Power at Work: How Employees Reproduce the Corporate Machine (Routledge Research in Employment Relations, Volume 18)

Power at Work

Do employees who are treated as machines become machines? How do they cope with work that regards them as less than human? Do managers dream of electric staff? What are the consequences of such thinking and are there alternative ways to organize work in the twenty-first century? These are just some of the questions asked by Darren McCabe in this ethnography of a major UK bank. McCabe argues that innovations associated with the ‘new’ corporation seem to reproduce many of the conditions that we associate with the industrial age such as hierarchy, the division of labour, task specialization and command and control approaches to management. Through exploring strategy, technology, enterprise, teamwork and culture change programmes in a contemporary organization, McCabe demonstrates the debilitating and unintended consequences of these interventions. Combining organizational theory and literary illustrations, McCabe asks management to adopt new approaches that take into account the experience and inequalities of work and calls for collective resistance should management not be willing to do so. This book will be of great interest to both graduates and post-graduates engaged with Organizational Behaviour, HRM, Strategy Technology and the Sociology of Work. Providing detailed insights into working life, McCabe offers a distinctive approach to innovation in the work place. Darren McCabe is Professor of Organizational Analysis in the School of Economic and Management Studies at Keele University.

Routledge research in employment relations Series editors: Rick Delbridge and Edmund Heery Cardiff Business School, UK

Aspects of the employment relationship are central to numerous courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Drawing from insights from industrial relations, human resource management and industrial sociology, this series provides an alternative source of researchbased materials and texts, reviewing key developments in employment research. Books published in this series are works of high academic merit, drawn from a wide range of academic studies in the social sciences. 1 Social Partnership at Work Carola M. Frege 2 Human Resource Management in the Hotel Industry Kim Hoque 3 Redefining Public Sector Unionism UNISON and the future of trade unions Edited by Mike Terry 4 Employee Ownership, Participation and Governance A study of ESOPs in the UK Andrew Pendleton 5 Human Resource Management in Developing Countries Pawan S. Budhwar and Yaw A. Debrah

6 Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions International perspectives Edited by Fiona Colgan and Sue Ledwith 7 Inside the Factory of the Future Work, power and authority in microelectronics Alan Macinlay and Phil Taylor 8 New Unions, New Workplaces A study of union resilience in the restructured workplace Andy Danford, Mike Richardson and Martin Upchurch 9 Partnership and Modernisation in Employment Relations Edited by Mark Stuart and Miguel Martinez Lucio 10 Partnership at Work The quest for radical organizational change William K. Roche and John F. Geary

11 European Works Councils Pessimism of the intellect optimism of the will? Edited by Ian Fitzgerald and John Stirling 12 Employment Relations in NonUnion Firms Tony Dundon and Derek Rollinson 13 Management, Labour Process and Software Development Reality bytes Edited by Rowena Barrett 14 A Comparison of the Trade Union Merger Process in Britain and Germany Joining forces? Jeremy Waddington, Marcus Kahmann and Jürgen Hoffmann 15 French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy Nick Parsons 16 Union Recognition Organising and bargaining outcomes Edited by Gregor Gall 17 Towards a European Labour Identity The case of the European Work Council Edited by Michael Whittall, Herman Knudsen and Fred Huijgen 18 Power at Work How employees reproduce the corporate machine Darren McCabe

Also available from Routledge: Rethinking Industrial Relations Mobilisation, collectivism and long waves John Kelly Employee Relations in the Public Services Themes and issues Edited by Susan Corby and Geoff White The Insecure Workforce Edited by Edmund Heery and John Salmon Public Service Employment Relations in Europe Transformation, modernisation or inertia? Edited by Stephen Bach, Lorenzo Bordogna, Giuseppe Della Rocca and David Winchester Reward Management A critical text Edited by Geoff White and Janet Druker Working for McDonald’s in Europe The unequal struggle? Tony Royle Job Insecurity and Work Intensification Edited by Brendan Burchell, David Ladipo and Frank Wilkinson Union Organizing Campaigning for trade union recognition Edited by Gregor Gall Employment Relations in the Hospitality and Tourism Industries Rosemary Lucas

Power at Work How employees reproduce the corporate machine

Darren McCabe

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Darren McCabe This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-96184-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-41797-X (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-96184-6 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-41797-6 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-96184-1 (ebk)

For Mum, Dad and Philippa. Thanks for listening and for being there

Contents

Acknowledgements Foreword Preface 1

Living with innovation

x xi xii 1

PART I

11

2

Do managers dream of electric staff or a design for drudgery?

13

3

Manufacturing the enterprise self

42

4

Mechanizing emotions

67

PART II

95

5

In the belly of the machine

97

6

Coping through teamwork or how staff oil the machine

143

PART III

189

7

Divided and conquered?

191

8

Conclusion

221

Notes Bibliography Index

228 231 238

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the employees whose conversations and openness made this book possible, whose real names and identities have been omitted as a condition of the research access. I would like to thank Tony Watson and Martin Parker for reading an earlier draft of the manuscript and for their helpful and supportive comments. I would also like to thank all those who have given me a hand along the way without whom I would not have been able to become an academic, or have reached the stage where I could write this book. So thank you to Stuart Wallace, Jim McGoldrick, David Winchester, John Black, Tony Watson and especially David Knights.

Foreword

Do employees who are treated as machines become machines? How do they cope with work that regards them as less than human? Why do they put up with conditions that view them as so many ‘numbers’? Do managers who design organizations as if their employees are machines become machines in the process and why do they create such organizations? What are the consequences of such thinking and are there alternative ways to organize work in the twentyfirst century? These are the questions that are addressed in this ethnography of a major UK Bank. The industrial revolution led to fears that men and women would become machines. These fears are often assumed to be behind us as the revolution in information technology gains pace and a new form of organization variously described as post-Fordist, post-modern or the post-bureaucratic organization emerges. Yet, innovations associated with the ‘new’ corporation (e.g. TQM, BPR) seem to reproduce many of the conditions that we associate with the industrial age such as hierarchy, the division of labour, task specialization, and command and control approaches to management. So what has changed and what has endured? This book explores strategy, technology, teamwork, enterprise and culture change programmes in a contemporary organization and argues that they reproduce much of our industrial ‘past’. The book examines how new interventions seek to make up new ways in which to be human that diminish what we are and could be. It focuses on how power is exercised through various management innovations often in contradictory ways and it urges managers to reflect on these inconsistencies. It examines how employees reproduce the conditions through which they suffer even as they resist the corporate machine. It calls for different management approaches that engage with the experience and inequalities of work whilst calling for collective resistance should change not be forthcoming.

Preface

This book is about power and how it is exercised in the modern corporation in ways that saturate and make-up our lives. It examines how power and control infuse the strategies, innovations and technologies that managers employ in both intended and unintended ways. It considers how new corporate interventions seek to make new human beings that are docile adherents of corporate instructions even though they extol the virtues of responsible, empowered, customer-focused teamworkers who must be able to use their initiative. The book also attends to the flaws, contradictions, unintended consequences and resistance that limit this project. I ask whether managers become machines in the process of introducing innovations that regard ‘others’ as machines. I explore what happens to employees who are treated as machines, considering whether they become insensate beings, the ‘walking engines’ that H.G. Wells once described. I examine the defects of machine thinking – how it impairs a sense of meaning and belonging for employees, leading them to find ways to escape, fiddle and cope with the demands of the machine. Such dynamics are argued to be detrimental to, and inconsistent with, managerial calls for efficiency, quality, teamwork and customer service. This is because machine thinking can induce workers to use their creativity against rather than for the organization. Through ethnographic research in a major UK Bank’s back-office processing centre, I explore how machine thinking can induce individualized (divided, fractured, separated) ways of being that simultaneously enhance and obstruct managerial control. It enhances control through dividing employees from each other such that they fail to collectively resist. It delimits control through distancing employees from their work, leading them to devise ways to twist and warp work demands, which are experienced as mechanical, unfair and debilitating. Complex relations of control and resistance emerge that waste considerable resources and hinder managerial endeavours to maintain morale and maximize efficiency. This back-office research illuminates how the staff are engaged in self-defeating dynamics for, rather than collectively challenging the machine; they both ‘make out’ (that is, escape work controls, for instance, through fiddling) and ‘make do’ (that is, adopt ways of coping that facilitate the operation of the organization). As we shall see, these endeavours to render life tolerable serve to reproduce the corporate machine.

Preface xiii The book also explores empirical research in the Bank’s branch network; it examines how the staff engage in teamwork despite rather than because of management designs. Instances are identified of the staff deploying their ingenuity in ways that intensified their workload and this is described as ‘teamwork-bynecessity’. We observe how the individual pressure to sell restricts teamwork and undermines the sense of branch community. Despite work intensification, the staff continued to engage with their work and coped through teamwork. Through this self-defeating dynamic, the branch staff also reproduced the conditions through which they suffered. The central argument of the book is that such harmful working conditions are not inevitable and can be changed. First, this is because managers need not treat others as if they are machines. The machine metaphor that continues to haunt and hinder managerial and employee lives is neither without choice nor is it an unquestioningly efficient way of working and living. In addition to being inhumane, machine thinking fails to live up to its own promise because it generates inefficiencies as effort and ingenuity is wasted when staff are forced to use their energy and creativity to find ways to cope with, and escape, the demands of the machine. Second, it is argued that those who are subject to machine thinking can challenge the machine. Although the work regime divided the staff from each other, such that they became increasingly ‘individualized’, this experience of being separate was not simply done to them. Thus, employees absorbed such conditions, lived and became them. Various forms of resistance are explored that serve to reproduce rather than challenge the machine and its makers. This is not to suggest that employees should simply acquiesce or that such resistance is futile, for we cannot know the outcome of our actions. Nevertheless, I am concerned to examine the limitations of individualized ways of resisting, arguing that more collective acts of defiance are required. One of the ways in which this book seeks to understand the creation and continuity of machine dynamics is through the concept of ‘Otherness’. Thus, the staff are separated from each ‘other’ (e.g. branch versus back-office staff) and managers are divided from the staff, who are seen as ‘Other’. It is argued that this largely arises as an unintended consequence of machine thinking. Managers are ensnared by mechanical ways of thinking that neglect, forget or dismiss the ‘others’ who must live the strategies, innovations, regimes and technologies that they instigate. Of course, managers do not exist in isolation and they are under pressure to deliver results/profit, but it is argued that there is more than one way to meet such demands. It is suggested that if managers had to live the lives of ‘Others’ (i.e. the staff ), then different strategies would be adopted. Furthermore, if the staff ceased to regard each other as ‘Other’ and united to challenge their working conditions, then such ways of working could not continue. Those who would like an introduction to this book with a chapter-by-chapter explanation of its contents, continue reading. Those who would prefer to get their teeth into the narrative, turn to Chapter 2.

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Living with innovation

A sociology truly concerned with representing the standpoint of the underdog would most especially seek to communicate the character of his [sic] suffering, its peculiar sources and special intensity, the ways and degrees in which it is avoidable, the forces that contribute to it, and his [sic] struggle against it. The underdog’s standpoint therefore deserves to be heard in sociology, not because he [sic] has any special virtue and not because he [sic] alone lives in a world of suffering. A sociology of the underdog is justified because, and to the extent, that his [sic] suffering is less likely to be known and because – by the very reason of his [sic] being underdog – the extent and character of his [sic] suffering are likely to contain much that is avoidable. (Gouldner, 1968: 106) It is as if we were deliberately to become men [sic] who need order and nothing but order, who become nervous and cowardly if for one moment the order wavers, and helpless if they are torn away from their total incorporation in it. That the world should know no men [sic] but these: it is such an evolution that we are already caught up, and the great question is therefore not how we can promote and hasten it, but what we can oppose to this machinery in order to keep a portion of humankind free from this parcelling-out of the soul, from this supreme mastery of the bureaucratic way of life. (Max Weber and German Politics, 1944; in Victor and Stephens, 1994: 480) The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s [sic] souls. . . . We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. (The Concluding Speech of The Great Dictator, Charles Chaplin, 1940; in Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography, Penguin: London, 1966/2003)

Introduction This book arose out of an ethnographical study of a major high street Bank that explored the ‘human’ dimension of Business Process Re-engineering. Various

2

Living with innovation

issues and themes emerged through conducting the empirical research and, during the process of writing the book, many of which surprised me. I want to briefly set out my observations, understanding and interpretation of the events and experiences of work at T Corporation (pseudonym), so that you will be able to ponder them while reading the largely empirical chapters to follow. I seek to explicate my arguments through empirical material because I believe that this is the most accessible way of communicating with, and engaging you, the reader. It is written in a way that seeks to take into account that you may not be an academic and may not enjoy our fondness for citing the work of others during extensive literature reviews. For me, the most important aspect of writing this book is to illuminate something of the experience of working in a ‘modern corporation’ and to reveal something of the tangle of power relations that saturate, infuse and shape our lives. Critically, it is to indicate that conditions can be otherwise, that we can change them. To avoid switching you off, I draw on both literary and academic sources throughout, with the intention of provoking and stimulating thought and who knows, perhaps even action! This approach reflects the many conversations that I have had with students and friends who find academic accounts inaccessible and/or dull. I can recall being a student (I still am) and finding certain texts sleep- or headache-inducing (I still do) with their use of obscure words and a quasi-scientific language that I had to decipher and rewrite, in order to understand them. Hopefully, this text will avoid such effects. The book examines life in T Corporation and I want to convey the sense in which working in that institution is not simply a reflection of how management enacts a programme of change. Chapters 2 to 4 examine the dynamics of how management sought to exercise power through innovating, but this is only part of the story. I also want to illuminate how life in T Corporation is bound up with a complex web of power relations which everyone in the company is part of, and is involved in maintaining, albeit in different ways and with different access to scarce resources. Thus, inequality and the status quo are produced and reproduced by those who are on the receiving end of power as well as by those who are in ostensibly powerful positions.1 This text is meant to be ‘empowering’ because it seeks to reveal how those who are seemingly weak, who are lost in the crucible of asymmetrical and non-egalitarian relations, are engaged in the conditions that lead them to suffer. It therefore holds out the possibility that both managers and employees can transform the inequality and oppression that characterize everyday life in offices and factories throughout the world. The book has two concerns. First, it attends to the experience of innovation both in terms of the ‘strategic’ thinking that instigates it and the meaning it has for those on the receiving end of it. It aims to encourage a more thought-through approach towards innovation, by asking managers to reflect on the implications of their ideas for employees’ lives. It is believed that if we all had to live our lives as ‘Others’, in ways that reflect, at least in part, our actions, then we would act and live differently. The second concern is to consider the uncertainties and unintended consequences of innovation. That is to say, how the experience of innovation may

Living with innovation

3

deviate from management designs. It explores how innovation may be ineffective in terms of how it is supposed to work, but work irrespective of design. This is explained partly in terms of the human ability to cope through using our creative capacity, which everyone is able to muster.2 I explore how employees may use this capacity to ‘make do’ (cope or make the system work) as well as to ‘make out’ (escape, fiddle, cheat or work against the system). Thus, employees can use their creative capacity both for and against the machine. I identify how employees often make organizations work despite innovations that scream out that they should do otherwise. Throughout, attention will be given to how strategies, innovations, technologies and operational decisions may result in unintended outcomes and also how they can be otherwise. Thus, irrespective of machine thinking, it is argued that organizations are far less determined than many suppose them to be. The ethnography also illustrates how the ‘strategic’ and ‘operational’ facets of innovation are interlaced but the main issues that each raise are given as follows. Strategic design and strategic thinking I examine the way in which strategic thinkers understand or interpret the world, that is to say, their ‘subjectivity’. In particular, I consider the machine thinking that can lead managers to regard organizations and staff as machines (see Morgan, 1986). To explain what I mean by a machine, one description of a cyborg (‘hybrids of machine and organism’ (Haraway, 1990: 191)) is particularly apt. Thus, a cyborg is an entity ‘devoid of feeling and free will, mere contraptions for the carrying-out of functions which are programmed from the outside’ (Sanders, 1979: 141; in Parker, 2002: 145). I ask whether in the process of making machines of organizations and staff, managers become, in part, cyborgs? This is because they appear to design work with little compassion or empathy for those who are on the receiving end of them. I ask why managers initiate practices that impoverish working life, considering the consequences of doing so and exploring whether it is possible to do otherwise? Contrary to traditional Labour Process theory (Braverman, 1974) that presents control over staff or labour as the central management preoccupation, I argue that strategic thinkers and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) designers often fail to take the lives of employees into account. This is not to suggest that such managers are innocents, but rather, it is to illuminate how they often fail to think through the impact of their designs for staff and their lives. This is not to say that control is irrelevant for it is embedded in strategy, ICTs, innovation, hierarchy, work structuring and decision-making. Nonetheless, the study does raise questions regarding the Marxist conception of managers as omniscient, unified, ‘agents of capital’, who are obsessed with controlling labour. It also points towards the pedagogical possibility of encouraging managers (e.g. strategists, accountants, operations, and information and communication technologists) to think and act differently in relation to both work and employees.

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Living with innovation

I explore the contradictions within and between what I refer to as the interrelated discourses of ‘strategy’ and ‘implementation’. Through identifying how discourse may shift from strategic design through to implementation, it is illustrated how discourse is enmeshed with power and subjectivity.3 The employee experience of innovation I explore what it means to live with innovations that are ‘hard and unkind’ through considering the ‘individualized’ (Foucault, 1977) condition of work where staff are treated as unfeeling, anonymous cogs: divided and isolated from each other. I ask whether staff become machines through being forced to work as machines? Weber (1948) argued that as bureaucracy is perfected in a form ‘which is welcomed by capitalism’, it is ‘dehumanized’. Thus, it ‘succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation’ (ibid.: 215; in Parker, 2002: 19). I will therefore interrogate what is under attack, what is lost, what is made and what remains of the human following an intensification of bureaucratic regulation. To be clear, bureaucratic regulation refers to hierarchical control, the division of labour, task specialization, functionalism and clearly defined rules and procedures. I examine an implementation or ‘enterprise’ discourse (du Gay and Salaman, 1992), as it has been referred to elsewhere, which urges the staff to reinvent themselves as responsible, self-regulating, autonomous, creative individuals. This Taylorism of the Soul advances traditional forms of bureaucratic control, but rather than a coherent discourse that serves to remake employees, I will expose and scrutinize the contradictions within the enterprise discourse that ‘coexists’ with and extends bureaucratic regulation (see Fournier and Grey, 1999). I consider how staff are able to wield and turn the implementation or enterprise discourse back on management. I also explore different staff responses to ICT and new forms of work organization such as teamwork, revealing various shades of coping, resisting and selfdistancing. I examine the games that the staff are forced to play in order to survive work systems that are designed for machines. Critically, I identify how the staff reproduce the conditions of their oppression through their individualized ways of coping with, and resisting, the machine and ask why employees do not collectively resist the machine and its makers?

The background to the book The ethnographic research that the book draws on was carried out whilst I was working as a Research Fellow on a government-funded [Economic and Social Research Council] project that focused on the human side of Business Process Reengineering. In conducting the research, I was primarily concerned to find out what it was like to work in the Bank and to explore the decisions and actions that had been taken to create the particular type of work that provided the focus

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5

of the investigation. At the time of the research, I had considerably less job security than many of the staff that I interviewed (a two-year contract). My salary, however, was double that of the lowest-grade staff even though many had worked for T Corporation for over twenty years. My prospects were also far rosier than the staff that I talked to, for with a Ph.D. and publications under my belt, a full-time lecturing position was within my grasp. The disparity between the staff and my then condition was not always the case. After leaving school at sixteen with few qualifications, my first experience of management was on a one-year New Training Initiative (NTI) where I was employed as a Management Trainee, by a large supermarket chain. The NTI was a forerunner to the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) initiated by the Thatcher government to cope with mass youth unemployment. In 1982, on the princely sum of £25 for a forty-hour week, the Store Manager informed me on my first day of work: ‘The thing you have to remember is that there’s them [the staff ] and us [management]’. This distinction sat uneasily with me because I already felt more like one of ‘them’ than one of ‘us’. I also remember feeling uncomfortable with this line drawn in the sand that separated me from everyone else. Apart from my interview, I had direct contact only once with management above the level of Store Manager. It came two months into my contract, when the Personnel Director instructed me (I was not asked nor was there any discussion) that I would be moving to a different store, some distance from my home. My final contact, via the Store Manager, came after twelve months of intensely dull but hard work. It was communicated to me that ‘You will be finishing on Friday’. The Store Manager informed me that he had recommended that I should be ‘kept on’ (the prospect of which was sold to me during the interview) but the Personnel Director had replied that this would not be the case. These early experiences certainly have given me an affinity with the underdog and I continue to feel like one of ‘them’ rather than one of ‘us’. The drudgery of this work sentence, combined with another spell with a major retailer, has left me with a loathing for work that is hierarchical, repetitive and coerced. I find receiving commands and the threat that underpins them, excruciating and this, no doubt, colours the way in which I interpret and understand the world (my subjectivity). It is not that I detest all management or fail to see the value in the work that they do; many of those I have come into contact with either through work or research have been affable and decent people. Nonetheless, I continue to despise systems of work that treat people as commodities or ‘mere contraptions for the carrying-out of functions which are programmed from outside’. The memory of being trapped and stifled by such a system remains with me to this day. I already knew the meaning of ‘alienation’ the first time that I heard the word during an undergraduate lecture. Robert Blauner (1964) describes this as a sense of powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation and self-estrangement. Whilst I do not subscribe to the Marxist notion of ‘false consciousness’, I knew what it felt like to be under-valued, segregated, suppressed and dictated to. In

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the chapters to follow, especially Chapters 4 and 5, the experiences of the staff in T Corporation struck a powerful note of accord with me. Moreover, as Chapters 2 and 3 illuminate, power continues to be exercised in ways that are often autocratic and work continues to be shaped by those who are often removed from the experience of work in ways that smother the human.

The organization of the book This book is organized into three parts. Part I, including Chapters 2 to 4, examines the strategic and implementation discourses considering the language, thinking, practices and operation of change. It is concerned with how management endeavoured to exercise power through others, the vocabulary that informs their interventions and the practices used to enact it. Part II, including Chapters 5 and 6, considers the experiences of the staff who work in a back-office processing unit or Area Service Centre (ASC) and in three branches. Using a broad-brush stroke, it examines the contrasting ways in which the staff disengage (ASC) and engage (branches) with their work. Both scenarios illuminate how employees become embroiled in power relations in ways that reproduce their exploitation, domination and subjugation (Foucault, 1982). Part III, including Chapters 7 and 8, and the Conclusion, bring the book to an end. Chapter 7 considers how employees become individualized or divided from each ‘Other’ in the ‘modern corporation’ such that even the trade union may be regarded as ‘Other’ and therefore separate from themselves. Such splintering and sense of ‘Otherness’ is argued to be central to the reproduction of inequality, waste and the impoverishment of working lives. I consider how employees are often unaware of their participation in, and ability to change, the conditions that lead them to suffer (Willis, 1977; Burawoy, 1978). This is not to suggest that employees are passive dupes or that their ‘real’ interests (Lukes, 1974) are unknown to them, but rather it is to point towards their ‘individualized’ (Foucault, 1977) way of being and their fabrication as ‘employees’. It is to recognize, as Jacques (1996) has argued, that we have become ‘employees’ and have learned our subordination in the sense that we take-for-granted our location within the hierarchical order of things. The concern of this book is to suggest that such conditions and we can be otherwise. The chapters are organized as follows. The next chapter, Chapter 2, is entitled ‘Do managers dream of electric staff or a design for drudgery?’. It examines the strategic designs that were put in place to instigate a major programme of change and innovation. Drawing on strategy statements, business case documents and interviews with senior managers, it scrutinizes the ‘strategic’ discourse (see Knights and Morgan, 1990, 1991) in terms of its anticipated implications for staff and their working lives. Contrary to the vision of ‘knowledge workers’, whose work lives are enriched by the modern corporation (see Drucker, 1988; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1994; Kanter, 1989), the strategy discourse viewed the staff as costs to be eliminated and as unthinking nodes whose function it is to repetitively process work. In this sense, there appears to have

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been little progress since F.W. Taylor’s (1911) ‘Scientific Management’ that divided the planning of work from its execution. Specialization, standardization and fragmentation informed the design of work but management did not appear to contemplate that this might result in staff boredom, low morale, errors or fiddling. The strategists and ICT designers were divorced from the outcome of their innovations in terms of their likely impact on employees’ lives. The resulting individualization and fragmentation appear, therefore, to be an unintended consequence of ‘machine thinking’ rather than an intentional ploy to control the staff. This lack of thought with regard to the impact of innovation for employees lives supports earlier research in both manufacturing (McCabe, 1996) and insurance (McCabe, 2002). Quality of Working Life (QWL) considerations simply did not feature in the cost-based calculations and mechanized managerial subjectivity. The chapter concentrates on how power is exercised through the strategy discourse with its concomitant restructuring, centralization, reengineering and use of Document Image Processing (DIP) technology. Chapter 3 entitled ‘Manufacturing the enterprise self ’ examines the implementation discourse that contrasts sharply with the strategy discourse outlined in Chapter 2. Rather than a discourse of costs, profits, task repetition and head count savings, a new discourse appears that emphasizes customer service, teamwork, initiative, responsibility and quality. This new discourse, when compared with the strategy discourse, reveals in a transparent way how discourse is inseparable from a consideration of power. The implementation discourse sought to win staff support for the changes and to reconstitute staff subjectivity or, in other words, to reshape the way in which the staff think about and understand themselves and the world of work. Despite the ostensibly more caring language, it is apparent that the implementation discourse is interlaced with power. The concern has shifted from exploitation and domination towards subjugation (Foucault, 1982), in terms of the concern to enrol and transform employee subjectivity (though, of course, exploitation and domination remain). The implementation discourse sought to cultivate ‘enterprising subjects’ that is to say, ‘autonomous, self-regulating, productive, responsible individuals’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992: 10). Thus, it aims to squeeze and mould the human into a form that fits with corporate desires whilst rendering other qualities redundant. The implementation discourse was enacted through the use of Criteria Based Interviews (CBIs), which divided, examined and selected the staff for either redundancy, re-employment in the branches or transfer to the newly created Area Service Centres (ASCs) as processing clerks. An analysis of the documents that spelled out how the CBIs should be conducted and the ‘skills’ that management sought to foster, forms the basis of this chapter. The iron fist of power, outlined in Chapter 2, loses none of its potency but it is now enwrapped in a velvet glove that targets and appeals to a different audience. The chapter explores the contradictions and holes within and between these discourses so as to illuminate both the exercise of power and its fallibility. The aim is to show how the producers of discourse are not omniscient or necessarily consistent in their thinking and actions (see McCabe, 2000).

