National Library of Ireland- CASE STUDY

Who are they?

The National Library of Ireland (NLI) is an organisation located on Kildare St in Dublin’s city centre, adjacent to Leinster House.  The NLI has as its mission the task of ensuring the collection, preservation, promotion and accessibility of the documentary and intellectual records of the life of Ireland and also aims at contributing to the provision of access to the larger universe of recorded knowledge.

The Director and Senior Management recognised the opportunity embedded in participating in this project, after attending the open day, and so volunteered to run the Work Positive Project – a stress audit for organisations – from Sept 2008 – May 2009, under the stewardship of the Human Resources Unit.

No of employees       120 staff (full-time) and 25 contract staff (approx) [at the time of the                                            survey]

Business Sector          National Cultural Institution Non commercial state agency

Location                     Dublin, Ireland

What part of the organisation was chosen for this project?       

For this project, all the staff was included (145)

What  groups were the staff divided into?  

The organisation felt it would be helpful to know the differences, if any, between 4 groups. They were divided by role.

The four broad staff roles were:

It was proposed that different stressors would affect each so that the results of the audit would provide a focus for employees in terms of profiling the interventions for each grouping.

How did they set about carrying out the Risk Assessment (from now on referred to as Work Positive)?

Stage one: a meeting was set up with the HSA Psychologist and NLI Partnership Committee, and after the meeting full support was given to the project. At a further meeting with the HR Unit, the working patterns of the organisation were discussed, the different staff groupings were agreed, a plan was outlined, time line set out (Sept 08 – May 09) , potential actions suggested and possible outcomes explained. 

Posters and leaflets were distributed to staff notice boards in advance of the presentations to all staff. Thereafter, the HSA hosted in-house talks for all staff on stress in October. Aspects covered included work-related aspects of stress, coping, support and environmental and personal factors. All staff were invited and attendance was at approximately 45 %.

Questionnaires were disseminated immediately after the presentation to be completed there and then, and for those who did not attend, questionnaires were sent out through internal post.  Questionnaires were collected by the HSA and were then analysed. The NLI had no involvement in this part of the process.

Approximately 4 weeks later, in late November 2008, results were presented to the HR Unit and feedback presentations to staff groups were scheduled.  All staff were invited to these sessions, hosted over one morning. At these sessions, results were communicated to staff. Results indicated that for most of the sub groups, there were no pressing matters to be tackled and staff indicated they felt there were no hazards in terms of stress from the main work environment.

What happened next?

Stage two: the questionnaires were further analysed and were found to indicate a very small response rate from one sub group. In order to ensure that this sub group’s lack of input was not positively biasing the results, this group was targeted through direct mailing of a letter from the HSA asking if they wanted to have a session specifically for their group, to discuss stress-related issues or issues around lack of engagement with their job role. A small response to these letters indicated (similar to the initial response to the questionnaire)a positive reaction but the numbers were too small to justify the cost and had such sessions been organised, it would have required full or almost full attendance and the response was less than 15 per cent. A decision was taken not to deliver such a session because of the very low response rate.

Was that the entire project completed?

Yes, by January 2009 the project had been completed, in terms of initial Director level consultation, Partnership Committee agreement,  information sessions and poster, questionnaires, feedback and results (incorporating information sessions on the context of the results) follow up with one non-responsive group and completion of the Risk Assessment/Control Measures template (see ‘Risk Assessment Template on this site).

• Other organisational inputs were made and improvements to the work environment throughout this project, some not specifically associated with it, but all having an influence on the work environment.

What worked well?

‘It was a very effective tool and efficiently delivered. Good to have the sub groups too in order to locate areas for concern, if any. Well worth developing the system for on-going Risk Assessment purposes and we now have a template which can be used on a bi-annual cycle. The project also provided good links for the Library with the HSA’.

What was the main challenge to the success of Work Positive?

‘There were no real challenges or blockages, although not every grouping filled in the questionnaire, we cannot presume that if they did, their inputs would alter the results.  The Library plans to work with this group in other ways and notes that no assumptions can be drawn due to the non response of any group'

Is there any other support the Authority could give organisations to improve psychosocial risk assessments?

‘Continue projects such as this one to other organisations’.