MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Resource distribution systems
And now what I would like everyone to do is to sit down with
everybody and say, this is what we do. (Interviewee B)
In terms of physical resources, CWU had committed itself under the
Instrument of Amalgamation to find a new head office somewhere in
between Ealing (where NCU resided) and Clapham (where UCW
resided), although the outcome, Wimbledon, was closer to Clapham.
There were some serious political issues which surfaced in achieving a
decision on this:-
What happened is basically that Stalinism took over. Because
what happened is there was an attempt by people at Ealing to
block going to Wimbledon. Basically, there was an NEC called
and the vast majority of the ex UCW made sure they turned up
to vote it in. And it was as brutal and as crude as that, to vote in
coming to this building because they thought it was the ideal
thing. So it was quite a brutal process, to be honest (Interviewee
B)
The move took place two years after merger and did not resolve the
cultural aspects of merger because the two industrial groups encamped
on different floors, with artefacts of their previous existence installed as
a ‘comfort blanket’. The system for allocating space was centrally
driven, though there was consultation on individual aspects of it. Within
that, the approach seems to have been relatively laissez-faire:-
I was consulted on general facilities for the floor and how we
should arrange our floor because very often how you arrange
and layout reflects the culture you have got anyway, doesn't it?
It it is quite interesting. All our officers said no we must have
small offices so that our secretaries can have offices on the
open floor whereas on the postal side all the officers said we
wanted big offices and all the secretaries ended in the middle. It
shows that we have a slightly more collegiate style here. And
you noticed that virtually all the PAs have got their own office or
are in a shared office. Now that was the officers’ choice, not the
PAs’ choice. (Interviewee G)
In the view of at least one manager, this approach was only partly
successful:-
A lot of staff in the postal and telecoms areas were given their
space and told to organise it and they were working with the
same colleagues. They just had to move their office. The
departments which involved the bringing together of staff
included the Research Department where we thought that we
had already got a common style of working. At the other extreme
was the Legal Department which not only were moving two
groups together but moved them at different times, which I think
was a cultural disaster. (Interviewee L)
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