How employee voice improves engagement

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Terry Duffy: Welcome to this podcast on employee voice and employee forums in the workplace. I'm delighted to be joined by Susan Riley and Emma Hughes from the Phoenix Group. Before we begin, perhaps, if I can come to Susan and Emma, just to give a brief introduction to themselves, Susan, if I can come to you first?

Susan Riley: Thanks, Terry. Hi there. I'm Susan Riley, and I am head of Phoenix's colleague representation forum. I've been in representation in many guises for around 20 years now.

Terry: Thanks, Susan. And Emma?

Emma Hughes: Hi. I'm Emma Hughes. I am the comms and engagement consultant for the Phoenix colleague representation forum, and work with Susan in the leadership team.

Terry: I'm going to start off with a general question, and perhaps if I can come to you, Susan, first to answer this one. Question is, how would you describe your employee forum, and in what ways does it differ from a traditional trade union or HR relationship?

Susan: Thanks, Terry, what a great question. And we get, we often get asked this question because we know we're quite a unique setup. So, first thing I would say is that the forum is autonomous. Whilst we work autonomously from Phoenix, we're fully integrated into Phoenix. We operate with our own brand, our own strategy, and we have our own approach, set our own priorities throughout the year. Unlike perhaps more traditional unions or HR functions, our model is based on a partnership model, and that we have a partnership agreement with Phoenix.

We're proactive, and we embed the colleague voice into strategic and operational decision making. I think I would say that our strength lies in our structure. So, our PCRF (Phoenix Colleague Representation Forum) leadership team, we do have within our team, we've employment law paralegals, and we have reps across all our UK business areas. And if you combine that with real time, colleague voice data, we're equipped to engage meaningfully on what matters most to colleagues. 

In terms of what sets us apart, I would say employee voice is embedded. So, it's not just heard, it's fully embedded across Phoenix. There's a clear collaborative link between business strategy, HR and representation, and we ensure that the colleagues' perspectives shape key decision making across employee offering and proposition.

Terry: But if I come to you, Emma, why do you feel it's important for organisations, maybe especially during times of change or uncertainty, to have an employee forum in place at all?

Emma: Yeah, I think especially during times of change, an employee forum is a great asset for the business and for colleagues. We know that business is constantly evolving. Employees are living through that change every day, so it's only natural that they want to have a voice in what is happening. So, when you've got an in-house forum like ours, you can start to have those conversations early. So, the first thing isn't that the business is announcing a change, the first thing is the early engagement where we can discuss it, understand how it's going to impact colleagues, and really listen to how it was going to land, and also create those counter proposals or conversations. So, the difference for us is probably that people feel change is happening with them, rather than to them, and that's really important to us.

Terry: That's really helpful, and seems you've got a powerful and impactful forum where you can actually engage and interact with your employees. Let's turn now though to how you've got to where you've got to, and the steps you needed to take to build that forum. So, Susan, could you talk us through the key steps you had to take to set up what you have now in place in the Phoenix Group.

Susan: So creating our employee forum was a key milestone for Phoenix, and especially after we'd had some rapid growth through mergers and acquisition, and we ended up with 3 different representation models. So we had 2 colleague forums, and then we had a union. And there was a clear need for offering a unified proposition for colleagues and driving that consistent proposition and approach.

So the new partnership model was co-developed by the forums, by the existing forums, with HR colleagues, and then we had some nominated business leaders. And then I would define the setup in 4 key stages. So we had stage 1, which was planning and recommendation. So that was about defining our scope and our purpose and aligning with the ICE (Information and Consultation of Employees) 2004 regulations to ensure that colleagues have that you know, are clear on and are covered by their consultation rights. And then we, the second phase was around building the framework, so that was designing the structure and electing representatives.

Stage 3 is around creating that really important partnership agreement. So formalising how the forum and the company would collaborate and what topics it would cover, and then, of course, launching it to colleagues. So introducing the forum and its role in terms of amplifying that employee voice. It felt, I'm sure Emma would agree, it felt a very collaborative and thought through process, and I feel that it's resulted in a model that's both strategic, but also so importantly, people-focused.

