MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Conclusions
principle of company committee autonomy and the retention of the old
union offices could be used as symbols of the continuance of aspects
of the old organisations.
The other corporate component of merger management strategy was
moving to a project management style of working. This is discussed
elsewhere but part of its rationale was to bring staff together across
grades and locations and getting them to work together. Beyond that,
individual managers managed the process, in one case with a great
deal of enthusiasm and creativity. There was not any evident corporate
strategy for these levels of merger management but there is external
evidence that it had a good measure of success.
Managing by Information
UNiFI has a personal development planning system which involves
regular meetings between staff and managers. It is not universally
observed in the spirit but it must have been at one time in view of the
Investors in People accreditation, of which it is a corner stone. And
there is evidence of senior management support for the system. Staff
meetings are held in many places, as the researcher observed
personally.
However, managerial communication strategy is not discussed in those
terms and managers do not discuss communication in those terms,
even though their styles of management, nurturing, for example, will
depend on honest communication. Managers do not identify their
communication role as one of their key tasks. This does not mean that
they do not communicate; merely that it is not in itself a cognitive focus
Managing through People
This chapter explains the limitations of the Investors in People process.
Nevertheless, the evidence in UNiFI is that managers do have a people
focus in their management tasks, whatever other reservations they
might have about systems to support the process. One system in
particular about which reservations are expressed is performance
management. The Personal Development Plan system is seen as an
unsatisfactory vehicle for the purpose and staff are portrayed, in one
case, as resistant to being accountable for the achievement of set
standards. Indeed, there is a view that it is difficult to set these anyway,
in the case of negotiating staff.
There is evidence, however, that the Personal Development Plan
system has been successful in setting frameworks for staff
development and certainly the union’s annual training plan also
suggests that this has become institutionalised, though not without the
odd bit of cynicism. It is not clear, however, whether there is a great
deal of management training being provided, despite one senior
manager attending a major programme at the London Business
School.
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