Building a successful enterprise agreement bargaining team

Enterprise agreement bargaining can be a complex and lengthy process, the ability for a business to navigate it efficiently is often dependent on the knowledge and skills of the bargaining representatives it appoints. This means that it’s important to take a considered approach to building a bargaining team from the outset and to revisit the effectiveness of the team during negotiations.

The right people are important

Enterprise agreements are highly influential in a workplace. Often covering a large proportion of employees and representing a significant business cost, they impact and guide medium and long-term strategic planning. Enterprise agreements also dictate day-to-day employment relations which can include when and by who work is performed, and how employees are managed. This varied impact necessitates consideration of a range of factors during bargaining, calling upon differing knowledge and skills from a bargaining team. A bargaining team that is unable to balance longer term business decisions with day-to-day practicalities risks creating an agreement which unduly constrains or over-extends the business, and/or which does not work with the business’s processes or systems.

The individuals involved in bargaining can also impact the efficiency of the bargaining process. The need to seek approval or information from people outside bargaining meetings, while sometimes unavoidable, can quickly become an impediment to agreement. It can mean that proposals are hypothetical subject to approval and discussion of claims is routinely extended across multiple bargaining meetings. Conversely, having too many people involved in a bargaining team can create difficulties with scheduling, slow meetings, and complicate communication.

Enterprise agreement bargaining is governed by the Fair Work Act (FWA) framework and compliance with mandated bargaining and agreement content requirements is tested by the Fair Work Commission’s (FWC) agreement approval process. To prevent potentially significant delays (and associated costs) at the approval stage, it’s important to have the requisite knowledge of FWA requirements within the bargaining team to ensure compliance throughout bargaining.

Who should be involved?

Including upper management or management with significant delegated decision-making power in the bargaining team is vital to efficient bargaining. The direct involvement from senior people facilitates negotiation, allowing the business to propose varying positions as discussions develop during a meeting, and to commit to agreement of negotiated positions.  While sometimes unavoidable, relying on indirect involvement by decision-makers can limit the bargaining team to a single proposal on a claim per meeting before needing to seek further approval, delaying and complicating negotiations. It can also damage the bargaining relationship by undermining trust if the proposals of the business’s bargaining representative in meetings are routinely overruled by decisions of people outside the process. The inclusion of decision-makers throughout the bargaining process also provides strategic guardrails, helping to ensure that the final agreement is compatible with the business’s medium to long-term constraints and goals.

Individuals with frontline experience and understanding should also be included in the bargaining team provided they are not covered by the agreement. People with depth and diversity of knowledge offer an opportunity to balance the need for detailed understanding with an appropriate bargaining team size. By obtaining the perspective of people with experience in the systems and processes of the business, the bargaining team can ensure that the agreement works for the business rather than the business having to adapt to accommodate the agreement.

If a union is involved in bargaining, a business may consider including people in its bargaining team that have an established positive relationship with the union’s delegates and officers. The involvement of individuals that have previously worked productively with the union can promote communication and trust in the early stages of bargaining, helping to build the relationship between the parties.

To navigate the complex FWA enterprise agreement bargaining framework, it’s vital for a bargaining team to have an experienced industrial relations perspective. This guards against preventable and potentially significant delays at the FWC approval stage. Including people with bargaining experience also ensures that the scope and effect of technical proposals are understood in a context where those effects may not manifest until years after the agreement begins.

In many cases, individuals may fill multiple of these roles which can help maintain an appropriately sized and skilled bargaining team. Others may be included at times, attending certain planning or bargaining meetings depending on the claims being addressed.

Tips for success

It’s important for members of a bargaining team to have a clear understanding of their authority to discuss and/or agree matters on behalf of the business during bargaining. It’s not uncommon for employee bargaining representatives to engage with bargaining team members individually outside of meetings. Clarity of authority helps protect the business against unauthorised agreement or misrepresentation and it can also allow individual relationships to be leveraged to make progress between meetings.

This clarity of role within the bargaining team can be extended to bargaining meetings. This can include who leads discussions of certain claims, who answers questions (including on varying topics) and whether individuals will participate in group discussion or provide administrative support. Convening a planning session with the bargaining team ahead of meetings allows this preparation to occur. While planning helps prepare a team and guides the approach to meetings, it remains important to be flexible and adapt as meetings unfold to ensure genuine and productive bargaining.

Ensuring consistency in bargaining team members throughout bargaining helps contextualise individual discussions within the broader agreement and promote the accurate recall of previous discussions and agreements on individual items. Ideally, one or two individuals should be involved the entirety of bargaining, attending as many bargaining meetings as possible.

By building a well-rounded bargaining team, a business creates an opportunity to leverage the bargaining process into a bespoke industrial and employee relations framework that is fit for purpose for the particular business.