MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Performance management
achievable -- we are all into SMART objectives but it is about
being specific and identifying what is achievable, negotiating and
agreeing that that is a reasonable work programme and then
having a system of monitoring through one to ones or at least
periodic interviews and feedback so that you can check what
progress has been made. (Interviewee H)
Accountability is seen elsewhere as a significant issue in the process:-
This is like absolute news, isn't it, in the trade union movement,
Mike, that we have got to in fact be accountable in the real
sense, not just to lay people but to be accountable for our
performance on a quarterly basis with the management team,
with statistics. We don't call them performance indicators. We
started off calling them that. They are now progress indicators
because we are sensitive of course, you know. And we are
operating performance measurement, time that people spend on
achieving the six core objectives. How much time you spend
organising, you know. That kind of analysis is being done and
people are co-operating with that across the union and that is
remarkable. (Interviewee M)
The principle of performance management is usually accepted in
terms, if with the odd caveat:-
Performance issues are becoming big issues and I think
particularly since we are committed to IIP -- because IIP has got
a very clear model of the sort of organisation we ought to be. In
fact, when I talked to (my line manager) about it, I thought it was
a good comment he made. He said to him it is a bit like Nigeria
calling in the International Monetary Fund and they say -- to get
all the money you have got to privatise your water etc. We are
going in the IIP model of what an organisation should be like and
having had our diagnostic assessment, you know, I'm very with
that. I think we weren't aware how much that was about
performance management and allocating resources and
measuring effectiveness and all those things. So I think maybe
we have a bit stumbled into this, not realising when we
committed to IIP that it was that. I mean, that is the direction
things have been going. (Interviewee O)
And the same manager expresses another concern in a somewhat wry
fashion, making another reference to the language of the scheme:-
Of course, it does make it harder, as well, because I said to you
that we are doing very poorly in our recruitment performance
indicators and you don't half feel it, you know. Yesterday when
we were looking at our information and we are languishing at the
foot of what isn't a league table (but of course it is), it puts
pressures on you. I went home saying "I'm a failure. We're
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