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Living with innovation

Chapter 4 entitled ‘Mechanizing emotions’ explores the factory-like working conditions in the newly created back office ASCs. The creation of eight ASCs was part of the strategy that transferred branch processing (e.g. opening and closing accounts, direct debits, standing orders) to the centralized ASCs. This restructuring or ‘reengineering’ (Hammer and Champy, 1993) was enabled through advanced ICT and especially DIP. Multi-skilled, ‘relatively’ autonomous branch staff were redeployed to the ASCs where working conditions are intensive, monotonous, repetitive and highly controlled. The plight of the staff working in the ASCs only came to light for senior management when a programme of World Class Customer Service (WCCS) was initiated in 1997 that aimed to promote customer service. It appeared that senior operational managers were innocents with regard to the experience of work in the ASCs, believing that all was well. In a spontaneous, unforeseen and unorganized way, the staff voiced their concerns and complaints during the WCCS training programme and this initiated ‘some’ reform. The chapter provides insights into the limits of managerial discourses that seek to reconstitute staff subjectivity. Thus, despite the discourse of enterprise, evident in the implementation discourse and extended through the WCCS programme, the staff were ready and willing to express their discontent. That they did so was an unintended consequence of the WCCS programme but it underlines that the potential for resistance remains. This chapter submits the WCCS initiative to careful analysis through examining training documents and the minutes to customer service workshops that were prepared by workshop facilitators. It considers how power was supposed to be exercised through the WCCS programme so as to reforge staff subjectivity especially by re-fabricating employee emotions. We observe how WCCS was yet another attempt to erase aspects of the human whilst simultaneously forging new, compliant subjects. Chapter 5, entitled ‘In the belly of the machine’, explores more directly the experience of work in the ASCs following the failure of the WCCS initiative. In the ASCs, the staff are held individually accountable and responsible for each keystroke. Through the implementation discourse, management elevated teamwork, multi-skilling, quality and customer service, but ‘individual’ error rates and productivity measures dominate the lives of the staff in the ASCs. Despite the displeasure unearthed by the WCCS programme, employees continued to express their frustration with the regime. In these individualized, soulless factories, management endeavoured to promote a team-based subjectivity, but the contradiction between this and the experience of work was too great. Rather than collectively challenge such conditions, however, the staff coped through what Collinson (1994) refers to as ‘resistance through distance’ or turning ‘inwards’ (Knights, 1990) and switching off. There are also instances of ‘making out’ (Roy, 1955; Burawoy, 1979) or fiddling and cheating (Mars, 1982) whereby employees found ways to escape work demands. The staff also ‘made do’, finding ways to repair or make the machine work and so reproduced the conditions that enslaved them. That many staff ‘made do’ indicates that they have internalized some aspects of the regime and the norms associated with it. Having said this, it is evident that the implementation discourse that was rein-

Living with innovation

9

forced through the WCCS programme was unable to ‘normalize’ (Foucault, 1977) the staff, so that they unquestioningly accepted the regime. The implementation discourse was not accepted in a taken-for-granted way and various expressions of employee self-distancing or what Burns and Stalker (1961: 234) refer to as ‘self-detatchment’ are explored. Chapter 6, entitled ‘Coping through teamwork: or how staff oil the machine’, considers the contrasting experiences of work for the staff who remain in the branches. The branches, following the programme of restructuring, have become much smaller, sales-focused, units. In contrast to the ASCs, the staff appeared to embrace teamwork to a far greater extent but they refuted that this had anything to do with management or management designs. The staff explained that they have always worked as a team and did so now for a number of inter-related reasons. These include work intensification following job losses; economic necessity; identity concerns; a shared cultural community that includes friendship ties and, at least partly, an internalized customer service ethic. Rather than challenging work intensification and the demand for sales, the staff coped through teamwork, and, in this way, reinforced and reproduced the conditions they found so stressful. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the staff were simply remade through the official corporate discourses because they worked together despite rather than because of management designs and actions. Of course, from a managerial point of view, this may be of little consequence because the outcome is the same. Yet, as we shall see, the contradictions that the staff experienced had potentially damaging consequences for teamwork, customer service and the sense of a shared branch community, although the latter should not be romanticized. Chapter 7, entitled ‘Divided and conquered?’, explores the individualized ways of being that contributed to the staff failing to collectively resist and challenge the condition of their suffering. The chapter considers how individualization works at many different levels and in numerous ways to splinter and fracture both management and staff as a collective. The conditions that divided the staff and management reflected the machine thinking that dominated the strategy discourse and the staff seemed unable or unwilling to collectively challenge their plight. The programme of change and the restructuring served to divide the staff in numerous ways and they regarded each other as ‘Other’ or as separate from themselves, although this was less evident in the branches. Individualization appears to be an unintended consequence of interventions that are largely concerned with reducing costs. The chapter also considers how the staff regarded the trade union as ‘Other’. Unionism was understood by the staff as a means to resist, but as a means for someone ‘else’ to resist – someone ‘Other’ than them. This is partly attributed to the lack of a union tradition among the staff, but also to their individualized ways of being. Such individualized ways of thinking and being were exacerbated by the changes, but they also pre-date the change programme. This book aims to show that individualization is not a ‘natural’ state of affairs and that conditions can be otherwise. Thus, the potential remains for collective resistance or for management action to render such resistance unnecessary. The final chapter, Chapter 8, concludes the book.

Part I

2

Do managers dream of electric staff or a design for drudgery?

A pharmacist on Mars, he read. Or at least the android had made use of that cover. In actuality it had probably been a manual laborer, a field hand, with aspirations for something better. Do androids dream? Rick asked himself. Evidently; that’s why they occasionally kill their employers and flee here. A better life, without servitude. (Dick, 1968: 157)

The first title of this chapter is a play on the title of a novel by Phillip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It is the book upon which the film Blade Runner is based. David Lyon (1999) summarizes the film as follows ‘A group of “replicants”, bio-engineered near-people who normally reside “off-world”, have returned to confront their makers, the high-tech Tyrell corporation. Their complaint is simple; understandably, they object to their four-year lifespan and seek an extension to full human status’ (Lyon, 1999: 1; emphasis added). In this chapter, I want to explore the strategy discourse or the design, language, practices and thinking behind innovation at T Corporation. My concern is to consider how its ‘makers’ developed and introduced a strategy with apparent disregard for the staff on the receiving end of their designs who were viewed largely in terms of a disembodied ‘headcount’. The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) especially Document Image Processing (DIP) was central to the strategy and the chapter also considers the thinking that informed the deployment and use of such technology. We observe the ‘makers’’ designing work that one might expect the staff to ‘confront’ due to the failure to take their ‘human status’ into account. The strategists and ICT designers appeared to view the staff as little more than cyborgs or ‘skin jobs’ whose working lives were not their concern. It is, as if, the designers/strategists reside ‘off-world’ for they are immersed in a machine mentality (Morgan, 1986) and, like a modern-day Midas, all that they touch, see and dream, turns to machine. One might expect the staff who toil in the electronic factories that were created, like the Androids in Blade Runner, to dream of ‘A better life, without servitude’ and to take action to secure this end. Yet, they did not do so and this book asks why they (we) do not resist the ‘makers’? It also seeks to understand why the

14

Part I

‘makers’ act and think as they do? Why do they fail to countenance the ‘human status’ of employees who appear to be regarded as ‘bio-engineered nearpeople’? The world of Los Angeles, AD 2019, provides the setting for Blade Runner and it is a world of ‘progress in ruins’ (Lyon, 1999: 2) where something has gone awry. Similarly, one could argue that the world of T Corporation has gone wrong. Although the world of Blade Runner is set in a dystopian future, which is wildly different from today, the city, with its ‘modern’ streets and buildings, is strangely familiar. Likewise, the rational, ordered and reasoned thinking that informs T Corporation’s strategy, as articulated by management, is familiar and yet something is amiss. The soulless city and the Corporation without feeling share a deep resonance as Marx (1844/1969) and Braverman (1974) predicted. Rather than ‘knowledge workers’ (Drucker, 1988) or ‘case workers’ (Hammer and Champy, 1993), where technology and reengineering enriches the work experience, we observe ‘new’ ways of working that disregard the staff, or view them as ‘replicants’, something ‘Other’, and decidedly less than human; hence, the second title for this chapter: ‘A design for drudgery’. Replicants ‘are near-humans because so many “human” features have been imported into their constitution’ (Lyon, 1999: 4), but, at T Corporation, strategic thinkers and ICT designers, ‘import machine features into human experience and human bodies’ (ibid.) in a way that appears to reflect a concern to create machines. In Dick’s (1968) book, Rachael, an android, states: ‘We are machines, stamped out like bottle caps. It’s an illusion that I – I personally – really exist; I’m just representative of a type’. The managers of T Corporation designed work for such ‘near-humans’ and one cannot help but think that they must regard the staff, to the extent that they do, as cyborgs. Thus, they did not seem to think of the humans who are to perform the work that they designed but rather in terms of electric staff, capital expenditure, imaging systems, perfect audit trails and head counts. This chapter asks whether the managers at T Corporation have become ‘a type’ – unfeeling machines stamping out work and staff like ‘bottle caps’. These managers seem to dream of electric staff insofar as they consider the experiences of work for the staff. Yet, in contrast to the androids’, ‘formal, intellectual definitions’ (Dick, 1968: 162) of the world, that Rick Deckard (the character played by Harrison Ford in the film) describes. The managers at T Corporation continue to have ‘emotional awareness’ (ibid.) and consequently they need not dream of electric staff. This is the tragedy but also the hope of T Corporation, for these managers’ dreams, as this chapter illustrates, are human and as such lead to suffering that is ‘avoidable’ (Gouldner, 1968: 106).1

The strategy discourse In 1993, T Corporation employed 20,000 staff in its branch network. It has nation-wide branch coverage with over 1,700 branches and it is a household name in UK finance. As part of its strategic plan for 1994/1995, a Service Deliv-

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

15

ery Strategy was developed with the stated ‘aim of improving the delivery of customer service’ (Business Case Document, 1995; emphasis added). A key element of the strategy was to centralize a range of branch banking processes by creating eight Area Service Centres (ASCs). The goal was to achieve efficiencies in processing and improved service levels. The processes to be reengineered and centralized included cheque cancelling, statement processing, customer enquiry correspondence, standing orders, account closure and opening and direct debits. The stated concern at this point was to: • • •

support customer service retention through assured service standards to meet customer expectations; support sales initiatives and the achievement of sales through service; achieve cost reductions in the branch network. (Business Case Document, 1995)

The Business Case Document goes on to articulate that in terms of the subsequent ‘operation plan for 1995 and the Strategic Plan for 1995/1997’ centralization was understood to be ‘critical to improve the cost/income ratio’. Thus, the initial emphasis on Customer Service began to slip away as the strategy progressed. The stated focus with regard to staffing was ‘to achieve maximum possible headcount savings’ (emphasis added) with the assumption of a profitable return within 4.2 years against the programme duration of three years. The anticipated number of redundancies was 4,000. Of these, 2,387 would be made redundant by 1997. Setting up the ASCs amounted to a substantial investment of nearly £100 million with a predicted saving of £30 million per annum primarily in staff costs. The ‘benefits’ of the programme were outlined in terms of the ‘net headcount savings to be achieved’ (emphasis added). The intervention sought to remove 21 per cent of the clerical workload from the branch network and to increase profits by over a third between 1998 and 2002. Although the programme was deemed ‘critical to improve’ the ‘cost/income ratio’, profits had substantially increased between 1993 and 1995. Indeed, pre-tax profit almost doubled between 1993 and 1997, leading to record profits in 1997 – a 28 per cent increase on 1996. The cost/income ratio fell to a new low of 57.5 per cent in 1997 down from 62.2 per cent in 1996. Given that the anticipated benefits of the strategy were not due to take effect until 1998, the imperative to cut costs could, therefore, be questioned. But perhaps it is the way in which the cost cuts were implemented ( job losses aside), taking into account their impact on the working lives of the staff who would remain, that most needs to be questioned. For, as the above account of T Corporation’s profitability reveals, the company was not in crisis, nor was it even struggling. There was time, therefore, to think through the strategy in terms of its implications for working lives. Additional ‘benefits’ of the programme were outlined in the Business Case Document as follows:

16

Part I

•

provision of high quality and affordable service to customers in the most cost effective manner commensurate with target service levels; simplification of branch activities, enabling an easy understanding of profitability and return for a given branch and giving the opportunity and platform for fundamental branch re-engineering; facilitation of a service and sales culture in the branches, with most staff performing their full duties in customer interface areas, and also taking the opportunity of the headcount reductions to selectively manage an improvement in average staff quality; facilitation of the roll out of the Bank’s telephone strategy, providing additional headcount savings (emphasis added).

•

•

•

The phrase ‘headcount’ is a pervasive feature of the strategic discourse. It is indicative of the de-humanizing language of strategic management that seems to allow managers who otherwise love, laugh, play and cry, to divorce themselves from the consequences of their actions for ‘Others’. It seems to reflect a masculine preoccupation with control (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 90) and a rejection of what may be seen as ‘feminine’ emotions. Richard Dough, the manager of the Production and Change Team, who was responsible for reengineering business processes in conjunction with the change programme, stated that ‘the centralization projects were funded on losing headcount which they did in very large numbers’ (14.7.98; emphasis added). Through the strategy discourse, it seems that the staff are transformed from people who may have contributed many years of service to the Bank, into a ‘headcount’ and this becomes part of the taken-forgranted world of strategic thinkers. The strategy discourse is immersed in the language of organizations as ‘neutral, rational, technical, instrumental systems designed to convert inputs into outputs, and strategy is conceived as the determination of ends and the selection of means for achieving ends’ (Shrivastava, 1986: 371). This mechanized language infects the subjectivity and practice of managers, allowing them to view the staff as so many nodes to be factored in or out of the organization. The strategy discourse works ‘to secure and extend domination through its representation and treatment of people and organizations as commodities’ (Alvesson and Willmott, 1995: 96). As we shall see, through such discourses, managers can become immersed in a type of thinking that Rick Deckard ascribes to androids. Hence, it elevates and ‘normalizes’ (Foucault, 1977) a hollow, formal, intellectual, calculating capacity above all other considerations. It is infused with power but it is silent with regard to the power that is exercised. The term ‘headcount’ is bound up with the notion of an ‘abstract worker who has no body and no feelings, along with no gender’ (Acker, 1992: 257), and, consequently, it is easier to disregard such workers and make them redundant. According to Stuart Mendy, the Head of Retail Banking Infrastructure, the strategy was about improving ‘customer service’ through refocusing the branches on service and providing a consistency of service though centralized processing units. Cost reduction was represented as an outcome of this strategy.

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

17

Stuart’s interpretation, justification and representation of strategy draws on the seemingly neutral language of ‘customer service’. He wielded it in a way that denies the brutality of pure cost cutting, and it enabled him and others to abdicate responsibility for the intervention, through elevating customer needs. Hence, it is the ‘customer’ not ‘management’ that is responsible for these changes. Yet, Stuart admitted that many saw cost cutting as ‘the’ priority: The main driver for it was always seen as, not cost reduction, but improving customer service . . . it’s all about improving customer service. It’s all about generating additional sales through that improved service and re-looking at the process and removing things that no longer add value and I suppose as a result of that will be a consequential cost reduction in the organisation. So in all of the business cases it’s all down to improved customer service but, of course, at the same time, the Deputy Chief Executive said ‘Yes, I agree the list, but you know you’ve got it the wrong way round’. So they were equally balanced. There was a big push to say this is about improving customer service but, at the same time, there was a big push to get costs out of the organisation . . . got enormous amount of costs out of the organisation but it wasn’t just a cost reduction exercise. (3.12.1998) Clearly different managers will stress different aspects of the strategy depending on where they stand in relation to it. One has also to recognize that managers are engaged in ‘impression management’ (Goffman, 1959), whereby they are concerned to represent the company and themselves in a favourable light. In the above extract, Stuart shifted position, at the outset he attributed the main thrust of the strategy to improving Customer Service and this is evident in the 1994/1995 Service Delivery Strategy. Cost reduction was represented as a secondary concern or a fortuitous bi-product of improved service. He then acknowledged that the Deputy CEO had prioritized cost reduction and viewed improved Customer Service as a bi-product. In expressing this difference, he revealed how managers ‘are often divided amongst, and even against, themselves’ (Willmott, 1984: 350). He subsequently changed position again, however, by stating that the two were equally weighted before finally stating that cost cutting was the significant outcome. This slippery subjective positioning and re-positioning may be indicative of ‘hidden failings’ (Van Maanen, 1979: 545) or cracks in the strategy discourse. The neutrality of Customer Service was initially emphasized (perhaps for public relations or self-identity reasons) to justify the case for strategic change, but this could not be entirely sustained in the face of the competing ‘for profit’ discourse (Watson, 1994; McCabe, 2000). Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive and, as we shall see, there are a ‘multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies’ (Foucault, 1979: 100). The final sentence of the above extract helps us understand Stuart’s position and what are seemingly different intentions with regard to the strategy. Thus, he distinguished between ‘a cost reduction exercise’ and a programme that

18

Part I

reduces costs. He did not envisage the strategy as a simple cost-cutting exercise because it also involves substantial changes including re-engineering, restructuring, re-focusing the branches on service and sales and a significant investment in ICT. All of the other managers that were interviewed were far more forthright about the priority attached to cost cutting, and this corresponds with the shift outlined in the Business Case Document. Ed Perry, Head of Decision-Making, described the setting up of the back-office processing centres as ‘a pure headcount strategy on the Bank’s behalf ’ (14.7.98). Whilst Richard Dough, the manager of the Production and Change Team, articulated that: ‘I think T Corporation’s strategy has always been to make as much money as possible and within that cost reduction basically but there’s a heavy emphasis on customer service’ (14.7.98). Paul Scott, the senior manager responsible for all the ASCs was candid about the cost-cutting focus: Darren: Paul:

Was the setting up of the ASCs part of a wider corporate vision and strategy or was it the corporate strategy and vision? I believe it was done basically on a cost-saving initiative. T Corporation said your cost–income ratio is too high, find a way of cutting it down. . . . So I believe it was a cost initiative originally. So if you’re saying was it part of a strategy plan? Yes, because the strategic plan was cut the cost income ratio. Now obviously on the other side there’s the income issue. Now that was not within my gift to raise income. The only way I can raise income is by giving excellent customer service, which automatically leads usually to more sales opportunities. Will people come back for more, tell their friends, etc.? But that wasn’t, I don’t believe, part of a formal plan. . . . (17.12.98)

It is interesting that both Richard and Paul referred to ‘T Corporation’s’ strategy or what ‘T Corporation said’. Both presented T Corporation as a monolithic entity that imposes demands on them and yet decisions are made, and orders are given, not by Corporations, but by people. Kate Finch, the senior IT Analyst responsible for transferring the re-engineered branch processes onto the document image system was in no doubt that her remit was to cut costs. Interestingly, her remarks suggest that cost cutting is simply a euphemism for job reductions: We were taking a process out of a branch where it’s a completely different environment and putting it into a factory environment that’s centralised . . . in order to put it into an ASC we had to cut costs so there weren’t as many people there. (3.12.98) Kate used the metaphor of a ‘factory’ to describe the ASCs, which she helped create. It was used in a natural, matter-of-fact way and yet it has serious implica-

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

19

tions for working lives that seemed to be irrelevant. Bill Oliver, senior manager for implementing the restructuring, also used this metaphor: I think it’s fairly true that there was a perception at the beginning, of the people coming into these processing centres that ‘God almighty we’re leaving a very nice branch and we’re going into a factory’ and that is, by and large, true. (14.7.98; emphasis added) The ‘factory’ metaphor speaks volumes in terms of the type of work that the ‘makers’ had in mind. It is not evident, however, that the implications for working life were actually thought through. Kate reiterated the emphasis on cost cutting when she was asked about the business benefits of the programme: Darren: Kate: Darren: Kate: Darren: Kate:

Darren: Kate: Darren: Kate:

Darren: Kate:

Have you realised all the benefits that you initially hoped to achieve? You mean cutting all the heads? Well? (Laughter) Was that the only objective? No. Erm yes, I think so yes. We have done everything we expected to do and more if anything because with the success of the programme the business just went berserk they said ‘Right we want this system everywhere now’ . . . Is it being passed into these areas because of its ability to reduce the headcount? Yes. Any other benefits as a consequence? (silence) in the long run we are either going to make money out of it by some great new sales initiative to get customers in off the street and buy something really exciting that we make money off, or we reduce costs, and those are the two underlying business things aren’t they? So a projects either one or the other. Quality? Service Quality? We don’t get business cases signed off because of service quality unfortunately. At a high level the reason why these business cases get signed off is because they are going to cut a headcount from X to Y. (3.12.98)

Contrary to the notion of customer service that Stuart Mendy extolled, or the ‘cult’ure of the customer’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992) to be discussed in the next chapter, cost cutting, especially in terms of jobs, appears to have been critical to the programme of change. Paul Scott, the Senior Manager over all the ASCs also expressed that Service Quality was insufficient to justify a programme of change. Indeed, he believed that improved Service Quality has been an unintended consequence of the centralization:

20

Part I I don’t think better quality was, it wasn’t a prerequisite for doing it. Clearly it would have been in the sort of interim remarks on the business case. I’m sure somebody would have said ‘Specialization will result in higher levels of execution of their duties’. But you couldn’t put it in a business case could you? You couldn’t say ‘Well we’ll sell that’. ’Cos they would have said ‘Well how much is it worth?’ (7.12.98)

The bottom line, in terms of ‘how much is it worth?’ appeared to be central to the strategy and this impinged on the thinking of the above managers. This grinding priority obliterates all other concerns and squeezes out the customer and the staff. John Pike, Head of ASC Design, who is responsible for the ‘business’, as opposed to the IT part of the intervention, stated quite unequivocally that cutting costs was the first priority, following demands from the CEO in 1993, to improve the cost–income ratio: The changes that happened in T Corporation have really come out of the need to be cost competitive. So I think the cost element drove our search for ways of doing things more efficiently, and the conclusion for doing things more efficiently, was that if you wanted to do a significant step function you had to do a major change and major change meant major reengineering of the way we do business. (18.8.98) The changes that were introduced for the purposes of cost cutting have nonetheless reaped unforeseen benefits and, like Paul Scott, John Pike felt that this was ‘almost by accident’. Thus, opportunities have arisen for improved ‘customer service’ in a way that was not originally envisaged and this will be explored in the following text. Irrespective of how the strategy turned out, it should not be thought that it was pre-determined. Ed Perry, Head of Decision Making, expressed that the strategy could have been otherwise, for whilst cost control took priority, this need not have been the case: At the outset the project was more biased towards service at the concept stage than at the delivery stage. There was an option you could go to cost saving or you could go to service or you could take it to a happy medium. In view of our cost structures we veered towards cost savings. (14.7.98) Such flexibility indicates how strategy is neither fixed in terms of intentions or outcomes. Thus, it appears to be the case that the strategy could have been more customer focused until it rubbed up against the demands for cost cutting. Nonetheless, such demands still have to be interpreted and enacted and outcomes cannot be guaranteed. Resistance, or a different way of thinking and argumentation at the design stage, could, therefore, have shifted the strategic

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

21

focus of the planned changes. Strategy is therefore made up through a complex array of demands, interests, parties and issues, the outcome of which is not fixed. Customer Service was certainly a consideration at the ‘concept’ stage, although it appears to have been eclipsed by cost-cutting priorities. What is clear is that the staff, or the ‘most important asset’ in business parlance, received little attention in strategic terms beyond cutting heads. Area Service Centres (ASCs) The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts . . . And we as men (sic), the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. (H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, 1889/2005: 8) In 1994, a prototype ASC was established that was argued, in the ‘business case document, 1995’, to have met its ‘principal targets’ in that the operation was ‘performing well, with no holdovers, and with headcount in the central sites within the projected figures’ (emphasis added). In preparing the Bank’s Operating Plan for 1995 and its Strategic Plan for 1995/97, the ‘accelerated rollout’ of centralization was presented ‘as a critical element of the Bank’s strategic requirements to achieve low unit cost production’, or in other words, staff reductions. Between 1995 and 1997, the programme was therefore extended so as to remove ‘labour intensive back office processes from the branches’ (Business Case Document, 1995). Eight ASCs were set up each with approximately 200 staff. The business case justified the ASCs on the grounds that they provide economies of scale, consistent quality control, and that automated processes would not be cost effective in the branch sites. To achieve control over the workflow in the ASCs, DIP was introduced. According to Gehling and Gibson (1995) ‘image processing relies on an all-digital process that scans an image into a digitized form to be stored and manipulated electronically’ (ibid.: 55) whilst Liberatore and Breem (1997) purport that ‘digital imaging uses computer technology to capture, store, retrieve, and process electronic versions of paper documents’ (ibid.: 367). Each night the branches post customer correspondence to the nearest ASC and documents are then scanned onto the image-based system before the paper is destroyed. DIP was argued to have had the unintended consequence of improving customer service and once again this highlights the uncertainty of both strategic and technological outcomes: Slightly smugly in Operations, we believe that we actually drove the corporate strategy back in 1993–1994. We always had this vision that we could actually have a global database whereby customers could actually come in and talk to different parts of the organisation and we could all see

22

Part I what was going on. So that strategy I don’t think was actually articulated by our strategy unit. In operations, we could see the benefit of it and as it’s gone out and been implemented more and more, people are touching and feeling it. They are suddenly realising that this is actually strategically what we should be doing. So the strategy units have now grabbed it and said ‘Yes, this is what we want to do’. We want to enable all our distribution units to be able to see into this data base to understand the whole customer experience. (John Pike, Head of ASC Design, 18.8.98)

The above extract indicates something of the ‘emergent’ (Mintzberg, 1987) nature of the strategy, especially in terms of its customer focus. John articulated that the ‘driver was cost reduction, no question back in 1993, the driver for all the reengineering work was cost reduction’ (ibid.). But he explained that while the original concern was to maintain service levels, ‘we suddenly realized’ that the global database would enable the Bank to go beyond this for it is ‘more powerful than we even imagined’ which ‘is slightly by accident’. It seems that once people were ‘touching or feeling’ the technology, it proved more beneficial than was originally anticipated. Collinson and Hearn (1994) have identified numerous ‘dominant masculinities’ that are embedded in organizations. One of which is ‘careerism’ that involves ‘competition between men’ and a ‘preoccupation with hierarchical advance’ (ibid.: 15). Through highlighting the role of Operations, John may have attempted to elevate his role in relation to the change programme. Nonetheless, DIP was introduced to enable processes to be taken out of the Branches whilst maintaining control over the workflow and even Operations did not anticipate the extent to which this could improve customer service. We can observe therefore that ‘operational’ and ‘strategic’ decisions are deeply embedded in each other (Clegg et al., 2004), but not in a simple or predictable way. Stuart Mendy, the Head of Retail Banking Infrastructure, who was responsible for the IT side of the intervention, explained that DIP not only enables management to keep track of documents but also allows the branches to know what is happening with regard to particular customer concerns. The Bank receives 90,000 customer letters each day and Stuart explained that such a huge quantity of material ‘floating about the organization’ would have been ‘a no brainer’. Displaying a considerable degree of confidence in technology, Stuart stated that you ‘can lose a piece of paper but you cannot lose an image’. The benefits of DIP reflect many of the advantages long associated with the paperless office and they were outlined in an ‘Image Cost Benefit’ document as follows: • • •

Elimination of dis-economies in large sites due to problems in moving and storing high volumes of paper. A reduction in the high premises cost of storing the above volumes of paper on site. A solution to the problem of quickly moving work through a large centre and meeting required service standards regarding elapsed times.

Electric staff or a design for drudgery? •

• •

23

A means of delivering an itemized database, by customer, of all items in the course of processing, which can be viewed both centrally and at branches on the standard branch workstation. A perfect audit trail between the workflow-tracking system and document images reducing administrative overheads and error rates. The ability to scan work in one location and perform processing at another without the need to move the paper.

