12 January 2010     Out with 2009 old style management and in with 2010 respect

We fear that the rail industry is moving towards a management crisis which they are blindly unaware. We hope that they are oblivious to the situation otherwise senior employers are guilty of unprofessionalism and mismanagement.

At the end of last year (2009) we brought to your attention the issues of management attitudes towards disciplinary and grievances (4 November 2009 - Out comes the big stick and thwack) where we highlighted the problems whereby some managers lack the necessary skills to manage.

The following is from a member and may we add that this is one of the better letters received by Head Office:
“I enjoy working for the company as they are one of very few whose work ensures most of my weekends are spent at home. I also like the conditions under which we work. However, over the last 4 years, the utter lack of man-management skills from our depot manager & his manager are taking their toll with depot moral, good-will and co-operation rapidly eroding as the company one day as more & more people leave”.

What we fear is that some appointed managers only need to attain one of two job specifications, those being a physical presence or an over vociferous demeanour. Under these circumstances and without adequate training such people rely only on the stick approach. After a period of time those newly appointed managers then seek similar people for recruitment and so it escalates.

This may be effective in the first instance but after a period of time the workers and the company will suffer. Workers and the company become polarised to the extent that at some point in the future a reaction occurs. ATCU argues that managers should be appointed because of their managerial skills and a full examination of those skills should be incorporated into the selection criteria. On appointment it would be beneficial that they attain a level of competency through regular training in areas of administration, people management and Human Resource processing.

It is infuriating that time after time we meet with managers who do not understand the law or the people who work for them. For example, we find it difficult to understand why a union representative is required to produce a letter of competency when representing fellow colleagues yet this is not required by management. It will be interesting to know many managers have attended a course on disciplinary and grievances.

It would be of further interest to know how many managers have been on a bullying and harassment course.

All of the above is worrying as we believe that such management attitudes is spreading throughout the rail industry and it is an issue that companies should immediately begin to address for the benefit of the workers and the companies.

Let 2010 be the year that both the unions and companies work together to achieve an expectancy, that being an industry where we respect one another and enjoy working together.