High Performance through Engagement - In the News

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"The airline's proud of its employee engagement scores as being in the upper quartile of international peers, has long queues of applicants for jobs and often wins best employer awards. In the past year 71 per cent of employees were ''engaged'' with the company.

For the past five years the airline has worked collaboratively with unions — which cover around 70 per cent of its staff — in an attempt to end decades of distrust and hard-ball industrial relations.

This high performance engagement (HPE) encouraged parties to talk regularly about common interests, leaving position-based approaches at the door. It's hard, time consuming and outside the comfort zone for some but it's worked and has helped save jobs.

It seems HPE wasn't used with this round of negotiations - and even if it had been used there's growing scepticism at the process by some engineers."

Sept 2018 - The Interview: Peter Reidy - from KiwiRail to Fletcher Building

KiwiRail adopted Air New Zealand's high performance, high engagement strategy with great results.

"It's all about leaders letting go and your frontline workers taking ownership of problems," Reidy says. "The last pay deal we did – we negotiated that in four hours. What it means is we deal with all the issues like fatigue and rostering in fully worked programmes with our people. So when you sit down to negotiate it's just a rates and date deal."

"Speaking at the Employment Law Matters Annual Forum in Wellington, Lees-Galloway said he wanted to see the a new partnership approach adopted, one that brings employees into the decision-making process.

Called High Performance High Engagement, it centres around an idea that people closest to the problem, including workers and unions, are best placed to gather to brainstorm solutions.

The process has been adopted by Air New Zealand and KiwiRail, with Lees-Galloway telling the conference he has visited the latter company to see it in action.

“It’s a way of working that requires quite a bit of investment from the employer and it requires a different way of thinking from unions as well.

“It is a much more collaborative and engaged approach to industrial relations than perhaps the combat and conflict of the past but in my view, this is the future of industrial relations.”

Feb 2018 - Finance Minister Grant Robertson promises to deliver NZ's first 'wellbeing' budget:

October 2017 - E tu Aviation welcomes new Government's rejection of low wage economy

E tu Aviation has welcomed the new Prime Minister’s call for productive relationships between business and workers, and an end to low pay and its negative economic effects.

In her speech to the Council of Trade Unions yesterday, Jacinda Ardern praised the High-Performance Engagement agreement which E tu and other unions have with Air New Zealand.

"That agreement means business and unions sit down together and help each other with their problems and the results speak for themselves," says E tu’s Head of Aviation, Kelvin Ellis.

"Working together has saved jobs, ensured good pay and conditions and helped transform Air New Zealand into one of the world’s most successful and profitable airlines.

"The new Government has clearly drawn the lesson that working together benefits all parties, and we’re delighted with its support for this model."

Kelvin has also welcomed Ms Ardern’s rejection of the low-wage approach of many employers which actually erodes productivity.

"Ms Ardern has correctly made the link between an engaged, well-paid workforce and Air New Zealand’s strong financial position.

"We fully support her message on this: that low wages aren’t simply a problem for low-wage workers, they are a problem for businesses and the economy as a whole."

April 2017 - The NZ business where 46,000 people a year want to work

Over the past five years, the airline has introduced a High Performance Engagement programme in conjunction with the unions which cover about two thirds of the workforce.

This is based on genuine consultation during all aspects of any change process, and according to a representative of the biggest union group, it's working.

The E tu union's head of aviation, Kelvin Ellis, says that from the time when workers first start, there's a collaborative approach.

''We still have the odd hiccup but there's a process for talking to each other rather than shouting at each other across the street," he says.

When the airline won awards for service, it was a reflection of the work staff did and good for morale.

Union membership is growing at the airline because the organisation is a means for staff to work alongside the company, rather than being locked in conflict with it, says Ellis.

King says staff culture is one of the three main metrics at the airline, besides customer engagement and commercial goals. It is something chief executive Christopher Luxon insists on.

''What I like about the executive and Christopher is that we manage all of those things together. It's not just about the commercial at the expense of the culture or the customer. Every conversation we have is about all three of those elements."

November 2016 - Grant Robertson: Launch of the Future of Work Commission Report

"We sat down with our union partners and asked how can we do this differently, we're all exhausted. As Christopher said, 'It's like the Punch and Judy Show. I hit you, you hit me, we throw a tantrum, you throw a tantrum,'," says the Australian-born Murphy, who came to the airline from the Campbell Soup Company.

While there are varying views among unions and the company on the new industrial landscape, they are unanimous about the past.

Murphy tells of "anger and mistrust" in the relationship, pilots talk of bad blood and a complete breakdown in relations at some points and engineers speak about being "damaged and wounded" in dealings with the airline.

It had to change. Luxon, the pragmatic airline outsider who is comfortable with unions, has made peace with the travel trade and simplified the business, saw an opportunity to do something about it. "We sat down with our union partners and asked how can we do this differently," says Murphy.

What became known as High Performance Engagement (HPE) had to start with the unions which represent more than 70 per cent of the airline's workforce - far greater than the national average of 16 per cent of workers. "They very much trusted the unions - they didn't much trust Air New Zealand to be on their side," says Murphy.

The airline had to convince unions it had no ulterior motives and "then we together went to employees with our hands open and saying there's no agenda here. We just want to work better for the benefit of all of us." First, they had to get an outsider to set up the system.

"We knew we had to use an external partner because there was a long history of bad behaviour on both sides, us as much as anyone else."

2015 - High Performance Engagement (HPE) is an agreement which has been entered between NZALPA and Air New Zealand.

The initiative is based on a trial period of up to two years subject to review by our Board of Management. HPE is an interest based problem solving (IBPS) approach and has been effective in other industries.

NZALPA has been successful in negotiating robust CEA's in the past in part because we have good advocates and a supportive membership but also because we are forward thinking. We will continue to use whatever means are necessary to ensure that your current CEA's are complied with and that your representatives negotiate the best CEA's they can.

Interest based problem solving simply gives us another tool to use in constructively resolving issues. Groups who have been using IBPS have stated that it takes a lot of time and energy and that both employer and employee representatives need to be trained.

2014 - PSA Briefing to the government

High performance / high engagement work practices:

The PSA is leading the way in working with employers to implement high performance/high engagement programmes which lead to significant productivity improvements. We know this is also a goal of government through the Better Public Services programme.

High performing workplaces:

A high performing workplace is one where our members can mobilise their knowledge to improve the efficiency and quality of services and embed positive and productive workplace relationships and practices with a view to creating sustainable services, sustainable jobs, and productive workplaces.

There is a significant body of evidence that high performing workplaces are those which have high levels of staff engagement. Unions have a unique ability to deliver the commitment of staff. This ensures programmes can achieve maximum efficiency, and lays the foundation for a better long-term working relationship.

The PSA and its members want to see public services delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible, through building a workplace culture where staff and management work together.