The changing nature of the HR function in UK local government and its role as “employee champion”

The Authors

Lynette Harris, Nottingham Business School, The Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Abstract

Purpose – Public sector reforms and external performance review has meant that the HR function in UK local government is not only expected to continuously review working practices but is also facing major changes in its role and its own service delivery. This paper explores how changes driven by the pursuit of efficiency and cost cutting may impact on the function's ability to fulfil the employee champion role that Ulrich identifies as essential to it making a valuable strategic contribution.

Design/methodology/approach – The findings are drawn from interviews, focus groups and desk research conducted in three large local authorities

Findings – The emergent concerns, tensions and dilemmas across the case study organisations suggest that changes, both planned and actual, to HR's role and services will impact on the function's ability to act as an “employee champion” due to reduced employee contact and more fragmented HR roles.

Research limitations/implications – The findings are based on three case studies, so there is an issue of their wider application – and they provided rather more insights into the views of HR staff and line managers than of other employee groups.

Practical implications – The devolved, decentralised, outsourced and self service models of HR service provision require careful internal evaluation as this study's findings indicate they may well have hidden costs in terms of promoting employee commitment in large public sector organisations.

Originality/value – A qualitative study of how changes to the HR function's role and service delivery can impact on the HR's responsibilities for employee relations rather than the more usual considerations of cost effectiveness and efficiency.

Article Type:

Research paper

Keyword(s):

Human resource management; Employees; Local government.

Journal:

Employee Relations

Volume:

Number:

Year:

2007

pp:

34-47

Copyright ©

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

ISSN:

0142-5455

Introduction

The role of the HR function in UK local authorities has undergone significant changes since Bains (1972) recommended the establishment of an internal professional personnel presence. In recent years the modernisation of public services agenda has meant that the HR function in local government has not only been required to continuously review working practices (White, 2000) but is also facing unprecedented changes in how its own services are provided. This paper examines the challenges and dilemmas facing the HR function in UK local government if it is to effectively support the organisation in maximising levels of employee commitment crucial to the high performance work place (Boxall and Purcell, 2003). It focuses on how changes in the role and services provided by the HR function may impact on its role as “employee champion”; one of the four proactive roles Ulrich (1997) argues are essential to it making a valuable strategic organisational contribution. This theme will be addressed though findings drawn from case studies of three large local authorities and the discussion will particularly consider:

the changing nature of the role of the HR function in UK local government; and
the implications of these changes for its role as an employee champion.

HR and the public sector context

An agenda for continuous improvement in public services has meant that expertise in developing HR practices designed to maximise individual performance have never been more important. The message in both the academic and practitioner literature (CIPD, 2005a; Eisenstat, 1996) that HR specialists should play a more strategic role has been widely embraced by the public sector. An action research programme into building a strategic HR function in the public sector undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in collaboration with national and local government revealed that fundamental to its ability to play such a role, was the function's integration and proper understanding of its organisational customers' needs in delivering organisational objectives (CIPD, 2005b). Yet the recognition that the function needs to play a more proactive strategic role comes at a time when a national procurement strategy and the pursuit of greater efficiency in local government stemming from the Gershon Efficiency Review (2004) has led to an increasing number of local authorities considering alternative ways of delivering their HR services. Such changes range from outsourcing the entire function to a more limited outsourcing of certain activities viewed as “peripheral” such as recruitment, counselling services or training and development which have been identified as more cost efficient or effective if delivered externally (Cooke et al., 2005). Single process outsourcing to different providers is reportedly growing the most quickly in the UK as outsourcing the entire function is problematic in view of the diverse range of activities it undertakes (Reilly and Pickard, 2000).

An alternative approach is an internal model of shared services where a central hub of staff is established to with specified transactional and administrative HR work to achieve economies of scale and free up a distinct corporate HR group to focus on higher level strategy and policy work (Reilly and Williams, 2003). A further development of this model is where shared services are provided to several organisations which, in the local government context, are most likely to be other local authorities. In common with the private sector, these reorganisations to the HR function have been accompanied by increased decentralisation and the devolvement of HR responsibilities to line management (Kersley et al., 2004, p. 305).

The impact these changes will have on a function that has traditionally been charged with an organisational responsibility for achieving “both efficiency and justice” in the employment relationship (IPM, 1963) have, to date, received minimal evaluation. The function's historical intermediary role has a particular relevance for employees in the multi faceted, complex and unionised environment that still constitutes UK local government (Kersley et al., 2004, p. 315). It will be argued that the pursuit of a more strategic role and the pressures of cost cutting may well mean that its contribution as an employee champion is overlooked or undervalued, despite a rhetoric that acknowledges “employee well being” as an important factor in encouraging employee commitment to organisational goals.

