undertake, or largely undertake. The groups suggested that greater information be provided to CE/JI participants on public sector progression options, with more focused career guidance and periods of job placements. (As stated, South Dublin County Council is a pilot organisation, and these issues are likely to arise for other local authorities and for other organisations with CE workers). Having considered the outcomes of the focus groups, Equal at Work has set up a Working Group, which includes South Dublin County Council, to pilot a number of actions to address the issues.