GSP 17-19 Staffing Arrangements & Appointment Process

04/November/2019

Description

The purpose of this circular is to bring members up to date in relation to discussions with An Post regarding the agreed Staffing Arrangements & Appointment Process.

The Union has continued its efforts to seek further permanent appointments for members and to secure uprating from part time to full time status. In March 2019 with the assistance of the Monitoring Group we agreed some further changes to the staffing arrangements and appointment process. In addition, the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018 became effective on the 4^th March 2019 which contains significant changes in relation to contract values and banded hours. The CWU and An Post, collective agreement and benefits to members are outlined in a separate GS Circular 16-19. While it was the Union’s intention to agree the processes to give early effect to the above, this was not possible because changes in Company personnel and ongoing difficulties in the HRSU. Set out below are the details of the revised appointment procedures:

Appointment Process

The main criteria to secure an appointment remains the same i.e.

Temporary staff with over two years continuous unbroken employment with the Company will be appointed subject to the condition that they are required for ongoing work requirements.
Where temporary staff have intermittent broken employment during the two-year period which generally does not exceed four weeks in any year, they may be considered for appointment where the other conditions are met.

In order to streamline the appointments process, the Company has simplified its automated systems. A report will issue to HR Managers every fortnight requiring them to review the temporary staffing for consideration of granting permanent appointment. The HR Managers will be responsible for confirming permanent appointments. Should they decide that a permanent appointment is not appropriate, the specific reason for this decision will be stated. The HR Manager will advise both the employee and the local branch. This is to ensure that there is more effective communication locally rather than having all issues related to appointments referred centrally to the Union and Company HQ. If any employee or the local branch are unhappy with the outcome of an appointment process the matter can be escalated using the grievance procedures.

Permanent Vacancy

The Union also argued that where a vacancy existed in an office then it should be filled on a permanent basis and individuals should not have to wait two years to be considered for an appointment. The Monitoring Group has supported this view and now where an employee is recruited against a permanent vacancy, they should be given a permanent appointment following successful completion of the six-month probationary period. The Company has confirmed that this is now the case.

Leave Reserve Ratio

The Collection and Delivery Agreement reduced the leave reserve ratio to one leave reserve to nine working posts. The Union advocated at the time that this was a retrograde step both operationally and administratively. In recent times it has hindered individuals from being appointed as although required to do the work, on paper, no vacancies existed. The Monitoring Group determined that the Leave Reserve ratio should be amended from 1 in 9 to 1 in 7. This was essentially due to the fact that while the existing Leave Reserve ratio covered annual leave, it led to a significant number of employees being recruited on a temporary basis to cover sick leave in circumstances where there was an ongoing requirement for their employment but no vacant post against which they could be appointed. Following discussions with the Company this will be implemented as follows:

The organisational baseline will be formally amended during DSU redesign (interim arrangements in 2019, ongoing redesign in 2020 and thereafter).
Notwithstanding the above, the Company will identify the notional additional post(s) for each DSU and ensure that permanent appointments are made against these vacancies.
As the ratio has been amended to cater for sick leave there should be no change to the ‘leave blocks’ available in each DSU.
Where there is a liability for under-utilised Leave Reserve staff to be redeployed to adjacent offices, the Company’s travel expense policy will be applied.

November Leave

As part of the above the Monitoring Group required the Company advance proposals to limit the amount of annual leave that could be taken in November. The Union agreed interim arrangements to apply for this year subject to local agreement and with employees being facilitated with leave at other times in the year. The Company has confirmed that in future years they will, where possible, facilitate additional leave in the main summer leave period. However, they have advised that they experienced significant operational difficulties in the summer of 2019 in regard to the number of employees availing of term time leave and they will need to balance the two. The Union intends to discuss this in more detail with the Company at the JCC Diversity Sub Committee.

Transfer List

The Union has secured agreement members on fixed term and specific purpose contracts to access the transfer list once they have completed six months’ probation.

To give effect to this the Company and the Union are in the process of finalising a policy on Transfers. This policy will also address how vacancies should be filled by either utilisation of the transfer list or the appointment of a temporary member of staff. This revised policy should be finalised by the end of November 2019.

Seasonal Contracts

Notwithstanding the above progress there remains a number of staff whom have significant service but who do not fulfil the criteria for permanent appointment i.e. they have intermittent broken employment during the two-year period which is greater than four weeks in any one year. Given this the Monitoring Group has determined that the Company should introduce permanent seasonal contracts of employment, initially to cover the summer leave period; 1st May to 30th September or longer where an individual’s historic work pattern over the previous 2 years warrants it. The Company will finalise the details of the new contracts on the following basis.

1. Design of new contracts
Company HR with its legal department will draft contracts and seek CWU input once this is complete.

2. Set criteria for eligibility
The Company will set out the the criteria for eligibility for the seasonal contracts and will discuss this with the CWU.

3. Identify eligible employees
Once the criteria is agreed the next step is to identify the employees who are eligible to receive such a contract. In the first case, we will be seeking that Union members who carried out seasonal work this year will be offered these contracts.