Employers expect more disputes and strained relations in the wake of upcoming trade union reforms.

The Employment Rights Bill is due to include measures that make it easier to organise industrial action: a reduced notice period, and only a majority rather than 50% turnout needed for a strike.

What the research tells us

The CIPD’s research among employers found that 54% were anticipating an increase in industrial action in the coming year. Interestingly, there was more concern among employers without a unionised workforce. This confirms a general pattern: relations with trade unions tend to be good.

In other words, when there are open channels of communication – when people are sitting down together to discuss the issues – there are fewer concerns about the details around processes for calling strikes. Without union relationships, there’s more potential for disruption.

In its response, the CIPD is calling for the government to do more than just provide more freedoms. The new measures need to be backed up with a statutory code of practice that defines what’s expected in terms of behaviour from both employers and unions, alongside more investment into the hard-pressed employment tribunal system.

Why trust matters more than process

The real point here is that none of the planned legislative changes should worry HR in any organisation – they’re just a matter of process. What’s important, where your attention should be, is around the levels of trust.

When staff have an issue, individually or collectively, do they feel able to talk with a manager or management (or HR)? As a rule, do people feel listened to and understood? Do they believe their employer has their best interests at heart, that there’s a shared sense of purpose and belonging?

When there’s a ‘clear air culture’ like this, employees are far more likely to understand and be on board with difficult realities around budgets, what’s not possible, and why.

The principle behind the Employment Rights Bill has to be accepted as a good one: that employees should be listened to, and should have the right to stand up to unreasonable or exploitative pay or working conditions. So the bigger challenge is not about getting ready to defend the organisation from ‘attacks’ via industrial action. It’s about making sure there is a constructive, positively minded culture in place – one where grievances are dealt with before they have a chance to cluster into a more general malaise.

The changing nature of trust

A Gallup poll in the US this year suggested only 23% of employees trusted their leaders and managers to ‘do the right thing’. At the same time, a global survey of workers claimed that about the same figure believe they are not trusted by their bosses. We’re living in a volatile and uncertain world, and more than ever we lack confidence in the idea we can face up to things together.

The workplace thinker Rachel Botsman has argued that rather than simply falling into decline, trust has changed – becoming dispersed among more sources. It’s now more fluid, sideways, peer-driven, decentralised, and in some ways, more equitably distributed.

There could be positive aspects to what’s been happening to trust. Perhaps there’s now a more equal distribution of trust rather than a potentially flawed reliance on a limited number of sources? Qualities like listening, empathy, critical thinking, wisdom, and discretion feel as if they have become more scarce – and in turn have gained in importance and value.

Rather than fretting or complaining about the lack of trust in authority, HR needs to work with, and make the most of, this new world. For decades, organisations have looked to empower their people to take on more responsibility. The redistribution of trust could be seen as one part of this shift.

Building a culture of good conversation

A positive cycle is built on good ‘conversational integrity‘ – at all levels and in all situations – as the lifeblood of a workplace, where trust and confidence flow.

That means encouraging and investing in the development of good skills: the soft, people skills like listening, empathy, self-awareness, and curiosity. It means helping people use these skills to handle more difficult conversations and defuse conflict.

It also means making time for conversations – not limiting face-to-face time to calendar ‘events’, the weekly team slot, or summoning staff to meetings. Frequent, open, and trusting conversations need to be a supported part of the culture. This is increasingly important given the more dislocated nature of teams and the reliance on digital communications that has come with the acceptance of hybrid as a standard way of working.

The role of mediation and early intervention

As a backbone of support, there needs to be access to mediation and neutral assessment as the norm – rather than as a response to a potential crisis or collapse in relationships. These provide more informal methods for catching conflict early and avoiding tribunal cases.

Only when a routine of good conversations and practices around disputes become the distinguishing feature of a workplace can there be a genuine sense of psychological safety. That’s the kind of culture that means any easing of rules on industrial action becomes much less of an issue.