Terry: And you mentioned there about the employee representatives. And so tell me a little bit more about how you managed to seek those employee representatives, were they elected, or whether and how the nominations worked, or were they just volunteers?

Susan: Yeah. So it's very important to us that we're democratic. So it's very important that colleagues are able to elect the reps who represent them, that's fundamental to what we do. So we did have some reps from the original forums, and they were given the opportunity to join the PCRF, the newly formed colleague forum. We also, where we had gaps, we were able to recruit new reps, and we spent time upskilling these new reps through our, we have our own training and mentoring programme. And then where we had recruited these reps, they were advertised, and we held elections to make sure that colleagues were electing the reps for their local areas.

Terry: Lovely, thanks Susan. And Emma, could you tell me a little bit more about how often your forum meets, and the kind of issues or topics that might be on a typical agenda.

Emma: Yeah, so I'll just roughly touch on our structure. So we've talked about the leadership team, so there's Susan and I, and there's two colleague representation consultants, and they're aligned to the business units across the UK. But we also have a lead forum, and that's made up of lead reps who manage PCRF within their function, and they all have a team of area reps as well within that group.

So we meet monthly as a lead forum, and we talk about the topics that are coming up for colleagues within their function across the month, also strategic change or strategic initiatives that's happening within their function and also ones that are happening across the group. So it helps us to create that colleague narrative on what's important to colleagues at the moment. What are colleagues talking about? What would colleagues like to see from the business? And that informs our discussions with leadership and colleagues across the organisation.

So also at those monthly meetings, we'll have a guest from the business to talk about an initiative, and that could be something like flexible working, or something like performance, strategy, remuneration. And we're able to see, to understand, what's coming for colleagues, give a better discussion on how colleagues will feel, what questions colleagues will ask, if they'll be happy with the proposals or initiatives, put colleague voice right in the middle of those discussions with the business as well.

Terry: That's been really helpful, and I can see the scale and scope and the effort you've put into making these arrangements work. Susan, could you tell me what governance or terms of reference you've put in place to ensure that both the forum's effective and is respected by senior leadership within the group?

Susan: Yeah, that the reference to earlier, but we have a well-established partnership agreement, and this is very much supported by senior leadership, and it's embedded in our HR guidelines, which does help ensure that we have that really important, early, meaningful PCRF involvement. So we're brought in early in the decision-making stage to really, genuinely influence decision making, and then we operate within the PCRF under clear terms of reference, and that helps us drive consistency. I did mention it earlier, but that leadership being, having the paralegal expertise helps inform how we, training that we offer, we, you know, keep up to date on case law, and of course Acas guidance. We work closely in terms of the guidance that comes through Acas, and then beyond the structure, we have trust and credibility, which is so important to build that credibility and trust with stakeholders, but with colleagues as well, which makes the forum very effective. And I feel that if leaders can value your input and the challenge that you bring, it certainly makes working in partnerships so much easier and so much more effective.

Terry: And Emma you've talked about the importance of employee voices being heard. So what lessons have you learned from your experience about making sure that the employee representatives that you've got in place genuinely reflect the voices of your wider workforce?

Emma: Okay, so for us, Terry, it's all about the value of data. So we want to make sure our reps truly reflect the wider workforce, and the way that we do that is that we have a tracker within PCRF where our reps log anonymised interactions. So it could be feedback, questions, things that they're supporting colleagues with within their area. And that really builds up that bank for us on what colleagues are talking about.

So we can spot trends that are coming in real time, what's happening at the moment for colleagues, and we can track the volume on those questions over time as well. So we always know what colleagues are talking about within their functions, because we have this tracker. And we can also see how many people are asking and from which demographic they're from. And we also have within Phoenix a monthly Peakon survey that the business runs, but PCRF have access to that, and what we do with that is we compare the data that we're getting through from reps with the monthly engagement survey. So we're able to bring those experiences to life that colleagues are talking about when we are in discussions with the business about actions and activity that they are taking on the monthly engagement survey.

