Item ten: RCN reps — what next?

Matter for discussion submitted by the RCN Derby Branch

That this meeting of RCN Congress considers the future of the RCN representative

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Roger Milligan of the Derby Branch invited Congress delegates to consider the future of the RCN representative. He highlighted how vital representatives are within organisations but, that as the nursing workforce ages, many of those with experience are leaving. Age is not the only issue; black and minority ethnic staff should be encouraged to become representatives, perhaps by further developing the RCN's Future Activist programme to appeal to a wider range of people.

Beng Poh, North West Surrey Branch member, spoke of his personal experience and urged RCN officers to ensure they support each representative fully. HCA safety representative, David Cardwell, highlighted the importance of getting students and HCAs to be representatives.

Other speakers highlighted the need for representatives to be given the support of their managers and senior managers in order to do the role well - whether this be time off for duties or training. Representatives must be valued and work should be done to further highlight the benefit to both employees and employers.

Background

The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) website conveys a clear message that the government recognises the valuable role played by workplace representatives.
Representing nurses and health care assistants is fundamental to the work of the RCN, but there are recruitment and retention issues arising mainly from an ageing workforce profile (many representatives are retiring), competing priorities between the substantive job and trade union role, and representatives not feeling valued.  In addition, BME (black, minority and ethnic) members are still under represented — with the exception of the RCN London region, where the ethnicity of activists is virtually identical to that of the membership in one region.
Against a background of diminishing numbers of accredited representatives, in 2006 the RCN instigated its Future activist programme — a new learning and development initiative that is currently being implemented in England and which will be introduced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland before 2010.

The programme — which has been developed to enable the RCN to recruit, support, develop and retain RCN representatives throughout the UK more effectively — contains four key strands:

  • the development of role descriptors for stewards, safety and learning representatives, together with a standardised learning and development programme for delivery throughout the UK
  • the development of standards for mentorship and support
  • the creation of high quality web and paper resources to support learning and development
  • evaluation of the impact of learning and development activities.


Clear role descriptors were developed in March 2007, and the new learning and development programme — based on the National Occupational Standards for Trade Union Representatives in the workplace — was launched at Congress 2008.  A number of barriers to becoming an RCN representative have been identified and solutions devised, for example, making the benefits of becoming an RCN representative clear both to potential recruits and managers. New recruitment material has been designed and a project group created — involving representatives from the three national committees and devolved countries — to examine practical support and facilities involving representatives. Mentorship has also been identified as key to personal development and the ability to demonstrate competency in role, and a project is now underway to develop a common approach to this across the RCN.

While the Future activist programme has proved successful in developing potential representatives through its foundation module, fewer individuals are completing the portfolio or progressing to specific development modules. This is likely to result in smaller numbers of high quality representatives able to perform in role.

References and further reading

Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (2007) Workforce representatives — a review of their facilities and facility times: government response to public consultation, London: BERR.