In practice, the ability to combine the four roles suggested by Ulrich of business partner, change agent, administrative expert and employee champion as a template for the function's organisational contribution may just be unrealistic within the limited resources it all too often has at its disposal. In today's local government, the reality facing the corporate HR function is likely to be one of reduced resources due to the outsourcing of elements of its services and/or a shared services delivery model, increased decentralisation and an ongoing devolvement of HR responsibilities to line management (Whittaker and Marchington, 2003). Faced with having to make choices about where to concentrate its efforts, how its contribution will be evaluated is a major consideration for the function in selecting its priorities.

Defining its role primarily as one of service provision to management whose effectiveness is measured in terms of its contribution to the business rather than in promoting “employee comfort” (Ulrich, 1997, p. 126) reduces a long acknowledged tension for the function in playing the part of an intermediary in the employment relationship. A role which no longer carries an organisational responsibility for balancing employees needs with those of the organisation may well be regarded by HR professionals as an attractive proposition if it reduces the inherent ambivalence associated with personnel work (Legge, 1988) but the findings from the case study organisations suggest that this may be at the price of a loss of knowledge and understanding of the issues experienced by employees in delivering organisational priorities. It is argued that this, in turn, limits the quality of the function's strategic contribution.

In the public sector the pace of change and the demands placed on HR specialists have been identified as particularly intense with their roles reportedly having changed far more radically than their private sector counterparts (Millward et al., 2000; Guest and Conway, 2001). Public sector HR functions have been required to attract talent and develop practices to promote high employee commitment in a sector offering less security than hitherto. As extensive restructuring has eroded anticipated career paths for many and challenged traditional forms of employee commitment, the perceptions of managers working in the public sector continue to be markedly more negative than those in the private sector (CIPD, 2005c). It is suggested that this operational environment has made the role of the HR function role as “the guardian of employee well being” (Renwick, 2003, p. 1) a crucial but particularly demanding one. A survey undertaken by the CIPD (2003) found that the transition to, or the intention to move to, a more strategic role was as evident among senior HR professionals in the public sector as in the private sector. One in three saw their current role as that of a strategic business partner whilst more than one in four saw themselves primarily as a “change agent”. Notwithstanding this commitment to a more strategic role, over a third of respondents felt that the HR function in their organisation was overly preoccupied with “hands on” operational issues with half of them reporting that their strategic input was constrained by the time they had to commit to assist line managers in basic personnel tasks; a situation aggravated, in their view, by managers not fully engaging with their HR responsibilities.

The importance attached to strategic HRM was evident in the strategic plans produced by the HR function in all three case study organisations but, despite this documented commitment to a more strategic role for the function, the balance between operational and strategic responsibilities emerged as an unresolved issue. On the one hand, a reduction in routine personnel work is identified as the only way to “move on to higher things” in a more proactive strategic role (Brewster et al., 2001, p. 37). On the other, as Hope-Hailey et al. point out (1997), engagement in operational matters is the essential means of maintaining vital contact with employees' concerns and provides the opportunity to establish trust and the credibility of the function within the organisation. If the pursuit of a strategic role leads to ignoring employees by “neglecting the basics”, it may not ultimately serve the function well if it is seeking to make a truly valuable contribution to organisational strategy making (Redman and Wilkinson, 2001, p. 19) by being capable of presenting an informed employee perspective.

Changes in HR service delivery

In local government, initiatives to reorganise the HR function are frequently part of a response to past Best Value (BV) reviews and Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPA) which have identified a need to strengthen corporate capability to initiate organisational development. In two of the case study Councils changes to HR service provision have subsequently formed part of the preparation for the new more demanding CPA performance measurement framework applicable to single tier and county councils until 2008 (Audit Commission, 2005). In line with one of the defining characteristics long associated with HRM (Guest, 1987), the trend in UK local government has been to devolve day to day HR responsibilities to line managers based on a rationale that encouraging the line manager to undertake the role of “front line” HR manager will free up HR professionals to undertake a more strategic role (Renwick, 2002) as well as placing the responsibility for the employment relationship where it is perceived it really belongs – with the line manager. In practice, in the local government context, devolvement has frequently been accompanied by a reduction in the resources of the central HR function. All three case study authorities reported on going devolvement of HR responsibilities to line management. This had been accompanied by a significant decentralisation of the HR function to service departments although there was some evidence of a move away from further decentralisation as a means of strengthening central resources. Accompanying the devolvement of HR responsibilities to line management, was a reported growth in proceduralisation led by the HR function, largely driven by a concern to ensure a consistency of approach in the application of HR policies and reduce the possibility of litigation.