This document provides glimpses into the thinking that underpinned the setting up of the ASCs. The penultimate advantage reveals a belief that DIP can create ‘a perfect audit trail’ or, in other words, a perfect form of work control that can track work performance and any errors made. Even if unintentional then, control over labour is embedded in the intervention but for Stuart Mendy, controlling the flow of paper was far more important and more difficult, than controlling labour: That process will not work (centralisation) if it is paper based. We will lose control of the process. We will end up with Paper Mountains. Management will not know what’s going on and therefore it was seen as we physically cannot manage these sites unless we de-materialise the paper. (3.12.98) Stuart ruled out centralization through manual systems and this probably reflects his ICT background combined with his career and identity concerns. Nevertheless, such arguments are grounded in experience because the Bank has failed to centralize on two previous occasions. One of the major reasons for the earlier failures was the sheer volume of paper and the inability of the branches and back offices to keep track of customer information. It is, however, indicative of technological uncertainty that the DIP system only began to realize its benefits, when people began to use and interpret it. The importance of the ‘interpretation’ of technology rather than ‘the capacity of the technology in and of itself ’ (Grint and Woolgar, 1997: 128) is also evident when we consider the thinking that informed the job design. Reminiscent of Taylor’s (1911) Scientific Management, the emphasis was on standardization, specialization and total control as the following extract reveals: Detailed work will be required to ensure effective standard processes are implemented with no opportunity for staff to invent local practices which impact upon overall efficiency and quality. (Business Case Document, 1995) Technology was designed and used to disempower the staff and this reflected the ‘maker’s’ thinking rather than ‘the capacity of the technology in and of itself ’ (Grint and Woolgar, 1997: 128). The concern was to standardize processes and eliminate the ability of the staff to vary or ‘invent’ methods of

24

Part I

work processing. Control over the ‘cost’ of labour clearly featured in the ‘strategic’ thinking but the use of technology and the design of work processes extended this to include control over the work itself. To the extent that the staff were considered, control was to be taken away through eliminating their scope for invention. Rather than reflecting the technology per se, decisions were made to ‘deskill’ (Braverman, 1974) the work, and so this is not an inevitable outcome of technology. Each ASC was to be organized in exactly the same way, and so control was removed not only from the staff but also from the operational managers responsible for each ASC. Nevertheless, Paul Scott, the senior manager over all the ASCs, suggested that rolling out the programme was not seamless. Although all processes should have been reengineered prior to setting up the ASCs, in practice, the imperative to instigate the changes as quickly as possible meant that this did not happen. Paul explained that, as a consequence of this, many processes were simply ‘transferred’: Darren: Paul:

Did you use the word reengineering? Used it heavily, because the idea was that we took a process and reengineered and thought it through, and made it into essential delivery of that process. To be fair, I suspect that we reengineered only 60% of what we brought in. The rest, because there wasn’t time, we just brought in as they were . . . during the roll-out John Pike was fiercely defensive of the design teams role in reengineering. I mean it was basically ‘mind your own business and get on with rolling it out. We will let you know how you are going to do the work. This is a franchise and you will all do it the same way’. In truth, that wasn’t actually how it went because a lot of the things that were supposedly reengineered, weren’t reengineered, they were just moved . . . I don’t really believe that right at the beginning of the process, ’cos they moved so quickly, that they had actually defined, I don’t think they knew, the end of the journey when they started it. I think if we, an analogy, we said we’re going North and we’re certainly going to get to the Lake District but whether or not we got to Loch Lomond? Well, see how we get on. (7.12.98)

The design team adopted an autocratic approach whereby both managers and staff in the ASCs were to be effectively disempowered. This approach is highly territorial and can be linked again to a masculine preoccupation with competitiveness and careerism. As the senior manager for implementation explained, ‘the ASC managers had their hands tied very much behind their backs in the initial stages’ (Bill Oliver, 14.7.98) and the initiative was ‘very carefully controlled from within the centre’ (ibid.). Nevertheless, the pressure for rapid change meant that the design team was unable to reengineer or control all of the processes. This underlines how control is rarely total, even, that is, when the

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

25

intention is for it to be so. It also indicates how the strategy was unable to unfold in an entirely mechanical, planned way. The design of jobs and the quality of working life All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and ever and again a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the starlit sky. (H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, 1898/2005: 37) The social consequences of the new system of working in the ASC, that is to say, the likely impact on the staff’s Quality of Working Life (QWL) was absent from the Business Case Document and the strategy discourse. This supports Shrivastava’s (1986) assessment of strategy that ‘goals are usually described and measured in narrow economic terms, involving market and financial performance measures. They usually do not include the broad community, social, or human concerns of enhancing quality of life of stakeholders’ (ibid.: 370). Stuart Mendy, Head of Retail Banking Infrastructure, was heavily involved in formulating and ‘making’ the strategy and the ASCs. His insights are both illuminating and disturbing: Darren: Stuart: Darren:

Stuart:

Darren: Stuart:

What sort of an environment were you thinking about creating in the ASCs through technology? I’m not sure I understand through the technology. Well what were you envisaging through setting up the ASCs and through introducing imaging technology, what sort of a working environment were you expecting? . . . We wanted, if you walked into one of these sites, apart from obvious physical differences between one building and another, we didn’t want you to really be aware of where you were. So there’s common desking, colour schemes. There are common standards on rest periods. What you can do with your desk in terms of personalising it. So it was very much we wanted a clean, professional environment. So the colour scheme is predominantly blue-grey, so it gives you that clean and crisp environment. It is a paperless environment. It is people head down working. Phones not ringing, not being distracted environment, which is the one we wanted to create there. What about in terms of job design what sort of issue was taken into account? Once the processes had been designed then, as a result of what the processes need to do, jobs and job structures were designed around them. So there are processing clerks and team leaders and managers and the Centre was broken down into seven different teams each team had a specific responsibility. The people within that team would be multi-skilled to do all the jobs within that team and then within

26

Part I

Darren:

Stuart:

months of a site opening you’ve got people training so that they can move from one team to another. So the idea was that eventually you would have a completely cross-trained organisation but you would still have specific roles and responsibilities within it. So the jobs were designed around the process and these were the new jobs. In terms of applying the technology, what kind of discretion do you have in terms of the type of job that someone will actually be doing in terms of whether it’s a high discretion or low discretion job? Whether it’s a high discretion job or a low discretion probably came down to more at the process level, whether the process was high or low and that would have already been enshrined in our operating procedures. Now part of the reengineering was looking at some of those and maybe removing some of the high discretion tasks and making them more low discretion . . . it was the process that if it has synergy then it can be a job. If you have a number of jobs that share a synergy then that can become a team. So it was done from the bottom up approach. So let’s understand what the processes are. Let’s understand what controls were needed to put in the process and what experiences and then we’ll match it to a job profile. (3.12.1998; emphasis added)

The above account includes four attempts to examine Stuart’s thinking with regard to the strategy, the technology, the design of work and its impact on employees’ lives. My first question did not appear to be understood but perhaps the question was inelegant and indirect as its rephrasing did elicit a response. His answer to this second question referred to the ‘standardized’ colour scheme, desk layout and rest periods and how the ASCs were designed to be conducive to ‘head down working’. None of these points, however, relate to the use of technology for the purposes of job design, for which this manager was responsible, but perhaps my use of the term ‘environment’ was too obscure. The ‘environment’ that Stuart described is both masculine and machinelike with its sanitized, ‘clean and crisp’, ‘blue-grey’ walls, standardized work breaks, where silent processors tap out their paperless lives. The only empowerment is in terms of the staff being able to personalize their desks, for all the decisions regarding work design are already ‘enshrined’ in the ‘operating procedures’, and the ability of the staff to ‘invent local practices’ has supposedly been removed. Even ‘rest breaks’ are dictated from above and this contrasts with the flexibility and privileges afforded to ‘Higher-level’, usually male employees, who can determine when and where they go to the toilet, have a coffee or go for their lunch (see Acker, 1992: 254). My third question was much more specific and asked about ‘job design’, and here Stuart provided insights into the thinking behind the organization of work. Hence, he was explicit that jobs were designed around work processes or the functional requirements to do with processing direct debits, for example. Such insights suggest that no consideration was given to QWL issues and instead

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

27

people were seen as pegs to be slotted into work holes. The focus was on work processes and, after their design, Stuart referred to multi-skilling and teamwork, thereby inserting the human into the work process. Teamwork and multi-skilling feature heavily in the ‘new’ discourse of work and in the re-engineering literature (Hammer and Champy, 1993). They are not, however, intrinsic to the work that Stuart helped design. Instead they are adjuncts, bolted on as an afterthought, seemingly to mollify the human (see McCabe, 2002). The fourth question went further, requiring Stuart to expand on his thinking with regard to the amount of discretion that was afforded to the staff and his answer supports Braverman’s (1974) deskilling thesis. Work was already stringently ‘enshrined’ in ‘operational procedures’ but, where possible, there was an attempt to remove ‘high discretion tasks’ and this stemmed from an analysis of work processes rather than human needs. Processes created jobs and multiple jobs created teams. The comments of John Pike, Head of ASC Design, confirm this interpretation: We spent hours and hours working through the process. Simplifying processes as much as possible. Making sure that, it wasn’t just taking tasks out that we didn’t need to do but actually making the flow of the tasks really, really logical, very logical and therefore to train people was reasonably easy. But the sort of things we’d do is we’d have a worker go on to a closed account or a change of address account. We’d have someone learn closed accounts and they’d do it for 2–3 months and then we’d say ‘Well the next thing we’ll do is to move them onto change of address. If we get a problem on closed accounts we can always point them back to closed accounts.’ And therefore the management responsibility is effectively to accredit staff by making sure that from a development point of view they don’t just staff on closed accounts for the rest of their lives. We actually get them to be multiskilled to add to the flexibility of the centre. (18.8.98) These machine ‘makers’ appear to have absorbed and secreted a machine mentality into the design of work. Hence, ‘the machine throws out anthropomorphic habits of thought. It compels the adaptation of the workman to his work, rather than the adaptation of the work to the worker’ (Veblen, 1904: 310; quoted in Grint and Woolgar, 1997: 11). The thinking, as John explained, was ‘really, really logical, very logical’. Yet, such logic only considers a narrow range of technical issues based around what is believed to be a cost-effective method of working. It could be described as a machine logic and, from another perspective, one that takes the QWL into account, it could be argued to be ‘illogical’. A case of thinking too much and feeling too little. As if, ‘the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us’ (H.G. Wells, 1898/2005: 8). Such managers, like Wells’ Martians, appear to have ‘hardened their hearts’ (ibid.) in relation to the staff they observe. For while mechanized movements have been thought through, there is little thought

28

Part I

with regard to the meaning of such movements for those who are required to perform them, as will become increasingly evident. Both John and Stuart sought to import the human into the workplace, in the guise of ‘teams’, ‘flexibility’ and ‘multi-skilling’, but only after ‘simplifying’ work and removing ‘high discretion tasks’. The paradoxical consequences of this will be explored in Chapters 4 and 5. John’s motivation for using teamwork and multi-skilling appeared to reflect a strictly ‘business’ logic in that it was thought that it would add to the flexibility of the ASCs. Despite the subsequent importation of the ‘human’ (e.g. teamwork, multi-skilling), one has to recognize that human decisions based on a narrow business ‘logic’ already imbue the corporate strategy and the design of work. Nevertheless, as has already been indicated, even after the ‘makers’ endeavoured to remove discretion and opportunities to ‘invent local practices’, outcomes were not fixed or finished. Bill Oliver, the Senior Manager for Implementing the ASCs, extolled the virtues of the work environment that was created: One of my jobs was to make sure that the Centres themselves were environmentally friendly, were conducive to a processing empire. So we actually gave them (the staff ) the facilities that they would never have had in the branches. Specifically designed desks that were ergonomically friendly for them to work the equipment. Introduced exercises for them so that they didn’t actually end up with some stress syndrome, damaged wrists and backs and limbs. Gave them a decent quality rest room that many branches may never have had. Sparkling new furniture . . . putting in refreshment areas, wherever necessary, and people (managers) actually respect them (staff ) and talk to them (staff ) more as humans and it’s a different environment but it’s one that they quickly decide ‘We’re all in the same boat and we actually like it here’. (14.7.98; parenthesis and emphasis added) It is intriguing that work that was designed with little regard for its human implications was then celebrated for taking ‘the human’ into account. Ergonomically friendly desks and work exercises reflect legislative requirements and fears that the staff (machines) might break down due to work stress. A cynical reader might say that work has been designed with disregard for the staff, and then measures were put in place to avoid the staff being able to challenge its ‘makers’, due to repetitive strain injuries. Work was designed for cyborgs and staff are compensated for this by the ‘makers’ talking ‘to them more as humans’ and ensuring that they do not fall prey to ‘some stress syndrome’. Bill:

The people who came in would never dream of going back to a branch network as a very strong generalisation. I think it is so good and so enjoyable. The work is good and it is more relaxed but at the same time it is more concentrated and they are understood more and their training needs are better looked after.

Electric staff or a design for drudgery? Darren: Ken:

29

Can you say more about that more relaxed but more concentrated? Yes, they know exactly what they are supposed to be doing. They’ve got a pile of work in front of them to do on the screen metaphorically. They know they are going to keep working all day long on it and consistently knowing they are doing processing on standing orders or whatever and yet, at the same time, they can sit and talk to their colleagues. There’s no gossiping or anything like that but the environment is conducive to that way of working. (14.7.98; emphasis added)

It has been noted elsewhere that employees with ‘clear targets’ are more ‘trustful of management’ and experience ‘growing levels of job satisfaction’ (Collinson et al., 1998: 95). Yet, it would seem from Bill’s account that he and his colleagues have succeeded in creating happy androids that relish their repetitive work. Thus, the robots can chatter among themselves but are not allowed to gossip ‘or anything like that’. They are required to ‘keep working all day long’ until the kindly makers insist that they do their exercises so that they don’t break down. It is difficult to know what Bill means by work that is ‘good’, although he described it as ‘enjoyable’. Rather than a moral concern for others, ‘good’ appears to refer to clearly defined work that is easily monitored and understood, so that both the ‘makers’ and ‘replicants’ know what they are doing. The potential for flexibility? I began to ask myself what they could be [these ‘makers’]. Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man’s brain sits and rules his body? I began to compare the things to human machines. (H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds, 1898/2005: 51) The ASCs were designed with little regard for QWL issues and, indeed, the ‘makers’ sought to eliminate discretion by providing ‘no opportunity for staff to invent local practices’. In operation, however, the image-based system has the potential for far more interesting work than this criticism suggests, and for more flexibility than was initially intended, as John Pike, Head of ASC Design, explained: What we found over time on imaging was it really didn’t matter how you configured your centre. Imaging was so powerful that once the operator was accredited trained, physically within the centre, it doesn’t matter where they sat or what section they belonged to. If we had a lot of work, say closed accounts, then I could be working on change of address but if they needed to switch me to closed accounts, because I’d been trained, all you did was go into the user profile in the imaging system and say ‘I want to work

30

Part I closed accounts’ and when the next item comes up it is closed accounts and you start working. (18.8.98; emphasis added)

These comments suggest that the capacity of the technology was not fully known in advance of its implementation. It was not fixed, even if it was the makers’ intention for it to be so. Its potential for flexible working only became apparent ‘over time’. Thus, the ‘use of any technology is contingent: it is not determined by the design or implementation process’ (Grint and Woolgar, 1997: 20). It is possible to view DIP as enabling the ‘post-Fordist’ dream of multiskilled operators switching from task to task. In an instance, staff can be switched from closing accounts to direct debits to standing orders. Here, technology offers the potential to enrich people’s lives through flexible working, irrespective of the ‘makers’’ designs. A member of staff can also be instantly switched from the work queue in an ASC centre in Portsmouth to one in Chester. Staff are therefore immediately transferable and do not even have to move seats. The ‘makers’ can shift workers from queue to queue and from ASC to ASC to accommodate fluctuations in demand and staffing variations. QWL or a blueprint for monotony? It is clearly problematic to present Fordist and post-Fordist work methods in a dualistic way because ‘all organization is both sides of these impossible divides at once, both stable and flexible, systematic and nervous’ (Parker and Cooper, 1998: 210). Nonetheless, under pre-Fordist or functional methods of work organization, employees moved around a factory according to work demands. Ford brought the work to the worker using the assembly line, thereby enhancing management control over the production process (Murray, 1988). Specialized machinery/skills limited the flexibility of the Fordist system and the long set-up times necessitated extensive production runs to gain economies of scale (Sayer, 1986; Turnbull, 1988). One version of the Japanization story is that the Japanese were able to reduce stock levels and increase product variety through reducing set-up times, employing flexible machinery and skilled employees (Oliver and Wilkinson, 1992). At T Corporation, the capacity of document image processing takes this potential for flexible working to a new level. Employees do not need to move ‘physically within the centre’ and ‘it doesn’t matter’ where they sit or what section they belong to (John Pike). Work arrives on the VDU screen, as on an assembly line, but the type of work can be changed in an instance. Image technology therefore has the potential to increase processing flexibility but the extent of these potential benefits was not fully understood prior to implementation. Davenport (1993), one of the gurus of BPR, suggested that reengineering has the potential to enrich employees’ lives. This is because ‘Process innovation is by no means a simple extension of Taylorism. The human contribution to work

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

31

is to be celebrated and optimized rather than eliminated. Innovative process designs can leave room for creativity and worker autonomy’ (Davenport, 1993: 316). By contrast, critics point to reengineering leading to work that will ‘be continuously monitored, albeit indirectly, by information systems’ (Willmott, 1994). Here ‘VDU operators (“case managers”) are stuck in dead-end jobs that in all likelihood have become more intensive, routine and isolating’ (ibid.: 211). Such polarized interpretations tend to present a deterministic view of technology that ignores unintended consequences and neglects how so much depends on the ‘interpretation’ of the technology by management (Grint and Woolgar, 1997). Although QWL was not part of the ‘makers’’ strategic thinking, or one of the perceived advantages of DIP, as we have seen, such technology need not lead to an overly repetitive work experience. The ‘makers’’ strategic thinking appears to confirm Willmott’s (1994) worst fears rather than Davenport’s (1993) optimistic projections. Yet, in operation, DIP offers the potential for a more interesting work experience, than the strategy discourse suggests. The extent to which this is realized will rest, in part, on the decisions and thinking of the ‘makers’, as the thoughts of Stuart Mendy, Head of IT Design for the ASC programme, reveal: Stuart:

Darren:

Stuart:

Darren:

People were employed to do seven hours data entry a day and therefore we needed to optimize those seven hours rather than thinking ‘Oh well it might be a bit stressful working on image all day therefore let them sit down and read the paper for an hour’. It was much more down to ‘Well, they do need to have a gap, therefore, what can we get them doing when they are not doing their image work’. I was just wondering really whether a system could be designed in another way to give the employees more discretion or variety or whether the nature of the job eliminates that? Variety certainly wasn’t one of the objectives. The objective is to increase throughput. The way to increase throughput is through repetition. So it was very much people will be doing one job maybe for a couple of hours and then they might naturally move onto another thing really because what they were doing had been done. So it was very much down to the production line concept of we need to get throughput and repetition is the way to get throughput. But there are opportunities, that people after working in a particular area for a few months, get the opportunity to work in different jobs. So you get that variety from that perspective and we’ve got a very low attrition rate. People love working in the ASCs. We had a concern that people were used to working in a low tech environment and we were moving them into a high tech, regimented environment and there maybe some fall out. But the main reaction was how good the Bank are to invest all this money in us . . . . . . I don’t know if you have read Hammer and Champy’s Reengineering the Corporation? But they were talking about it leading to a much more enriched work experience.

32

Part I

Stuart:

Darren: Stuart:

We would take the view that that’s fine academically . . . that’s why we avoided calling it BPR for that very reason. It wasn’t a textbook operation. It was, we know how to run operations, we know how to streamline operations . . . a lot of thought did go into the staff and variety, etc. but it was very much down to the staff have come here to work for the Bank not the other way round and this is what the jobs are. People come to do a job. We make their job as efficient as possible. Did reengineering inform some of your ideas or . . .? . . . It certaintly wasn’t moving towards knowledge workers that end of reengineering. It was down to the practical look at the process. Get rid of the non-value added things. Look to streamline.

The above extract suggests that management will not be taking advantage of the unanticipated potential of DIP for a more flexible, rewarding form of work. Stuart described the organization of work as ‘more utilitarian than people focused’. He endorsed the view that technology is malleable but the ‘objective’ of ‘variety’, or a more enriched form of working, was deemed incompatible with increasing throughput. This underlines Grint and Woolgar’s (1997) argument that it ‘is not that technology is irrelevant, but that its relevance depends upon the mediating effects of the interpreter not the transparent effects of the technology’ (ibid.: 136). Stuart Mendy’s belief that throughput could only be increased through repetition prevented him from considering alternatives such as whether greater task variety could increase throughput. It also ignores the possible errors and low morale that might result from a boring or repetitive form of working (see McCabe, 2002). His assumptions, therefore, impacted on the design of work, which was ‘very much down to the production line concept’. Stuart’s assertions contradict his earlier allusions to promoting flexibility, multi-skilling and teamwork in the ASC, for they sit uneasily with repetition as ‘the’ means to increase throughput. Despite the potential of DIP to allow for a more humanized form of work, Stuart was unequivocal that reduced ‘stress’ was not his concern. Anything other than ‘repetition’ to increase ‘throughput’ was seen as ‘academic’ or, in other words, irrelevant. Stuart’s subjectivity appears to reflect the historical process of ‘organizational desexualization’ (Burrell, 1992) that ‘has created an increasingly nonexpressive, rational, emotionally controlled organizational world’ (Mills, 1992: 103). To think about the organization of work as a potentially emotional ( joyous, happy) experience appears, for Stuart, to be incompatible with what could be seen as his masculine ‘authoritarianism’ (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 13). Thus, a system of work has been created, which is based on ‘dictatorial control and unquestioning obedience’ (ibid.). The staff are employed to process for seven hours of the day and throughput is the sole concern. John Pike, the Head of ASC Design, despite his earlier comments, also shared this view. Thus, he viewed multi-skilling in an entirely instrumental way:

Electric staff or a design for drudgery? John:

Darren:

John:

33

Generally our management are pushed to actually rotate our staff around the operation to multi-skill ’em. ’Cos we believe in multiskilling without a doubt. We don’t want people flitting from one task to another during the day or even during the week. We’d rather say ‘Right this week you’re closed accounts’. So you can do a whole week bang at that. But in time we want to train you up on other processes and when we put you on that we will give you a decent period. So your productivity will be great because you get lots of speed up but then we can move you back to another process. But are there limits to that in the sense that obviously once you become an expert in a particular area if you are doing so many different tasks you may forget or is it not that complicated? That is not an issue and you forget . . . after six months you might struggle on the first day or so. But if the training has been good and the intense period you’ve done on something is two or three months, you’re not going to forget it. And even if they do the procedures manual that we’ve written is so detailed that a quick flick through and you’ll remember it. (18.8.98; emphasis added)

Stuart Mendy’s belief in repetition as the only route to efficiency appeared to be shared by John. Stuart dismissed the possibility of a more enriched or varied work experience as ‘textbook’ and therefore unrelated to the ‘practical’. The prospect of work designed around QWL principles was inconceivable to this ‘maker’ and his subjectivity is bound up with being what he believes to be ‘practical’, ‘efficient’, ‘looking to streamline’ and getting rid of ‘non-value added’ activities. Likewise, John’s avowed belief in multi-skilling was limited to a ‘narrow’ reading of whether it is productive for the business or not. Interestingly, whilst John initially effervesced about the potential of DIP for flexible working, the above extract suggests that staff may be required to perform the same task for months at a time. The scope for swapping tasks on a daily or even a weekly basis was dismissed by John. Although DIP offers the potential for a more rewarding work experience, these ‘makers’ deemed this to be unacceptable in practice. It is, therefore, their interpretation rather than technology per se that has generated this outcome. Thus, neither reengineering nor ICT should be assumed to be necessarily ‘bad’ (Grey and Mitev, 1995; Willmott, 1994) or ‘good’ (Davenport, 1993) for to make this assumption rules out the importance of human intervention and also the possibility of unintended outcomes. It seems that neither John nor Stuart could think beyond repetition and throughput, and so one could argue that they have become, at least in part, unfeeling machines. Alternatively, perhaps, it is the distance between their experience of work and the experience of the staff in the ASC that allows such thinking to prevail. Such thinking cannot be divorced from the organizational culture (McCabe, 2002), their earlier pedagogical exposure to ideas as IT specialists and managers and the demands on them for results (Deetz, 1992). Nonetheless, ‘I began to ask

34

Part I

myself what they could be. Were they intelligent mechanisms?’ (H.G. Wells, 1898/2005: 51). The emphasis on ‘repetition’ reflected John and Stuart’s belief that this is the most ‘efficient’ way of working. Yet, this is to adopt a very narrow and shortterm understanding of efficiency given its neglect of staff morale, the likelihood of errors and the possibility of resistance. They emphasized flexibility, multiskilling and teamwork but only as an adjunct to the principle of repetition. To have done otherwise would have resulted in the perverse outcome of the Bank doing favours for staff that ‘have come here to work for the Bank not the other way round’ (Stuart). That they might have any duty to provide stimulating or even interesting work for the staff was simply incomprehensible. Thus, to have designed jobs around QWL issues would have been tantamount to turning the Bank on its head. Stuart’s statement that ‘We make their jobs as efficient as possible’ reveals a blinkered, Tayloristic, ‘one best way’ approach to work design. Whilst cognisant of alternative objectives and possibilities, these did not fit with his interpretation of efficiency through repetition. His subjectivity appears shackled to a single, mechanical rationality that elevates the division of labour and task specialization. Such reasoning is bound up with the dream of electric staff pumping out direct debits and stamping out standing orders. Despite using state-of-the-art technology, both of these ‘makers’ are chained to industrialism and their endeavours fasten the staff to a disempowered world. Irrespective of modernity’s forward-looking belief in progress, innovation at T Corporation ‘wasn’t moving towards knowledge workers . . . It was down to the practical look at the process’ (Stuart Mendy). Straitjacketed by corporate power relations, the demands of corporate capital and a seemingly mechanized subjectivity, Stuart and his colleagues are immersed in the ‘past’ era of Fordism. The ‘belief’ that ‘technological advancement necessarily promotes the progress of human civilization’ appears therefore to be ‘false’ (Lyon, 1999: 57). This drive towards repetitive, dead-end jobs seems eminently equipped to employ low-paid, poorly qualified, part-time women who are assumed ‘not to have an interest in career opportunities’ (Benschop and Dorrewaard, 1998: 13) or indeed to outsource the work altogether to take advantage of even cheaper labour costs through the international division of labour. ‘We will put our intelligence into the operators’ The ‘makers’ of work seemed removed from the likely outcome of their designs, for the staff who inhabit the ASCs: A lot of the production systems have been designed quite well so they lead the people naturally through the process. Our imaging system we designed on the basis ‘simple imaging system, quality staff’. So the imaging system takes care of what I call the infrastructure tasks such as delivering work to the workstation. Retrieving documents for enquiries rather than having to

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

35

go and find the paper. Prioritising the work. Monitoring the work. . . . What I call the non-value added – they are not customer focused. So we said we want a work horse that does all that for us. What we will then do is we will write good processes and train our staff and we will get good quality staff in. So we won’t have all the brainpower within the imaging solution. We would rather have a straightforward imaging solution but very robust, very fast and we will put our intelligence into the operators. (John Pike, Head of ASC Design, 18.8.98; emphasis added) Given the disempowered and repetitive nature of the work that John has helped create, the claim to have ‘put our intelligence into the operators’ is perplexing and certainly contradicts Stuart Mendy’s assertions. It seems that John has a restricted understanding of human ‘brainpower’ or ‘intelligence’ and is removed from the work experience. Thus, a system that ‘prioritizes’ and ‘monitors’ work is likely to take away a great deal of human discretion, and he seemed oblivious to this. It could be argued that the extent to which one is able to ‘prioritize’ and ‘monitor’ work is integral to the one’s QWL. Certainly, it was central to developing a sense of ‘responsible autonomy’ in the Durham coalfields that Trist and Bamforth (1951) identified so long ago. Yet John did not seem to view being able to monitor, prioritize, or in other words, control one’s work as related to staff intelligence or to the work experience. Nor was it seen as a legitimate staff concern. Perhaps John really does dream of electric staff ? Thus, he appeared unable to imagine the impact of his designs for the working lives of others or to empathize with the people who must laboriously carry out such work. His mechanized subjectivity endorses Gouldner’s (1968) argument that ‘conceptions of reality, sustained and fostered by the managers of society, have one common defect: they fail to grasp a very special type of reality, specifically the reality of the suffering of those beneath them’ (ibid.: 106). Such suffering seemed to be an irrelevant or ‘academic’ concern for Stuart and John. After all, staff are ‘employed to do seven hours of data entry a day’ that needs to be optimized ‘rather than thinking “Oh well it might be stressful working on image all day”’ (Stuart). Both believe that work processes have been designed by ‘actually making the flow of the tasks really, really logical, very logical’ (John). The question, of course, is whose logic and whose needs are served by it? I asked further questions in order to explore the paradox of instigating a highly controlled and repetitive form of work whilst claiming to have ‘put our intelligence into the operators’: Darren: John:

Darren:

So when you thought about designing the system you wanted to take into account people, well high quality staff? Yes that was an absolutely deliberate goal in our business requirements. I remember doing that back in ’93 that was what we decided we were going to do. What was the rational for that why did you decide to go down that route?

