MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
against which we then look at individual contributions, targets
and all that sort of stuff, not all of which are about delivering
benefits to members but are about doing things more effectively.
(Interviewee F)
And one manager sums the debate up succinctly:-
I've yet to find an example where someone has said 'I want to be
left entirely alone to do what I want to do and I'll manage that.'
(Interviewee A)
All this evidence bears on the particular context of trade union
management and some of the cognitive rules of the game. Some
managers perceive constraints in terms of the acceptability of
management, either to peers or to staff; others are less exercised
about those particular constraints. But what other constraints, if any, do
managers in UNiFI perceive? In the area of personnel practice, there
are seen to be issues:-
There is no philosophy, is there? There is no culture. I can't
remember the last time we managed somebody out of the
organisation in a disciplinary sense. Just can't remember it.
You have to punch the General Secretary in the nose………The
code itself is perfectly good. It's the culture. Nobody will take it
on board. Now whether that will change in the future because
the senior management team feel less constrained on staffing
matters than they have ever felt, I think, because they have
closed two regional offices and one of our three principal offices
and there wasn't as much shouting as they thought there would
be. Since the merger there are not the same rules and
procedures surrounding our appointments, advertising of jobs,
that there were before the merger, certainly in BIFU, so they
have more freedom to act in those senses. Maybe that will
translate into, when people are not very good at their jobs, they
are helped to improve and, if not, they are out of the door.
(Interviewee G)
The constraint identified here is perceived by other managers:-
I suppose the other thing is that it's cultural, isn't it. We are a
trade union, we don't sack people and we don't even threaten it.
As far as I'm aware we don't even use our elaborately prepared
grievance or disciplinary procedures. It is all there but I don't
know why it is never used. I think what happens is that the staff
know that intuitively and the kind of co-operation that you might
expect from service departments who are supposedly there to
help me get my job done is, frankly, sub standard and I wouldn't
pay them in washers, if I were hiring them in. (Interviewee F)
Performance management is identified as a particular constraint:-
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