MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Deploying resources
Some departments tended to be mostly PTC or mostly CPSA
but that was one thing we tried to do. (Interviewee J)
And at Regional level, one manager had taken a highly proactive
stance:-
One of the first things I decided I had to do was that because we
were in two separate buildings, and we still are and it will not be
properly right until we are in a single building, I took a deliberate
decision that some of the people working in the CPSA building
move into here and some of the people from here moved into
there. And that worked. People mixed socially anyway because
we used to have quiz evenings or whatever where the two
offices would mix. That forced people to mix in a working
environment as well fairly quickly. (Interviewee M)
At national level, there is evidence that bringing functions together did
have benefits in terms of cohesion:-
It was a catalyst. It reinforced the pace a bit. I think in parallel,
and I think it was one of the things that I argued in terms of
membership systems and the importance of having one system
in and data merged, was that that also acted as a catalyst and
forced the pace at which departments could merge. In fact, you
could not have done it any other way because they go hand in
hand. So if you were forcing there to be one membership
system, there had to be one Membership Department. You
could not have one department split over two sites working on
different systems. So definitely the physical aspects like, in my
respects, the membership system but like the building also
reinforces that (Interviewee E)
And also in terms of its symbolism:-
Then there is also the closeness to the General Secretary, the
actual physical proximity to those offices, which actually does
make a difference in how people see you and in your formal and
informal contacts as well. (Interviewee N)
However there were two issues that stand out in looking at managers’
perceptions of the importance of physical space and its deployment in
the new union. The first relates to the fact that the building in which the
new union gathered was the former CPSA Head Office.
There is a resentment by former CPSA staff about people
coming in. They see it as their building. (Interviewee O)
Whether it was a good thing, I'm not totally sure actually
because it took quite a long time to get over the "this is our
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