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Part I

John:

’Cos a feeling we had was that once you start coding up a system to deal with complex processes, every time you change the process, you are changing the system. So you are at the mercy of the IT world to keep on changing the way your work flows that make your system work. But with human beings if you want to change your process you just write a procedure and you just tell them this is the way you want to do it in the future. So that was the logic we went for. . . . We didn’t want that restriction. (18.8.98; emphasis added)

John explained that a ‘human’ focus had been retained due to the inflexibility of an overly automated IT process. He articulated ‘we didn’t want to be hostage to the IT world’ and his concern with the human was, therefore, instrumental. John wanted to take ‘human beings’ into account insofar as an overly automated system is not amenable to changing processes without the extensive use of IT specialists. The references to ‘human beings’ and ‘high quality staff’, is therefore unrelated to QWL issues. QWL considerations also seemed to be far from the thinking of Kate Finch, the Senior IT Analyst, responsible for transferring reengineered business processes onto the DIP system: Darren:

Kate:

Darren: Kate:

In thinking about these processes and putting them on the new technology. What sort of consideration was given to how that will impact upon the nature of work that the member of staff will then be performing? Erm, well a lot of consideration in the fact that each high-level image design had certain. There was a pro forma so you answered the same questions for every process. Erm, and one of the sections was operational impact. So when you thought through the process you would think through how the operation will change as a result of this new process. So each individual process was thought through considering how would this impact a normal operator, how will it impact a supervisor? In what sense though, how it will impact? Oh silly things like did the operator have to print anything and if they do then is the printer near by. Things like, there are some processes where you can do most of it within image but you still have to have a piece of paper. How can we get that piece of paper to the operator? Is it possible for them to go and get that piece of paper? Has the operator got access to all the systems that they require . . .? (3.12.98)

Kate, like Stuart, appeared unable to comprehend the meaning of the questions that I put to her, at least in terms of how I meant them. The impact of the technology on the staff was deemed to be trivial and referred only to ‘silly things’. The

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

37

‘nature of work’ was interpreted in the narrow functional sense of the operator being able to complete the job. It reflected operational and managerial concerns such as whether a printer is available. Kate seemed incapable of considering the question from the perspective of the staff but perhaps the question was inelegant and I subsequently re-phrased it: Darren: Kate:

Darren: Kate:

I mean in terms of job design, for example, how much discretion the staff would have in terms of what they do? Oh right, right. OK. Erm. In a branch it’s like being at school – well perhaps it isn’t so much now – it used to be like being at school. I mean you couldn’t do anything without the teacher saying you could do it. But once we went to an ASC and centralised it. Erm, people were given a lot more authority than they would have had in a branch, for example, and there was a lot of liaison with audit and legal to make sure that everything was done legally. But from an audit perspective, when you’ve got 200 people in an ASC, it’s a lot easier to audit what they are doing than the equivalent of 100 branches that are all spread around the country because you are in a factory environment. A team of people all doing the same thing and reporting to one supervisor. You can audit them a lot easier. You can check their work, erm and . . . Is audit the same word for control? Yes, OK, T Corporation have an audit department, that’s why it’s called audit, and basically anything new going on you have to get audit in to make sure we are not doing anything where. They are independent observers that go in and say ‘Well look there’s a gaping black hole here where somebody could defraud the Bank of X million. Therefore you must put a procedure in place to prevent that happening.’ (3.12.98; emphasis added)

This question regarding the impact of image processing for job design, and staff discretion, initially appeared to generate greater understanding. It became apparent, however, that Kate did not comprehend the meaning of my question in relation to the experience of work for the staff. She asserted that ‘people’ have much greater authority in the ASCs than in the branches and I initially assumed that Kate was referring to the empowerment of the staff. Yet, she went on to articulate how the ASCs had enabled management (‘people’) to increase control due to the ‘factory’-like environment. A question that sought to elicit the amount of discretion afforded to the staff led to an answer concerning the systems that were put in place to prevent the staff from defrauding the Bank. Rather than delivering a more rewarding work experience, as John and Stuart at one point suggested, Kate was explicit that her preoccupation, in terms of job design, was ‘control’:

38

Part I

Kate: Darren: Kate: Darren: Kate:

People’s levels of authority did change. So in the sense that they have more authority now than they had in the branches? I think so yes. How? Er, well, they have that more erm (silence). Stuff that would have been checked 100 per cent by a manager in a branch. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this actually (embarrassed laughter). Now that you are in a centralised environment only 10 per cent of the work say has to be checked. So it’s managing risk. So if you are sat ten of you at a desk and you are all doing the same thing day in, day out, with a supervisor looking at you and you are just doing one thing all of the time. You are just doing, perhaps, mandate, one after the other. Your access to fraud is pretty small whereas in a small branch one person can do a humongous amount of different activities. Therefore, they are more likely to be able to do something naughty because they can do lots of different things and it’s more difficult to control. (3.12.98)

A machine mentality seemed to imbue Kate’s thinking such that she was unable to grasp the meaning of my questions, or to think beyond how the staff could be controlled through the new system. At least in terms of fraud, the DIP system appears unlikely to afford the staff any discretion. Indeed, eliminating the discretion that the staff once enjoyed in the branches seemed central to Kate’s understanding of the intervention. The following comments are extremely frank and enlightening with regard to the thinking of the ‘makers’: Darren: Kate: Darren:

Kate:

In Hammer and Champy’s text they talk about how reengineering will lead to a greater QWL, a more enriched work experience. Oh right, I’m with you and that’s what you were asking, whether their life is enriched? Partly but also what thinking, whether you are actually able to do that with the IT? Whether you are able to design the IT to do that or whether you cannot? And what consideration went into doing it or not doing it. . . . From a nasty perspective, all we were trying to do was cut heads. That’s all we were trying to do. The branches needed more heads to do the same processes that when we centralized we, you know, just normal centralization, erm, cut costs. There was certainly an element of, you know, we’ve got to think of people’s feelings yes and make sure that they are not doing a process that is really, really dull. Erm, but, er, all it was there to do was to get the best process. Erm that meant the least effort from the people involved and therefore only needed X heads rather than X plus Y heads. (3.12.98)

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

39

The term ‘heads’ is an abbreviation of ‘headcount’ and it is all the more brutal in its shortened version. Perhaps this substitution of the word ‘head’ for ‘staff ’ or ‘employees’ is indicative of the de-sensitizing process of becoming a manager? Thus, one removes oneself from the human consequences of one’s action. It is easier to do this if one thinks of ‘numbers’ rather than ‘lives’. Such thinking becomes part of the taken-for-granted world of managers, as the phrase ‘just normal centralization’ illustrates. Shorn of pretension and/or public relations, Kate’s comments reveal a subjectivity embedded in a mechanistic way of thinking (Morgan, 1986) that views cost-cutting ‘as the natural order’ (Shrivastava, 1986: 367) and staff (heads), the expendable outcome. Kate determined that whatever means was necessary to deliver these job reductions was the ‘best process’. Once again ‘authoritarianism’ as an ‘aggressive’ form of masculinity is evident and Kate seemed to find it amusing to refer to the staff as ‘heads’ (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 13). Deetz (1992) refers to the conflation of a subject with the practice of management as managerialism. It follows from the structural position of managers who must ‘coordinate’ and ‘control’ and it gives rise to ‘an interest in efficiency, rationality and significantly no visible conflict’ (ibid.: 22). This understanding of the world is evident in relation to the subjectivity of the ‘makers’ discussed so far. This does not mean that managers simply become unfeeling machines or ‘agents of capital’ but Kate does seem to have absorbed certain cultural ways of thinking. This culture seems bound up with masculinity described as ‘rational: analytical and productive but also insensitive and impersonal’ (Glennon, 1983: 262; in Mills, 1992: 106). Kate was not oblivious to the ruthlessness of the thinking and actions that she described, as her comment ‘from a nasty perspective’ reveals. Nonetheless, she occupies a particular structural position and this appears to impinge on her thinking in ways that desensitize her to, and removes her from, the experiences of the staff. It also rubs out alternative rationalities (Alvesson, 1984) or ways of doing things: Darren: Kate:

When you say the least effort what do you mean by that? I mean in time and keystrokes. Obviously you’ve still got to have the customer service perspective. You can’t just say to your staff ‘I want you to do 100 direct debits a minute’. Well, fair enough, they can do 100 direct debits a minute but they are only going to get fifty of them right. So a lot of those beginning years were getting those figures correct. You know, what’s the target number of direct debits they can do without making lots of mistakes? (3.13.98)

Kate’s comments elucidate that the intensification of work was/is limited only by the possibility of error. In this sense, the customer simultaneously limits work intensification whilst serving, rhetorically at least, as the justification for change. Customer service may be used, therefore, to both protect and harm employees in terms of their job security and QWL. Kate occupies a managerial position and,

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like John and Stuart, she exhibits an ‘interest in efficiency’ but not simply as an unthinking machine. The tragedy is that from where such managers stand, they can only see one ‘best process’ and one road to efficiency. The machine inhabits their thinking such that they can envisage no alternative to working in a highly repetitive and monotonous way. If subscribing to such a masculine way of understanding is a condition of management, then it seems likely to exclude alternative ways of being and organizing. Thus, Acker (1992) has argued that organizations are ‘often defined through metaphors of masculinity’ whereby they are understood to be ‘lean, mean, aggressive, goal oriented, efficient, and competitive but rarely empathetic, supportive, kind, and caring’ (ibid.: 253). So far this chapter has explored the strategy discourse and it indicates that despite the neglect of QWL issues, conditions ‘could be otherwise’ (Law, 1991: 6), often as an unintended consequence of the technology and/or the inability of management to control outcomes. It seems clear that a different understanding of efficiency and how to achieve it or a different remit may have resulted in a different approach to job design, as Kate’s concluding remarks reveal: Darren:

Kate: Darren: Kate:

Darren: Kate:

Darren:

Kate:

Let’s say your terms of reference were different . . . Could you have used the technology to design different work processes so that the work was less repetitive? Oh yes, I’m sure we could have done that. How would you have done that? I don’t know. (Laughter) Well, you would look upon it differently wouldn’t you . . . and turn the process upside down and say instead of one person doing a portion of a process and passing it on to somebody else they may do all of it. But that would then mean you would probably need more heads to do it . . . Although I thought you said you did try to do cradle to grave? Yes we did where possible but that would mean that every process in the ASC’s is a one step process and it isn’t. There are some that are one step such as direct debit. From an imaging point of view it goes on to one queue and then it’s dropped [viz, worked and completed] from that queue. So one person does everything for a direct debit. But if you do something like an electronic phone transfer it goes to six queues. So that’s a multistop process . . . There are other processes where we have three steps in a process that we could have made it into a one step process and that person would have had a more varied job. I’m just wondering whether in terms of saving costs there might be a downside to having work that is overly simplified because of the impact on morale, attention span, because it is repetitive they cannot concentrate for as long due to lack of variety? Yes that’s true. That’s a balance isn’t? When ASCs first went live the control was huge . . . making sure they didn’t introduce Spanish practices or leave the operational model whereas now the ASCs are well

Electric staff or a design for drudgery?

41

established sites. They’ve got their own management structure and those managers are quite senior. Those managers are going to try and better what they already do and if their idea in Chester ASC is to continually stimulate the staff by a variety of work, then that’s what he’ll introduce. Whereas in Wales or wherever, their attitude is ‘Well sod it. There’s plenty of other people to come in and replace them. We’ll just get them in a factory environment you do this, this and this and you go home’. If his attitude is that then it’s just a different way of managing. (3.8.98) The balance between work repetition versus boredom or low staff morale did not feature in the strategic and operational thinking that went into the ASC design. The concern was to simplify work processes, maximize throughput through repetition and to cut costs/heads. Kate’s thoughts reveal that work need not have been designed in this way because tasks could have been designed as single-stop rather than multi-stop. Indeed, the work continues to have the unintended potential to be more varied. Kate’s remarks suggest that the experience of work in the ASCs may vary according to management style and labour market conditions, which opens up further possibilities for a range of work experiences. Given the scope for flexible working that the ASCs currently provide, despite this being an unintended consequence, it seems that there is much to be gained, even after implementation, from challenging the dreams and designs of the ‘makers’. Of course, such resistance may be unnecessary, provided managers forego their designs for drudgery and take wider considerations into account. The next chapter will explore the discourse that accompanied the reorganization and implementation of the new work structures and practices. As we shall see, it contrasts sharply with the strategy discourse outlined in this chapter. This juxtaposition of the two discourses provides considerable insights into how power is exercised and how the exercise of power may be expressed differently when the desire is to shape and enrol staff subjectivity as opposed to simply making people redundant.

3

Manufacturing the enterprise self

The purpose of Newspeak [the implementation discourse] was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of [T Corporation], but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak has been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought – that is, a thought diverging from the principles of [T Corporation] should be literally unthinkable. (George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949: 312)

This chapter explores the discourse that was initially deployed during the implementation of the new programme. As we shall see, it contrasts sharply with the strategy discourse for rather than change being justified on the basis of costs and cutting ‘heads’, a far more people-focused or humanistic language is evident. This new discourse seems tailored to a different audience (the staff ) and yet it is not entirely clear that management set out to deceive but rather that a different way of representing change was understood to be appropriate. It should not, therefore, be thought that it reflects the thinking and approach of a unified, omniscient and omnipotent ‘maker’, wielding power in a Machiavellian way. Indeed, whilst ostensibly presenting my analysis in this way I will continually chip away at such an understanding. It is unlikely that the language and practices used by the ‘makers’ in Chapter 2 would be understood as a ‘discourse’, much less a sharply divergent ‘discourse’ than that used during the implementation of the changes. Instead, it would be understood as the everyday language of dealing with the practical, nitty-gritty problems and demands of running a profitable and effective organization. Nonetheless, the shift in discourse offers a glimpse into the workings of power, rendering the concern to engage the staff and to transform their subjectivity, transparent.

The branch network and the implementation discourse In a staff information brochure entitled ‘An Introduction to ASC and Call Centres, 1995’, the rationale for the centralization was expressed as follows, it ‘will allow branch staff more time to concentrate on the quality of service

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provided to our customers’ (p. 4; emphasis added). This emphasis on the ‘quality of service’ presents the programme as neutral, rational and driven by customers. The rational of allowing the staff ‘more time’ to focus on the ‘quality of service’ stands in stark contrast to the cost-cutting focus of the strategy discourse. It contradicts the comments of Paul Scott and Kate Finch, who articulated that to make a case for change on the basis of service quality would be unacceptable. It indicates that a chasm exists between the strategy discourse and the discourse used or needed to implement and sell the changes to the employees. The branches, prior to the re-organization, acted as relatively autonomous units, and the staff often performed a range of tasks including answering customer telephone enquiries, processing work and dealing with customers over the counter. The restructuring reduces this task variety by directing in-branch, processing work to the ASCs, and by removing incoming telephone calls, through creating separate call centres. One could argue, therefore, that the intervention will disempower the remaining branch staff. The Business Case Document 1995 effectively states that this is the case, although it uses a different vocabulary: Effort must be focused into producing tasks which can be completed in the front office, enabling the collation of duties into a few core branch roles as opposed to the current multiplicity (emphasis added). In conjunction with the programme of change, the branch staff were subjected to Criteria Based Interviews (CBIs) to establish whether they should be made redundant, transferred to the ASCs or be re-employed in the redefined branch network. The CBIs were critical to establishing the implementation discourse and the criteria they articulated is explored in the following text. Indicative of Lukes (1974) first dimension of power, coercion underpinned the CBIs, for the staff were not offered a choice as to where they would like to go, although they could express a preference. The outcome according to the Business Case Document, 1995: Will be based on redundancy for staff who least meet criteria for either branch or centre as opposed to previous volunteer strategies. This will need careful management however it will enable average staff quality to be increased and enable a sharper culture. (Business Case Document 1995; emphasis added) Quite what is meant by a ‘sharper culture’ is not entirely clear, although it appears to refer to the staff being shaped (constituted) in relation to either a branch (supposedly service and sales) or ASC (processing) culture. This attempt to create two separate cultures can be understood as a ‘dividing practice’ (Foucault, 1977) as it fractures the staff as a collective body. Although leaders are in a strong position to exercise power, as the discussion of the strategy has so far demonstrated, managers are not omnipotent and this is

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evident in some of the uncertainties already depicted. Such indeterminism is also apparent in that the Business Case Document expressed concern that the staff must be motivated during the process of change and that the strategy needs to be communicated in a particular way: A well prepared and co-ordinated strategy will be required to ensure that fact runs ahead of rumour and that motivation is maintained in the network. Given the magnitude of the headcount reduction through this Programme . . . communications will be critical and a positive way of projecting the future to staff must be determined. (Business Case Document 1995; emphasis and bold added) This concern with the way in which the strategy is transmitted to the staff illuminates that a distinctive discourse was understood to be required during the implementation of the changes. The concern was to enrol staff support rather than simply to impose the ‘makers’’ strategic designs. Thus, staff survivors must believe that there is a ‘positive’ link between their ‘future’ and the strategy proffered by the ‘makers’. The implementation discourse was constructed and positioned to ensure that the staff continue to exercise power in ways that are supportive of the ‘makers’’ designs. It was not assumed that the ‘makers’’ goals will simply equate with those of the staff but it was believed that communication could align them. This manoeuvring supports Shrivastava’s (1986) argument that ‘sectional interests and their importance to strategy formulation and implementation are treated as constraints which managers need to control and manipulate’ (ibid.: 369). Anticipating ‘constraints’, the Business Case Document 1995, under the heading ‘Staff Problems’, proclaimed that ‘the possibility of staff and union difficulties will need careful handling’. In practice, there was little formal resistance from the trade union, although the ‘makers’ were aware of the potential for disruption, as the comments of Bill Oliver, the Senior Manager for Implementation, reveal: Darren: Bill:

Darren: Bill:

Did the trade union play a role or The unions were absolutely fully involved. There’s no way you could actually contemplate setting up this programme without getting the union involved. Getting them involved in telling them exactly what we were doing and why we were doing it and inevitably the union are thinking about headcount losses. That the reality was somewhere down this way, more losses, the branch network closing down and things like that. The union fully communicated with and fully on board. . . . Would you have said it was negotiated change with the union or consultation or did they insist on certain things or . . .? I would hate to use the wrong word here. Let’s just say we didn’t hide anything behind their backs in terms of what we were trying to do. So we told them what we were doing and they accepted the necessity of

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45

going down this route and they accepted that certain job losses would occur as a result but we would keep any redundancies to an absolute minimum and people would be properly counselled, properly interviewed. Everything in terms of the selection process, how we would actually do the interviewing process was discussed with the unions. I mean again there is never anything to worry about with the unions if you are honest and open with them. That’s what life is all about. If you try to start conning people you get shafted yourself one day and that one day might be sooner rather than later. ’Cos they can, as you know, they can actually bring, they can’t bring an organisation to its knees but they can have quite a serious impact. (14.7.98; bold and emphasis added) Rather than negotiation, the union was informed (‘we told them’) of the changes that would take place. The union was assured that redundancies would be kept ‘to an absolute minimum’ and yet, as Chapter 2 revealed, the strategic plan for 1995/1997 was ‘to achieve maximum possible headcount savings’. This is again indicative of the gulf between the strategy discourse and the discourse necessary to secure change. It certainly questions Bill’s assertion that ‘we didn’t hide anything’ and of being ‘honest and open’. The approach that was adopted towards the trade unions mirrors the ‘authoritarianism’ that informed the strategy discourse. Thus, there was ‘a rejection of dialogue’ (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 13) at least in a meaningful way and management was concerned to impose changes that had already been decided rather than involving the union as a partner. Bill Oliver’s language is saturated in polarized class-based positions (‘them’, ‘they’, ‘we’) and yet, as we shall see, the implementation discourse deployed a language that sought to obscure and mask differences between management and staff. Although the union did not play a significant role in the change process, Bill’s closing remarks underline the union’s potential to have played a far more pivotal role. According to Bill, ‘there is never anything to worry about with the unions’. Nevertheless, should the staff, through the union, have sought a more active role, there seems to have been much to ‘worry about’ and considerable scope to influence the direction of change. Hence Bill recognized that the union is capable of bringing the ‘organization to its knees’ or at least having ‘a quite serious impact’. Thus, the staff could have exercised considerable power so as to influence policy, if they had had the collective will to do so. Chapter 2 revealed how the technology and the ASCs could have been designed differently if the staff, through the union, had had a greater influence at the strategic level. Indeed, the continuing potential for more interesting forms of work reveals that there are ongoing opportunities for employees, through the union, to shape the experience of work. The introduction of the changes involved limited resistance. Nevertheless, such resistance questions the ‘makers’’ power and reinforces the view that both staff and managers in the branch network are able to influence the change

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Part I

process. For example, in the early stages of the restructuring, ‘some quarters of the Bank’ (Bill Oliver) were unwilling to release ‘good quality people’ (ibid.) to the ASCs: One of the hard parts was recruiting people for these Centres. If you work on the basis that we wanted to recruit as many good quality people out of the branch network to come and work in the ASCs. . . . The difficulties we encountered there, for certain, were resistance from some quarters of the Bank. Some of the divisions in releasing quality people. So in certain areas of the Bank there was a view that ‘Well right, we’ll keep all the good people in the branch network and we’ll give all the crap people to the processing centres.’ (Bill Oliver, Senior Manager Implementation, 14.7.98) This admission illuminates that power was not simply exercised in a single, unified, top-down way because ‘some divisions’ were loath to release staff. Local managers resisted the demands of senior managers and this underlines that conditions can be otherwise. Ed Perry, the Head of Decision Making, who was due to become an ASC manager at the time of the restructuring, explained that the cost-cutting mentality that infused the strategy discourse had repercussions during the implementation of the changes. Thus, despite Bill Oliver’s assurances to keep ‘redundancies to an absolute minimum’, for some, cutting jobs and costs was of paramount importance: I was pretty horrified that some of the focus on headcount reduction was so single-minded. Whilst I was waiting to recruit, surrounding divisions were waiting to lay-off in advance, which was a killer for me, because I wanted to recruit them (staff ). I didn’t want them (staff ) to be made redundant . . . some of these people have 20–25 years of experience and they are about to be waved goodbye for the sake of a few months worth of less pensions. But that’s a flaw in a very large organisation where there’s targets and measures that you run your business on and, at the end of the day, some of these can have very unfortunate consequences. (Ed Perry, 14.7.98; emphasis added) Ed Perry’s comments highlight how factions and vested interests within management impacted on the changes that were enacted (see Knights and Murray, 1994; Watson, 1994; Parker, 1997; McCabe, 2002). This could be seen as a clash of masculinities in that some managers had imbibed a ruthless ‘authoritarianism’ and behaved in a ‘brutal and aggressive’ (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 13) way towards the staff. By contrast, Ed was concerned about the consequences of making staff redundant, given the loss of expertise that this would entail, and that the ASCs needed to recruit experienced staff. He wanted to employ 200 people but was only was able to recruit fifty from the branches because of the rush to make staff redundant. Ed seemed to adopt a more ‘pater-

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47

nal’ approach by stressing his concern for the staff who he wished to ‘protect’ from redundancy. He lamented that the ‘rest’ of the staff ‘had to be trained from scratch’. The machine mentality of cost cutting therefore took priority for many managers despite the hidden costs associated with recruitment, training and the loss of expertise. Ed suggested that large organizations are ‘flawed’ because impersonal bureaucratic ‘targets and measures’ can become ‘ends’ in themselves (see Watson, 1994; Knights and McCabe, 1997). He appeared far more sensitive in his approach towards change than the strategic discourse suggests. Nevertheless, his concerns were business-related rather than purely humanitarian in that he was concerned to recruit experienced staff for his ASC. Ed’s comments provide some insight into how ‘machine thinking’ can take on a life of its own. Thus, managers can become absorbed by the logic of ‘targets and measures’ in a way that removes them from wider business, moral or emotional considerations. Irrespective of the threat to job security and the fear of losing valuable members of staff, some branches resisted the restructuring partly because of their lack of involvement in the process itself. A Design Team from Head Office was used to reengineer branch processes, and this team imposed new processes on the branches. This is another way in which the programme could be said to have been disempowering, at least for local managers and branch staff: All the work was done out here (Head Office) by half a dozen people, going round a select number of branches, coming up with an idea of how the branch should be re-organised post-migration, and feeding that into the divisions, who take it forward as they wish to take it forward, and inevitably, as soon as you try to tell somebody that this is how you should be doing it, it’s the old sensitivity thing about stepping on people’s toes again. Telling somebody you can do their job better than they can. So it’s possibly slight resistance. (Bill Oliver; Senior Manager Implementation, 14.7.98) Despite this muted account of resistance, it is apparent that the ‘makers’ were unable to simply impose change upon passive others. Constituting the ‘new’ culture In the process of introducing the changes, two cultures and two subjectivities were delineated, although, as we shall see, they share a great deal in common. The ASC regime and the role of the ASC staff was depicted in terms of: processing for the branch. . . . The centre is divided up into work areas, each with specific job responsibilities which means that the quality and completion of work is easier to measure. Fully trained staff are assigned to each work area. Without customer or telephone interruption, operators quickly build up speed and expertise. (An Introduction to ASC and Call Centres, Internal Document, p. 7)

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By contrast, the branch culture was defined in relation to ‘customer service’ and ‘sales’: Our priority must be to improve levels of customer service and increase sales performance. We must, therefore, continue to place ever greater emphasis on putting customers first and paperwork second. Every opportunity must be taken to promote the Bank and cross sell relevant products to existing customers. (Ibid.: 10) The above extracts express the ‘makers’’ intentions through an authoritative and impersonal voice and yet they use the terms ‘our’ and ‘we’ as if the ‘makers’ unquestioningly speak on behalf of everyone. Thus, the ‘sectional interests’ of top management are portrayed as ‘universal’ (Shrivastava, 1986: 366). The ‘makers’’ preferred way of organizing work is represented as being in the interests of all and this ‘is a potent way of concealing’ (ibid.) that such plans were concocted by a corporate elite with scant regard for those defined as ‘heads’. The exclusive and brutal strategy discourse with its callous emphasis on ‘costs’ and ‘heads’ was, therefore, modified and re-written en route to the staff. The approach begins to appear more caring and sensitive and yet the strategy and the thinking that informed it remains unchanged. Two distinct cultures began to be imposed through the implementation discourse on staff that had previously been flexible members of a branch community, especially in the smaller branches. Once again this could be interpreted as disempowering the staff through enforcing rigid functional identities, in terms of ‘processing’ or ‘customer service/sales’. A document that communicated the changes to the workforce states the following: ‘Staff will need to undertake a range of duties and be adaptable to change’ (An Introduction to ASC and Call Centres, Internal Document, 1995, p. 11) but the ‘range of duties’ will be more limited than before. Regarding the branch staff, the document continues: The main focus of each individual member of staff is to enhance the quality of customer service and increase sales performance. Effective teamwork is the key to this and staff will need to be multi-skilled. (Ibid.: 13; emphasis added) Although enwrapped in appealing tones, the new branch work will not include processing or telephone skills. Nonetheless, the language of quality, customer service, teamwork and multi-skilling signify the type of employee that management aims or claims to be creating in the branches. The disparity between such images and the strategy discourse that emphasized cutting ‘heads’ and eliminating discretion renders the concern to make-up a new employee transparent. The implementation discourse signals how branch staff and branch managers must (re)define themselves, if they are to remain T Corporation employees:

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The continuous drive for improved service quality is both dependent upon, and determined by, the contribution of management and staff. The creation of a branch environment which enables staff to actively respond courteously, efficiently and professionally to customers and colleagues, whilst at the same time fostering continuous performance improvement, skill enhancement and personal development, is a key ingredient for success. (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March, 1996 emphasis added) This document frames the changes in terms of empowerment by emphasizing that ‘service quality is both dependent upon, and determined by, the contribution of management and staff’. It draws on the language of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982) and Total Quality Management (Crosby, 1979; Deming, 1986) through stressing the need for ‘continuous improvement’. It ‘individualizes’ (Foucault, 1977) the staff by establishing qualities and attributes (courtesy, efficiency, professionalism) that mark out successful staff from those who are to be made redundant. It seeks to ‘normalize’ (ibid.) or regulate the staff as they are required to imbibe and strive to meet such norms. The carrot of employment is held out to those who display such qualities, whilst the stick of redundancy confronts those who do not. The implementation discourse shares distinct overlaps with the discourse of ‘enterprise’ that seeks to cultivate ‘enterprising subjects – autonomous, self-regulating, productive, responsible individuals’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992: 626). Yet, the elevation of ‘empowerment’ is a far cry from the thinking that informed the strategy discourse and the new discourse does not challenge the hierarchical or bureaucratic structure of the organization (Fournier and Grey, 1999). The implementation discourse is liberally sprinkled with ‘teamwork’ like so much fairy dust. It evokes seductive images of cooperation, camaraderie, consent, nurturing and collaboration (Sinclair, 1992) and yet it is hardly compatible with the repetitive design of work in the ASCs. Through the implementation discourse, the two cultures (processing and customer service/sales) both share a common language that includes an emphasis on customer service, multi-skilling, teamwork, increased responsibility and continuous improvement. The staff were courted by soothing refrains such as ‘To ensure that customer service is maintained your branch and ASC must work as a team’ (ibid.: 11). The promise of teamwork is appealing and it rubs out the idea of one party imposing its will on another: We went through a very very meticulous process of recruitment by interviewing everybody. We did some Criteria Based Interviews to make sure we were taking the right people into these environments. Teamwork was one of the critical elements of it. (Bill Oliver, Senior Manager for Implementation, 14.7.98) Despite the emphasis on teamwork, one has to reflect on how uneasily this sits with the creation of repetitive, fragmented work and the factory metaphor that

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was used to depict the ASCs. Teamwork is also alien to the strategy discourse that refers to ‘heads’ and stresses a narrow, production-line reading of efficiency. The CBI can be understood as the vehicle through which the ‘makers’ sought to fabricate new employees. They manufacture an appearance of fairness, inevitability and neutrality. Thus, everyone is seemingly given the fair and equal opportunity to present his or her individual case during the interview. As we shall see, however, the CBIs are bound up with selecting the most compliant and passive employees as opposed to say trade unionists. Moreover, they present a ‘universal individual’ that conveys the ‘gender-neutral character of the job and the worker’ (Acker, 1992: 258). The CBIs sought to hierarchically impose a way of being and thinking that purports to be both ‘impersonal’ and ‘objective’ and it is silent with regard to both class and gender inequalities. The CBIs provide a mechanism that ‘individualizes’ (Foucault, 1977) employees by isolating them and marking them out from each other. Thus, employees are required to deal directly and individually, rather than collectively, with management. As opposed to collective branch employees, a woman, or members of a trade union, the staff are disconnected from each other through the CBIs. Documents were distributed to the staff including An Introduction to ASC and Call Centres, 1995, and the video ASC and Call Centres – Being the Best, that spread the implementation discourse and the new subjectivity. The CBI or ‘examination’ (Foucault, 1977) can be understood as a means to transmit the new culture, for it ‘compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes, excludes. In short, it normalizes’ (ibid.: 183) the staff, in relation to the desired subjectivity. The CBIs are particularly poignant because they were used at a time of crisis when many people faced redundancy. It could be argued that such documents and videos may not have been absorbed by, or concerned employees, because they faced the calamity of job loss. Yet, the fear of economic loss carries much weight, and it provides the necessary motivation for the staff to study and digest the ‘makers’’ account of what they should be. Either way, one can gain considerable insights into the implementation discourse and the subjectivity that the ‘makers’ sought to foster through analysing these texts. Secreting the new discourse The ‘Introduction to ASC and Call Centres, 1995’ document culminates with thirteen ‘Questions and Answers’ that the management anticipated that a universal member of staff might want to ask and require answers to. Whether or not the management really thought that the staff might have such concerns is debatable but they can be understood as integral to the implementation discourse in that they convey messages, priorities, concepts, ways of thinking and being, which express a particular subjectivity. It should be noted that not one of these questions refers to the impact of the changes for the employees’ future QWL either in the branches or in the ASCs.