A previous study by the author suggests (Harris, 2002) that this tends to reinforce a negative perception of HR's contribution among operational management and employees who viewed the function as overly preoccupied with administering the rule book. In the case of employees this may well be interpreted as a focus on procedures to the detriment of care for the individual and personal contact with HR staff. Indeed the growth of internal intranets providing guidance on HR policies and procedures have been partly introduced to reduce the level of individual requests for information from the function. In one of the case study organisations the intranet was already well developed as a source of HR information and the other two were in the process of developing their IT systems to provide such employee services. HR shared service centres are being adopted as a means of cost saving and improving efficiency by both private and public sector organisations (Arkin, 2001). The case study organisations were no exception. All three were in the process of considering the different options available to them at the time of the study and have since moved such initiatives forward, although progress in outsourcing areas of the function's activities have been slower than anticipated partly due to an observed lack of clarity about what such outsourcing might involve (Scott Jackson et al., 2005) Only one was proceeding with outsourcing what could be viewed as core operational HR activities. Two authorities provided external counselling services for employees, but all three outsourced search and selection for certain jobs and their occupational health services.

Research design

The case study authorities, based in the Midlands, were a large city unitary authority and two county councils. At the time of the study the unitary authority had a workforce of 13,500 employees and served a large urban and inner city population. One of the county councils employed some 35,000 employees and provided services to a very diverse community. The other consisted of a generally more rural community over a smaller geographical area and had a work force of just under 14,000 employees. All three had long established HR functions, a Head of HR with Chief Officer status and reported similar constraints, challenges and changes in the provision of HR services. As a result it is not the intention of this paper to compare and contrast provision at the three authorities but rather to identify the common emergent themes. Perceptions of the role of the specialist HR function was explored though an independent assessment of HR services undertaken by the author at the three authorities during 2002 to 2005 and there is continuing involvement with two of the authorities. The role of an independent third party engaged to provide a critical perspective on the service created significant opportunity for “participant observation” and had the advantage of legitimising the “freedom to be critical” by allowing for a level of challenging questions that might be unacceptable in research roles which offer a lesser degree of involvement (Watson, 2000). The role of the HR function and its perceived responsibilities as an employee champion were explored through the perspectives of specialist HR staff, senior, middle and supervisory managers, individual employees and trade union representatives.

An “exploratory” case study approach (Yin, 1993) was adopted which generated qualitative data from a range of sources which more structured methods would not have offered. Six focus groups (two at each authority) proved to be a vital source of information in terms of identifying the different perceptions held about the HR function's role; each one of these consisted of up to twelve employees as “service users” from all levels of the organisation. These were supplemented by two meetings at each authority with groups of specialist staff working in the HR function and a meeting with recognised trade union representatives. In addition, thirty interviews were conducted across the local authorities with selected Heads of Service (or their Deputies) which included the Heads of the HR function and other operational line managers. In two instances there was the opportunity to speak to the Chief Executive and at the third authority with the Deputy Chief Executive. The interviews were structured around fourteen open ended questions which explored what was seen as the role of the HR function, the nature of its organisational contribution, the HR responsibilities of line management and the impact and implications of any changes in how HR services were provided on its ability to act as an employee champion.

The analysis of the data provided a number of recurrent themes which had implications for the employee champion role; these have been illustrated by individual comments in the discussion according to the appropriate thematic reference (Ritchie and Spencer, 1994). Access was also provided to internal documentation on HR policies and procedures, statistical data and recent employee attitude surveys. These multiple sources generated perspectives from different stakeholders in the employment relationship about the HR function's expected contribution and the respondents' actual experiences. A recognised limitation of the research findings is that they provide rather more insights into the views of HR staff and line managers than of other employee groups.

A strategic or operational contribution?

