Inside the Workplace and SMEs report sponsors' press noti...

PRESS NOTICE 5 July 2006 A NEW WORKPLACE SURVEY REVEALS AN IMPROVING EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS CLIMATE The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey found significant changes in the workplace since the last survey was conducted in 1998. The report shows that employers have become more aware of the importance of a good work- life balance, although it also highlights that employees would still like to see their employers doing more to help them in this area. Highlights of the findings include: • Fewer workplaces reporting grievances; • Union representatives are working more closely with management on changes in the workplace; • More representatives say that managers value their opinions; • Managers are more positive about the climate of employment relations, but employees report only a modest improvement; • The decline in union recognition has halted in larger workplaces; • Substantial increases in employer provision of flexible working arrangements; and • Greater provision of leave arrangements for parents. Job security has also improved with the proportion of employees feeling secure in their job rising from three- fifths in 1998 to two-thirds, while more employees say they get a sense of achievement from their jobs. Announcing the publication of the survey, Minister for Employment Relations Jim Fitzpatrick said: “These results show that firms are increasingly taking the work- life balance of their employees into consideration, while employees are gaining a greater sense of satisfaction from their jobs. “The findings will inform and guide debate to improve our understanding of how the British labour market operates and changes over time, and will be useful in identifying pockets of good, and not so good practice”. Among the results of the survey small firms have reported higher job quality tha n larger organisations, with employees saying they have more influence over the way they do their work, and feeling more secure in their jobs. Page 1 of 14 Information was collected from more than 3,000 managers, nearly 1,000 employee representatives, and over 22,000 employees. The survey was a collaborative venture between the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), the Policy Studies Institute (PSI) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Annex A provides some further findings from “Inside the Workplace: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. Annex B provides some further findings from “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey”. Notes to Editors: 1. WERS 2004 is the fifth in series of workplace employment relations surveys. Previous surveys were conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990 and 1998. The Cross-Section survey comprised interviews with around 2,300 managers and almost 1,000 employee representatives, whilst over 20,000 employees completed questionnaires, representing response rates of 64%, 77% and 61%, respectively. In addition, a Financial Performance Questionnaire was completed by managers in 1,070 workplaces. In a separate Panel Survey, around 950 workplaces that took part in WERS 1998 were revisited to provide an accurate picture of how workplaces had changed in the period between the two surveys. Main fieldwork ran from February 2004 to April 2005 and was conducted by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen). Further information on WERS 2004 is available at http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/research-evaluation/wers-2004/ 2. “Inside the Workplace: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey” (ISBN 0 -415-37813-3) by Barbara Kersley, Carmen Alpin, John Forth, Alex Bryson, Helen Bewley, Gill Dix and Sarah Oxenbridge is published by Routledge. (Pb: £23.99, Hb: £80). Editors are welcome to reproduce any of the figures or tables contained in the book. To order a copy please email: book.orders@routledge.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1264 343071. You can also order books online at: www.routledge.com. 3. All findings reported in the book relate to workplaces with 10 or more employees. 4. “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey” (ISBN 0-85605-361-9) by John Forth, Helen Bewley and Alex Bryson is published by DTI. Editors are welcome to reproduce any of the figures or tables contained in the book. To order a copy please email: publications@dti.gsi.gov.uk or call +44 (0) 845 0150 010. The publication is also available to download from the DTI’s Employment Relations website: http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/researchevaluation/wers-2004/index.html. 5. The employment size threshold of the Cross-Section survey was lowered in 2004 to include workplaces with at least 5 employees, thereby expanding the survey’s coverage of workplaces and employment in smaller businesses. