Employee Forums Improved Corporate Internal Communications

A United Kingdom cable operator set up a an employee government of sorts to get feedback on company planning. Employees elected representatives to staff "consultation forums" of 15 employees each, which in turn elected one or two reps each to a company-wide "group" forum. An article in a UK human resources magazine, People Management, detailed the process.

Many companies in the UK were scrambling to set up such tools because they had to. As of April 2005, by government regulation, "all firms with 150 or more employees will, if staff request it, have to put in place a system for consulting and informing their workforce." By 2008, companies with as few as 50 employees had to do so. But Telewest introduced the forums in 2004 at the suggestion of the senior HR manager, who had seen such forums work well in other companies.

The CEO "was enthusiastic about the idea… as a means of strengthening engagement." An employee relations manager was charged with forming employee focus groups to come up with a plan. "It was decided to align the forums along business-process lines instead of geographically," the article reported, "even though that meant transporting more people around the country to meetings." The eight divisional forums met every three months timed with the release of quarterly financial reports, which were discussed. The group forum also met quarterly. Divisional managers chaired the process forums, and the CEO the group forum.

"The forums incorporate health and safety consultation," staffing levels, "and agenda items from management and employee representatives," the article said. Although the Communications Workers Union had contractual rights regarding pay and the other usual union matters, it supported the forums, and non-union reps were allowed to raise such matters in the forums. The time commitment was an hour or more per week per person, plus one day per meeting, which rep's managers allowed time for in their schedules. Each member received two days of training, "covering everything from finance and employment law to health and safety policy and personal impact," and served one to two years.

The article did not report the financial results, but listed several successes. Follow-ups on repeated customer complaints were reduced from several weeks to a few days each. Lower-level workers seemed better informed about company business. And communication apparently improved in the other direction. Managers were pleased to learn that a 360-degree feedback program they had killed (presumably due to complaints from some people) was "so popular that no one could understand why it was dropped." So it was reinstated.

Source: Pickard, J. (05), "Smooth Talk," People Management (March 24):30.