CONCLUSIONES

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

George Bernard Shaw

9.1 INTRODUCTION

The core objectives of this thesis have centred on investigating the employee experience of outsourcing transitions in the public leisure sector. To do this, the research has utilised the social exchange framework as a lens for exploring changes in the employment relationship as leisure workers transfer to non-profit Leisure Trusts. In the findings chapters, the research has focused on examining changes in the social exchange content of the employment relationship, and the implications of these for relationship quality. Building on this, the purpose of this chapter is to reflect on the meaning of these findings and ask questions about their significance for extant research. In line with the philosophy of critical realism, the chapter also seeks to explore explanations for why employment relationships occurred in the way they did. To achieve this, therefore, the chapter is organised into three overarching sections. The first section contemplates the implications of the main findings for outsourcing research. The second section considers the implications of the research for social exchange theory. The third section then seeks to explore the possible mechanisms that led to the changes identified in the previous findings chapters.

9.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR OUTSOURCING RESEARCH

The purpose of the first section of this discussion is to explore the meaning of the research findings in relation to extant literature on the employment relationship and public sector outsourcing. The section reviews the topics and themes outlined in the findings chapters and explores what has been learned about experiences in the public leisure sector. In general, the discussion highlights how the experience

194 of outsourcing is likely to lead to substantial changes in the content of the social exchange relationship, with employees receiving both temporal and permanent losses in terms and conditions, and in some instances socioemotional dimensions as well. However, the discussion challenges the notion that ‘all’ post-transfer outsourcing implications are negative for employees, especially with regards to the more socioemotional and quality sides of the employment relationship. Indeed, the review of post-transfer changes suggests employees can, after the course of a year, benefit from outsourcing in terms of an increasingly socioemotional relationship with their new managers and employer, and hence, under certain conditions, potentially garner better relationship quality than what they had with the local authority.

9.2.1 THE CONTENT OF SOCIAL EXCHANGE

One of the objectives in the thesis was to explore the ways in which the content of the social exchange

relationship changed for leisure workers as they were outsourced to a non-profit Leisure Trust.

In general, the findings support the view that outsourcing leads to a mixture of changes in the content of the employment relationship for leisure workers, some of which may be construed as negative (certainly in the pre-transfer and early post-transfer stages), others of which may be considered to be more positive. This subsection discusses these changes in relation to extant research within the broad headings of (i) terms and conditions, (ii) the softer side of the employment relationship, (iii) employee responses, and (iv) negative social exchange.

Terms and Conditions

The debate about how public sector outsourcing affects the terms and conditions of workers has remained unremitting since marketisation expanded in the 1980s (Walsh, 1995). Engaging in this debate, the case study research from this thesis suggests that outsourcing to non-profit Leisure Trusts is likely to lead to a variety of temporal or permanent changes in terms and conditions, many of which could be construed by external observers as ‘losses’ or ‘breaches’ in the exchange relationship.

195 In relation to pay, the general experience across the case studies was that most workers did not receive losses to pay; at least not while the TUPE protection was in force. However, there were some groups, most notably the casual and temporary workers (but also some full-time permanent staff who engaged in supplementary overtime), who were vulnerable to pay cuts, which thus supports ideas that outsourcing can lead to reductions in remuneration (Rubery et al., 2002). Part of the problem for casual and temporary workers was that the employers ‘opted-out’ of offering TUPE cover to such employment contracts, despite the transferring employees having perhaps worked regular shifts for the organisation for a number of years – something that is perhaps questionable to how TUPE ought to be applied (Morris et al., 2009). Beyond the limitations in the application of TUPE, a further challenge relates to the prospect of pay harmonisations that the Leisure Trusts were intending to implement once the outsourcing contracts were beyond their first year. Although pay harmonisations had not taken place at the time of conducting the research, their implementation would mean the pay of ‘TUPE’d workers’ becoming matched to the Leisure Trusts corporate pay scales – something that would generally involve noticeable reductions in pay. Consequently, although the research found many workers’ pay to be protected in the short-term, the longer-term picture for all workers seems to be precarious, particularly because the Leisure Trusts were struggling to find adequate funding arrangements and revenue generation.