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Findings from WERS 2004 is based on a subset of interviews with managers in around 600 private sector workplaces that belonged to SMEs. It also draws on a survey of around 5,000 employees working in these establishments. Linking these responses, the report provides an integrated picture of employment relations. 6. In January 2006 the survey data, fully anonymised, was deposited in the UK Data Archive (www.data -archive.ac.uk) at the University of Essex for further analysis by bona fide researchers. Page 2 of 14 ISSUED BY: Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Policy Studies Institute (PSI) Press enquiries: 0207 215 5614 Public Enquiries +44 (0)20 7215 5000 Textphone +44 (0)20 7215 6740 (for those with hearing impairment) http://www.dti.gov.uk Page 3 of 14 ANNEX A “INSIDE THE WORKPLACE: FINDINGS FROM THE 2004 WORKPLACE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS SURVEY” Some of the key findings (for workplaces with 10 employees or more) are: The management of employment relations • There was a continuation of the trends observed in the late 1990s: a rise in the proportion of specialist employment relations managers; the ‘feminisation’ of the personnel profession, and the fall in the amount of time spent by HR and personnel managers on employment relations issues. Work responsibilities of managers remained largely unchanged between 1998 and 2004. The findings pointed to a decentralisation of the personnel function: there was a decline in the proportion of branch sites relying on specialists located at a higher level in the organization. However, decentralisation was not always been accompanied by greater levels of autonomy for local managers. The employment relations function seemed to be characterised by centralised decision- making and relatively under-developed monitoring systems. There was little evidence to suggest that employment relations management became more strategic over the period. The use of Acas has grown considerably since 1998 when 16 per cent of workplaces with 10 or more employees had used the service in the past year compared with 26 per cent in 2004. Growth in use of Acas was in the private, rather than public sector. The public and private sectors remain distinct in their people management approaches, and the gap is widening in some areas but narrowing in others. Policies and practice in the public and private sectors remain different, and any narrowing of the gap seems to be accounted for by moves from the private sector towards public sector practice, reflecting the ‘good employer’ ethos in public sector approaches. • • • • • • Recruitment, Training and Work Organisation • The use of personality and performance tests for employee selection purposes remained unchanged across most types of workplaces since 1998. Overall, 19% of workplaces used personality tests and 46% of workplace used performance tests. A large majority (83%) of workplaces had part-time employees, up from 79% in 1998. 30% of workplaces had employees on temporary or fixed-term contracts in 2004. • Page 4 of 14 ANNEX A • 16% of workplaces employed temporary agency staff and 11% had freelance workers. Within 86% of workplaces, at least one of eleven services was contracted out; in contrast, 11% of workplaces had brought some, formerly-outsourced services in-house within the five years prior to the survey Training provision and performance appraisals became more prevalent, as was the use of formal performance appraisals as a mechanism for identify training needs. 84% of workplaces provided off- the-job training for some of their experienced core employees over the previous year compared with 73% in 1998. The proportion of all employees receiving off-the-job training had also risen: from 42% in 1998 to 64% in 2004. The proportion of all employees agreeing that their managers encouraged skill development increased from 61% to 72%. Performance appraisals were used in 78% of workplaces in 2004 compared with 73% in 1998. There was relative stability in the incidence of practices that are often cited as indicators of sophisticated human resource management, such as team-working (in 72% of workplaces in 2004, and 74% in 1998), multi- skilling (66% in 2004 and 69% in 1998), and problem-solving groups (21% of workplaces in 2004 with 16% in 1998). Employees felt more secure in their jobs in 2004, with the proportion in agreement on this factor rising from three- fifths to two-thirds, whilst a greater proportion of workplaces reported having job security guarantees for non- managerial staff Employees’ perceptions of work intensity had not changed: 76% of employees agreed that ‘their job required them to work very hard’; 40% agreed that ‘they never seemed to have enough time to get their work done’, similar proportions to those in 1998. The proportion of employees agreeing that they worried a lot about their work outside of working hours had increased, from 23% in 1998 to 27% in 2004. Whilst employees’ job satisfaction with both the amount of influence they had over their jobs and their pay has remained unchanged since 1998, there has been an increase in the percentage of workers satisfied with the sense of achievement they get from work (from 64% in 1998 to 70% in 2004). • • • • • Representation, Consultation and Communication • The decline in collective labour organization between 1980 and 1998 continued, with employees being less likely to belong to trade unions, and workplaces being less likely to recognise unions for bargaining over pay and conditions in 2004 than in 1998. 