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The sovereign customer The first and most unlikely question that the ‘makers’ deemed that staff faced with redundancy or relocation might want to ask is ‘How do our customers benefit?’(ibid.: 22). This question suggests that the managers who prepared the document are removed from the anxiety of what it means to confront change or job loss. Business rationality saturates this question that is posed for androids by androids, so devoid is it of emotion and compassion. In posing the question, one can almost here a grinding, staccato voice, reminiscent of the 1960s movie The Billion Dollar Brain starring Michael Caine as agent Harry Palmer. The question is designed to focus employees’ minds, and to rationalize and justify the changes through the ‘neutral’ language of the ‘customer’. Responsibility for the changes is directed away from the ‘makers’, the Directors or the Shareholders. Instead, responsibility is directed towards, and change is legitimized on the basis of, the benefits that will accrue to the ‘sovereign customer’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992). One has to recall that, in Chapter 2, ‘the customer’ and ‘service quality’ were deemed insufficient to justify the case for change and this shatters the illusion that this question perpetrates. The question points to the gulf between the discourse of strategy that stressed ‘profit’ and ‘cost cutting’ as the first priority, and that of implementation. The latter strives to engage people and seeks to close the shutters to power that is visible and raw in the account of strategy evident in Chapter 2. It elevates the customer, which, in the strategy discourse, was only a marginal or at best a secondary issue. The answer to this burning question unfurls the ‘customer’ benefits: • • •

branch staff will be able to focus more on customer needs and build up relationships; all queries/instructions will be processed in strict order of priority; customers will receive a consistent first-class telephone service.

There is no mention here of the profits, cost savings or cutting heads, which imbued the strategy discourse. Instead, the language of the customer, like that of teamwork, is deployed to re-write the restructuring by dressing it in a palatable way to the staff. This language epitomizes and elucidates what was meant in the Business Case Document by ‘a positive way of projecting the future to staff must be determined’. Nonetheless, the need for such a reconfiguration also hints at the power that the staff are able to exercise should they oppose the changes and it is a testament to the power that the staff have already exercised. Thus, the ‘makers’ must sell the changes to the staff so that they continue to exercise power in support of, or at least in a way that is not opposed to, their schemes. The customer is also elevated in question two that asks ‘How are customers told about the changes?’ (‘Introduction to ASC and Call Centres’ document, 1995: 22). One could ponder whether this would be the last, let alone the second question, that a member of staff faced with redundancy might ask. Nevertheless,

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the question serves at least two purposes. First, it provides a smokescreen to conceal the exercise of power by management, through, again, elevating the customer and locating the customer as the source of, and indeed as ‘forcing change’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992: 617). Second, it adds to the drip, drip, drip of the ‘cult’ure of the customer’ (ibid). Thus, the staff who remain in the Bank are required to imbibe the notion of ‘Customer Service’ and equate the motivation, benefits and rational for this and future changes with the customer. This allows managers to abdicate and conceal responsibility for their innovations; for it is not ‘us’ but the ‘customers’ that dictate that ‘we’ change. In this age of enterprise, this might seduce one if it were not for the discussion of the strategy discourse in Chapter 2. One could also ask whether the emphasis on ‘sales’ and the redundancies is consistent with customer service or service quality? It is also interesting to reflect that whilst customers were used to justify the changes, customers were not informed, let alone consulted, about the proposed restructuring. Indeed, one could argue that removing processing, along with staff and telephone contact from the local branches, would be detrimental to customer service. A moral discourse? Question three asks ‘Might I have to move to another branch?’ The answer is cloaked in neutrality, swathed in legerdemain, for it states that ‘In order to be fair and to place as many people as possible into jobs, it may be necessary to move staff to other branches’ (‘Introduction to ASC and Call Centres’ document, 1995: 22; emphasis added). This reference to ‘fairness’ applies a moral force to the intervention. Metaphorically, the ‘makers’ hold up their hands and say ‘We only want to do what is right, we are not partisan, we are simply the instrument of customer desires.’ Yet, the notion of ‘fairness’ was not evident in the strategy discourse, which utilized a brutal and pragmatic language. For example, ‘the staff have come here to work for the Bank not the other way round’ (Stuart Mendy) and ‘all we were trying to do was cut heads’ (Kate Finch). These shifting tones illuminate the ‘multiplicity’ of discourses (Foucault, 1979) that can be enrolled during the exercise of power. The implementation discourse seems to be drawing on a paternalistic masculinity whereby ‘men eschew coercion and seek to exercise power by emphasizing the moral basis of cooperation’ (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 13). Thus, different expressions of masculinity imbued the programme of change. The answer to question three positions managers in the role of wanting ‘to place as many people as possible into jobs’ and yet we know from the Business Case Document, 1995, that the strategic intention was ‘to achieve maximum possible headcount savings’. By juxtaposing the strategic and implementation discourses in this way it seems that management are engaged in a form of ‘doublethink’ whereby they ‘hold simultaneously two opinions . . . knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them’ (Orwell, 1949: 37). Thus, they ‘repudiate morality while laying claim to it’ (ibid.). On the one hand, maximum job losses are the only concern and yet, on the other, management purport to be ‘fair’

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by seeking to minimize job losses. Yet, whether they are conscious of this inconsistency or ‘know’ it to be a contradiction is beyond the findings of this research. The sovereign ‘Bank’ In subsequent questions, an interesting twist occurs in that the nomenclature ‘the Bank’, as opposed to ‘the Customer’, is used six times to apportion responsibility and authority to the restructuring. The term is used in a way that deflects attention from the ‘makers’, for it directs the staff towards the disembodied entity of ‘the Bank’. Through this artifice, the ‘makers’ step into the shadows. As with the use of ‘the customer’, it seems that a separate being is responsible for the changes, against which it is useless for the staff and even the ‘makers’ to resist. Hence, question four asks ‘Will my personal circumstances and preferences be taken into account’? (‘Introduction to ASC and Call Centres’ document, 1995: 23). The answer, like a declaration from the ‘Great Oz’, is ‘Yes. You will have the opportunity to state your preference for the type of work you prefer, and also of course, to make the Bank aware of any relevant personal circumstances’ (ibid.; emphasis added). This statement presents ‘the Bank’ as an omnipotent and omniscient entity that makes decisions and, while the staff may state their preferences, it is ‘the Bank’ that will ultimately decide – neither strategists nor managers are accountable or responsible for such decisions. The curtain of power does not flutter, Toto does not investigate, we do not see ‘The Great Oz’ at work, his levers and doings remain invisible. This is not to suggest that there is a single ‘sovereign’ entity (Foucault, 1977) that is exercising power in a Machiavellian way, although the CEO is ultimately responsible. There is instead, a complex network (Clegg, 1989) of groups and individuals involved in the strategic design and change process, but the implementation discourse obscures the ‘makers’’ role in this. It is intriguing that, whilst the staff are required to take on greater responsibility, the ‘makers’ abdicated and obscured their responsibility through the implementation discourse. Responsibility for the job losses and the restructuring is represented as resting at the door of someone else described variously as ‘the Bank’ or ‘the customer’. The ‘Bank’ is presented in the paternalistic guise of a caring father ‘who is authoritative, benevolent . . . and wise’ (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 13). The ‘unitary’ (Fox, 1974) notion of ‘the Bank’ was repeatedly used in a way that obscures power relations within the workplace and denies conflict between managers and staff. Hence, question five asks ‘Does it all hang on an interview?’ In this question, individualized, powerless staff are tasked to ponder whether their fate is to be determined by a single CBI. The answer, written in fire, is ‘No, but the interview is important. The Bank knows the skills and levels of skills that are needed to do the jobs’ (p. 23; bold and emphasis added). This answer from the omniscient ‘Bank’ is delivered as from Zeus on Mount Olympus, a wrathful force that decides the fates of the clay figures that are at his mercy. The allpowerful Bank is juxtaposed with powerless staff. This passive representation of the staff is curiously incongruous, however, with the enterprise/implementation

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discourse which portrays the staff as empowered individuals capable of displaying ‘energy, initiative, calculation, self-reliance and personal responsibility’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992: 629). Question nine asks ‘Will the programme involve any compulsory redundancies?’ The answer states that: ‘The Bank will seek to redeploy and retain affected staff. However, the Bank cannot provide a guarantee, on this or any other occasion, that there will be no compulsory job losses’ (‘Introduction to ASC and Call Centres’ document, 1995: 24; emphasis added). ‘The Bank’, seemingly a preternatural force, whose decisions cannot be challenged or questioned, is ultimately impotent when it comes to securing employment, ‘on this or any other occasion’. Such ineffectiveness seems incompatible with the representation of ‘the Bank’ in the above extracts. In this instance, it seems that ‘the Bank’ is at the mercy of external forces that it has little control over. The munificent Bank ‘will seek to redeploy and retain affected staff ’ but only subject to forces beyond even its powers. Yet, from the outset, the strategy was ‘to achieve maximum possible headcount savings’ so the representation of ‘the Bank’ doing all in its power ‘to redeploy and retain affected staff ’ is patently false. Paternalism is therefore drawn upon in a way that maintains a ‘pretence of equality’ (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993: 670). Once again we can observe a disparity between the strategic and implementation discourses. To further illustrate this, we can contrast the above caution and coyness with regard to the ability to secure jobs, with the assertiveness and confidence evident in the June 1996 Branch Manager’s Guide for Branch Re-organization which states: Empirical evidence suggests that the headcount reductions associated with ASCs are achievable and accurately reflect the volume of work taken out of the branches. It appears then that different discourses are simultaneously at work, shifting as the need arises, so as to serve different audiences (see Foucault, 1979). On the one hand, there is the strategy discourse articulated for and by a managerial audience. It is candid with regard to, and indeed celebrates, the intention to cut ‘heads’. This discourse constructs the organization as a machine, which operates in a rational, technical and logical fashion for the purposes of cost cutting. Humans are a cost and their work lives are at best an afterthought. On the other hand, there is the implementation discourse that serves a largely staff audience. This is a discourse partly of appeasement, utilizing staff-friendly terms such as teamwork and fairness. It also uses techniques of distancing, whereby the ‘makers’’ decisions, which are celebrated in the strategic discourse, are disguised as the responsibility of ‘the Customer’ or the omnipotent ‘Bank’. This implementation discourse seeks to rule out resistance and to mould a new staff subjectivity. It is at once empowering and disempowering, conveying in turns omnipotence and impotence as it suits the ‘makers’. The implementation discourse was most explicitly enunciated in the CBIs to which we now turn.

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Criteria Based Interviews (CBIs) Branch managers attended a one-day training course entitled ‘Managing Through Change’ to provide them with the necessary skills to conduct CBIs. Branch staff attended a half-day course entitled ‘Focus On Change’ that aimed to encourage ‘everyone to recognize the need for change and the opportunities that change brings’ (An Introduction to ASC and Call Centres, 1995: 16). Specific skills and attributes were outlined, which the staff were assessed in relation to by branch managers, though not necessarily their manager. Through exploring these skills/attributes, we can identify the type of ‘machines, stamped out like bottle caps’ (Dick, 1968: 161) that the ‘makers’ sought to construct. Through the CBIs, in a way that is reminiscent of the ‘enterprise’ discourse, there was an endeavour to fashion the staff as ‘active not passive, self-reliant, accountable and responsible for their actions’ (du Gay, 1996: 134). Such characteristics contrast sharply with the ‘makers’’ ‘lack’ of accountability and responsibility as conveyed through the thirteen ‘Questions and Answers’. They also contrast with the image of the staff that they represented as being largely powerless. Despite the entrepreneurial subject that the CBIs outline, it is important to remember that they promote ‘standardized skills and attributes’ which require the staff to demonstrate ‘conformity to a set of hierarchically and generically defined standards’ (Fournier and Grey, 1999: 113). In the Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, that was issued to the staff, it was explained that the CBIs ‘will enable an objective assessment to be made of your likely success and performance in the new environment by focusing on your past performances and achievements’ (p. 9; emphasis added). It continues ‘you will be interviewed by a local manager who has been trained to obtain evidence of skills’ (ibid.). It should be remembered from the above discussion that some branches sought to resist sending ‘quality’ staff to the ASCs, preferring to release ‘the crap people’ (Bill Oliver, Head of Implementation, 14.7.98). Clearly then, the CBIs do not reflect a simple, top–down or ‘objective’ exercise of power, on the part of the ‘makers’. Moreover, the representation of the skills carries with it the assumption that ‘the organization and its goals come first’ (Acker, 1992: 257). This penalizes women who carry ‘a greater share of unpaid care responsibilities’ (Benschop and Doorewaard, 1998: 9) beyond the workplace as well as rendering other considerations secondary [e.g. QWL, equality, trade unionism]. The CBIs are hardly objective then. It should not be thought that the staff were simply passive recipients of the implementation discourse. Thus, the staff were aware of the skills/attributes that were required of them, and often wielded the discourse according to their needs. For example, some of the staff were unable to travel to an ASC and therefore represented themselves as individuals who were eager to ‘sell’ even if this was not the case. Caroline, a Customer Service Manager at a large branch, remarked ‘the number of times people have said to me if the ASC had been in Lancaster I would not be here now’. She expanded upon this by saying that such staff have ‘adapted’ but ‘they’re still a processor’ (8.10.98). By contrast, a number of the

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staff explained that they were unable to remain in the branch network despite wishing to do so due to staff cuts. They therefore moved to an ASC to remain in employment and have had to present themselves as ‘processors’. This supports Collinson’s (2003) argument that ‘individuals in surveillance-based organizations might become increasingly skilled manipulators of self, reputation and image’ (ibid.: 538). Such instances do not endorse the view that the CBIs were entirely effective in terms of fabricating new staff but, given the economic pressures on the staff, it would be foolish to dismiss them. Universal members of staff were urged to ‘familiarize’ themselves ‘with the new Branch Job Profiles and skills levels’ and these delineate the subjectivity that the ‘makers’ desired. Gender-free individuals were tasked to relate their work and non-work experiences to these criteria so as to re-think and re-imagine themselves according to the requirements set from above: • •

Consider how you will respond to questions you may be asked at the interview by analysing your past experiences. Consider your achievements outside the Bank (for example, organizing a charity event or leading a sports team), which may demonstrate additional skills levels. (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, p. 9)

The interview performance guide established the ‘criteria’ against which the staff would be ‘observed’, ‘measured’ and ‘disciplined’ (Foucault, 1977). In terms of ‘DOs’, staff were instructed to ‘arrive on time’; ‘smile on greeting’; ‘look enthusiastic!’; ‘listen carefully’ and ‘ensure you get your ‘“evidence of performance” across’ (ibid.: 10). Such instructions reinforce both hierarchical relations and temporal discipline. One’s ‘emotions’ in terms of happiness (‘smile on greeting’) and ‘enthusiasm’ are commodified and subjected to measurement and evaluation (Fineman, 1996, 2000). One’s past and non-work life is scrutinized, compartmentalized, evaluated and assessed according to whether it provides ‘evidence of performance’. The value or otherwise of one’s life is measured according to whether it fits with the performance-based criteria set by the ‘makers’. This commodification of subjectivity and of life outside of work hours suggests that control is to go beyond even George Orwell’s worst fears for ‘nothing’ is to be ‘your own’ not even ‘the few cubic centimetres inside your skull’ (Orwell, 1949: 29). For ‘asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed’ there is to be ‘no escape’ (ibid.). Thus, ‘enterprise now refers to the application of “market forces” and “entrepreneurial principles” to every sphere of human existence’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992: 628) and it suggests that one escape route for the staff of ‘splitting self ’ (Collinson, 2003: 537) into work and non-work selves is to be cemented over. The interview guide also elaborated various ‘DON’Ts’ that reinforce hierarchical power relations within the workplace and, paradoxically, given the use of the enterprise discourse, convey a sense of staff passivity. Thus, the staff were

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instructed not to ‘interrupt the interviewer’; ‘talk unnecessarily’ or ‘be vague and indecisive’. Power is therefore positioned on the side of the interviewer, who must not be interrupted, and answers must be specific and relate only to the issues, which the interviewer wishes to discuss. Candidates must play the android, barking out responses that match the commands made of them. The human that strays outside of such strictures and fails to obey the black and white designs of the ‘makers’ must be erased through redundancy or be re-made through the CBI discipline [or at least appear to be]. The richness and diversity of experience is squashed and rendered void unless it conforms to a series of images and anecdotes that relate to narrow business criteria. The aim is ‘to make all other modes of thought impossible’ (Orwell, 1949: 312) and the instruction box of the lonely robot reads: REMEMBER, THE INTERVIEWER IS SEEKING TO OBTAIN EVIDENCE THAT YOU HAVE THE SKILLS LEVELS REQUIRED SO BE PREPARED TO DISCUSS SPECIFIC EVENTS YOU HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN, AND EXAMPLES OF WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DID. (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996: 10; format as original) Here we can observe how discourse does not simply refer to language but is bound up with practice. Thus, the staff had to collect evidence in support of the skills outlined by management so as to demonstrate their ‘initiative, self-reliance and the ability to accept responsibility for oneself and one’s actions’ (du Gay et al., 1996: 268). Through such ‘measurement and assessment’, the CBIs aim to ‘render individuals “calculable” and even “confessional” selves who collude in their own subordination’ (Collinson, 2003: 535). The exercise of power is clear for ‘even responsibility’ for collecting evidence ‘is in practice managed rather than self-managed’ (Fournier and Grey, 1999: 113). Thus, the staff are under strict guidelines as to what can and cannot be construed as evidence. Whilst power is never simply exercised from above (du Gay, 1996) or in a totalizing way that erases resistance (Foucault, 1977), the fear of job loss (Collinson, 1994), or of being relocated to a job that one may not wish to do, cannot be dismissed. Such threats loom large behind the CBIs for the aim is to ‘identify which staff will be appointed to branch roles after transfer of work to the ASC’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March, 1996: 11). Isolated and vulnerable, it was explained that ‘each member of branch staff will be individually considered’ (ibid.; emphasis added) according to their past performance, conduct/efficiency, attendance and qualifications. There were numerous accounts of staff breaking down in tears due to the pressures of the CBIs, so one cannot dismiss their impact and the burden of conformity they carried. Nevertheless, they were also the source of enduring anger for some staff who recounted the insult of having to re-apply for their jobs which, in some instances, they have performed for twenty to thirty years. The skill criteria outlined in relation to the CBIs specified the type of person to be manufactured, as we shall now discuss.

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The ‘new’ skills definitions and branch banking staff job profiles Staff were assessed according to twelve criteria groupings or skills, including business awareness, business development, communication (verbal), communication (written), customer service, decision making, initiative, numeracy, planning and organizing, teamwork and leadership, use of systems and work standards. Knowledge was accumulated about the staff and judgements were made that defined ‘the sort of relation an individual should have with him or herself, and the “habits of action” he or she should acquire and exhibit’ (du Gay, 1996: 56). Constituting the subject The first skill, ‘Business Awareness’, examined the staff according to their understanding of ‘products and/or services’ and ‘their relevance to customers, others parts of the organization and the external market place’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix). This ‘skill’ goes further than simply promoting ‘awareness’ for it is embedded in practice. Individuals were assessed according to whether he/she: Identifies with T Corporation’s Mission and actively contributes to its success by encouraging and seeking the achievement of work unit objectives (ibid.; emphasis added). It was not enough for the staff to reiterate ‘T Corporation’s Mission’; they had to ‘identify’ with and ‘act’ upon it. This reflects a concern to reconstitute subjectivity rather than simply to transmit knowledge. Thus, employees are required to demonstrate that T Corporation’s Mission has infiltrated their consciousness and changed them in a way that translates into action. Such ‘skills’ attempt to deracinate resistance for ‘a thought diverging from the principles of [T Corporation] should be literally unthinkable’ (Orwell, 1949: 312). Hence, employees who do not identify with T Corporation and act to further its ‘Mission’ are deemed unemployable. One has to consider the implications of such corporate cloning for trade unionists or for anyone who simply prefers to remain independent thinkers? Are such dissidents to be erased because they do not identify with the ‘Mission’? The Mission and Goals of T Corporation are spelt out in the Human Resources Procedure Manual. It voices the mantra to which the staff must dedicate their lives: ‘Our aim is to be the most admired and successful bank’ We will get there if we: • treat customers as we like to be treated, • act with integrity and trust, • lead by example, • keep it simple, and • win through teamwork.

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Through phrases such as ‘our aim’ and ‘we will’, this statement purports to speak for everyone and draws on a universal language, which brooks no opposition (see Willmott, 1993). The Corporate Mission statement and Goals are couched in an inclusive language, despite, that is, the absence of employee involvement in defining them. The Goals supposedly apply to everyone and imply that everyone agrees with them. This discourse is compatible with a paternalistic masculinity in that it emphasizes ‘the importance of personal trust relations and the need for employees both to invest voluntarily in their work task and to identify with the company’ (Collinson and Hearn, 1994: 13). Yet, given the disparity between the strategic and implementation discourses, one could question whether the ‘makers’ are unified or act with ‘integrity and trust’ that warrants ‘trust’ in return. The Mission/Goals and the ‘Business Awareness’ skill say nothing of the staff who are to be made redundant or whose work is to be deskilled and rendered more repetitive as a result of the changes. Given that work has been designed in the ASCs in a way that reflects minimal trust (i.e. low discretion), one could ask why employees should ‘trust’ management in return? The imposition of individualized work in the ASC is hardly conducive to ‘teamwork’ and so management does not appear to ‘lead by example’. The changes were introduced to reduce costs and in view of this it is not clear that the intervention aims ‘to treat customers as we like to be treated’. Given these contradictions, it is far from clear that the ‘makers’ ‘identify’ with, or ‘actively contribute’ towards, ‘T Corporation’s Mission’. In addition to employees digesting the corporate Mission statement and acting upon it, the ‘Business Awareness’ skill asks whether the member of staff: Keeps up to date and well-informed about T Corporation’s business strategy and own work units positioning in the market place. Actively expands knowledge and compares services and products within the financial sector. (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix) The staff are expected not only to ‘know’ but to ‘actively’ expand upon their knowledge of the ‘business strategy’. Knowledge of strategy refers to publicly available, sanitized corporate statements, which reinforce hierarchically imposed images of the Bank. The staff must imbibe this idealized view but they are not expected to be knowledgeable about the strategy discourse, which considers the staff as ‘heads’ to be cut and regards workers in terms of McGregor’s (1960) Theory ‘X’. The staff are required to make comparisons with other organizations in terms of their products/services and this ‘skill’ appears to be aimed at generating new business opportunities. Thus, staff should be able to compare and contrast T Corporation’s products with other financial service providers for the purposes of selling. This skill presents ‘market relationships and market attitudes’ (du Gay et al., 1996: 267) as one of the major principles of the changes. It is unlikely, however, that the staff will be able to ‘treat customers as we like to be treated’

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by informing them of superior products/services when T Corporation’s are known to be inferior. In such instances, it is unlikely that the staff will be expected to behave with ‘integrity and trust’ and so the enterprise discourse is problematic and reinforces hierarchical relations. Commodifying relations The second skill, ‘Business Development’, tasks the staff to demonstrate their ability ‘to promote and/or sell a service or product to external and internal customers’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix). It promotes the individual that ‘actively seeks sales opportunities and generates business across a variety of market segments. Coordinates business plans and supports and motivates others to achieve business goals’ (ibid.; emphasis added). This ‘skill’ dovetails with du Gay’s (1996) depiction of the ‘enterprise culture’ whereby ‘certain enterprising qualities – such as self-reliance, personal responsibility, boldness and a willingness to take risks in the pursuit of goals – are regarded as human virtues’ (ibid.: 56). It also fits with what Collinson and Hearn (1994) describe as a masculine ‘entrepreneurialism’, which stresses a ‘highly competitive approach to business and organization’ (ibid.: 14). Yet, such ‘virtues’ are tied to a narrow remit of corporate profitability and individuals are required to be enterprising and proactive but only insofar as this reinforces corporate goals. Endeavours to resist or improve the QWL for oneself and fellow ‘internal customers’ (i.e. other members of staff ) is not on the ‘agenda’ (Lukes, 1974). Relations are commodified, for everyone, even fellow workers, are to be seen as potential customers. Each employee is an individualized, autonomous, enterprising functionary in search of his or her next sale. All and everything is deemed to be subservient to, and subsumed within, this quest for business development. If, in Chapter 2, the strategy discourse had prioritized job security, improved terms and conditions of employment and enhanced QWL, one might expect a quid pro quo, whereby the staff in return, work towards the ‘makers’’ designs. Yet, given the almost total disregard for the staff and their working lives, it seems staggering that so much should now be expected from the staff. Indeed, double standards appear to be at work. This is evident in the ‘skill criteria’ for ‘Customer Service’, which is based on ‘Understanding internal and external customer requirements, taking appropriate action to build relationships based on trust and confidence’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix). We can observe that the staff are required to build ‘trust’ with both internal and external customers; however, the differences between the strategy and implementation discourses suggest that there is little basis for ‘trust and confidence’ in terms of the relationship between the ‘makers’ and the staff. Second, in terms of job design, there is little evidence of ‘trust’ on the part of the ‘makers’ who sought to eliminate employee discretion in the ASCs. Third, given that every relationship is to become a sales opportunity, there appears to be little ground for ‘relationships based on trust’ between the staff or between the staff

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and customers. This ‘Customer Service’ skill also seeks to tap into and control employee ‘emotions’ (Fineman, 1996, 2000), thereby modelling an employee who Shows empathy in a wide range of customer situations. Inspires confidence and takes ownership of resulting actions. Retains goodwill in adverse circumstances. (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix) In this scenario, ‘empathy’ is presented as a commodity that can be switched on and off as if the staff are cyborgs. It stresses the importance of ‘relations’ but this sits uneasily with the enterprising, individualized self, which elevates sales above all else. What if empathy leads to the recognition of shared suffering on the part of ‘internal customers’ (fellow employees) and trade union action to challenge such suffering? What if empathy with customers leads the staff to promote a different financial service provider who may offer a better service? That these questions present scenarios that would be unacceptable to management lays bare both the exercise of power and the attempt to commodify empathy. Thus, one can show empathy but only in a way that advances narrowly defined business interests. The strategy discourse revealed a complete absence of empathy on the part of the ‘makers’ towards the staff and, indeed, a number of managers appeared to be unable to comprehend questions regarding the experience of work for the staff. It seems then that a masculine strategy that lays claim to rationality is concurrently seeking to ensnare the emotional and the intuitive. Such contradictions and flaws illuminate that power is exercised in inconsistent ways and this could provide the basis for challenging the ‘makers’. Such limitations are rarely acknowledged by advocates (Peters and Waterman, 1982) of enterprise and have rarely been scrutinized by its critics (e.g. du Gay and Salaman, 1992) but they raise important insights into the problems and obstacles facing the exercise of power through such means (see Fournier and Grey, 1999; McCabe, 2000). Sharing the machine logic One of the most intriguing ‘skills’ that management promoted was ‘Decision Making’ that involves ‘identifying issues, obtaining relevant information and making realistic decisions based on fact and logical assumption’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix). This ‘skill’ promotes the employee who adopts a rational, ordered approach to examining and solving problems. The emphasis ‘on fact and logical assumption’ cloaks the skill in scientific neutrality, whilst reinforcing asymmetrical relations. It ignores how ‘facts and logical assumptions’ are grounded in a particular corporate view of the world that rules out alternative ways of understanding rationality or ‘ends’ other than profitability (see Alvesson, 1984; Bryman, 1984). It elevates the individual that:

