MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
The culture is not in any way towards performance of staff.
Those ideologies - I don't happen to believe - we used here to
have what we termed an appraisal system. And it was almost
blasphemous to say that we appraised our staff. And they were
involved in this appraisal system. Now, you can very easily not
appraise people at all under the current situation. There are
PDPs. The PDPs are not about appraising unless you decide by
are going to be. PDPs are -- well would you like to do that, well
that will be very nice, yes that would help your future, it won’t
help us at all but it would help your future. (Interviewee B)
There is support for the view that this is a constraint but with less
emphasis on the ability of trade union managers to deal with the
problem:-
If all things were equal, if there was a degree of resource, then
there are not in principle things that you can't do as a manager
in a trade union that you could do elsewhere. But I think it
comes down to resourcing. It also comes down to conditioning
and culture. For example, management of performance would
be something that a lot of trade union officials would find a great
deal of difficulty with but in the reality, it isn't impossible to
construct a performance management system that takes into
account the vagaries of the job that we do. (Interviewee L)
Managers who are concerned about the inability to manage
performance tend also to be somewhat critical of some of the union’s
staff:-
At 5 o'clock you get knocked over on the stairs in the rush going
out. I have to say, not with the group of staff that we have. It is
unfortunate but I have eyes in my head and I see what goes on.
People taking long lunch hours, coming in late, going early,
taking advantage really. Which is fine except that it is at the
members’ expense. They are paying hard earned money to pay
our wages and maintain our building. I would not say publicly
but I think we are selling them short. (Interviewee F)
The sickness procedures that are currently in place have
allowed individuals to have as much as 10 or 11 months
sickness every year the year after year and still be paid. It's
crazy. Absolutely crazy. (Interviewee B)
One particular criticism is unusual in that it is directed to the
competence of younger members of staff rather than older ones, who
are usually the ones pinpointed for recidivist attitudes:-
The younger group of people I think we have a real problem with
because we are not taking in the best crop of working people.
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