34% of employees belonged to trade unions in 2004 in workplaces with 10 or more employees, compared to 37% in 1998. 27% of workplaces recognised unions in 2004, down from 33% in 1998. The evidence from WERS appeared to signal a notable change in the pattern of union recognition in Britain: - Whilst the overall proportion of workplaces without union members increased between 1998 and 2004 (57% in 1998 and 64% in 2004), the proportion remained unchanged in workplaces with 25 or more employees (49%). Page 5 of 14 • ANNEX A - In addition, the decline in trade union recognition was confined to small, private sector workplaces, whilst the proportion recognising unions remained stable among larger private sector workplaces and in the public sector. - a notable change from the trend observed in earlier periods. Only 18 % of workplaces with 10-24 employees recognised unions in 2004, compared with 28 % six years earlier. Among workplaces with 25 or more employees, the incidence of recognition remained stable at around two-fifths (39% in 2004, compared with 41% in 1998). The continual decline in the rate of recognition seen among this group over the 1980s and 1990s therefore appears to have been arrested. - The Panel Survey also revealed that new recognitions outweighed derecognitions among continuing private sector workplaces with 25 or more employees, representing a further disparity with the situation prior to 1998. • Other forms of representation, such as joint consultative committees or standalone non-union representatives, did not increase between 1998 and 2004. Joint consultative committees were present in 14% of workplaces with 10 or more employees in 2004. A further 25% of workplaces did not have a workplace-level committee, but had a consultative forum that operated at a higher level in the organisation. The equivalent figures in 1998 were 20% and 27% respectively. Overall, two- fifths (42%) of all employees worked in a workplace with a workplace-level joint consultative committee, compared with 46% in 1998. The spirit of the new regulations on information and consultation was broadly reflected in the topics discussed by joint consultative committees in 2004, with most committees addressing financial issues (in 65% of workplaces), employment issues (78%), work organization (81%) or future plans (81%). However, this had also been the case in 1998 and there was no evidence that these issues had become more commonly discussed over the period. There was an increase in the proportion of managers reporting that they regularly provided information about future staffing plans (61% in 1998 and 64% in 2004). In contrast, there was a decline in the proportion of workplaces regularly sharing information about the workplace’s financial position (62% of managers did so in 1998 but only 55% in 2004) and its investment plans (50% of managers did so in 1998 and 41% in 2004). 17% of workplaces in 1998 had an on-site lay union rep compared to 13% in 2004. Overall, there was a fall in the proportion of workplaces with any form of employee representation (union recognition, on-site lay union representatives, joint consultative committees) between 1998 and 2004 (from 57% in 1998 down to 49% in 2004). This decline, however, was limited to workplaces that were part of small organizations (those with fewer than 100 employees). 14% of workplaces belonging to organisations with less than 100 employees had at least one of these arrangements, down from 29% in 1998. Among workplaces that were part of larger organizations, the broad incidence of representative arrangements remained stable. 74% of workplaces belonging to Page 6 of 14 • • • • • ANNEX A organisations with more than 100 employees had at least one of these arrangements, unchanged from 1998. • And there was no statistically significant decrease in the proportion of employees working in workplaces with any form of employee representation (74% in 1998 and 71% in 2004). Whilst there has been a decline in representative forms of employee voice, there was an increase in the use of a number of direct communication methods over this period: face-to-face meetings(91%, up from 85% in 1998), the management chain (64%, up from 52% in 1998) and newsletters (45%, up from 40% in 1998). • Employee representatives • The proportion of workplaces with recognised unions in which members had access to a lay union representative, either on-site or elsewhere within the organisation, was no different in 2004 than in 1998 (68%). However, in 2004 fewer workplaces with recognised unions had on-site representatives (45% in 2004, compared with 55% in 