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This ‘skill’ advances the notion of empowerment whilst simultaneously curtailing autonomy beyond that prescribed by management. Thus, one can ‘analyse information’, identify ‘key factors’, ‘consider options’ and take ‘decisions’ but only ‘within guidelines and procedures’ delineated from above. Anything ‘outside’ of one’s ‘own area of responsibility’ is out of bounds and is to be ‘referred’. We can see then that such fact gathering and ‘logical assumption’ is tied to a narrow perspective defined by the ‘makers’. Such constraints on employee autonomy and responsibility prescribe and limit the ability of the staff to use their ‘initiative’. It contradicts the notion of the ‘entrepreneurial self ’ for whom ‘work is no longer necessarily a constraint upon the freedom of the individual to fulfil his or her potential through striving for autonomy, creativity and responsibility’ (Miller and Rose, 1990: 27). It should be noted that such circumscription is evident in relation to all of the ‘skills’ for they set in train particular ways of being while ruling others out. The decision-making ‘skill’ draws on a particular understanding of ‘fact and logical assumptions’. The ‘makers’ are steeped in a mechanical, business reason and any an alternative rationality that saves jobs or renders work more rewarding is simply not within their worldview or subjectivity. It is not ‘based on fact and logical assumption’. They are immersed in a subjectivity that they believe to be rational because, from where they stand, within the discourse, all is natural and as it should be. This skill seeks to secrete this rationality to the staff whereby they accept in a taken-for-granted way that they are not to question the corporate worldview and issues that are asserted to be ‘outside’ their ‘own area of responsibility’. Constituting the autonomous automaton A number of the skills espoused through the CBIs appealed to, and seemingly fostered, individual autonomy. The staff were assessed on the basis of their ability to display their ‘initiative’ or in terms of ‘identifying opportunities and taking action to improve own and/or work unit’s performance’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996). It promotes the individual who ‘questions the effectiveness of existing work practices’ and ‘suggests alternatives to improve overall work unit standards and procedures’ (ibid.). There is, however, a threshold beyond which the staff are unable to question work practices, for, to a large extent, rules, procedures and specific working conditions have already been defined. The ‘skill’ of ‘questioning work practices’ is also shackled because it only refers to ‘improving work unit standards and procedures’ when this improves the ‘work unit’s performance’. Questioning work practices to improve QWL in ways that do not improve the unit’s ‘performance’ is prohibited. Of

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course, the two are not mutually exclusive but the priority is clearly on business performance. The weight attached to improving the ‘work unit’s performance’ as an outlet for one’s initiative, delimits autonomy and rules out any challenge to the status quo. The paradox is that the staff are instructed to use their ‘initiative’ and so autonomy is hindered and fettered at every turn. The ninth skill, ‘planning and organizing’, seeks to produce staff who are capable of ‘establishing an appropriate course of action for self and/or others to accomplish a specific goal’ (ibid.). This skill ostensibly nurtures the autonomous self as one ‘organises own time and completes work to schedule’ and ‘assesses the relative importance of competing priorities. Creates plans for self and/or others to ensure effort is focused on key tasks’ (ibid.). The severe restrictions that have been imposed on work in the ASCs, however, as articulated in Chapter 2, illuminate the fictitious nature of such autonomy. The nurturing of this skill suggests that there are benefits to be gained from the staff understanding themselves as autonomous. However, rather than a conscious deceit, the ‘makers’ may well believe that autonomy resides in each nut and bolt, performing its role and function as per their instruction. Thus, one is autonomous or empowered to the extent that one correctly performs a prescribed role (see McCabe and Knights, 2000). A belief in the autonomous self ‘can be understood as a form of cultural reproduction which helps to contribute towards social reproduction in general’ (Willis, 1977: 185). Thus, it is appealing to think of ourselves as being able to determine or organize our ‘own time’; or of making decisions regarding ‘the relative importance of competing priorities’ and ‘planning’ for oneself and others. But, as we shall see and have seen, such autonomy is largely a myth in the context of T Corporation. It may well be that such skills are dangerous for management, for when autonomy is simultaneously elevated and curtailed, staff may become increasingly frustrated and begin to question the regime that offers them so little freedom (Knights and McCabe, 2003). The obstacle to the staff using their ‘initiative’ and their limited autonomy is vividly evident in the ‘work standards’ skill that emphasises ‘Producing high standards of work to achieve productivity/quality targets for self and/or others’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix). This skill celebrates the individual who ‘Takes pride in and personal responsibility for completing own work accurately to established standards’ (ibid.; emphasis added). No distinction is drawn between ‘established standards’ or the requirements set by others and ‘own work’. Each member of staff is therefore required to internalize work standards that are set by others as if they have set them for themselves and are to understand them as their ‘own’. The corporate and the non-work self are to be as one. To take ‘pride’ and ‘responsibility’ for ‘producing high standards of work’ for ‘self and/or others’ in ways that fail to meet the ‘established standards’, as set by the ‘makers’, is seemingly unthinkable and is likely to result in disciplinary action. The individual who exhibits the ‘work standards’ skill ‘Demonstrates consistent thoroughness to achieve high standards of work as pressures increase’ (ibid.). As ‘pressures increase’, individuals are to respond with unerring consistency. The thinking cog is to glow with pride as ‘high standards’ and increasing

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demands continue to be met. The individual is consumed by the corporate self and ‘Maintains high standards of performance for self and/or team at all times. Takes responsibility for upholding quality and productivity within the work unit’ (ibid.). The team, the individual and T Corporation are represented as a single entity. A feverish unity is to prevail whereby the staff respond to the demands of the machine but must simultaneously think of themselves as autonomous and displaying initiative. Herein lies a problem, for, if ‘pressures increase’, the unhappy cog may feel that quality is being sacrificed, and, if he/she ‘takes pride in and personal responsibility’ for their work, then one might expect the staff to begin to challenge the ‘makers’’ demands. Yet, there is no scope to do so because the work standards ‘skill’ requires ever-greater effort in the face of increasing pressure in order to meet ‘established standards’. The skill and the thinking that informs it therefore militate against dissent. A vicious cycle is set up whereby self-destruction in order to satisfy work demands would come before a challenge to the ‘makers’. Teamwork and team leadership ‘Teamwork and team leadership’ is the final skill/attribute that the ‘makers’ sought to nurture through the CBIs. It involves ‘Working co-operatively and sensitively with others to achieve team goals’ (ibid.). All of the skills outlined so far require the staff to make a project of themselves. A standard is set against which they are measured and must measure others but also themselves. In this way, the staff are to be enrolled into a corporate subjectivity whereby they forge themselves anew as a subject that ‘calculates about itself, and that works upon itself in order to better itself ’ (Rose, 1989: 7–8). This ‘better self ’, whilst individualized and isolated from others, is to show ‘a pleasant enthusiastic and helpful manner when working with colleagues. Shares knowledge and experience with others’ (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix). The cog is not only to work itself remorselessly, and make a project of itself for corporate ends, but is to smile whilst doing so. The wage-slaves are to sing in their chains and each member of staff is to ‘share knowledge and experience with others’ (ibid.) as Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) advocate through Knowledge Management. It seems that ‘effective teamwork rests on the collaborative and supportive work attitudes that we often label as female’ (Metcalfe and Linstead, 2003: 97) but this ignores how teamwork in T Corporation ‘is underpinned by masculinist discourses’ (ibid.) evident in the strategy discourse. The individual with this ‘skill’: Actively contributes to the team. Creates a co-operative pleasant yet hardworking atmosphere. Assists colleagues to meet deadlines and standards. (Branch Staff Replacement Guide, March 1996, Appendix) The concern is to tap into and encourage the use of interactive and emotional skills. This provides some indication of the barriers to the enterprise discourse, as shall be explored in the next two chapters. Thus, emotions and the interactive

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capacity of individuals can be used for as well as against corporate interests. They cannot be tied down and packaged in neat, manageable chunks. Emotions and our capacity to interact are ‘part of the “unmanaged organisation”, those aspects of organisational life, emotion and symbolism which resist attempts to control them’ (Gabriel, 1993: 138). The anxiety generated by the redundancies and the CBIs could well trigger dissent as much as obedience. The above extract is interesting because it suggests that teamwork is desirable in terms of creating a ‘co-operative pleasant’ atmosphere but this is not an end in itself. Teamwork is only desirable if it leads to a ‘hardworking atmosphere’. Teamwork, for the relief and enjoyment of the staff, is acceptable but only insofar as the happy machines work hard. Thus, teamwork comes second to a masculine preoccupation with ‘improving performance’ (Metcalfe and Linstead, 2003: 104). One has to remember that teamwork was only an afterthought or an adjunct to job design in the ASC, and, therefore, creating ‘a co-operative pleasant’ atmosphere may be problematic when one is working in a highly fragmented, repetitive and individualized way.

Summary This chapter has explored the implementation discourse that stands in stark contrast to the strategy discourse introduced in Chapter 2. The latter emphasizes cost cutting, maximum headcount reduction, reduced staff discretion, task repetition and the elimination of opportunities ‘for staff to invent local practices’. The implementation discourse stresses customer service, employee empowerment through decision-making, the ability of the staff to use their initiative, teamwork and responsibility. The strategy discourse reflects unadulterated managerialism, spoken and written by ‘makers’ for ‘makers’. Although it seems to disappear during the introduction of change, at times, when the audience was managerial, it re-appeared, as in the Managers’ Guide for Branch Re-Organisation. The two discourses ran concurrently depending on which audience was deemed to be listening but it is not evident that a single, unified force was behind them or that the management understood their contradictions. The strategy discourse did not justify the changes on the basis of enhanced customer service or service quality but the implementation discourse sold the changes in precisely this way. This shift reveals how ‘a multiplicity of discursive elements can come into play in various strategies’ (Foucault, 1979: 100) but it also elucidates their interconnectedness. Thus, neither elevated QWL issues and both reflected narrow business-related concerns. The strategy discourse creaks with a mechanized logic that at best considers the staff as entities to be bolted onto the machine. It attends only to the ‘exchange value’ of the staff whereby workers are reduced ‘to the status of commodities’ and the concern is to ‘abolish all dependence on the workers’ own skill and initiative’ so as to secure control (Cressey and MacInnes, 1980: 14). The implementation discourse by contrast employed an entirely different vocabulary that can be compared with the enterprise discourse (du Gay and Salaman, 1992). The implementation discourse recognizes that the corporate machine

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needs to be maintained and oiled by willing robots. Individuals who will harness their labour power in the service of the machine. Such individuals, although far from human, must be engaged and fabricated as if they are human. Taken to its extreme, if everyone imbibed the implementation discourse and was recast through it, then the staff would be stamped out in a standardized way, like so many bottle caps. Rather than viewing the staff as powerless automata, the implementation discourse sought to seduce the staff into using their ‘labour power’ for the ‘makers’. Although not immediately apparent, the implementation discourse reveals the power that the ‘replicants’ could exercise should they have the will to do so. It is indicative of the ‘use-value’ of staff in contradiction to its ‘exchange value’ (Cressey and MacInnes, 1980: 14). Hence, the implementation discourse stresses the need to engage the productive capacity of employees, which cannot be unleashed if management attempts to control their every movement as was attempted through the strategy discourse. The implementation discourse reflects that in practice workers cannot be entirely subdued or controlled and so management needs to ensure that employees exercise power in ways that are supportive of, or at least not opposed to, their designs. Consequently, management must seek to minimize ‘antagonism’ and develop a ‘cooperative relationship’ (ibid.: 15). Contemporary management thinking has recognized the need to empower employees, so as to tap into their creative potential, for some time (Peters and Waterman, 1982; Deming, 1986). In subsequent chapters, we explore the tensions thrown up by the contradictions between the strategic and implementation discourses. The stark contrast between the two reveals that the makers are not acting in a unified, consistent or thought-through way whereby a coherent scheme of control is conceived, constructed and rolled out as traditional labour process theorists tend to suggest (e.g. Braverman, 1974; Marglin, 1977; Parker and Slaughter, 1988; Delbridge et al., 1992). It is intriguing that the strategy discourse presented a Taylorist vision of the workforce that seemed to target parttime, unskilled, female employees whilst the CBIs sought to construct a universal employee that uses their initiative, takes responsibility and acts in enterprising ways through teamwork. This latter discourse can be understood to be equally prejudicial against women. Thus, ‘commitment to the group’s job can be translated into the willingness to invest the maximum amount of time and energy – an expectation that is hard to meet for people with care responsibilities’ (Benschop and Doorewaard, 1998: 10). The next chapter provides an overview of the impact of the restructuring programme for employees working in the ASCs. It does so through exploring the introduction of a World Class Customer Service (WCCS) intervention that sought to improve standards of service delivery in the ASCs. The WCCS programme can be understood as adding to and building upon the implementation discourse. Importantly, it highlights further unintended consequences around the ‘makers’’ attempts to exercise power. It considers the dangers and limitations of discourses that seek to reconstitute staff subjectivity and how humans display the annoying tendency to question those who seek to program or re-make them.

4

Mechanizing emotions

In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s classic dystopian novel, ‘We’, set in the twenty-sixth century, he describes the regimented totalitarian society of OneState that is ruled over by the omnipotent ‘Benefactor’. Written in 1920–1921, this ‘futuristic’ work is a thinly disguised critique of the Stalin regime but its language and concerns eerily accord with the pervasive spread of ‘managerialism’ discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Managerialism, according to Deetz (1992), displays ‘an interest in efficiency, rationality, and significantly no visible conflict-all of which are means that become ends in themselves. In managerialism this motive subdues alternative ones’ (ibid.: 225). In Chapter 2’s analysis of the strategy discourse, we saw the ‘makers’ of T Corporation adopt a rationality that elevated repetition, efficiency and cost reduction in a way that rubbed out alternative considerations. In Chapter 3, we observed the emergence of an implementation discourse that stressed customer service, responsibility, quality, initiative and teamwork. Rather than signifying an entirely new approach, it appeared to be bound up with fabricating a new subjectivity whilst crushing alternative ways of being. Though not necessarily in a conscious way, the implementation discourse can be understood as a ‘means to tap into a reservoir of unutilized human talent and energies as an easier and more effective means of managerial control’ (ibid.: 231). The implementation discourse is wedded to a new corporate subjectivity based around the mythical notion of ‘We’. I say mythical because, as in Zamyatin’s novel, ‘We’ refers to the narrow demands and dictates of the Benefactor or the ‘makers’, it does not encompass wider concerns and interests such as QWL, democracy and equality, which may be seen as a threat to profit or cost control. In Zamyatin’s novel ‘Men [sic] have finally become, if not actually machines, as machine-like as possible, utterly predictable and completely happy. All the messy inconvenience of freedom has been eliminated. Mere details, a final touch-up here and there, one last adjustment – these are all that remain’ (Brown, 1992: 21; Introduction to We). It is a world where the ‘makers’ have almost succeeded in designing deviance out of the world. Thus, everyone awakes at a set hour ‘as though we were one. At the very same hour, millions of us as one, we start work. Later, millions as one, we stop. And then, like one body with a million hands, at one and the same second . . . we lift the spoon to our lips. And

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at one and the same second we leave for a stroll and go to the auditorium, to the hall for the Taylor exercises, and then to bed’ (Zamyatin, 1992: 13). In this ‘new’ world, F.W. Taylor is seen as a ‘prophet’ and ‘the genius of antiquity’ whose methods have been extended ‘over the whole of life, over every step you take right around the clock’ (ibid.: 34). Even sexual intercourse is allocated a designated time. The world is policed by phantom-like Guardians who materialize at any given moment, huge listening devices are deployed that record and screen conversations. Glass walls enable total surveillance, creating a living Panopticon where ‘almost’ every action is observed (Foucault, 1977). The privacy of blinds is available only on a Sex Day ‘Otherwise we live in broad daylight inside these walls that seem to have been fashioned out of bright air, always on view’ (Zamyatin, 1992: 19). Resistance is seen as pathological and only occurs when ‘some bolt has gotten bent’ (Zamyatin, 1992: 15) but such bolts or individuals are ‘easy to repair . . . without bringing to a halt the great eternal progress of the whole Machine’ (ibid.). Everything then, is as the ‘makers’ of T Corporation would wish it to be. Deviation has seemingly been eliminated, repetition is the norm, the freedom to stray from corporate instructions has been eradicated. Zamyatin’s world is quite literally a world without names or individuals where people are known only by their ‘numbers’. The key character is D-503, the designer of the INTEGRAL, a space craft built to spread the word or world view of the Benefactor across the universe, as the State Gazette explains: It is for you to place the beneficial yoke of reason round the necks of the unknown beings who inhabit other planets-still living, it may be, in the primitive state known as freedom. If they will not understand that we are bringing them a mathematically infallible happiness, we shall be obliged to force them to be happy. But before taking up arms, we shall try what words can do. (Zamyatin, 1992: 3) Zamyatin describes D-503’s struggle to come to terms with the insurgence advocated by the beautiful leader of ‘an elusive organization whose goal is liberation from the beneficent yoke of the state’ (ibid.: 36). D-503 regards this organization and its members as criminals that threaten his happy life where ‘You see yourself as part of an immense, powerful, single thing’ (ibid.: 34) which is ‘divinely rational and precise’ (ibid.: 68). Only his lust/love for its revolutionary leader 1-330 threatens his state of bliss where ‘We’ is good and ‘I’ is bad. D-503’s rational world has ‘no place for randomness’ for ‘there can’t be any surprises’ (ibid.: 132) and his subjectivity is threatened by 1-330 who spreads passion and capriciousness that ruptures his ordered world. As with managerialism, the world of OneState is threatened by emotion, for ‘Emotional expressions always mess up the calculus and thus (unless used as calculable strategic ploys) are to be eliminated’ (Deetz, 1992: 226). The design of the ASCs discussed in Chapter 2 would certainly meet with

Mechanizing emotions 69 D-503’s approval for he derives comfort from his ordered life. Yet, even the Benefactor and his Guardians are unable to squeeze out uncertainty and resistance from his world. Thus, from the time that D-503 meets 1-330, his predictable world is thrown into turmoil. This chapter will explore how T Corporation’s ‘makers’ have also been frustrated in their concern to eliminate resistance and unpredictability. As we shall see, unlike D-503, the employees of T Corporation are not simply consumed by the vision of the ‘makers’. D-503 finds the thought of resisting the ‘Benefactor’, or of questioning the rational order, agonizing. It tortures him for it runs contrary to the logical world that he inhabits. It threatens the mechanistic subjectivity that he has imbibed and that the ‘makers’ have sought to fashion in T Corporation (albeit in contradictory ways): I’m like a machine being run over its RPM limit: The bearings are overheating-a minute longer, and the metal is going to melt and start dripping and that’ll be the end of everything. I need a quick splash of cold water, logic. I pour it on in buckets, but the logic hisses on the hot bearings. (Zamyatin, 1993: 130) D-503 finds his view of the world ripped apart by the emotions that 1-330 stimulates in him for anything other than how things ‘are’ is deemed irrational and illogical. D-503’s anguish and nascent resistance, or as he sees it, his ‘sickness’, stem from the birth pains he experiences as he tears himself away from the subjectivity of ‘We’. In his world, as in the world of T Corporation’s ‘makers’, ‘everybody and I add up to the one We’ (ibid.: 133). To resist, to reject ‘We’, requires D-503 to become something other than what he is and this is incomprehensible for it is to ‘suppose the impossible, by which I mean some kind of dissonance in our usual monophony’ (ibid.). And yet, at least briefly, he is able to stop ‘being one of many, the way I’d always been’ and becomes ‘just one’ (ibid.: 151). Thus, he is able to question the single worldview, the divine order of OneState until, that is, the ‘Benefactor’ or the ‘makers’ discover a way to quell rebellion and restore order. The means to achieve this is through an enforced lobotomy whereby D-503’s imagination is removed. Thus, D-503, once again, becomes WE and the promise of the NEW CORPORATION is fulfilled and so ‘REJOICE’: Up until this day your offspring, the machines, were more perfect than you. . . . The mechanism has no imagination. . . . But you are not to blame. You are sick. The name of your illness is: IMAGINATION . . . you are cured of imagination . . . You are perfect, you are the equal of the machine. (Ibid.: 172–173) The empirical material to follow explores an attempt to reinforce and institutionalize the implementation discourse discussed in Chapter 3. The staff are to be remade as ‘We’ through a programme called World Class Customer Service

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(WCCS). It is the equivalent of the lobotomy that aims to remove ‘Man’s last imperfection, the imagination’ (Brown, 1992: 21). In this instance, the imagination represents our capacity and willingness to resist; our ability to see the world in ways other than that which the ‘makers’ intend. Yet, that the ‘makers’ consider it necessary to introduce WCCS is indicative of the implementation discourse having at least partly failed. Thus, the staff were not reinvented through the CBIs. They did not unquestioningly accept the new order, and so the unexpected and the potential for resistance remains.

World Class Customer Service (WCCS) In 1997, two years after setting up the ASCs, Paul Scott, the overall Head of the ASCs, introduced a WCCS innovation that was rationalized and presented as a means to improve customer service. Twelve members of staff were selected from the eight ASCs to undergo ‘train the trainer’ courses to enable them to facilitate oneday staff workshops for all the ASC staff. A letter to these facilitators from Terry Venables, the WCCS project manager, on 4 November 1997, stated as follows: 1

2

You have been selected to facilitate on this workshop because of the attributes you display at work. Well done for being chosen and for accepting the role of facilitator. Across all ASC sites Management and Supervisors will be supportive in dealing with all issues arising. For the purposes of maintaining a common approach, all good ideas, suggestions or even concerns raised in each workshop should be channelled through your Centre Manager. We are particularly interested in receiving inspiring statements which may be used as WCCS wall messages. (emphasis added)

That ‘inspiring statements’ were expected from the WCCS workshops suggests that a positive response was anticipated and the likelihood of ‘concerns’ or negative feedback/outcomes appears to have been minimal. Paul Scott personally introduced the first WCCS course to the first group of staff. After his initial ‘personal’ introduction, at the start of each course, participants were given a ‘written’ message from Paul as follows: Dear Colleague World Class Customer Service You have probably heard people talking about athletes being ‘world class’, world class being a superlative to describe a small number of outstanding performers. Businesses also get grouped into performance categories, including ‘world class’. It is my belief that we can put the ASC service into such a distinguished

Mechanizing emotions 71 position but only if everybody is aware of what we need to do and is fully committed to the aim. I am therefore delighted to invite you to an ASC World Class Customer Service Workshop. This is an opportunity for each of us to break from our regular daily activities and spend time with other ASC colleagues identifying how we can deliver a level of service to our customers which can be considered to be ‘world class’ (emphasis added). This opening letter frames the workshops in relation to the sovereign customer and it is written using the ‘unitary’ (Fox, 1974) language of ‘We’. This ‘We’ is wielded by Paul Scott on behalf of T Corporation. Yet, other than in legal terms, T Corporation is not an entity such as ‘the Benefactor’. It is a cloak behind which CEOs and managers hide especially when exercising power or attempting to obscure the exercise of power, although they may not do so consciously. The WCCS workshops reinforce the implementation or ‘enterprise’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992) discourse by elevating customer service and urging the staff to take responsibility through becoming an ‘outstanding performer’ or, in other words, ‘excellent’ (Peters and Waterman, 1982). Yet, the ‘makers’ conceived the ASCs as ‘factories’, and this is hardly conducive to releasing staff potential. Indeed, the ‘makers’’ intention was ‘not’ to allow any deviation from the norm. The only ‘outstanding’ performance that the ‘makers’ had in mind, at least at the design stage, was a repetitive one. It seems, therefore, that the WCCS workshops require the staff, as replicants, to exult in such repetition. Each WCCS workshop included a series of exercises and activities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. During the first part of the course from 10 to 10.40 a.m., its Aims were elaborated as follows: To initiate a move towards World Class Customer Service by considering: What WCCS means in an ASC environment. What needs to happen for the Centres to deliver WCCS. What is our part in delivering WCCS. What to do next. The second session, ‘What is WCCS?’ scheduled from 10.40 to 11.50 a.m., asked what is customer service; what is world class; what is the difference between operating quality and service quality; how good is ASC service quality? And who are our customers? In line with the enterprise discourse, the distinction was once again drawn between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ customers, and it was explained that ‘everyone’ needs to be viewed as a ‘customer’. The third session, scheduled from 11.50 a.m. to 1.00 p.m., entitled ‘The Individual and the Team’, sought to ‘draw links between the concept of WCCS and how we manage ourselves and our relationships’ (Trainer Notes, p. 1; emphasis added). This inclusive and ‘unitary’ (Fox, 1974) language (‘we’ and ‘our’) was drawn upon throughout the course and yet the ‘makers’ designed and introduced the course without consultation. Power was not exercised in an inclusive way

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and the target for change was staff subjectivity. The staff were required to reflect on how ‘we manage ourselves’ and so their sense of self or identity was the material upon which the workshops sought to labour. This part of the course was to take thirty minutes discussing task, team and individual concerns. The intention was to promote an equal emphasis on the ‘task’, ‘team’ and the ‘individual’. The staff were asked to assess how much time and effort goes into each of these issues and to allocate a mark for them out of 100. The meaning of these terms was articulated as follows: Task: (ASC processes and procedures). Team: (ASC Interaction with other departments, branches etc. [although this could include the interaction of the sections/teams within a Centre]). Individual: (how we deal with each other as individuals within a centre; within peer groups, manager/supervisor to subordinate, subordinate to manager/supervisor). (Trainer Notes, p. 2) The ‘trainer notes’ inform the trainer/facilitator that these issues are ‘usually’ ranked in order of importance as task (95), team (60) and the individual (40). The facilitator was then required to link them to a plan for achieving WCCS. Each group was divided and was asked to explore ‘The Team’ and ‘The individual’ considering the following: 1

2

The Reality – to describe what is happening now, and what are the thoughts and feelings they (staff ) have that caused them to indicate the score they gave. The Fantasy – to describe what the ‘ideal’ would look like, what would be happening, what would not happen. (Trainer Notes, p. 3)

At this stage, the courses had gone largely as planned. The ‘training notes’ express that developing a discussion could be problematic and ‘may require some facilitation from the trainer to get things moving’ (Training Notes, p. 3; emphasis added). This is illuminating because it indicates that it was not anticipated that the staff would have much to say. Groups were to spend thirty minutes brainstorming and preparing a presentation based on their findings. A further thirty minutes was to be spent presenting the findings and discussing them. It was at this point that resistance began to break out, for the facilitators could not contain this hour-long discussion and it ultimately became the course. The Head of the ASCs recalled as follows: Nobody knew how much [work] each site was doing so I put in a system called Time Capture, which meant that every single member of staff records how much work they do. And so every single month we’d go through with each individual their successes and failures and encourage them to do more

Mechanizing emotions 73 . . . that backlashed on me quite a lot. I put so much pressure on Time Capture that staff got pretty pissed off about it and I put in a series of meetings called World Class Customer Service. What is it we’ve got to do to deliver world class service? And we invited every single member of staff to a one-day seminar and we ran it with clerks. So that they (staff ), would genuinely say what they wanted to say, we had no managers. Or if managers were there, they were part of the session, they weren’t leading it. And out of that came that we’d developed a culture of focus on tasks and not on people. I, me personally, their vision was I was more interested in how many they did than whether they were right or not, it was killing them, etc, etc. A bit of a backlash on having to get it all squeezed in. Net result was and I’ve owned up to it. We had a series of management 2 day seminars where we refocused on why and how we manage people . . . looking more at the people focus rather than the task. Looking at the individual at bit more and we’ve done a lot of work on that in the last 6 months and I genuinely think people are more comfortable. I visit the sites personally. I go round. I talk to the staff. Clearly, when you are seen as the boss man they’re never going to be really open. Some are. In the main they’re going to be careful but in the main, I think that we are moving in the right direction with WCCS. (Paul Scott, 7.12.98) In the above extract, Paul suggested that ‘a culture’ that focused ‘on tasks not people’ had developed in a seemingly unplanned way and he appeared to be unaware of this situation prior to the WCCS programme. He asserted that the ‘Time Capture’ system (a method of recording individual work output) was the ‘single’ cause of the frustration but, as the discussion of the strategy discourse in Chapter 2 indicated, it is far more embedded than this single issue or explanation allows for. Paul’s belief that a two-day training course for managers in ‘people’ skills can resolve the situation appears naive. One could argue that the anger voiced by the staff is rooted in a network of power relations, which includes the original strategic thinking and job design. In the above extract, Paul accepted responsibility for the staff dissatisfaction; however, given the strategy discourse, it would be fallacious to apportion all of the blame to him. That he accepted full responsibility perhaps reflects his surprise at the staff ’s reaction, the scale of their displeasure and also his lack of understanding of the extent and depth of the issues involved. Some thirteen months after the problems were identified during the first WCCS workshops, he suggested that they had been largely resolved, for ‘people are more comfortable’ now and ‘we are moving in the right direction’. This interpretation presents the problems as marginal and local rather than structural or strategic. It should not be thought that WCCS was intended as an exercise in consultation or that it reflected a concern to understand the nature of the work experience in the ASCs. Instead, it was an endeavour to promote customer service through transforming staff subjectivity, but it resulted in such a major expression of discontent that the original purpose had to be abandoned. As we shall see, a large