HR staff in the case study organisations identified that, although changes in HR service provision were intended to reduce the function's involvement in operational matters, there was an expectation from many line managers and the trade unions that HR staff would continue the same level of involvement in operational employee relations matters. Line managers, trade union representatives and employees saw a value in the HR function's continuing presence in routine “face to face” interactions but for rather different motivations. For the trade unions and employees, the function was seen as having a critical role to play as the custodian of the rule book, as an arbiter of fair practice and ensuring organisational consistency. For line managers an HR presence was preferred to provide third party support for their decision making and immediate access to HR expertise to avoid “making a mistake” Situations that were identified, particularly in the focus groups, where the function's presence was of particular benefit were disciplinary and return to work interviews after periods of absence or when handling employee grievances as illustrated by this Trade Union Representative's comment:

I always advise my members to ask for a representative from personnel to be there if there is any hint of a potential disciplinary issue, especially if there is personal conflict between the employee and the manager.

Notwithstanding these demands for an ongoing HR presence in day to day personnel activities, Heads of the HR function saw its prime role as one of developing processes to support organisational strategies and acting as advisors to managers in accordance with the devolved “business-manager” model (Storey, 1992, p. 171) where responsibility for operational personnel matters resides with line management. The differences that emerged between managers, employees and the HR function about the focus of its contribution are illustrated by the following observations:

We still do far too much bread and butter personnel work, our role is to make a strategic contribution but my staff have to spend too much of their time hand holding or sorting out personnel issues that managers should deal with (HR Director).

I know HR are meant to have a more strategic role but the day job still needs to be done and what I really need is old fashioned personnel support – to be honest for me a good service is making sure my vacancies get filled as quickly as possible or that they are there when I have a disciplinary to deal with (Head of Environmental Services).

You don't have the impression that personnel is interested in employees any more, its all about being strategic and having a policy these days, we never see anyone from central personnel (Focus group participant).

HR staff were found to value an involvement in decision making and the policy aspects of their role more highly than addressing the service needs of employees, trade unions and supervisory management. Yet this focus on playing a more strategic role was seen by some line managers as being at the cost of getting the basics right leading to a subsequent loss of credibility for the function evident in this first line supervisor's experience:

I have now been waiting two months for them to follow up with an employee on a long term sickness case. We need to make some sort of replacement but personnel just keep deferring the issue … too busy writing more manuals for us to follow I suppose.

A lack of intervention was explained rather differently by HR staff who were reluctant to be seen as interfering whilst recognising that line managers were often worried about making decisions in an area where they lacked confidence or expertise. Sympathy was expressed for the position of line managers by this senior HR Manager:

We are expecting a lot of our line managers – I can understand why they want our involvement in handling operational issues but there really is a lot of guidance provided in our manuals, codes of practice and now on the new HR self service portal … . the information is there for everyone to use.

Not all HR staff were convinced that the pursuit of a more strategic role was in the function's best interests, particularly among those with more extensive employee relations experience. Their concern was the danger of losing “a feel for what is going on” would result from the reorganisation of the function's services. A view that was informed by a perceived distancing of relationships with line managers that had provided mutual benefits over the years typified by this HR manager's observation:

I really worry about the new staff in the department, we have one straight from University working on policy, very able but he is not getting experience at the sharp end to learn what it is all really about.

There were concerns expressed in the two authorities embarking on a shared service delivery model that separating HR strategic and operational activities would lead to a further isolation of the function, a loss of contact with the workforce resulting in diminished knowledge of operational realities for those in those in a central strategic role which would impact on their ability to present the employee perspective. For aspiring HR professionals it was identified that there were reduced opportunities in the shared services model for gaining the breadth of experience required for longer term personal and career development in more narrowly defined job roles. A disadvantage of shared services that was similarly identified in a CIPD survey into HR career paths (CIPD, 2005d). As one aspiring young HR professional explained at a Council where there had been a move to an interim form of shared services explained:

At present I just deal with grievances and disciplinary issues but this is giving me very narrow view of employee relations – I will need to broaden my experience if I am to be able to take on a more strategic role longer term but I can't see how that can happen.

The HR function's “customers”

Tyson and Fell (1986, p. 65) suggest that the HR function's role is to provide professional expertise to allow “other managerial work to happen”. For example, attending to employee relations issues, or dealing with personnel matters that would be a distraction for line managers, can free up line managers to concentrate on their own areas of professional expertise but in all three authorities the emphasis was on HR providing advice to managers to support them with their increased HR responsibilities. Asked who they saw as the customers for their services, the majority of HR staff described their role primarily as one of providing a service to line managers and rarely identified a responsibility for employee “well being” which was seen as a function of the trade unions. For such HR staff building up trust and confidence by engaging with managers' immediate problems was seen as the organisational means of establishing a positive view of the function's contribution. In reality they saw the function's performance being largely evaluated on the perceptions of line managers rather than on its strategic contribution which could be invisible to the line on the grounds that “Most line managers want a quick fix, we gain brownie points when we can solve their immediate problems”.