1998). There was an increase in the proportion of female representatives of recognized unions between 1998 and 2004. Whilst the size of their constituencies did not change substantially over this period, union representatives seemed to spend more time on representative duties in 2004 than in 1998. Representatives’ access to facilities was similar in 1998 and 2004: there were no significant differences in access to meeting rooms (81 per cent in 1998; 74 per cent in 2004), office space (54 per cent in 1998 compared with 55 per cent in 2004), or use of a telephone (83 per cent in 1998 compared with 87 per cent in 2004. Representatives of recognized unions in 2004 were, however, more likely to have access to photocopiers (71 per cent in 1998; 81 per cent in 2004) and computers (39 per cent in 1998; 67 per cent in 2004) Union Learning Representatives have an officially- recognised role in providing training and learning opportunities to fellow union members at their workplace. The findings indicate that 6% of all on-site lay representatives were designated Union Learning Representatives at the time of the survey. Managers involved and consulted union representatives at the workplace to a greater degree in 2004 than in 1998 on issues outside of the traditional collective bargaining arena, such as equal opportunities, performance appraisals, staffing plans, employee recruitment or selection, and training. The picture emerging on union representatives’ vie ws on workplace relations was rather mixed. While there was no change between 1998 and 2004 in how representatives viewed their relationship with managers, or the extent to which they considered managers to be supportive, a greater proportion of union representatives reported working closely with management on changes taking place at the workplace and that managers valued their opinions. Page 7 of 14 • • • • • • ANNEX A • The extent of ‘mutual trust’ was found to be much higher between managers and non-union representatives (64%) than between managers and union representatives (31%). More generally, where mutual trust was present, collaborative working was more likely to occur, management was more likely to be supportive of the role representatives played, and management-representative relationships were more positive. The determination of pay and other terms and conditions • In 2004 the presence of collective bargaining was associated with narrower pay dispersion through a reduced incidence of low-pay compared to 1998. It was also associated with entitlement to a wider range of fringe benefits. These factors affected employees’ satisfaction with their pay. The incidence of collective bargaining continued to fall between 1998 and 2004, as it had done over the 1980s and 1990s, though the decline was confined to the private sector. The rate of decline also slowed among workplaces with 25 or more employees relative to the earlier period. In the public sector the incidence of collective bargaining proved to be stable between 1998 and 2004 and the percentage of employees whose pay was covered by collective bargaining increased. Managers, however, made increasing use of performance-related pay over this period. In most workplaces management did not engage at all with employee representatives on any of the terms and conditions of employment listed in the survey. However, where joint regulation was a feature, managers were most likely to negotiate over pay, hours and holidays, and least likely to negotiate over staffing plans, training and staff selection. Trade unions continued to affect both the degree of joint regulation and its nature: where trade unions were present it was more common for their activities to be weighted more towards negotiation whereas non-union employee representation was more closely associated with information provision and consultation. • • • Workplace conflict • Comparing 1998 and 2004, the proportion of workplaces experiencing industrial action remained stable and low and the incidence of collective disputes over pay and conditions also remained unchanged. Managers in only 5% of workplaces in 2004 reported some collective dispute of any kind in the year prior to the survey (6% in 1998). The rate of disciplinary sanctions issued by managers (namely written warnings, suspensio n with or without pay, and deductions from pay) was similar in 1998 and 2004. There was a marked decrease in the proportion of workplaces with grievances being raised since 1998. 47 per cent reported that grievances had been raised in 2004 compared with 56 per cent in 1998. There was also some change in the types of grievances raised by individual employees, with a decrease in grievances about Page 8 of 14 • • ANNEX A pay and conditions, promotion, job grading and appraisals, but an increase in grievances relating to bullying. • There was no difference in the rate of employment tribunal claims per 1000 employees in 1998 and 2004, although official statistics do reveal that the volume of claims in the intervening years was extremely volatile. 