Hello Blog-viewers

I was recently on a long haul flight and to pass away the tedium I flicked idly through the film channels and came across ‘The Damned United’. The film was also shown on BBC 2 last night (18th July 2010). The plot concerns Brian Clough’s disastrous 44-days leading Leeds United and his (losing) battle with the team who had developed a strong union under former manager Don Revie. Brian Clough’s abrasive approach and his clear dislike of the players’ style of play made it certain there was going to be friction. The more consensual Peter Taylor, his right hand man, loyally stayed with Brighton and Hove Albion (my team!) and Clough missed him enormously.

The film (for me) was reminiscent of what goes wrong with an off beam management approach. In this case Clough was the personification of macho management and the Leeds United team the obdurate trades union. Something was bound to go amiss.

HR Academics Boxall and Purcell in their seminal 2003 work ‘Strategy and Human Resource Management’ note the anachronistic conflict-driven style of management and trades union relationships in the UK public sector. Granted the book was written seven years ago but I would suggest not much has changed culturally since then. Followers of the press this year will have observed recent 1970’s-type references to a ’summer of discontent’ reflecting growing strain in the public sector employer and trades union relationship - in my view only to be fuelled by the drastic cuts in expenditure, threat to public sector pensions (see last week’s post) and a two-year pay freeze to boot.

Now, even more so than ever, is the time for discourse not disagreement. Public sector HR professionals have a tough task ahead of them with changes and challenges to the employment landscape not witnessed since World War Two - so please…don’t score any own goals.

 Dean

Well as I end the final bank holiday weekend of the year, my thoughts turn to the impending PPMA September Board meeting in Cambridge, which promises to be a busy one.

However, last week flew past and included yet another London trip on Wednesday. This time to join a CIPD/People Management lunchtime discussion on the state of employee relations in the UK. A really interesting discussion involving a cross section of people and organisations, including Stephen Kelly, Director of BBC People, Linda Holbeche, CIPD’s policy and research director, James Dalgleish, Head of HR for the London Fire Service and Sarah Veale from the TUC.

The debate was both topical and relevant with increasing IR/ER tensions all over the country and the looming spectre of an economic downturn beginning to “colour” employee relations at both a local and national level.

Needless to say the debate will feature in a future edition of People Management, but more importantly will contribute towards one of CIPD’s new “Futures” Reports, which is a real step in the right direction for the Institute.

Anyway, enjoy what’s left for your bank holiday - traffic jams and all.

Stephen