A preoccupation with how its contribution was measured had led to internal attempts to define what the HR function's services should encompass. Whilst most senior HR staff still saw their contribution as one of service provision to management and did not extend this to employees this was not a universally held view. One HR Director who regarded his area of expertise as “industrial relations” observed:

It's not a fashionable view but I genuinely think we are in danger of losing the plot if HR just talk to senior managers. We do have a role in playing devil's advocate and I can only do that if I keep my ear to the ground.

Long serving HR staff were more inclined to share this view, typified by this HR manager with over 20 years' experience at the same Council:

I know reorganisation is planned to make us more efficient but in my opinion it is important to have regular contact with managers and employees to know what is going on – it stops all that talk about personnel being in its ivory tower. I am certainly out there getting involved – best bit of the job.

For employees there was a perception that the HR function was no longer there to support or advise them, a number suggested this changed when the function became the HRM Department as evident in this employee's comment: “The old personnel department was for employees and managers but its all changed now, HR is not about employees”.

A perception was evident from the focus groups that there was no point individual employees going to the HR department when they needed advice unless they wished it to be regarded as a formal issue. As one employee in a housing department explained:

I had a problem with my line manager and really wanted to talk it through in confidence with someone who was not involved. I rang HR – they told me to talk to the Assistant Director who is my boss's boss but that didn't seem right as it was sensitive stuff. In the end I talked to a colleague but the problem is still there.

HR responsibilities and line management

In theory, the key rationale identified for the ongoing devolvement of HR responsibilities to line managers at all three authorities was reducing the time the function spent on operational personnel work enabling it to spend more time on a strategic contribution but HR staff reported that this had not been the actual outcome. Their view was that a devolved and decentralised HR function easily became a diminished function and, as already mentioned, there were some steps being taken to return specialist resources to the central function but in a reorganised form. As one Head of HR observed:

Actually CPA has done us a favour by identifying the need to develop corporate capability – we are now building up resources at the centre for a future shared service delivery model.

In common with the findings of other studies there was a lack of clarity about the boundaries of the HR responsibilities of the line manager and the specialist function for the employment relationship and, more specifically, employee well being with each party offering different perspectives (McGovern et al., 1998). Despite their increased HR responsibilities, line managers reported that the growth of employment legislation and potential for litigation had reduced their discretion to agree individual solutions (Sisson, 1999; Kersley et al., 2004, p. 56). A commonly shared view was that new employment law, for example family friendly legislation, meant it was better for matters to be handled centrally to ensure consistency although, prior to the expansion of individual rights, Hope-Hailey et al. (1997) were similarly reporting a reluctance among line managers to take on responsibilities for the employment relationship due to concerns about legal complexity. HR staff reported an increase in matters referred to them from managers rather than employees who were expected to go to their line manager or union representative. As this interviewee observed:

We get more queries about employees' rights from managers than ever before so have tried to deal with it by having questions and answers about particular legislation and our policies on the intranet but we still get plenty of phone calls.

HR staff reported feeling that because people issues could be complex and time consuming some managers were reluctant to deal with them leading to an observed tendency for managers to adopt a minimalist approach to employee relations which ultimately created more problems for all the parties concerned including the employees at the receiving end. From the perspective of many line managers, additional HR responsibilities had been “dumped” on them which they felt the HR professionals were better equipped to deal with and these could be a source of frustration (Harris, 2005) distracting them from their own service priorities as illustrated by this senior manager's observation:

Sometimes I come in to do a job planned for that day and then spend my time dealing with one staffing issue after another – I am an unqualified and expensive HR manager and wonder if it is the best use of my time! (Head of Planning Services)

Yet for employees, managers who did not engage with their HR responsibilities could lead to the feelings of demotivation expressed by this employee:

Some managers are really supportive and others have no real time for you. I am still waiting for a personal development review and I have been here four years but I know others who get regular reviews. Sometimes it seems as though you are working for different organisations, it doesn't exactly inspire you!

Discussion and conclusions

The findings from the case studies suggest that the pursuit of a more strategic role was having an impact on how the HR function's contribution was perceived by line managers, employees, and trade unions. Certain HR staff also identified the danger of pursuing a strategic and business partnership if led to eroding HR's ability to understand the employees' perspective or play “devil's advocate” in the strategy making process (Ulrich and Brockbank, 2005). It is suggested that the trend towards shared services separating strategic and operational roles (since implemented in one of the case authorities and actively underway in another) is likely to exacerbate the situation (Bentley, 2005). Pursuing the new business partner role advocated for the function may well mean that the old tension of playing a third party role is being replaced by a different tension; achieving the right balance between an operational and a strategic role to maintain the organisational knowledge required to make a proactive, properly informed contribution.

