Partnership in workplace crucial to productivity

PSA Press Release

March 5, 2004

Partnership in the workplace crucial to productivity

The Government’s announcement of a Workplace Productivity Working Group is a positive step and its terms of reference include principles which the PSA has been promoting in the state sector for some time, PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff said today.

“The Minister of Labour, in his press release, refers to principles such as “good faith and employee participation” and “building on the principles of partnership” which are concepts fundamental to the PSA’s Partnership for Quality strategy, a successful strategy we have been encouraging and implementing since 2000.”

Richard Wagstaff said the Partnership for Quality strategy is in place in many state sector departments. It involves a partnership between employer and employee which enables employees to have real input and influence over their working environment and common ownership of plans, issues and problems.

“The Minister refers to the meaning of labour productivity as traditionally being ‘the value of what employees produce for each hour worked’. The PSA believes it is just common sense that the more involvement employees have in what happens at their workplace, the more valued they feel and the bigger their contribution.”

“It is no secret that people are motivated, creative, and self-disciplined when given the chance to contribute and be involved in decision-making and that they will take more and more responsibility when they are part of a team which maximises opportunities for self-fulfilment”.

Richard Wagstaff said the PSA also had a Partnership for Quality Agreement with the Government to improve the quality of our public services. The partnership relationship with employers and the Government had led to positive initiatives such as the Tripartite Forum in which all three parties sat around the table together.

“The Tripartite Forum has been very positive and made great progress on issues such as retirement savings for the public service which led to the announcement last year of the reinstatement of an employer-subsidised savings scheme.”

Richard Wagstaff said the PSA was committed to extending and deepening the Partnership for Quality strategy across the state sector.

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