Work, employment and engagement conditions in a female‐dominated public service occupation after restructuring/outsourcing

• Date: 01 November 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12196
• Published date: 01 November 2017

Work, employment and engagement

conditions in a female-dominated public

service occupation after

restructuring/outsourcing

Gill Kirton and Cécile Guillaume

ABSTRACT

Most research on the phenomenon of public service restructuring/outsourcing fo-

cuses on lower skilled work in peripheral activities and typically provides an overview

of effects on work, employment and employment relations. Through an in-depth case

study of probation, the intention of this article is to explore professional worker expe-

riences of the restructuring/outsourcing of a core public service activity where the

workforce is female dominated. The article highlights three dimensions of job quality

that all suffered deterioration—work, employment and engagement. The case of pro-

bation adds to evidence demonstrating that employees experience adverse effects even

though transfer regulations and union agreements supposedly protect workers. Pro-

bation also stands as an exemplar of impoverishment processes in a female-

dominated occupation which reinforces the view that public services can no longer

be relied upon to provide high-quality jobs for highly qualified women.

1 INTRODUCTION

The restructuring and outsourcing of public services has been British public policy of

successive governments for more than thirty years and has attracted much debate in

the industrial relations (IR) field. In contrast to most IR studies, which generally focus

on lower skill jobs in peripheral public service activities (Rubery, 2013), our contribu-

tion is a study of a feminised professional occupation within a core public service ac-

tivity, namely, practitioners in the probation service of England and Wales. In

addition to outsourcing, the article considers how restructuring, and attendant frag-

mentation of an occupation, affects those remaining in the public sector, which has

received little attention. The article explores the lived experiences of employees

post-outsourcing/restructuring, which as others have commented, are relatively

neglected in favour of examining management strategies and practices, or effects on

service delivery and financial performance (Davies and Thomas, 2002; Kessler

et al., 1999; Smith, 2012; Worts et al., 2007).

❒Gill Kirton, Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, School of Business and Management, Queen

Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK and Cécile Guillaume, Roehampton Business School,

University of Roehampton, London SW15, UK. Correspondence should be addressed to Professor Gill

Kirton, Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, School of Business and Management, Queen

Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK; email: g.kirton@qmul.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 48:5-6, 482–499

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Given that our case occupation is female dominated, it is worth noting that female

pay and conditions in the public sector are relatively favourable, having benefited

from high levels of unionisation and collective bargaining (Moore and Tailby,

2015) and progressive gender equality policies (Conley and Page, 2010; Grimshaw

et al., 2015; Rubery, 2015). Further, even with the many managerialist policies now

impinging on professional workers under the ‘modernisation’agenda (Worrall

et al., 2010), and employment cuts and pay freezes under ‘austerity measures’(Bach,

2016), public services stand out for providing relatively high-quality jobs for women

especially for the highly qualified (Rubery, 2013; 2015). Therefore, any adverse

changes in public service employment affect women disproportionately (e.g. Rubery,

2013; 2015; Rubery and Rafferty, 2013). By exploring probation as an exemplar of

the adverse effects of public service restructuring/outsourcing on a female-dominated

professional occupation, the article contributes to research relating to equality and

change in public service professional occupations (Conley and Page, 2010; Coyle,

1989; 2005; Cunningham et al., 1999; Davies and Thomas, 2002). Complementary

to other studies focusing on equality initiatives (family-friendly policies, childcare,

positive action programmes), and gender gaps, this article examines the implications

of organisational change for women in terms of work, employment and

empowerment/representation, drawing on the perspectives of professionals them-

selves on the changes to which they are subject (Davies and Thomas, 2002; Rubery,

2015; Worts et al., 2007). By investigating the various processes associated with

restructuring/outsourcing that contribute to deteriorating job quality within a

feminised occupation, it highlights under-researched aspects of the erosion of the

gains made by women in the public sector. It thus responds to a concern to highlight

the gender of subjects in IR research (Danieli, 2006; Wajcman, 2000). However, this is

not to imply that the minority male probation workforce fared any better.

The article begins by drawing on existing literature to sketch the wider work and

employment relations context of public sector restructuring/outsourcing as well as

issues of job quality deterioration. Following an outline of research methods, the

research findings section first sets the broader scene in probation and then discusses

deteriorating work, employment and engagement conditions.

2 PUBLIC SECTOR RESTRUCTURING/OUTSOURCING AND

DETERIORATION OF JOB QUALITY

For the last thirty years or so, the literature has explored how

restructuring/outsourcing has destabilised the favourable public sector employment

context (Smith Institute, 2014; TUC, 2015) and eroded the model employer tradition

(Bach and Bordogna, 2013; Burgess and Macdonald, 1999). From the employee

perspective, essentially the issue appears to be one of deterioration in job quality. In

their review, Holman and McClelland (2011) find that a number of models exist for

conceptualising job quality: Models within what they classify as the subjectivist

approach focus on the extent to which jobs fulfil employees’preferences; models

within the objectivist approach see objective features of the job as the predominant

cause of employee experiences. To mitigate the limitations of the subjectivist focus

on employee preferences and to extend the objectivist approach to capture

individual-level outcomes, Holman and McClelland (2011) draw on Sen’s notion of

‘capabilities’and develop a conceptual framework to assess job quality from an objec-

tivist capability perspective. Although we do not seek to test the latter, we utilise it as

483Work, employment and engagement after restructuring

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd