MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Teams
suggests that staff development is bound up inextricably with the PDP
process, which may explain why few managers refer to it as a separate
activity. One manager relates how, in one department, staff
development planning arises from PDPs:-
Research do theirs properly, four times a year. It becomes that
sort of development plan. (Interviewee G)
Managers who are cynical about PDPs also tend to be cynical about
staff development:-
When you are talking about personal development -- well I mean
I've made a joke about it. I am a senior sailing instructor and I
would love to become a coach and I would love to do that,
please, I would go on one of those courses, it will be very good
for my future development. I have had people saying "I want to
learn Access". And I have said "why do you want to learn
Access? You are never going to use it. It is of no benefit to us."
You can go on and on. Sailing instruction is at the other end of
the of the thing. I just don't think that it is focused enough
(Interviewee B)
Other areas it just gets in the way or it is a chance to give you a
little present, you know. You can get away for a week
somewhere, you know. Two days with Tony Grundy or
whatever. (Interviewee G)
There is, however, a suggestion that management training is not taken
seriously enough:-
There is little management training goes on and I would not
necessarily like to get into a debate about whether we need that.
I suppose we would do really. But again, having come from,
having got to a relatively senior position when I worked for Nat
West, you had management training experience, both formal
and informal (Interviewee H)
But, in the main, managers regard the personal development planning
system as a given and its outcome unremarkable in terms of thinking
about their managerial roles, even if there are suggestions that it may
not in some areas be observed to the extent expected. They do not
generally refer to their own training, except in project management.
Teams
This particular subject, involving the setting up of a large number of
project teams in the union, was a strategic objective in UNiFI and
makes discussion of teams within the union of particular interest.
Setting up the teams had a number of objectives:-
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