Outside of pay, the research found strong support for the idea that outsourcing in the leisure sector may lead to an erosion of the more objective notion of ‘employment security’ as well as the subjective perceptions of ‘job security’ in the short (and to some extent, the longer-term), supporting the work of Cooke et al. (2004) and Cunningham and James (2009, 2011). The process of being outsourced is a time when employees often feel greater psychological needs for job security and reassurance owing to the inherent uncertainty involved with the tender and transfer processes. However, rarely were such assurances given by the management of the local authorities or the Leisure Trusts. The local authorities, in particular, reported to know little of what the future might hold after the transfer for employees and so were often unwilling to communicate guarantees to staff. Sports-One was perhaps one example that slightly bucked the trend in this respect, with local authority managers giving assurances of pay and pension protection to TUPE staff early on in the transfer process – whereby

196 perceptions of job security seemed to be less affected compared to the other case studies, perhaps because this case was also marked by a relatively high involvement strategy on the part of the local authority and an absence of redundancies. But overall, job security was still negatively affected in all case studies.

On the issue of job security and employment protection, therefore, it was apparent that TUPE offers only limited protection to this aspect of the employment relationship during the process of outsourcing (Rubery and Earnshaw, 2005). Indeed, aside from the ‘subjective feelings’ about job security noted above, the TUPE protection was shown to have limitations in haltering redundancies at two of the case studies. For example, at Sports-Two, redundancies were initiated before the transfer date (and hence prior to TUPE cover coming into force), and at Sports-Three redundancies were made under the legislative justification of ‘organisational reasons’. After the first year of the outsourcing contract – what some perceived to be the ‘lifecycle’ of TUPE – the ‘feelings’ of lost job security again became prominent, as potential changes to terms and conditions and contracts emerged. Although not all participants felt this way because they did not know, or at least claim knowledge of, specific details about TUPE, this ‘double wave’ of reduced job security does beg questions about the long-term effectiveness of TUPE in stopping feelings of job security in outsourcing situations (Rubery and Earnshaw, 2005). Hence, clearly the ambiguity and apparent loopholes need to be considered in future by research on employment security and policy legislation – and longitudinal research may be helpful in this respect.

Finally, a last important theme to mention about changes to terms and conditions relates to the intensification of work after the outsourcing transfers transpired. The findings from this research support the widely held view that outsourcing leads to work intensification, regardless of the context being investigated (Rubery et al., 2002; Cunningham and James, 2009; Zuberi and Ptashnick, 2011;

James, 2011). Ironically, however, although the workers in this research often initially felt, for the most part mildly, aggrieved by the intensification of work, there were numerous instances across the case studies where this was not necessarily perceived as ‘bad’ practice by the end of the first year with the Leisure Trusts. Perhaps owing to reportedly cavalier working cultures under the local authority

197 before the transfer, as well as the new sense of professionalism afterwards, the employee response to work intensification was often aligned with the management perspective. However, whether or not the positive orientation to work intensification is something that lasts beyond the first year or two of the outsourcing contract must remain open to question. Participants seemed to accept the work intensification because it was accompanied by reward and attachment processes. But what happens if the rewards or attachments stop? What happens if the Leisure Trusts continue the work intensification to a point where it becomes seen to be ‘too much’? Although local authority run leisure services may have questions to answer about cavalier work cultures, there are clearly fairness concerns about work intensification in the longer-term for at Leisure Trusts, even if the general belief from transferred employees is not so resistant.

The Softer Side of the Employment Relationship

In terms of the softer side of the employment relationship, current research on these factors is fairly limited in the context of outsourcing, although there are some noted exceptions to this (e.g. training and development). The research in this thesis suggests outsourcing is likely to lead to mixed outcomes for aspects of the employment exchange associated with the softer side of the employment relationship, with employees losing out in some ways (e.g. training and development and job designs), but benefitting in others (e.g. support and recognition and gratitude).

On the pessimistic side, the present research depicts a rather bleak outlook for training and development opportunities, supporting the work of Hall (2000). The research repeatedly found that, for low-skilled workers in particular, there was a standardisation of training and a noticeable lack of training for career development (Grugulis and Vincent, 2005). For example, lifeguards received increasingly regular training on safety standards, as did receptionists on IT systems, but they were unable to obtain training that would benefit their personal careers, which thus contrasts with other research on these themes (e.g. Kessler et al., 1999). Curiously, the participants in these case studies generally retained a sense of hope about training and development, even in the second interviews.

However, there was noteworthy evidence that the promises made in the pre-transfer stage by the local