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amount of investment and thought (no matter how ill-founded) went into the intervention and so the resistance must have been considerable for management to simply have aborted the programme: It was originally set as an exercise to see how we could improve service to the end customer and it never got that far and I’m delighted it got nabbed. But effectively, we had a session where they could have like, not a moaning session, but they could just give a bit of feedback on how they thought we were getting on and that took over the whole day. And within about the first 5 courses that became the course. So they all came forward and they all had a moan. So I had all the moans put together and I personally reviewed them all and I put a list of the 10 top moans and I said what we would do about each one. One of those was that we would re-educate management. Took personal responsibility. I said it was my fault we were like we were. So I didn’t try and blame it on someone else and I think that’s gone quite well. . . . Management and supervisors have all been on a training course. (Paul Scott, Head of ASCs, 7.12.98; emphasis added) Repetition of the word ‘moan’ to summarize the staff response seems to dismiss and de-legitimize their concerns. Just as Paul narrowly ascribed the problem to ‘Time Capture’ in a way that minimized the scale of the problem, the word ‘moan’ trivializes staff discontent. It suggests that the staff reaction was a temporary, emotional outburst – nothing that a management-training course could not resolve. In an unintended way, Paul’s rationalization directs attention and responsibility away from the ‘makers’ because, although the local ASC regime is not determined from on high, neither is it independent of earlier decision making. The staff reaction certainly took the ASC management by surprise and, in particular, ‘the strength of the feeling’ (Paul). This underscores how even operational ASC managers can be divorced from the experience of work: We really pulled people together to say ‘How do we improve customer service?’ But other issues came out and so we thought ‘We’ll address those other issues’. (Terry, ASC Manager, 4.9.98; emphasis added) In the face of resistance, the facilitators attempted to deliver the courses but they were unable to do so. One could speculate, given their close proximity to life in the ASCs, that it was in their interests to allow the situation to erupt. Nonetheless, according to Paul Scott, after the ‘first five courses’, the Reality to Fantasy part of the course, or where ‘they all had their moan’, became the course and so staff resistance reconfigured it. Even though the original course had to be abandoned, it is important to scrutinize the thinking behind it and the concern to re-shape staff subjectivity because it elucidates the intended exercise of power and the opposition that

Mechanizing emotions 75 resulted. It is also necessary to go beyond a superficial explanation for the course having failed – that it became a ‘moaning session’ or simply reflected the matter of ‘Time Capture’. To accept such an account obfuscates the content of the course, the staff grievances and the exercise of power that turned the course around. The WCCS course resonates with the implementation discourse most obviously because it stressed the importance of customer service even though this was marginal to the strategic discourse. It was premised on the staff taking responsibility for customer service failings but it was unable to enforce this premise. The course sought to manipulate the ‘agenda’ (Lukes, 1974) by removing the ‘makers’, and the ASC managers, as a potential source of the problem but it failed in its quest to do so. The course and its content In the 1.45 to 2.30 p.m. session, entitled ‘The Future – What Do We Want?’, employees were instructed to identify their customers – both internal and external – and to explore what they needed to do in order to deliver WCCS to them. The trainer’s notes for this session explain how the message should be communicated to the staff. It states ‘Often the behavioural change required is subtle, probably not a mammoth change’ (p. 3). The belief that the changes required were not significant reinforces just how ‘unexpected’ the staff disgruntlement was and also how removed the course was from the experience of work. The statement could also be read, however, as an attempt to assuage staff fears regarding the extent of the changes that are required of them – thereby staving of potential resistance. The session attended to how the staff need to change in order to deliver WCCS and thus the ‘problem’ was established in relation to refabricating ‘staff ’ subjectivity: In the next session we will examine: How we enable people (us) to make the adjustments to their behaviour that will allow WCCS to happen. (Trainer Notes, emphasis added) The above extract is intriguing for it is expressed from a position of authority and articulates the need for a collective (we, us) change but the only focus for change is the staff. Thus, it was only after the revolt that a course was introduced for managers and supervisors. After the initial training courses for the facilitators on 3 October 1997, the facilitators were already airing misgivings about this representation of the ‘problem’. Thus, a letter from the Training Department to the Project Manager, stated as follows: Facilitators raised the question of how WCCS will be taken forward. Whilst the workshops are designed to get people thinking about the personal changes they may need to make, the facilitators feel that people are bound to come up with ideas, concerns and suggestions during the workshops. (3.10.97, p. 1)

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Here we can observe the facilitators, in a muted way, challenging the rational of the WCCS programme ‘by problematizing the sense and the “truth” of the “language reform” desired by senior managers’ (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002: 628). Such cautionary soundings were ignored for the focus continued to be that the ‘staff ’ need to take responsibility for customer service failings. This is evident in the 2.30 to 4.30 p.m. session, entitled ‘From Reality to Fantasy’, the stated purpose of which was: 1 2

to demonstrate that if we are to achieve WCCS everyone, will need to adjust some part of their behaviour, to give participants the opportunity to consider what difficulties changing behaviour can evoke and ways to overcome them.

This session looks at the behavioural changes that all of us have to consider in order to move customer service towards WCCS. WCCS would seem to depend on how well we manage our relationships. The way we behave towards each other individually, within teams, and interdepartmentally impact the level of service we are able to give to our customers. (Trainer Notes, p. 1; emphasis added) This part of the programme represents an explicit endeavour to reconfigure subjectivity for ‘we need to rethink the way we do things’ and this requires ‘a change in behaviour’ (ibid.: 2). The language is again inclusive using ‘our’ and ‘we’ repeatedly and yet it is an initiative designed by management requiring only the staff to change and so the intended exercise of power is clear. Power, in this instance, is not exercised by ‘we’ but by the ‘makers’, or, in another context, ‘The Benefactor’ (Zamyatin, 1924/1993). The ‘“we” comes to express the “weness” of the firm defined in managerial terms rather than “we” as workers, as a group with an interest or point of view’ (Deetz, 1992: 229–230). Everyone is required to change, everyone that is, except ‘the makers’. The course explored ‘values’, ‘life rules (habits)’, ‘past experience’, ‘beliefs’, ‘culture’, ‘background’ and ‘upbringing’. Although ostensibly about customer service, it sought to tap into and remake major aspects of staff identity. Once we understand this, it is perhaps less surprising that things went so dramatically wrong. Thus, it is unlikely, even if the context had been favourable, that subjectivity could be so easily and quickly manipulated. The training notes illuminate the naivete of management as they attempted to meddle with complex issues such as ‘values’ on a one-day training course delivered by inexperienced amateurs (facilitators). The staff were required to identify and ask ‘Who I am’ and ‘What I do and how I do it’ (Trainer Notes, p. 3) on separate ‘flip charts’. From such psychological probing by unqualified facilitators, gaps were to be identified between the ‘values’ the staff hold and the ‘behaviours’ they engage in. Thus, the value of ‘honesty’ was offered as an example, and the trainer was required to ask the following:

Mechanizing emotions 77 Do we all hold honesty as a key value? Do we all believe that honesty is one of the values that say ‘who you are’? (emphasis added) And then, by way of illuminating the gap between values and behaviour so as to unsettle the staff and disrupt their pattern of thinking, the facilitator asked the following: How many of you have ever lied? (Trainer Notes, p. 3) The same procedure was followed for values such as politeness. The facilitator was required to state ‘We should always be polite to customers’ and follow this by asking, ‘Have you ever snapped at a customer, spoken in a sarcastic tone etc?’ (Trainer Notes, p. 4). These questions are intended to disturb how the staff understand themselves, thereby laying the foundation for a change in their subjectivity and behaviour. The explicit concern is to challenge the staff ’s sense of self, and this is evident in the following ‘summary’: We all have values and believe these say who we are to the outside world. What the outside world sees however is our behaviour, and this ‘advert’ for ME is often different to those values and beliefs I have about myself! This is also the difference between the WCCS we say we want to deliver and the reality as it is now. It would appear that what we say and what we do are different, this needs to change. (Trainer Notes, p. 4; emphasis added) The irony of the above extract is in the contrast between the strategy and implementation discourses. Thus, the ‘makers’ created the ASCs to cut costs and they imposed repetitive working conditions that eliminated staff discretion (what we do). Subsequently, through the implementation discourse, they espoused teamwork, responsibility, initiative, multi-skilling and customer service (what we say). Thus, in relation to the ‘makers’, ‘what we say and what we do are different’ but they appear to be unaware of this or of the contradictions enshrined in the discourses they deploy. This may be due to different managers and functional groups being responsible for different aspects of the organization. It appears to be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. It could also reflect the distance of the ‘makers’ from the experience of work. The WCCS discourse states that inconsistency ‘needs to change’; however, the focus for ‘change’ is the ‘staff ’ not the ‘makers’ or the organization they have created. Perhaps it was the attack upon the identity of the staff that explains the anger unleashed by the innovation? Perhaps it was the attempt to ascribe blame and responsibility to the staff that provoked outrage? Perhaps it was the contradictions that infused the ‘makers’’ discourses, which the staff are forced to live with? It could, of course, be a combination of these but another explanation

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could be the ‘sting’ (Cooper, 1983; Linstead, 1993) or the memory of the exercise of power left over from the initial restructuring. Thus, following the redundancies and imposition of change, the ‘sting’ of that enforced command lay waiting for ‘the chance to be rid of the original command, to avenge itself ’ (Linstead, 1993: 61). In Chapter 2, the staff were regarded as cyborgs who were there to work. In Chapter 3 and now in relation to WCCS, they are seen as programmable robots whose values and emotions can be switched on and off. Yet the robots rebelled and, while WCCS was intended to transmute staff subjectivity, it resulted in management having to rethink its approach. Rubbing out the resistant robot? Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves. (Nineteen-Eighty Four, Orwell, 1949: 269) The second part of the ‘From Reality to Fantasy’ course, sought ‘to illustrate the barrier between our behaviour, values, attitude that block our moving from where we are now to where we want to be’ (Trainer Notes p. 6; emphasis added). A number of ‘values’ were extolled, many of which chime with the implementation or ‘enterprise’ discourse articulated in Chapter 3: honesty, respect, loyalty, health, energy,

trust, compassion, determination, partnership, courage,

friendship, freedom, wealth, teamwork,

In a number of ways, the elevation of these ‘values’ reflects extraordinary double standards and ‘doublethink’ (the simultaneous avowal of contradictory beliefs) on the part of the ‘makers’. Consider the lack of ‘compassion’, ‘loyalty’ and ‘friendship’ that the ‘makers’ exhibited in Chapter 2 when seeking to maximize job losses and in their depiction of staff as ‘heads’. The absence of ‘compassion’ and ‘respect’ is also evident in the design of work that requires employees to toil in repetitive ways and in the concern to eliminate ‘high discretion’ jobs with its limitations on ‘freedom’. That workplace exercises had to be introduced to avoid repetitive stress injuries reveals that staff ‘health’ was only an afterthought. The ‘makers’ demonstrated an absence of ‘courage’ when designing the ASCs because they failed to consider imaginative alternatives that might have avoided drudgery and they did not challenge extant cultural conventions. There was little concern that monotonous work may sap and waste staff ‘energy’. The shift from the strategic to the implementation discourse calls into question the ‘honesty’ of management and raises doubts as to whether the staff

Mechanizing emotions 79 can ‘trust’ their claims and assertions. That managers apportioned blame for customer service failings to the staff also reveals a lack of ‘honesty’ and ‘courage’ on their part. The failure to involve the staff in the decision-making process belies any notion of ‘partnership’. There is little evidence, therefore, of the ‘makers’ demonstrating these ‘values’ even though they urged employees to do so. Doublethink is evident in that the ‘makers’ preached such values and yet contradicted them on a daily basis. Rather than simple hypocrisy, the ‘makers’ apparently believe in what they are doing and so hold contradictory beliefs and values. What should be clear is that the manipulation of these emotions ‘is a form of organizational control of the heart through which’ the staff are to be ‘welded to managerial interests’ (Mumby and Putnam, 1992: 427). The facilitators were prompted to ask ‘How do we ensure that in all our relationships with people our behaviour matches our values?’ and ‘What is it that stops us’ from doing so (Trainer Notes, p. 6)? If the makers had asked such a question of themselves, it would have been better placed. The answer ascribes responsibility/blame to the staff for the lack of consistency and this helps us understand the resistance that resulted: One step is to ask ourselves some searching questions as to why we sometimes feel we want to hold on to the way things are now: e.g. What do I get out of the current reality? Why don’t I want to let go? Is there something I feel I might lose if it changes? (Trainer Notes, p. 6) The staff were required to look ‘inwards’ to account for the absence of WCCS thereby exonerating the ‘makers’. Yet, it might have been more apt for the ‘makers’ to ask themselves ‘Why don’t I want to let go?’. That is to say, why are they unwilling to allow the staff greater discretion? Why was Taylorist thinking allowed to dominate in terms of job design? Why do the ‘makers’ cling to McGregor’s (1960) theory ‘X’-type thinking? That the staff refused to be scapegoats, and to re-write their subjectivity, provides a far more damning explanation for the course having failed than that the staff wanted to ‘moan’ or that the use of ‘Time Capture’ went too far. As we shall see, the concern of the WCCS course was not so much that ‘team members must at all times play down emotions and sensibilities’ (Metcalfe and Linstead, 2003: 103) but rather that certain emotions are to be controlled and some are to be silenced. The course appeared to countenance the possibility of resistance but dismissed it as ‘moaning and whining’. It sought to establish ‘rules about how to feel and how to express feelings’ (Hochschild, 1983 in Mumby and Putnam, 1992: 472) but there was no opportunity for establishing intimacy through expressing alternative viewpoints, which might be regarded as legitimate. The facilitators were required to dismiss opposition as ‘negative’:

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Part I When something upsets us, puts us out we feel negative and the negative feeling can become a habit, even when we have dealt with the original issue. It can be difficult not to be influenced by others – what we would call the atmosphere i.e. it can be hard to be positive when everyone else appears to be moaning and whining. It is doubtful that anyone consciously decides to be negative, indeed, why should they, when at best this state of mind makes us feel uncomfortable. (Trainer Notes, p. 7; emphasis added)

The above extract notes the possibility of resistance or of being ‘negative’ but offers no tangible explanation for why staff should behave in this way. Thus, it is ‘doubtful’ that someone would ‘consciously’ decide to be ‘negative’ or resist. Indeed, the ‘makers’ asked ‘Why should they?’ – there being no conceivable grounds for doing so. These training instructions seek to strip away the legitimacy of resistance. Indeed, that resistance is equated with negativity speaks volumes. Nonetheless, after the course collapsed, there was some recognition of the legitimacy of staff resistance, albeit briefly, because it was acknowledged that the staff have been ‘neglected’: Paul:

Darren: Paul:

I launched the very first WCCS course personally and I went back for feedback and they [the facilitators] like threw their hands up in horror and said it was terrible. We got absolutely pasted and so straight away realised that we had to do something. We’ll take a bit of credit for doing something about it quickly but I cannot take any credit for sitting at home and thinking that would be a good idea ’cos I was focused on, I thought, the man in the street (customers). How can I make it better for him? I thought the sessions would be about the staff come along and say ‘Why don’t we change the process like this’, so that we can make it better for the man in the street. Not better for me own clerks. We concluded, very quickly, that we would never make it better for the man in the street while we had feeling between management and the staff ’cos you just can’t do it can you? It just transmits. Just a blocker. What is that blocker? I’m no better for this I think we’ve got two ears and one mouth but sometimes you would think it was the other way round. And I think that management need to listen to what the staff say and I have to say that coming through the Bank for so long I would have thought that telling people was the way to do things and that was our culture. (Paul Scott, Head of ASCs, 7.12.98; emphasis added)

Paul’s earlier representation of dissenters as ‘moaners’ sits uneasily with his emphasis on ‘listening’. Nonetheless, he confessed that he had not been thinking about the staff (‘me own clerks’) when designing the WCCS programme, only external customers. Nor was he aware of what it was like to live and work in the

Mechanizing emotions 81 ASCs. Thus, there appears to be a similarity between the WCCS programme and the strategy discourse, for both disregarded the experience of work for the staff. The metaphor of managers having two mouths and only one ear seems phantasmagorically apt, although ‘no’ ears seems to be more appropriate. The image of managers having ‘two mouths’ also neatly sums up the disparity between the strategic and implementation discourses. Paul suggested that authoritarianism is central to the culture of which he is a part. Yet this admission and self-reflection was short-lived for he all too readily shifted position, labelling the staff ‘moaners’ and depicting their resistance in relatively superficial ways. WCCS: A manifesto for revolution? Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to [T Corporation], and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. (Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Orwell, 1949: 220–221) It is worth reflecting on the meaning of being ‘negative’ as it was presented on the course. Negative did not refer to the creation of repetitive work or to managers who seek to maximize job losses. Instead, it is bound up with eliminating dissent or the negative states, Grief, Fear, Anger, Pride that are involved with our ‘Opposition’. (Trainer Notes, p. 12; emphasis added) Individuals who resist, oppose or refuse are seen as expressing ‘negative’ emotions such as Apathy – ‘I can’t be bothered’; Grief – ‘It’s not fair!’; Fear – ‘I can’t do it’; Anger – ‘I won’t, No way! Get someone else’ or Pride – ‘That’s not my job!’ (ibid.). Such responses could be interpreted as legitimate ‘opposition’ to inequity in the effort-bargain (Baldamus, 1961) or to stultifying working conditions, but they were dismissed as illegitimate ‘negative feelings’. Staff subjectivity, as we shall see below, is bound up with many of these ‘emotions’ (see Fineman, 1996, 2000) that the ‘makers’ sought to control and eliminate. They are grounded, however, in substantive issues, not a pathological or inane ‘negativity’. Had the course been successful, such ‘opposition’ would have been stamped out. The concern to erase such ‘emotions’ that arise in response to the managerial exercise of power is a worrying development. It reflects an endeavour to manufacture staff shorn of their ability to question or resist. Thus, there appears to be a consistency between the cyborgs that the designers of the ASC originally had in mind and the beings that the WCCS programme sought to cast. The staff are to display ‘courage’, ‘compassion’, ‘honesty’, ‘trust’, ‘respect’

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and ‘loyalty’ in support of the ‘makers’ but not ‘grief ’, ‘anger’, ‘fear’ or ‘pride’ in opposition to the ‘makers’. Thus, the masculine preoccupation with control does not simply seek to erase all emotions but only certain emotions, while those that remain are to serve the corporation. Emotions are not to be understood or shared for the purposes of intimacy but are to be managed and used to ‘intensify the labour process’ (Mumby and Putnam, 1992: 473). Reminiscent of Orwell’s Newspeak, it seems that WCCS sought ‘to narrow the range of thought’ and feelings, which ultimately will ‘make thoughtcrime [negative emotions, resistance] literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it’ (ibid.: 55). Emotional states that pose a challenge to T Corporation are seen as ‘thoughtcrime’ (Orwell, 1949: 71) and are to be ruled out, but we can observe flaws in such thinking. For example, if the staff adopt the values that management espouse and act in ‘courageous’ and ‘compassionate’ ways, then there is every chance that this might entail challenging the ‘makers’ as Gandhi’s opposition to colonialism or Nelson Mandela’s resistance to apartheid makes clear. If one observes the suffering of others who are subject to intense control and boredom, then one’s ‘compassion’ could lead to ‘courageous’ attempts to resist such oppression. It is naive and highly unlikely that management could rub out ‘negative’ emotions for they are entwined with everyday life and what it means to be human. All the more so because the ‘makers’ have imposed working conditions that are likely to trigger ‘negative’ emotions such as ‘anger’ and ‘grief ’ given the repetitive nature of work and the loss of jobs. It is interesting that Yergeny Zamyatin’s novel We concluded with an operation to remove D-503’s imagination. It was understood that in OneState there is no room for independent thinking. Anything that questioned the harmony of OneState or caused the ‘numbers’ to question their lives was, therefore, to be eradicated. At T Corporation, the ‘makers’ appear not to have learned or understood this lesson. The WCCS programme encouraged the staff to reflect on their lives and urged them to change both their work lives and themselves. This could be read as a call for resistance but, either way, the WCCS course led to unforeseen consequences, which perhaps reflects the gap between the ‘makers’’ understanding of work and the experiences on the office floor. The ‘makers’ sought to tap into staff subjectivity that they might subdue and harness it to their ends. This involved limiting what it means to be human by rubbing out certain ‘negative’ emotions and manipulating others deemed to be ‘positive’, although the ‘makers’ are unlikely to have understood the WCCS programme in this way. Nevertheless, the world of T Corporation is not yet that of OneState because the numbers rebelled. The staff response to WCCS As the courses were rolled out across the country, each facilitator completed a summary of the staff responses and reactions. This was then sent to Paul Scott, the Head of the eight ASCs, and to each ASC Manager. They are a useful source of information from across the ASCs that provide insights into the culture and

Mechanizing emotions 83 work regime, and the experience of work. An Avon facilitator summarized the findings of five separate workshops conducted during March 1998, five months after the first workshops: The general view of staff that attended our workshops during March is again that the Centres are too task oriented, and that insufficient consideration is given to individual needs. Also, it was felt that integration of staff between sections/unit/branches would help to achieve WCCS as it would increase knowledge and awareness of each task. (Avon workshops, 31 March 1998; emphasis added) The earliest workshops were completed in November 1997 but, according to this extract, five months later, little appears to have changed and the same issues continued to be raised during the final workshops in June 1998. Teamworking: war of the discourses One of the concerns that the staff voiced during the WCCS workshops was the ‘lack of communication between the managers/sections/staff/branches’ (four Sheffield Workshops – Jan.–Feb., 1998). In terms of solutions, the staff called for ‘team meetings to discuss ideas and best practice’ (ibid.). The staff at a Welsh workshop called for ‘daily cascades/meetings with staff ’ (3.2.98). These comments suggest that the staff have bought into the importance of teamwork as extolled through the CBIs and/or are drawing on the implementation discourse to rebel against the current regime. The Sheffield staff proposed that ‘Team Leaders’ should ‘be voted for by the staff ’ rather than being ‘appointed by section managers’ (four Sheffield Workshops – Jan.–Feb., 1998). Here, a more democratic ethos is being advanced and woven into the enterprise discourse. The staff concerns suggest that, despite the emphasis on ‘teamwork’ in the CBIs and even in the strategy discourse, teamwork has not been adequately promoted or supported in the ASCs. At the end of each workshop, the staff were invited to make up slogans in support of WCCS. An Avon workshop proposed the following slogan ‘listen and learn through teamwork’ (20.3.98) and, although this suggests unquestioning support for teamwork, this needs to be tempered by the other slogans that the workshop proposed. These include ‘The boss’s way is not always the right way’ and ‘A Smile a day keeps the boredom away’ (ibid.), which seem to challenge both the regime and managerial authority. The staff appeared to be taking up the implementation discourse and turning it back on the management. Thus, they wanted the ‘makers’ to be true to the implementation discourse. The clamour for teamwork was extensive, articulating, in part, class-based divisions. One Welsh workshop called for ‘less of a them and us attitude between sections/management/staff ’. They asked the management to ‘encourage centre teamwork’ and suggested that there is a ‘need to get to know others outside of immediate environment, both socially and through a forum perhaps,

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small groups getting together with the Centre Manager’ (3.2.98). Such comments can be read as resistance to the individualized self that the repetitive, factory-like working conditions impose. They appeal for more feminine working relationships that allow for intimacy. Feedback from three other Welsh workshops called for ‘team building events’ within ‘sections’ and a ‘sports and social committee’ (16.3.98). They state that there is a ‘low team spirit – I don’t feel as though I belong to a team’ (16.3.98). Such sentiments indicate that the staff would prefer to work in, and be a part of a team, as opposed to atomized individuals. Another Welsh workshop called for ‘more team recognition – tell them when they have worked well as a team to encourage TEAMWORK’ and wanted ‘team meetings to be held regularly – without fail’ (30.3.98). The staff voiced concerns that ‘individuals act alone and not as members of a team’ (30.3.98). It is, of course, difficult to establish whether the staff have imbibed the implementation discourse, or are expressing their concern to interact with others, given the individualized nature of the work regime. Certainly, it seems to be the case that the staff wanted to live different lives than those imposed by the regime. The experiences of these workers contrasts with the case of Hephaestus Corporation, where ‘the rhetoric and practices of both organizational and cultural forms are widely used, believed in and acclaimed and their contradictions denied’ (Casey, 1995: 114). The ASC staff articulated the inconsistencies of the regime as they experienced them. Thus, the call for teamwork was linked to their indignation with the repetitive, individual and high-pressured nature of the work. Some staff verbalized this by linking the lack ‘of job rotation’ with ‘boredom and errors’ (Welsh Working Group, 30.3.98). Others stressed that teamwork would enable them to assist different sections: More cross training, in order to assist other sections when they are under pressure, also would create more variety of work for individuals. (Welsh Work Group, 3.2.98) The staff stressed that the ASC regime creates ‘errors’, does not allow them to ‘assist other sections’ and militates against their ability to accommodate and respond to business ‘pressures’. It seems that work in the ASCs is serving to undermine ‘feminine skills’ associated with ‘shared decision-making, greater support and communication between team members and flexibility’ (Metcalfe and Linstead, 2003: 108). In Chapter 2, the ‘makers’ averred that multi-skilling and teamwork will be promoted in the ASCs but only insofar as it benefits business or performance. As the above comments indicate, the staff seem to have taken up this emphasis on performance. Hence, they questioned the regime in ‘business’ terms rather than on moral grounds, explaining that the regime hindered business through generating errors and impairing flexibility. Some three years after the ASCs were first introduced, the work continues to be largely repetitive and fragmented: Have been promised variation in their job but never delivered. (Chester workshop, undated)

Mechanizing emotions 85 Feel that ultimately we are to be looked upon as one big team (T Corporation) – yet feel will never achieve goal as they’re split up into small separate units and no communication as to what’s going on between them. (Chester workshop, undated) Hostility between sections/branches, mainly created by the fact that people do not understand each others’ jobs and pressures. Segregation – people do not know colleagues who work on different sections. Lack of teamwork aggravated by people within sections error logging each other for silly things and leads to bad feeling. People discouraged from communicating with each other during Bank’s time. (Welsh workshop, 3.2.97) The staff voiced the contradiction between the atomized working conditions and the implementation discourse with its stress on teamwork. We can see then that, although discourse ‘transmits and produces power; it reinforces it’; this is by no means unidirectional for it ‘also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it’ (Foucault, 1979: 101). Discursive inconsistencies: points of rebellion In some Welsh workshops, there was resentment about the way in which individuals are treated. The staff called for ‘individuals to be treated as mature adults’ and to ‘treat individuals as individuals’ (16.3.98). This suggests that the staff are scolded like children and are not regarded as ‘responsible’ adults, which flies in the face of the implementation discourse. Reminiscent of D-503 in Zamyatin’s (1993) We, the staff appeared to want to stop ‘being one of many’ and become ‘just one’ (ibid.: 151). Rather than being treated as anonymous numbers, they wanted their unique sense of self or individuality to be respected. There were also complaints about ‘favouritism’ and of ‘people not being treated equally – some people are treated rudely, tactlessly and with pettiness’ (Welsh workshop 16.3.98). Some staff asserted that ‘all ASC staff should be judged by the same standards’ (Welsh workshop 30.3.98) and they balked at the way that ‘we are told – not asked – to change queues and not given reasons’ (Welsh workgroup 30.3.98). These staff did not question being governed so much as the arbitrary and authoritarian way in which they are governed. They have imbibed the status quo and the legitimacy of hierarchical power relations (Jacques, 1990). Nevertheless, they wanted to live the illusion of the autonomous self (Knights and McCabe, 2003). They wanted to experience a sense of dignity at work that appeared to have been stolen from them. The sense of an autonomous self is embedded in the value of ‘freedom’ that management extolled during the WCCS workshops. It appears, however, to be contradicted on a daily basis in the ASCs. Thus, staff at one workshop lamented