We can also, we also run targeted surveys. So if we are involved in a business initiative and we feel like actually we would like a big amount of data in a short amount of time on a specific topic, we will run a survey. So we'll do things like, for example, we propose the remuneration with HR, and so what we do with the colleague data on that is that we'll put a survey out, and we'll ask about the remuneration package and what people are hearing from external places as well. And that helps us to build that colleague knowledge and also set expectations on what colleagues expect to see from the yearly remuneration discussions as well. So yeah, those data sources is the key thing that keeps us relevant and keeps us understanding what's important to colleagues.

Terry: Really powerful that, because sometimes, when I work with organisations, and there is always a worry, the voices that they're only hearing are those that are in the room. But that approach you appear to have taken, to have multiple sources of data, is going to be helpful for the discussions and build up a pattern and see themes and wider pattern of information to help the discussions that you actually have in the forum. So that's really, really interesting. And Susan, turning just to senior managers for a moment, can you tell me the role they play in the forum? Are they attending meetings, or is there a degree of separation?

Susan: Yeah. So I think it's really healthy for us to have a balance. So obviously we are, our structure is cemented on working in partnership. But of course, we want to protect and respect our independence that we have and the autonomy within Phoenix. It's probably worth just quickly mentioning we do have our own legal support externally as well, which is, you know, is helpful. And then, you know, we communicate independently as well. So I just wanted to touch on that while I was talking about independence. But in terms of the senior leadership, we meet very regularly with senior leadership across Phoenix, which helps us maintain that strong collaboration with them. I think our self-govern model helps build that trust with colleagues. But of course, we have to respect the partnership agreement at the same time. It helps us get, Emma touched earlier on our structure, but it helps us engage with leadership at all levels of the organisation, because we have reps in every area of the business. And then, I feel that wrapping that up, it just helps us protect that autonomy and partnership, and I guess just being a trusted voice in the room. Emma touched on data earlier, but senior leadership respect data, so when we go with you know that colleague voice, we can back it up with data, so it's well informed conversations that we're having. I guess in summary, yes, we engage meaningfully with senior leadership, but we work to protect that autonomy and independence that we have.

Terry: Thanks, Susan. Emma, could you share an example of when your employee forum helped influence a positive change in policy or culture in the group?

Emma: Yeah, so we do have a strong partnership with HR, based on the partnership agreement and the elements that Susan spoke about. And a great example of that is the work that we do with the policy team. So we have that early engagement with policy where we can influence a policy or suggest a policy or enhance a policy with the policy team. So a good example of that would be when we're working on a wider, flexible working project. We're able to work with the policy team and input into the working from home policy, which really was something that colleagues were looking for. So being able to look at an initiative within the organisation and say, well, what else do we need here? And working with HR to make sure that that happens is like a real key role to what we do within the business.

And then you also asked about culture as well. One of the things that we do with culture is we work closely with Phoenix's culture manager. We've had input into the culture strategy, the topics that are coming through us about culture. We are talking to the business about that and what colleagues would like to see from the organisation that they work with, and the culture that they want their workplace to be. We work with the board as well on culture, the executive, so it's a big important thing within Phoenix that we have a great culture that colleagues enjoy working in. Our forum’s responsibility is to make sure that the colleague voice is at the heart of that.

Terry: Lovely, thank you Emma. Just got one final question. So if there's anybody who might be listening to this podcast and is thinking about setting up an employee forum, and you had one message that you could share with them about what they could do to effectively set up that type of forum. What would that message be?

Emma: So I think if you're thinking about setting up a forum, go for it. It brings value to the colleagues and to the business. But one thing that I will say is that we believe that we genuinely make a difference, and that's why we advocate for the partnership style of forum. And the key for us, really, is using that data and having those conversations and collaborating in the right way to drive positive change within the organisation means that you're putting the colleague voice at the heart of discussions, and it's something that everybody's thinking about. What's, colleagues, how are they going to react? How are they feeling about that? Is this the right thing for colleagues to do? So yeah, absolutely. Go for it.

Terry: Lovely. Thank you so much, Emma. And thank you so much Susan. It's lovely to finish on a positive message like that. And thank you for sharing your experiences of what you've done to put in place an effective and impactful employee representative forum within your organisation. I hope people listening have enjoyed this podcast, and if you're interested in listening to any of the other podcasts we've recorded, please check out our website.

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