Partnership is alive and underpinning healthcare delivery

Abstract

556 British Journal of Healthcare Management 2015 Vol 21 No 12 © 2 01 5 M A H ea lth ca re L td effective and enhanced performance and create a knowledge and understanding of employee aspirations with attention to the employee’s voice. The employee voice can be expressed in a number of ways and through a variety of two way channels, both cascading down and feeding back up through the most direct routes. Attitude surveys provide another commonly used channel, which is inherently flexible, but not interactive. Broad forms of employee voice include direct involvement in the way work is organised and indirect influence on decisions affecting the broader organisation through works councils or joint consultation committees (Bacon and Samuel, 2009). The employer’s organisational culture and management style impact directly on productivity and performance, and research has shown that employee relations similarly impact on performance. Herein lies the challenge, as key elements of good practice include job design, skills development, and a climate of regular, consistent consultation and involvement; and it is these areas which are highly contested. Theoretically, these areas are associated with good management practice that provides a positive psychological contract based on trust and fairness tied into an organisational culture that delivers positive outcomes linked to performance. In reality, a ‘blame culture’ is still prevalent in many areas of the NHS. When this partnership works, the effect at an employee level is commitment, job satisfaction, and a willingness to produce, but when it fails (for whatever reason) a perverse psychological contract develops, which is inevitably destructive. From an employee’s perspective, either version of this contract is subjective. Assessments of wellbeing at work are affected by a variety of factors including the nature of the work task, social integration in the workplace, participation in decision-making and job security, which link into the total experience of work. Although the contract is individual in nature, there will be work group-, departmentaland organisational-wide aspects, which imply that while structures and relationships adjust, the historical legacy may take time to change (McIntosh and Voyer, 2012). Within the NHS the promotion of partnership between employer, employee and trade unions has emerged as an inclusive mechanism, whereby union relevance is supportive of long-term interests of the Bryan McIntosh, senior lecturer in health management and organisational behaviour at the University of Bradford, explores the role of partnerships in the health service Partnership is alive and underpinning healthcare delivery