Maintaining stable industrial relations
More than half of our employees (4,080 at 30 June 2019, or 55 percent) are members of the PSA, with the highest proportions in our front line, where 77 percent of case managers are PSA members. The PSA has engagement structures at every level of MSD, with 346 Delegates at worksites, National Delegate Convenors for each of the service lines, and a full time PSA Lead Team convenor.
In 2018/19 we worked with the PSA on reviewing roles, including job descriptions and pay ranges, for service delivery staff, and the development of and commitment to a High Performance High Engagement (HPHE) relationship between us to replace the current relationship agreement. HPHE is a method for engaging with employees and their representatives to improve the quality of working life, and thereby improve organisational performance [45].
We are working with Ngā Kaitūhono (representing over 800 of our Māori PSA members) who have been active participants in the development of Te Pae Tata. In 2018 we signed a relationship agreement with Ngā Kaitūhono to formalise the value of our relationship and our commitment to our Māori staff.
Our enduring relationship with the PSA has provided a foundation to work through major collective contract negotiations in 2018/19, and we have made strong traction in building a constructive partnering relationship.
We successfully concluded negotiations for collective agreements for:
- National Office and the Ministry of Youth Development, covering around 1,374 employees (concluded August 2018)
- Service Delivery, covering around 4,821 frontline employees (concluded December 2018)
- Managers and Senior Specialists Collective – our first collective agreement for this group of people, covering around 132 managers (concluded May 2019).
We also successfully concluded negotiations with Work and Income Northland Staff in March 2019, covering around 66 employees.
The most significant commitment from negotiations with the PSA is the redesign of our remuneration framework over the period to October 2020, using a co-design approach with the PSA.
Footnotes
[45] The new strategic relationship agreement between MSD and the PSA was signed in August 2019.
