Choosing an external provider to help you with the management standards

Summary

Much of the work needed to implement the Management Standards approach involves readily available project management skills, and only limited specialist expertise.

You may, however, decide you need an external provider to help employees, managers and/or your organisation as a whole to implement the Standards.

When commissioning such external providers, your organisation should ensure that such providers have the skills and capacity to undertake the necessary work. In addition, you should have a clear, written understanding of what the external provider will do and what will remain the responsibility of your organisation.

Introduction

Help with implementing the Management Standards approach could come from either one or a combination of different sources. These include Occupational Psychologists, Human Resource specialists; trainers; project managers; or someone with previous experience of organisational approaches to stress management. Your organisation may have these skills available in-house. If not, however, you may need to look to external providers to help you to, for example:

• Understand the Management Standards
• Get the commitment of senior managers to start the process and see it through
• Communicate to your staff about the process or the results you gather from it
• Gather and analyse data such as surveys, sickness absence information and/or staff turnover (a survey is not compulsory)
• Use a range of information to understand the situation in your organisation
• Develop your organisation’s IT systems to allow you to gather this information in the most efficient manner
• Establish a genuine dialogue with staff to identify specific problems and practical solutions
• Generate an action plan from all the information
• Implement and evaluate any interventions identified
• Create sustainability by training staff in the organisation to run the process
• Understand and develop your organisations Project Management skills

Any help you use should be driven by the needs of your organisation. Some organisations may need outside help with the whole approach, whereas others will only require assistance with one or two elements.

Choosing an external provider

When choosing external providers the following points should be considered:

Ensure the proposed provider has the necessary facilities and employees of appropriate qualifications (consultant qualifications should be accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and/or Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)) to undertake the tasks identified.  The professional bodies listed below are not qualifications, although certain academic qualifications and experiences are required for membership:

• Chartered status with the British Psychological Society
• Graduate membership of the British Psychological Society
• Chartered status with the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development
• Other similar accreditation from relevant professional bodies

Only appoint external providers who have the appropriate competencies and who are acceptable in all respects to your organization. Competencies could include:

• Face to face interviewing and analysis
• Focus Group facilitation and analysis
• Questionnaire design, distribution and analysis
• Generating Action Plans from Focus Groups and Interviews
• Training and presentational skills (for example communicating to staff)

Request full particulars of all personnel to be used in the work to assess their acceptability. Ask the proposed provider to specify the capacities in which each of their employees is to be involved in the work, giving other particulars and any supporting information.  This could include:

• Experience of using the HSE Management Standards – track record
• Experience of using similar approaches to risk assessment for stress - how do they equate their approach with the HSE approach?
• Good interpersonal skills
• Ability to communicate at all levels of the organization
• Recognition of the importance of good management / leadership
• Willingness to work as part of a ‘partnership’ with your organization to identify issues and generate solutions
• Help organisation integrate the process into their existing management structure / policies  / procedures / other initiatives
• An understanding of the rationale behind the management standards e.g. employee engagement and communication                      
• Impartial – willing to take on board the views of senior managers, line managers and staff alike

Be way of providers who claim to have an “off-the-shelf” solution to, say, problems with demands. Look for providers with a proven track record of facilitating the development of locally relevant solutions in real organisations.

Ask the external provider to provide written details of exactly what work their personnel will undertake and over what time period, and what work will remain the responsibility of your organisation.