8% of workplaces reported that an emplo yment tribunal claim had been brought against them in the preceding year (6% in 1998). The proportion of workplaces with a formal procedure for dealing with collective disputes remained stable between 1998 and 2004. The same was true of the proportion reporting that a formal grievance procedure was in place. Managers in 88% of workplaces reported that they had a formal procedure for handling grievances. Setting out concerns in writing, formal meetings and appeals formed essential elements of the grievance procedure in 43% of workplaces in 2004. The proportion of workplaces with a formal procedure for handling disciplinary issues increased over this period. Much of this change in the prevalence of disciplinary procedures was due to an increase in small, non-union firms in the private sector. 91% of managers reported a formal procedure for dealing with disciplinary issues or dismissals (excluding redundancies), up from 85% in 1998. Setting out concerns in writing, formal meetings and appeals formed essential elements of the procedure in (71%) of workplaces in 2004. Of the workplaces reporting that a formal meeting was part of their procedural arrangements, almost all allowed employees to be accompanied. Just 1% of workplaces did not allow their employees to be accompanied in grievance meetings, and 2% did not allow accompaniment at disciplinary meetings. Around two-thirds of workplaces cited union reps or work colleagues among the permitted companions. And around three-tenths of workplaces allowed employees the freedom to choose who should accompany them. • • • Equality, diversity and work-life balance • There was an increase in the proportion of workplaces with formal written equal opportunities policies between 1998 and 2004 (73% of workplaces had a policy in place, compared with 64% in 1998), especially those covering the new and forthcoming statutory grounds of religion (82% of workplace with any formal policy, up from 72% in 1998), sexual orientation (70%, up from 56% in 1998) and age (68%, up from 61% in 1998). Age was cited less frequently as an important factor when recruiting employees (16% of managers cited age in 2004, down from 22% in 1998). Over four-fifths had special procedures to encourage applications from minority groups. 21% of workplaces in the public sector had procedures to attract applications from ethnic minorities, down from 27% in 1998. Few workplaces systematically monitored or reviewed their policies across Page 9 of 14 • • • • ANNEX A gender, ethnicity, disability and age. • The 1998-2004 Panel Survey revealed that there were significant increases over this period in the proportions of continuing workplaces allowing some nonmanagerial employees to work flexitime (26%, up from 19% in 1998), to switch from full-time to part-time employment (64%, up from 46% in 1998), to use jobsharing (41%, up from 31% in 1998), term-time only contracts (28%, up from 14% in 1998); or homeworking (28% of workplaces, up from 16% in 1998). The Panel Survey also showed increases in the availability of paid paternity or discretionary leave for fathers (92%, up from 48% in 1998), special paid emergency leave (31%, up from 24% in 1998) and parental leave (73%, up from 38% in 1998). The level of awareness of the availability of arrangements was extremely variable. The availability of childcare assistance provided by employers remained low between 1998 and 2004. Managers showed an increased understanding of employees’ responsibilities outside work. 65% of managers believed that it was up to individual employees to balance their work and family responsibilities, down from 84% in 1998. There was however little change in employees’ views on the extent to which managers were understanding (55% found managers understanding in 1998, compared to 58% in 2004). There was a decline in the proportio n of employees working more than 48 hours a week after 1998. 11% of employees usually worked more than 48 hours a week, down from 13% in 1998. • • • • • • Workplace climate and performance • There were substantial differences in the way in which management and employees viewed employment relations at the workplace, with managers tending to be more positive than employees, as observed in 1998. Managerial perceptions of the employee relations climate improved between 1998 and 2004, whereas employees’ perceptions suggested little improvement. Managers in 30% of continuing workplaces reported that relations had ‘improved a lot’. The same proportion reported that they had ‘improved a little’, and they deteriorated in only 4% of continuing workplaces since 1998. Employees were more negative about relations than their employers: they had poorer perceptions of relations than management in half of all cases (51%) in 2004, whereas the opposite was true in only 13% of cases. In contrast to the 1998 survey, unionisation was not associated with managers’ perceptions of climate, though it was associated with poorer employee perceptions of climate, especially where