The job evaluation scheme for health service clerical, administrative and management staff opened last Thursday (1st September) following IMPACT members’ huge endorsement of industrial action over the issue last month. The Department of Health sanctioned the reactivation of the scheme following intensive talks between the union and the HSE in the wake of the ballot.
Management has also accepted the union’s proposals on the method of filling posts upgraded on foot of job evaluations. And they have agreed to further talks on the union’s ambition to see the scheme extended to health professional posts and more senior management grades.
IMPACT national secretary Eamonn Donnelly said: “Through our ballot, clerical and admin staff have made it clear to management that they will not be treated as second-class citizens in our health service. It’s an important statement, and a significant victory that has achieved the objective of reopening the job evaluation scheme.”
On the filling of upgraded positions, it has been agreed that staff who have been in post for four years or more at the time of a job evaluation will stay in the position. Other upgraded posts will be filled by competition. IMPACT has already trained teams of assessors and the union believes that the first job evaluations could take place from October this year.
The union won agreement in principle to reopen the scheme – unilaterally abandoned by management at the height of the economic crash – during last year’s negotiations on the Lansdowne Road agreement. Management subsequently agreed to reinstate the scheme from June 2016, but then reneged on that deal. This provoked an IMPACT ballot that saw 87% of members back industrial action.
The scheme, which is open to clerical and administrative grades III to VI, and related grades, offers staff the prospect of an upgrading if their job roles and responsibilities are found to have increased sufficiently.
Its eight-year suspension led to a significant backlog of existing and potential applications from workers who have taken on substantial extra responsibilities as clerical and admin staff numbers fell dramatically during the crisis.
Job evaluation is an established tool that allows the knowledge, skill and responsibilities associated with individual jobs – rather than grades or staff categories – to be assessed and appropriately rewarded. While a job evaluation doesn’t guarantee an upgrading, many health staff believe their roles have grown considerably as they have taken on more responsibility over the years.
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