Workplace Partnership – Northpower and the New Zealand Public Service Association

6. Concluding Comments

In its 2007 annual report, Northpower reports that it exceeded its financial targets, increasing net profits by 22 percent. The company reports that such results flowed from growth in its electricity network and in contracting activity, combined with increased efficiency. Warren Moyes, Chair of the Northpower Board, said:

"We have continued to maintain a high level of satisfaction with three key stakeholders - our employees, customers and shareholders - while keeping within the thresholds set by the Commerce Commission."

As stated in the beginning of this account, this is a story of a company doing some pretty ordinary things and getting outstanding results. There is no magic bullet, and there is no quick-fix checklist or precise recipe for success. In this case, there is no documented partnership agreement or even a document specifying what the parties intend in respect of their dealings with one another. They don't define it, they just do it. This case study points more towards what Northpower, its employees in Whangarei, and the PSA have done to build productive employment relationships.

Because these results are still somewhat atypical across industry, certain questions might come to mind, such as:

• Have these results been achieved on the back of some "airy-fairy, tree- hugging" philosophies?
• Is Northpower just a soft-headed, softhearted permissive employer and a push-over for workers to get what they want?
• Alternatively, are the delegates and staff push-overs and easily satisfied?
• Should other employer and union parties reading this case study dismiss what this company has achieved because the lessons to be learnt couldn't possibly be replicated outside Northpower?
• Should the parties' results be dismissed because of other advantages applicable only to Northpower in the marketplace, such as patents, copyright, unlimited access to capital finance or some other privilege?

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding "no"! To a large degree, this company and its employees practise the sort of high-performance strategies described in the literature and as highlighted in this report. Many companies simply don't do these things, and they have their own peculiar rationale as to why not.

Nothing the parties do in this relationship is particularly novel. While the high-performance strategies described are not new, their execution is everything. In this case (and perhaps others where high-performance strategies and genuine engagement are in place), execution depends on personal behaviour and the recognition that each individual chooses their behaviour in "moments of truth" - when it matters most.

The style brought to the company involves personal pride and responsibility for performance, including a desire not to let each other down. The language and delivery is not that of a pre-school; it is robust.

Responses to robust challenges tend not to be defensive, and the participants appear to be less ego-centric than those found in other companies where "authority" is challenged. Accordingly, problem-solving focuses on what is good for the company, as well as what is good for the individual.

With such a high emphasis on safety at work, wellness in general and family, this company demonstrates that its workforce is important. Through its remuneration system, it demonstrates it is willing to share the rewards of success. When combined with a willingness to trust employees and do what is right and fair, and ensure they have the skills they need to do a good job, employees feel respected. In turn, they deliver the results in company growth and in the financial statements.

It's clear from the employee survey that improvements are still possible in areas of communication and performance management, but the overwhelming impression, through employee feedback and the interviews that have been used to tell this story, is of a company that has its people committing hearts and minds to their jobs, not just their labour.

It might be thought that the effectiveness and quality of what happens at Northpower is relationship-driven and that, in turn, depends entirely upon individual nuances. Such a reliance on individual style could be seen as a strategic weakness. Certainly, there are key people in the company who have chosen to behave in ways that build and nurture relationships. So, what would happen if key management or union people were to leave this environment? The CEO responds:

"Leadership starts with the Board. We have a very strong and commercially focused Board who understand what it takes to make and keep a successful company. They are a Board that wants to help the management succeed. They are not a Board who are interested in blame and punitive approaches. This tone from the Board sets the tone for the management, so that if one of us leaves, there is an expectation that there won't be a change in the culture that helps the company succeed."

Perhaps one of the best signals of the future relationship between the parties is the extent to which the parties have adopted a common "mindset" around constructive engagement and how this becomes part of the culture and is integrated into behaviour. By way of indication, we leave the last words to the PSA Organiser and a representative of the Partnership Resource Centre:

"A significant milestone about our relationship happened not long ago when we attended a workplace partnership forum recently in Auckland, hosted by the Partnership Resource Centre. A number of different employers and unions were present. We were asked to make a presentation about what we had and how we work in a collaborative way. There were five of us: Mark Gatland, Barbara Harrison, Alan Jolly, Barry Holland and myself. As it happened, we had no time to confer or rehearse with one another what we were going to say, yet we all independently ended up saying the same things about the relationship. That meant a lot to all of us." PSA Organiser

"One of the many things that struck me was the dynamic between the people presenting, which included the CEO and a PSA delegate. Unless you knew who they were, it would have been virtually impossible to say who the CEO was or who the PSA delegate was based only on what they were each saying - such was their consistency - and I knew that they had very little time to prepare their presentation... and that was obvious from the spontaneous way they all went about the presentation, too. To my mind, this was a living example of our definition of workplace partnership - namely, each party having an active interest in the success of the other party." PRC Practice Manager