PCS has democratically decided policy on employer staff surveys. We ask members not to complete them. We don’t make such policies to be awkward. In fact, if staff surveys were genuinely used by the employer to improve the conditions of our members, we would welcome them as a major reference for our collective bargaining agenda. The fact that members through their branches and then through their delegates to PCS annual delegate conference have decided that we should boycott them should tell everyone that employers including DWP do not use the medium of the survey to genuinely address members concerns over their terms and conditions.
Voluntary
Last year in DWP saw managers up and down the country go to extraordinary lengths to get staff to complete the survey. It was a classic carrot and stick approach. At one extreme, we had initiatives like managers buying their staff a treat for completing the survey and at the other staff being told such stuff as their offices would definitely close if they did not complete the survey. Members throughout DWP reported to their PCS reps that they felt bullied to complete the survey and furthermore to complete the survey with only positive stuff. Some managers also reported that they also felt bullied by their superiors to get “good” results on the survey. In fact, getting good results in the survey appears to be a mandatory objective for managers. But let’s not forget that completing the annual staff survey is voluntary. There should be no “penalties” imposed if you decide that you do not want to participate. In July, DWP published what it called “myth busters” to its managers. Managers were told: don’t put pressure on people to complete the People Survey, don’t use incentives for completion, don’t try to change the questions, don’t influence how people use the response categories, don’t use the People Survey to threaten staff.
Bunker-like
In spite of this, PCS has already this year heard that managers are being given greater encouragement to oblige their staff to complete the 2014 People Survey. PCS has been told contrary to the DWP employee relations framework that it cannot use departmental facilities to inform its members of the union’s policies. Such restrictions are usually only imposed when PCS is discussing industrial action or informing its members about industrial action. It appears heavy-handed indeed that management retreats bunker-like into a refusal to allow PCS to inform its members about policies that are part of the bargaining agenda with the employer and on an activity that the DWP still says has no compulsion on the individual. Management have claimed that asking members not to complete the survey is prohibited because we are campaigning against government policy. But hold on a minute, surely this is the employer’s survey of its staff? What has it got to do with Iain Duncan Smith or any other politician?
Legitimate
Without meaning to management by their reasoning give the game away. The People Survey is not a genuine poll of staff. It is little else than a piece of propaganda to present to their political masters to show that everything is perfectly well in the “DWP family”. In spite of the attacks on our pay, on our pensions, on our jobs, on our well-being, on our estate, we are all feeling positive with our lot and if the politicians want to give us more, we will take it with a smile. Some may see that as cynical, but ask yourselves this: Why are management so keen that you fill the survey in that they will almost do anything to get you to do so? Why will they go to equal lengths to get you to respond positively? Why will they not countenance any dissenting voices expressing concern about what the results might be used for, although under DWP policy it is completely legitimate that such concern based on experience is expressed. Being cynical does not equate to being wrong.
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