Mind the Gap! (in minimum service levels)

Strikes and Contract Management:  What is the connection?

Until this last few months I would have thought that there was little or no connection between the challenges of managing a service contract and resolving industrial disputes.   The airwaves are now bristling with references to “minimum service levels” in the context of proposed legislation designed to curtail what some regard as unacceptable consequences of strikes.  That got me thinking.  How is this going to work - given the daily difficulties that contract managers experience in managing service levels in contracts - which must be a whole lot easier than managing service levels on an industry wide scale? 

I will leave it to others to discuss the industrial relations and employment law consequences of the proposed legislation.  From experience of drafting and managing service contracts I would suggest that those drafting of the legislation consider the following:  

• how do you legislate to ensure an output (for example a minimum number of trains running) when the determining factor is the input (the number of people who turn up for work)?  Those intent on frustrating the intent of the legislation will find other ways of frustrating the input such as calling in sick and not working over-time etc.

• This point is a variant of the first; how will the legislation differentiate between factors impacting on the minimum service level and outwith the control of the unions or even management?

• how is the output going to be monitored, and who pay for the additional cost of administering the regime?  

Good contract management is a blend of relationship management and legal (contractual) compliance.  I suggest the same goes for industrial relations.  I wonder if the proposed law is getting the balance right, and how many managers within the affected industries think the proposals are workable and/or desirable? 

Brian Clark - CEO, Just Contract Management Ltd

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