MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Exhibit 9.8 summarises staff development and training provision. Kelly
and Heery (1994) were focussing on the training of negotiating officers
whereas this study only lightly touches on this type of provision. What it
does identify is that two unions are very parsimonious in their provision
of management education and a third is developing slowly. Chapter 9
suggests that the provision of management education is an indication
of institutional support for management. It also speculates that, in that
(as we have seen above) some managers may have difficulty in
translating their principled people orientation into the full range of
people management activities, management training directed to this
area may be critical. The lack of such training might in part explain, for
example, why people management is not reported as being a strength
in CWU, a union which appears to provide no management training at
all.
Team management
There was a discussion above which drew attention to the extent of
operational autonomy typically enjoyed by negotiating officials. Kelly
and Heery (1994:81) quote an official as saying that ‘no national officer
can instruct me to do anything; I decide my own diary’.
If this is remotely typical in the case study unions, as it seems to be to
a greater or lesser degree, then one can see how teamwork can impact
on what may be a significant cognitive ‘meaning’ for the staff involved.
In UNISON, where the intention is specifically to change the job of the
regional officer, one manager admitted this, drawing attention to how
team working was seen as synonymous with ‘being managed’ and
pointing out how sharing diaries, setting team and individual objectives
and giving team leaders authority did in fact impinge on ‘autonomy’,
even if it was OK for staff to pop into Sainsburys on the way to the
office. Managers in such a scenario move, as Chapter 2 predicts,
towards the centre of the Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1973) continuum
though they report that many staff, particularly newer staff, welcome
the increased level of support involved in this.
In UNiFI too, institution of project team working on a corporate basis
involved change for everyone who went into it and tried to make it
work. Some did not, for reasons which may relate to the finding of Kelly
and Heery (1994) though this is not known. The changes occurring in
both unions, though, seem to represent significant cultural changes,
challenging cognitive meanings within the respective organisations.
Managers in these unions in general seek to impute a much more
positive attitude towards team working than has been the case in the
past.
The situation in CWU illustrates the extent of this change in magnified
form, where suspicion of teamwork is linked to membership attitudes
and the experiences of negotiators, themselves elected by the
members. This union is taking much slower steps in this direction and
one can understand why.
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