a majority of employees within the workplace were union members. Page 10 of 14 • • ANNEX A • Managers in workplaces relying on direct methods of communication with employees tended to be more positive about the climate of employment relations compared with those using other voice regimes, though this was not the case for employees. Workplaces employing a range of strategic human resource manageme nt practices were associated with better perceptions of climate among employers, but not among employees. The impact of individual high involvement management practices was mixed for both employers and employees, with little sign that bundles of practices were positively associated with climate from either perspective. There was also evidence that various work- life balance and flexible working practices were associated with employee perceptions of climate, but they were not associated with employer perceptions. Characteristics of the respondent, industrial sector, structural features of the workplace, and work/life balance practices tended to have little association with the productivity and financial performance measures. Strong associations were found between the different indicators of market competition and the measures of productivity and financial performance. Some direct communication practices were associated with perceptions of better productivity and performance. Other high- involvement management practices, while significant in explaining variance in labour productivity, were less significant for financial performance, although there were some exceptions: eg. union recognition was associated with poorer perceptions of labour productivity, and whilst there was no general association between recognition and managers’ perceptions of financial performance, a negative association did emerge in workplaces with recognised unions which had on-site lay representation and where there was multiple unionism. • • • • • • • Page 11 of 14 ANNEX B “SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES: FINDINGS FROM THE 2004 WORKPLACE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS SURVEY” This report compared employment relations in workplaces belonging to small, medium-sized and large private-sector enterprises. Following the official classification, firms with fewer than 50 employees were categorised as ‘small’, those with between 50 and 249 employees were categorised as ‘medium-sized’ and those with 250 or more employees were categorised as ‘large’. Some of the key findings are: The management of employees • In workplaces belonging to small firms, employment relations issues were less likely to be dealt with by personnel specialists than in workplaces belonging to larger firms (8 per cent of workplaces in small firms had a personnel specialist, compared with 22 per cent in medium-sized firms and 26 per cent in large firms). Employment relations managers in small firms were also less likely to have relevant qualifications, and were more reliant on advice from external bodies such as Acas. Nevertheless, 63 per cent of managers in small firms had at least 10 years of experience in managing employment relations and they tended to have responsibility for a broader range of personnel issues than workplace managers in large firms. When making changes at the workplace, such as the introduction of technology or changes in working arrangements, managers in workplaces belonging to small firms were more likely to involve employees in the decision-making process than managers in workplaces belonging to larger firms (73 per cent of managers in workplaces belonging to small firms either negotiated with or consulted employees about the change, compared with 62 per cent of managers in workplaces belonging to medium-sized firms and 39 per cent of mana gers in large firms). • • Recruitment, training and work organization • Small firms were more likely than medium- sized or large firms to rely on informal channels of recruitment (13 per cent of workplaces in small firms relied on direct approaches, recommendations or word of mouth, compared with 5 per cent of workplaces in medium- sized firms and just 2 per cent in large firms). This appeared to be related to the lower incidence of personnel specialists in smaller firms. Workplaces in small firms were also less likely to use competency or attitude tests during recruitment. Only one quarter (24 per cent) of workplaces that were part of a small firm provided off-the-job training to core employees, compared with around half of all workplaces in larger firms. However, where small firms did invest in off-the-job training, employees were less likely to be dissatisfied with the training than employees in larger firms. Workplaces in smaller firms were less likely than those in larger firms to have some of the arrangeme nts that are commonly cited under the ‘high involvement’ Page 12 of 14 • • • ANNEX B banner, such as formal team-working arrangements, problem-solving groups and multi-skilling. Information and consultation • Union representation was