There are implications for organisational performance if the HR function is ill equipped on the likely workforce response in senior management forums. In the case study authorities, it was acknowledged that the central HR function was better positioned than service departments to provide a wider organisational perspective but the findings from this study revealed that changes in HR service delivery are constraining or are likely to impede the function's ability to fulfil this role. Yet the service delivery focus of local government performance assessment had led to an identified weakening of corporate capability and employees' wider sense of commitment to the authority as an employer at all three Councils (Harris, 2005). A combination of decentralisation and devolvement to the line had also impacted on the function's capacity to contribute to building organisational capability and enhancing employee commitment to organisational strategies (OPM, 2003). As a result it was recognised that the HR function had an important corporate role to play in developing “high performance” HR practices (Purcell et al., 2003). Yet the findings suggest that an HR shared service model of delivery and the outsourcing of many activities is potentially more likely to erode than support the strategic input the function can make in terms of presenting the employee perspective and employee relations' climate; this is attributed to its more fragmented knowledge about workplace issues and less involvement in what was described as “nitty gritty personnel work.”

A further limitation was the reported increase in the function's advisory services to line managers which, paradoxically, seemed to have also eroded its ability to act as an employee champion though a loss of direct contact with the work force. Whilst devolvement had led to increased written guidance for line managers to cover as many eventualities as possible on the application of the law to reduce the risk of litigation, for employees it meant they were less likely to seek out support and advice from the HR function as Oswick and Grant (1996) reported in their earlier study of personnel management in the public sector. These trends raise the question of who is undertaking the role of employee champion and promoting employee well being. If devolvement means that the HR function is reliant on line managers for their understandings of the state of the employment relationship then this will increasingly be viewed through an operational management lens and is heavily dependent on the capability and motivation of individual managers to engage with HR issues (Hope-Hailey et al., 2005).

Changes in how HR services are delivered and how the HR function views its contribution suggest a reduced emphasis on a neutral role to promote a consistency of approach arising from concerns for organisational justice other than ensuring demonstrable legal compliance. Yet the findings suggest that this third party role of referee, mediator and arbiter is one that is still valued by employees and the trade unions even if less likely to be on offer. Where key aspects of the HR function are outsourced there is, arguably, even less likelihood that the function will be able to effectively exercise strategic influence due to a loss of operational knowledge. This suggests that the shared delivery and outsource model of HR services could lead to a loss of influence for a function that has long struggled to establish its organisational status and sources of power (Caldwell, 2003). If structural changes to the HR function result in a distancing of HR from the work force (Francis and Keegan, 2005), the opportunities to develop trust relationships will decline and, with these, the confidence that the function is capable of acting as an advocate for employees. One outcome will be the loss of employee voice at a senior management level that other studies have reported as being as vital as HRM policies in terms of impacting on employee commitment and organisational performance (Guest, 1999; Truss, 2001). Decreased opportunities for personal contact will reduce the opportunities for HR staff to build up those relationships of trust with both line managers and employees that are essential in securing such employee commitment. In the still predominantly unionised environment of UK local government, changes in how the function is organised that leads to less insights into the state of employment relationships sits uneasily with the need to promote high commitment work practices and the employee behaviours required to deliver continuous improvements in organisational performance.

There is the usual problem of a wider application of findings provided by three case study organisations. Despite this limitation, the emergent concerns, tensions and dilemmas across the case study organisations suggest that the changes taking place in local government HR service provision are likely to impact on the function's ability to undertake a meaningful role as an employee champion. Recognising that there is a need for more research into the extent to which these reorganisations are taking place, the case study evidence reported in this paper suggests that employees are less likely to regard the function as a source of support or advice than hitherto with the result that issues are referred directly to the trade union or dealt with through legal processes which encourage an adversarial approach to the employment relationship. It is suggested that a reduction in support and opportunities for personal contact with an internal third party for employees will impact on levels of commitment and even lead to a sense of being abandoned by the organisation when problems arise for individuals in the workplace. This study's findings indicate the devolved, decentralised, outsourced and self service models of HR service provision require closer organisational scrutiny. They may well carry hidden costs if the very means of monitoring the health of the employment relationship are reduced due to changes in HR service delivery.

References

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