Pensions, and people, need to be more flexible and reflexive if they are going to work in a collective agreement environment, but many managers and union leaders believe that this just isn’t possible.
While these relationships can be very entrenched, it is possible to nudge large scale private and public sector organizations towards a new way of thinking about retirement, pensions and the bargaining game. Broader, leadership-oriented (rather than pension-only) approaches can help to alleviate standard barriers in management-union relations. Field research and case studies show that there are a number of options open to collective bargaining tables that, perhaps, many leaders haven’t imagined possible in the past. But the reality is that this process starts with a commitment to shared knowledge management, well before the possibility of a barrier to a solid agreement comes into play. That requires forward thinking.
In our new paper on the future of collective agreements through pension leadership in 2019, we explore how to develop a shared knowledge culture specifically tied to pension planning for collective agreements. How can you pay attention to the right details for a union pension? How can you make sure that everyone, including those inside and outside the management team, has the tools that they need to connect and engage? Is it even possible to create a culture that is aligned with pension planning excellence? We believe that it is.
At Marris Miller, we know that the demographics of work are changing, and there is an urgent need to look at more flexible pension plans that actually work for people’s lives and retirement plans. This matters to union-based organizations perhaps more than any other, because of the need for strong collective agreements that benefits its members, its organization, and, in the case of a public sector union, the general public. Whether you’re a part of a union or a management team, we’ll help you navigate best practices in pension leadership for union agreements in this new paper.