Performance Management and its Effects on Workers

1. Performance Management and its Effects on Workers Professor Phil Taylor University of Strathclyde CWU TFSE 3rd February 2010

2. Origins and Scope of Study • Motion passed at the STUC Conference (2009) • Proposed by CWU and supported by UNITE (FS) • Workers being subjected to various forms of PM • Tightened controls, monitoring, surveillance etc. • Ill-health effects, particularly mental ill-health • Proposal that research should be desk-based • Decision taken to widen the scope to do primary research – what is happening is not documented • Interviews with officers and reps in finance sector and telecoms (clerical and engineering)

3. What is Performance Management? • The measurement of performance as in output, number of tasks completed is nothing new • The purpose to which it is put is the key • Performance Appraisal around for a long time – individualisation of pay and conditions • Spurious link between effort and reward • PAs typically annual, 6-monthly, always a problem with subjectivity, who decides • PM now not periodic but continuous in its effects and a conscious shift to disciplinary purpose • Various names – Performance Improvement, PIPs, Managing Performance

4. Commonly micro-measurement and micro-management of individual performance • Quantitative outputs and • Qualitative aspects – behaviours, attitudes, ‘delighting the customer’ • Targets, targets, targets – early call centre research and September 1999 in BT • Spreading beyond the cc to diverse areas of work • Targets, KPIs, SLAs – determined at the top, cascading down through tiers of managers, to TLs and then to individual workers • Managers given targets so pressure downwards

5. Lean, understaffing, PM, management by stress • If war of attrition then time/effort is the battleground • ‘Time is money’ – porosity of the working day • Call centres – 1 sec off each call saved BT £2m • Engineers - new technologies, tracking, mobile phones etc leading to intensification – save minutes • Fundamental driver is reduction in labour costs • As much or more work done with the same or less resource • Continuous pressure on so-called underperformers • The Bell curve

7. Managing people out of the organisation, managed exit etc. irrespective of ‘actual’ performance • RBS – 6 weeks, NAG – 750 on disciplinaries for underperformance • Potentially deliberately targeted at older workers • Profound insecurity • Compounded by stringent implementation of SAP • Both new procedures and harsh implementation of existing policies and procedures • Offensive on short term absence and long term sickness • Effects on health – intensity, pressure and stress

8. The vicious circle => intensification of work + insecurity => contributes to illness => coming to work when ill => makes condition worse => under-performance => increase insecurity and likelihood of a disciplinary => continuous improvement etc. • Not caused by recession although accelerated by it • Trade union pro-activity is the only defence • From negotiated agreements (CWU) to health and safety audits • Non-unionised environments - T-Mobile presents organising opportunities • Need for media coverage of the new tyrannies in the contemporary workplace