Business continuity planning for industrial action has become a vital part of the preparation for collective bargaining in 2022. A large part of what we assist organisations with is the preparation and strategy for collective bargaining, and how this forms part of their long term Human Resources and Industrial Relations Strategy.
With the highest CPI since June 1990, net migration at a loss, and record low unemployment, companies involved in bargaining this year are facing pressure from all sides.
With this in mind, it is now more important than ever to consider business continuity planning for industrial action as part of the process. Better to be over-prepared than caught off-guard!
Elements
- Risk Assessment – identify all potential types of industrial action and what could happen for each if they eventuate.
- Business Impact Analysis – what are the operational and financial impacts and what level of impact will they have on our business.
- Risk Mitigation – what can we do to reduce our points of exposure?
From there, you can go on and establish your response team, bearing in mind that bargaining and/or mediation are likely to be necessary, so the response team will need to be led by someone not directly involved at the table.
The slight silver lining is that many companies have been impacted by Covid absences over the past few months, so already have plans in place for absences at short notice. Many of these plans can be repurposed for industrial action, and in some cases have even been tested.
If you don’t quite know where to start on this, we have prepared a helpful business continuity planning template that you can use as a prompt for discussion with your team.
To talk about how to work through this and other collective bargaining preparation, please contact us for a confidential discussion.
Anna Holmes is a collective bargaining and industrial relations specialist extraordinaire. For the past 15 years she’s worked with companies of all sizes both here in New Zealand and Australia.