unusual in small firms: only 7 per cent of employees belonged to trade unions and union members formed a majority in only 2 per cent of workplaces belonging to small firms. Other forms of employee representation, such as consultation committees, were also uncommon. Instead, direct communication between managers and employees was the more common form of arrangement. Managers in small firms were less likely to regularly give employees information about the financial position of the workplace (34 per cent regularly shared such information, compared with 48 per cent of managers in medium-sized firms and 73 per cent in large firms). Owner- managers in small firms were particularly unlikely to share financial information. Consistent with this, employees were less likely to report that managers were good at keeping them informed on financial matters where they worked for a small firm which was run by an owner- manager. However, the majority of employees in small firms reported that managers at their workplace were good or very good at keeping employees informed about changes to the running of the organization, changes in staffing and changes to their job. • • The determination of pay and other terms and conditions • Unions were rarely involved in pay-setting in small or medium-sized firms: just 2 per cent of employees in small firms and 6 per cent of employees in medium- sized firms had their pay set by negotiation with trade unions, compared with 29 per cent in large firms. In contrast, pay was commonly set unilaterally by management (84 per cent of employees in small and medium-sized firms), with small proportions of employees negotiating pay on an individual basis with their manager (12 per cent in small firms and 8 per cent in medium- sized firms). Variable payment systems were less common in workplaces belonging to smaller firms, although they were still used in a substantial minority of SMEs. Pay levels were higher in medium-sized and large firms than in small firms, but satisfaction with pay was highest in small firms, perhaps because larger firms had greater pay dispersion. It was uncommon for managers in small and medium-sized firms to negotiate with trade unions over non-pay terms and conditions, such as working hours or holidays, or to consult over redundancies. • • • • Conflict and dissonance • Only three- fifths (63 per cent) of workplaces in small firms had a formal grievance procedure and only two-thirds (69 per cent) had a formal disciplinary procedure (the equivalent figures in medium-sized firms were both around 90 per cent and in large firms they were both 99 per cent). However, 72 per cent of employees in small firms agreed that managers at their workplace treated employees fairly (compared with 59 per cent of employees in medium-sized firms and 53 per cent in large firms). Employees in small firms were most likely to rate the relationship between Page 13 of 14 • • ANNEX B • managers and employees at their workplace as good or very good (79 per cent, compared with 64 per cent in medium-sized firms and 59 per cent in large firms). The incidence of employee grievances and Employment Tribuna l claims were both highest in medium-sized firms. Equality, diversity and work-life balance • Workplaces in small firms were much less likely to have a formal equal opportunities policy in place than workplaces which were part of medium-sized or large firms (36 per cent, compared with 69 per cent and 93 per cent respectively). Only 23 per cent of workplaces in small firms had an equal opportunities policy that covered gender, race and disability. Although it was unusual for SMEs to have reviewed recruitment and promotion procedures to identify discriminatory practices, this was also rare in workplaces which belonged to large firms. Workplaces within small firms were less likely to offer extra-statutory leave or benefits (full-paid maternity or paternity leave, paid parental leave or paid time off for emergencies). Nevertheless, around three-quarters (72 per cent) of employees in small firms agreed that managers at their workplace were understanding about employees having to meet responsibilities outside of work, compared with 62 per cent of employees in medium-sized firms and 54 per cent in large firms. • • • Employee attitudes • • • • Four- fifths of employees in small firms said they felt loyal to their organistaion, compared with 73 per cent in medium-sized firms and 67 per cent in large firms. Employees in small firms were also more likely to feel that their job was secure (77 per cent, compared with 71 per cent and 64 per cent respectively). Three- fifths (59 per cent) of employees in small firms reported that they had a lot of influence over how they did their job, compared with 53 per cent in mediumsized firms and 49 per cent in large firms. Employees in small firms also reported lower levels of work intensity (31 per cent said they never had enough time to get their work done, compared with 35 per cent in medium-sized firms and 38 per cent in large firms). Page 14 of 14