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that they are ‘only allowed fifteen minutes per day to log in 901 (unproductive time) to go for drinks, read circulars and visit the toilet’ (Chester workshop, undated). Consequently, ‘most staff feel that they work on a production line’ (ibid.) and this mirrors the intentions of the ‘makers’ discussed in Chapter 2. The sense of oppression is palpable in the following expression of double standards: One rule for one, another rule for others. This is how they view the talking issue, feel cannot ask colleagues for advice for fear of being told off, yet Managers/Supervisors always seen talking and laughing. (Chester workshop, undated) These experiences convey a sense of injustice and once again divisions between managers and staff. It appears that ‘managers/supervisors’ enjoy the freedom to socialize, whilst the staff are manacled to VDUs. Such insights question the ‘value’ of ‘partnership’ that was elevated during the WCCS workshops and express the need for a more consistent management approach. That the staff felt unable to ‘ask colleagues for advice for fear of being told off ’ questions the teamwork skill extolled through the implementation discourse, which asked individuals to ‘assist colleagues’ and ‘share knowledge and experience with others’. During three Welsh workshops, the staff were of the opinion that the ‘management have to be more proactive – take more notice of what staff have to say’ (16.3.98) and they called for the ‘staff to be more involved in decisions’ (16.3.98). Such comments suggest that the staff want to live by the spirit not just the promise of enterprise and, clearly, taken to its democratic extreme, such aspirations could pose a threat to the ‘makers’. The Avon staff also articulated that they would like ‘managers to listen and take on board staff suggestions’. They wanted ‘managers and staff to be treated with equal respect’ (20.3.98). ‘Respect’ was one of the values extolled during the WCCS workshops and such expressions of its absence came five months after the first WCCS workshops were conducted. Although Paul Scott, Head of the ASCs, suggested that lessons have been learned, for these staff little seem to have changed because the ‘makers’ are not listening. The autocratic, theory ‘X’-type approach (McGregor, 1960) that the ‘makers’ voiced through the strategy discourse seems to be culturally entrenched as Paul Scott conceded: Culture has been built up over a 100–150 years of hierarchical shouting and demanding. . . . The bank culture. Erm, the Guys at the top have been God and the people at the bottom have been nobodies and we’ve reinforced that culture all the time. So it’s been very hard to acknowledge that maybe the people at the bottom know what they’re talking about. (Head of ASCs, 7.12.98) This culture may help explain the work ‘fantasies’ that the staff delineated, such as managers being ‘more relaxed and trusting – not looking over people’s shoul-

Mechanizing emotions 87 ders even when things are going well’. These fantasies contrast with the current situation where ‘team members feel they have to whisper to one another due to constant monitoring’ (Welsh workshop, 16.3.98). Through their complaints and work fantasies, the staff asked management to live by the values of ‘trust’, ‘honesty’, ‘respect’, ‘friendship’ and ‘freedom’ that were elevated during the WCCS workshops. The cultural gulf between managers and staff appears to run deep and it seems improbable that a two-day training course for managers could eradicate it. We can also observe that oppression is not simply a reflection of the demands of capital because it is enshrined in the routines and habits of practitioners. At a Welsh workshop on 18 May 1998, the staff called for ‘more trust for individuals i.e. staff feel that they are being checked up on’ (emphasis added). The ‘value’ of ‘trust’ was therefore shunted back to management and its absence exposed. The disparity between the implementation/WCCS discourse and the experience of work can therefore be understood as nascent grounds for resistance. There appears to be a stark contradiction between the emphasis on individualism, control and performance embedded in the everyday lives of the staff and the implementation discourse that stresses relationships, trust and openness. Hence, one workshop called for the following: Communication within teams i.e. trust in staff’s own judgement re. time allowed to chat – creates friendly relaxed atmosphere and builds team. Staff know cannot abuse but 7 hours is a long time without speaking to colleagues! (Sheffield workshop, December 1997) The staff in this workshop illuminated how at least four of the values (trust, teamwork, friendship, partnership) that were promoted on the WCCS course are absent in their everyday lives. The staff also questioned the ‘honesty’ (another value) of management. Thus, at an Avon workshop, the staff stated that they ‘are told that they can speak to one another and then are given disapproving looks if they do’ (Avon workshops, 31.3.98). This inconsistency suggests that authoritarianism is proving resilient. Machine thinking seems to infuse the work lives of the staff such that they found their humanity squeezed out. Reminiscent of Marx’s (1844) discussion of alienation where ‘in his work’, the worker ‘does not affirm himself but denies himself ’ (ibid.: 99) the staff contrasted their current plight with a work ‘fantasy’ that would allow them to: Be honest – be ourselves – be treated as human beings we would feel more at ease and enjoy our job resulting in a better performance. (20.3.98) The staff felt unable to be ‘honest’ with themselves or able to express themselves as themselves (‘ourselves’). Such experiences do not seem to reflect work per se as Marx argues but the type of regime created by the ‘makers’.1 The work

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regime appears to provide ample grounds for rebellion and, yet, the dissent that was voiced is not revolutionary in intent and so we can observe the blurred distinction between opposition and consent. The staff asked for ‘constructive criticism from supervisors – don’t just tell us what we do wrong – tell us what we do well too’ (Welsh workshop, 16.3.98). It seems, therefore, that cosmetic changes, at the local level, such as evenhandedness and acting consistently, could ‘begin’ to remedy some of these grievances. Cultures do not change overnight, especially after 100–150 years of conditioning and the staff suggested that the culture presents a major obstacle to reform: Trust needs to be built up and until the existing culture is pushed away things will only improve slightly. (Chester workshop, undated) Once again, we can observe the staff wielding the ‘values’ (e.g. trust) through which they were to be reconstituted against the management. The staff suggested that the gulf between the work experiences of the managers and staff present a significant barrier to change. The Avon staff asserted that ‘managers have not undertaken roles therefore they do not know our needs’ (Avon workshop, 20.3.98) and, in a Welsh workshop, the staff stated that ‘managers do not understand the process and therefore cannot understand what individuals go through’ (30.3.98). Bridging the gap requires managers to get closer to the experience of work and this demands ‘compassion’, ‘courage’, ‘partnership’ and ‘trust’ on their part. This gap may help explain the contradictory discourses deployed during the programme of change. It may also be the case that the ‘makers’ simply do not act in a coherent or coordinated way as is often assumed to be the case by Labour Process commentators (Braverman, 1974; Marglin, 1977; Parker and Slaughter, 1988; Delbridge et al., 1992). Consequently, they present ideas and interventions without an overall understanding of what they are doing and are unaware of the lack of consistency that their schemes entail. WCCS workshops: an arena of struggle It was evident that some facilitators were attempting to exercise power through the way in which they completed the workshop summaries. Hence, they wrote of being disheartened by the lack of change some six to eight months after the issues were initially raised: Despite the workshops having run for several months now, with a majority of staff attended, the same issues are repeated again and again. (Chester workshops, April and June 1998) The general feeling from the workshop held on 20th May was again that Centres are too task/target orientated. Also, some staff felt that they are

Mechanizing emotions 89 treated as a ‘number’ as opposed to an individual, and that more communication is needed between managers and staff. (Avon workshop, May 1998) This allusion to the staff being ‘numbers’ is reminiscent of the totalitarian society of OneState. In one summary, the facilitator’s comments reveal how she attempted to exercise power over the staff during the workshops through asserting that certain issues are non-negotiable: We are a processing centre and therefore a method of measurement is essential. I acknowledged that Time Capture is in itself time-consuming but unless an alternative is found, Time Capture will be with us for many years to come. Apart from it being a management tool, to assess the resources required against specific volumes, a measurement is required to ascertain staff performance and therefore classifications. (Chester workshop, 20.2.98) These comments portray the WCCS workshops as arenas of struggle with the facilitator, in some instances, expressing a managerial point of view so as to control the discussion. Rather than an open forum, she sought to make it apparent that certain items are not on the ‘agenda’ (Lukes, 1974). This reveals how ‘authoritative norms . . . can be translated into the values, decisions and judgements of citizens in their professional and personal capacities. They can function as part of the “self-steering” mechanisms of individuals’ (Miller and Rose, 1990: 18). In other words, this facilitator, having absorbed managerial norms, sought to transmit them to the staff. Staff dissent could not, however, be easily silenced and a frequent concern was the use of ‘individual’ Productivity Measures and Error Logging. Many workshops called for them to be ‘abolished’ (Avon WCCS workshop, 20.3.98). In a series of five Sheffield workshops, from February through to March 1998, staff posited that there ‘seems to be a lack of trust by management if staff have to fill in timesheets’. Once again, the staff turned the WCCS vocabulary back on the ‘makers’. The minutes of a Welsh workshop express a number of staff concerns and suggestions including the following: More emphasis on customer service and less emphasis on targets; Error Logs to be renamed Training Logs and used more constructively; more positive feedback to all staff, would make staff feel appreciated and valued; more realistic targets, taking into account quality not just quantity processed; unable to provide ‘extra’ customer service due to target constrains. (3.2.98) This opposition was expressed in a way that indicates support for quality, customer service and teamwork, and so it is apparent that the staff are not simply ‘pitched against management’ (Thomas and Davies, 2005: 686). Such resistance

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is not ‘locked within a negative paradigm’ (ibid.) because the staff sought to exercise power in ‘productive’ ways (Foucault, 1980). Thus, it was pointed out that the emphasis on individual targets undermined teamwork: More relaxed working atmosphere – people presently feel guilty if they talk to each other. Also due to pressure of targets people are reluctant to help one another, as it means that their figures will suffer. (Wales workshop, 3.2.98) Other staff lamented that ‘individual targets cause unhealthy competition between teams’ (Wales workshop, 30.3.98) and dreamed of a ‘team fantasy where people are “willing to share knowledge and help each other”’ (Wales workshop, 30.3.98). This ‘fantasy’ takes up the teamwork ‘skill’ and turns it back on management. The use of the enterprise discourse, in this instance, can be understood as ‘the resistant force: the voice of the marginalized’ (Fournier and Grey, 1999: 120). The staff represented the current emphasis on individual targets as self-defeating. Thus, it leads to people refraining from helping each other, to the hoarding of knowledge, errors and resistance, all of which impairs quality, teamwork, morale and customer service: Pressures of targets/workload also lead to people cutting corners and creating errors. (Wales workshop, 3.2.98) Time capture rules – leads to queue picking and lying over rates. (Avon workshop, 20.3.98) People look after No. 1. Not the team. (Wales workshop, 30.3.98) Cheating targets. (Avon workshop, 20.5.98) Thus, negative consequences emerge from the ‘unnecessary pressure due to targets’ (Wales workshop, 3.2.98). This leads to a situation where one is ‘unwilling/unable to help team members because of the effect on your target’ (Chester workshops, April–June 1998). The outcome is a ‘lack of teamwork due to individual targets’ (Wales workshop, 16.3.98) and staff who are ‘stressed due to constantly thinking of targets’ (Chester workshops, April–June 1998). Although critical, these insights suggest that the staff are deeply concerned about their work and the service they are ‘unable’ to provide. It reveals ‘how people consent, cope and resist at different levels of consciousness at a single point in time’ (Collinson, 2003: 541). The ‘fantasy’ of WCCS for the staff was a culture where people are ‘willing to help more – instead of worrying about their targets’ (Wales workshop, 16.3.98). This team came up with the following WCCS

Mechanizing emotions 91 slogan: ‘TIME TO SHARE – TIME TO CARE’ which appeals to qualities that are traditionally seen as feminine in contrast to the authoritarian masculinity of the ASC regime. The staff concerns can be read as a plea to the ‘makers’ to live up to the implementation discourse that elevated ‘teamwork’, ‘partnership’, ‘friendship’ and ‘compassion’. The ASC regime contradicts this discourse because it creates ‘tension and pressure’, which ‘causes a lack of teamwork’ (Wales Workshop, 30.3.98) and a general ‘lack of awareness and understanding of what our colleagues are doing – this possibly creates bad feelings’ (Avon workshop, 31.3.98). The outcome is a ‘tense environment’, where ‘clock watching/time capture sheets’ (Chester workshops April–June 1998) dominate. Time spent checking work or recording work on time sheets was seen as ‘wasted’ time that could be more productively employed to improve ‘customer service’: A system is required which will dispense with the need for manually recording times on sheets – suggestions were made that the time spent recording, checking, collating the information could be better used to improve customer service i.e. 5 mins per operator times 150 staff, 15 minutes for the supervisor to check each section and time spent inputting figures. (Sheffield workshop, six meetings December 1997) The importance of ‘customer service’ along with productivity and efficiency appears to have been absorbed by the staff and they used these managerial concerns to illuminate the folly of the present regime. They highlighted the lack of emphasis on customer service even though the restructuring was sold to them on this basis and the WCCS programme sought to elevate the customer. Although the staff are subject to the exercise of power by others, it is important to recognize that ‘power is exercised upon the dominant as well as on the dominated’ (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: 186). Hence, the staff deployed the implementation discourse against the ‘makers’ and, as we have seen, the ‘makers’’ subjectivity is entrenched in machine thinking. The local ASC managers are also subject to discipline and pressure, not least from the designs of the ‘makers’ who created the ASCs. Moreover, the autocratic culture imposes other limits on them (McCabe, 2002; Salaman and Story, 2002). Some staff voiced concerns regarding the pressures on local managers: Managers/Supervisors seen ‘flapping’ over queues – impacts on staff who have to do the work. To remain calm and professional and not panic. (Sheffield workshop, six meetings December 1997) These comments call for calm professionals who do not ‘flap’, and, yet, it was cold, calculating ‘professionals’ that designed the ASCs in which the staff toil. One could argue, however, that the staff are more generally concerned with the intensive working environment and how this impacts on both managers and staff.

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This section has examined how the staff highlighted that the ASC regime contradicts and undermines key elements of the implementation discourse. Such tensions expose the problematic project of reconstituting staff subjectivity. We can observe that power is exercised in multiple ways not just through top–down decision-making. The staff challenged the strategic discourse that they found so debilitating and contradictory in relation to the implementation discourse. What is perhaps most alarming is that the makers seemed oblivious to the inconsistencies of their innovations. This is both to be lamented and celebrated. Lamented because it leads to unnecessary suffering and celebrated because it reveals that the exercise of power is fallible and can therefore be resisted by both managers and staff.

The aftermath The WCCS workshops led management to re-assess some of its assumptions. Terry Venables, the WCCS project manager and an ASC manager, explained that since the WCCS programme there has been a concern to change the ASC factory-like environment. He explained that he has sought to encourage more ‘ownership’ and a ‘team’-based approach, which is discussed in the next chapter. One has to remember, however, that the factory-like environment was intentional on the part of the ‘makers’, and so there may be limits to what individual ASC managers can do to change it. On 20 October 1998, approximately a year after the first WCCS workshops, Paul Scott sent the following letter to the ASC staff signalling an end to the earlier approach: The feedback sessions at the WCCS workshops have sent a clear message to management that we need to look closely at ourselves and how we manage our people. As a direct result of your comments the following actions have been taken: •

•

•

• •

Management and supervisors at all centres have received summary copies of your comments so that we can think about them and be fully aware of your views. A scheme of upward appraisals has been introduced. This serves to highlight to individuals how they are perceived and should encourage adjustment where appropriate. All managers and supervisors have attended a WCCS Leadership workshop purposely designed to enable us to assess, critically, our management styles and focus more closely on our people. The importance of a balance between quality and quantity is being reiterated throughout a variety of meetings and workshops. Error Logs have been renamed (Quality Feedback) and refocused. You should have already noticed the difference in our approach to this topic. If you have not, tell me next time I visit your centre.

Mechanizing emotions 93 •

Your management team, in which I include supervisors and myself, are committed to the following action plans which will be ongoing:

1 2 3 4 5 6

Knowing our people better. Believing in your ability. Keeping promises (and only making ones that are achievable). Communicating fully. Being fair and consistent. Developing our people.

It is only by working together as a team that we can hope to sustain our goal of providing WCCS (emphasis added). This chapter has explored a failed attempt to generate a subjectivity of ‘We’ via the WCCS programme. The staff refused to accept that ‘they’ alone are responsible for the customer service problems in the ASC. Resistance could not be dismissed as negativity, moaning or whinging, despite ongoing attempts to do so. The staff who were to be bent to the will of the ‘makers’ proved resilient and incapable of being subdued and silenced. Nonetheless, despite the revolt, the staff did not question management’s prerogative. No one challenged the ‘makers’’ privileges or called for ‘a halt’ to ‘the great eternal progress of the whole machine’ (Zamyatin, 1992: 15). The staff only sought a more humanized version of the machine and so they have, at least in part, become machine. They wanted the ‘makers’ to live up to the implementation discourse and turned it back on them. The ‘makers’, who are also, in part, machine, were surprised by these whining ‘bolts’ that had ‘gotten bent’ (ibid.). In the aftermath of the WCCS programme, the ‘makers’ sought to ‘repair’ the machine but they did not seem to understand the extent to which their plans had gone awry. Despite acknowledging problems and culpability, it is apparent that no ‘substantial’ changes were to be made. Shortly after the above letter was issued, over a year after the first workshops had been conducted and the problems first came to light, I began to visit an Area Service Centre. The insights gleaned from these visits form the basis of the next chapter. It provides insights into the lives of the ‘bolts’ and into the limited changes that have been made over a year after the problems in the ASCs were first identified.

Part II

5

In the belly of the machine

The thought once occurred to me that if one wanted to crush and destroy a man [sic] entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, one at which the most fearsome murderer would tremble, shrinking from it in advance, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead, 1860/1985: 43)

This chapter explores life in an ASC or in ‘the belly of the machine’. It considers whether the ‘makers’ have succeeded in creating machines and the consequences of such endeavours. So far, it has been rhetorically suggested that it is the ‘makers’ who are responsible for working lives in T Corporation, albeit in ways that have given rise to unintended consequences. Whilst not wishing to exonerate the ‘makers’, the danger of this representation is to ascribe too much power and intention to management. It is to ignore the division and disunity among managers, the numerous uncertainties and unintended consequences that emerge through social interaction and the resistance that is a condition of organizational power relations. It incorrectly infers that the ‘makers’ are omniscient and omnipotent. Critically, it neglects how employees participate in and reproduce working conditions (see Burawoy, 1979; Willis, 1977; Sturdy, 1992; Knights and Willmott, 1999). Thus, we observed in Chapter 4 that the staff did not question the machine or the authority of the ‘makers’ despite their disgruntlement. In view of this, it has to be recognized that the staff are at least partly responsible for their working lives, albeit as victims rather than perpetrators. For it is only insofar as the staff accept that they are ‘cogs’ that the ‘makers’ are able to treat and regard them as such. In this sense, we are all machine ‘makers’ for we are not powerless but rather we collaborate, often unwittingly or unwillingly, in processes that could be otherwise. Of course, for a lasting change to occur the staff would have to resist collectively rather than as disparate individuals, and the obstacles to change are considerable. Moreover, the resources at the disposal of a CEO are far greater than those of a bank clerk. Nonetheless, CEOs are only powerful to the extent that the staff conform to a greater or lesser extent to the orders that they are given.

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In this chapter, I will explore how we ‘cogs’ accept our plight, arguing that the ‘individualizing’ (Foucault, 1977) effects of power, are at least partly to blame for this. The staff in the ASCs are individualized in numerous ways but not necessarily as an intended consequence of the ‘makers’’ designs. Thus, a by-product of machine thinking, and the search for efficiency through Taylorist forms of control, is that individualization occurs and takes on a dynamic of its own. The outcome both hastens and hinders management control. Hastens because it divides employees from each other thereby undermining collective resistance and hinders because it has the unanticipated outcome of distancing or disengaging employees from the work they perform. Thus, in seeking to escape the stultifying effects of machine thinking, employees engage in complex struggles that waste considerable effort. They play games, fiddle and find other ways to escape and cope with the contradictions and impoverishment of their working lives. This process of disengagement contradicts the implementation discourse, which includes the WCCS programme, with its emphasis on teamwork, customer service, initiative, multi-skilling and responsibility. The lives of the staff in the ASC are dominated by ‘machines’ (VDUs, electronic surveillance, image technology), individual work queues, error rates, numbers, productivity figures, performance targets and checking. The latter is more akin to the Taylorist world that the ‘makers’ dreamed up in Chapter 2 and, as we shall see, it presents considerable problems for local ASC managers due to its demoralizing consequences for the staff. The contradiction between the strategic and implementation discourse and how it impacts on the lives of the staff provides the focus for this chapter. It illuminates how a tension arises between systems that disengage staff and the desire on the part of the staff to engage with their work. It posits that, until ways of working are created that enrol the creative capacity of employees, management will be condemned to search for temporary ways to win staff support.

The setting On the outskirts of a major northern city, adjacent to a housing estate that has a notorious reputation for crime, is one of T Corporation’s eight Area Service Centres (ASC). In the first few months after it opened, it was broken into on five occasions and computers were looted. Steel shutters have since been fitted over the main entrance. On the morning of my first visit, I was casually informed by a security guard that there had been ‘a shooting’ that morning on the estate. Approaching the ASC building, you feel strangely isolated, for there are no cafes or shops this far out of the city centre. At the entrance, one confronts a large security gate, operated on the inside of the gates by a security guard, seated in a perspex box, with whom you communicate via telecom. After explaining who you are and who you have come to visit, you are allowed to enter. The building is new and featureless. One might expect such high security to protect large cash flows and perhaps this explains the break-ins, but the only flow in the ASC is of electronic bites of information. Once inside the main gates, there is

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another door and another security guard with whom you have to communicate in order to access the building. You sign in and, following confirmation from the interviewee, receive a security swipe card. You then use a lift to go up to the second floor and pass through another secure door using the swipe card. You then sign in again before waiting for the interview to commence. A sprawling, partly partitioned, open plan office confronts you. There is a mass of VDU terminals at which staff are seated and what strikes you is the relative silence in this Fort Knox of a building. No phones ring and there are few sounds of human voices. It is brightly lit and the light blue furnishing is new. A secretary takes you into a large glass-sided office that she shares with the manager of the ASC, both of whom are visible to the staff who pass by en route to and from their workstation. In contrast to the cold and sterile surroundings, the ASC manager is a warm, open, humorous, street-wise, middle-aged Londoner, who immediately calls to mind Terry Venables, the former England football manager, hence his pseudonym. The ASC in context The ASC was set up in 1995 to process accounts for 130 branches in the Northwest of England. In the first nine months, each of the 130 branches gradually came on-line, transferring processing to the ASC. It employs the equivalent of 211 full-time members of staff but a number are part-time and the total number employed is 240. Between thirty and forty staff scan data onto the image system on the evening shift and the rest process the work during the day. The hierarchical structure includes the ASC manager, processing managers, section managers, supervisors and team leaders. Staff of various grades work in eight sections that each have between fifteen and thirty-five staff. The majority of the staff in the ASCs are grade 3 or 4. Grade 3 staff earn between £9–12k per annum, and the much sought after grade 4 earn between £12–14k. Work productivity is measured according to an IT system called ‘Time Capture’, and staff are required to complete ‘time sheets’. They record the ‘time’ they spend processing different types of work and so a member of staff might record four hours worked on closing accounts and three hours on opening accounts. Each type of work has a rate per hour and the staff are ‘individually’ measured according to their efficiency and error rates; this is fed back to them as ‘individuals’ on a monthly basis. Internal quality checks are conducted if errors increase in a particular section and quality checks may also be initiated following customer complaints. A Queries Section logs customer complaints against the names of ‘individual’ members of staff. To avoid repetitive strain injury, the staff are allowed five minutes of exercise twice a day and this is known as ‘Poise for Health’. There is a ‘bright ideas scheme’ that offers rewards of between £25 and £100 for suggestions that lead to improvements. Terry described his management approach as ‘open’ and he stated that Tom Peters, the management guru, has been particularly inspirational for him. Terry set up group interviews for me with different grade staff from

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each section and one could conjecture that these individuals are likely to be supportive of the regime, nonetheless Terry stated: What the staff might say I’m not quite sure. All I can say is I try and be honest with them and if they’re honest back to me then they don’t have a great number of issues . . . erm, we’ll wait and see. (4.9.98) His stance towards the trade union seems to support his open approach: Darren: Terry:

Philip Terry:

What sort of role does the trade union play? I meet Cathy (a regional union representative) every couple of months. We’ve got a couple of reps. They are just a couple of our workforce and I try and meet them every couple of months and go down the pub and have a chat. Erm nothing, we’ve never had to write to one another. I’ve said to them ‘If they see anything wrong out there I’d rather know about it informally up front so that I can sort it’. . . . I mean if the staff are happy then I’m happy and well, what’s the issue? [Processing Manager]: She comes in an’ chats to staff it’s not just . . . We allow her to walk around and she gives me a stress ball and what ’av yer (laughter) . . . but the staff do talk to the reps because in the Northwest the culture is that if you’ve got a problem you go in and see the union. That’s the way people have been brought up. (4.9.98)

Although local union representatives are invited to informally communicate ‘if they see anything wrong’, boundaries have already been established regarding what can and cannot be changed. Terry would not, therefore, expect the representatives to question, let alone challenge him, concerning the hierarchical structure of the organization, pay differentials or the repetitive nature of work. Nor would the union representatives think of doing so and so power has already been exercised and absorbed in a way that is now taken for granted (Jacques, 1990). Terry is a former Branch Manager and his identity appeared to be bound up with Branch Banking: Darren: Terry:

You were previously working for T Corporation in a . . .? In a branch environment yes. I mean we’re branch bankers and each Branch Banker or Branch Manager had sales, operations and had lending and any individual had a preference. And when it was becoming apparent that the only thing that was going to be left in the branch network was lending and sales those of us who felt more operationally inclined we. . . . Those (lending and sales) were parts of the job that you had to do and you didn’t enjoy doing. This ASC was piloted and it was up to the individual who wanted to apply and that’s what all of the managers have done.

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How were the changes communicated to you? Originally by circular advising that the Bank’s strategic plans were to centralize the back office processes. It wouldn’t have mentioned image processing because I wouldn’t ’av ’ad a bloody clue what image was. But the Bank would have said that ‘We’re taking out all the hum drum processing out of the back office so that you can concentrate on sales’. [Processing Manager]: Customer interface. Yer that’s right. Stressing how it was going to improve Customer Service but that’s bullshit because everybody knows that we’re talking about cost and it has reduced the cost but actually you can improve the quality of the work at a place like this if it is done right. Was there a vision that was articulated? Is it part of a grand scheme about where T Corporation’s going to? It’s in the strategic plan. The Bank had a five-year strategic plan and centralization, cutting costs was one of its priorities and this is the way we are going to achieve that. (4.9.98)

Terry and Philip are under no illusions with regard to T Corporation’s motive for the restructuring. The primary concern, as they identified it, is cost cutting. In the branches, it meant an increased emphasis on sales and Terry referred to the focus on ‘Customer Service’, evident in the implementation discourse, as ‘bull-shit’. Both managers saw cost cutting as the primary concern and viewed everything else as subsidiary to this. This supports the view that the implementation discourse is an attempt to reconfigure staff subjectivity so as to win staff support for changes that otherwise showed little concern for either the customers or their working lives. In the early stages of the ASC’s operation, the system worked largely as the ‘makers’ intended. Increasingly, however, it has presented problems as staff motivation and job satisfaction has become an issue. As discussed in Chapter 2, the ‘makers’ appeared happy to create a ‘factory’ environment; however, this was anathema to Terry. It appeared to be the case that his operational needs were at odds with the strategic thinking: During the roll-out we weren’t quite certain how much work was going to come through the door. So we were very much task oriented during the roll out and it’s only 6–12 months ago that we’ve stood back and said for the long-term prosperity of the unit ‘What’s the best thing to do?’ I don’t want, although this place is a processing centre. There is a difference between a processing centre and what I perceive as a factory where somebody is told to do something. They get their head down and if they don’t do it, they get a whack round the head. You know? Because of the quality of the people we recruit and because of some of the complexity of their functions, they’ve got to be stimulated. (Terry, ASC Manager, 4.9.98)

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Contrary to the strategic thinking and design, Terry felt that a ‘factory’ environment is incompatible with how the ASC should operate. He attributed the ‘initial’ factory-like conditions to the operational pressures he experienced during the roll-out phase: It was ‘Hold onto your pants time, hold onto your seats’ because the systems weren’t particularly reliable and on one day when Southport were having problems, there were 60k standing orders unprocessed. Now, and as I say to the staff, it would have taken a brave man to say to the staff ‘Don’t worry about these, how can I make you a better team and a better individual’. Yer not going to do it are you? Terry seemed to be unaware that the ‘makers’ had planned to create a factory environment and instead saw such conditions as teething problems. In the next section, we consider what it means to work and live in the system that the ‘makers’ initiated.

Living and working the queues How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinised. (Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell, 1949: 5) Terry was concerned that the ASC should not be seen or talked about as a ‘factory’ and he sought to discourage such language/thinking as has been found elsewhere (McCabe, 2004). Nevertheless, it was evident that a number of the staff experienced their work life in precisely this way: Sue: Niki: Sue:

Darren: Sue: Niki:

It’s OK. It’s clean and bright. It’s all targets isn’t it? Get your head down you’ve got to beat them targets no matter what. So it becomes a bit not, Terry hates this, factory. It’s not a factory but it could quite easily get that way where you’ve just got to get your head down, meet the stats all the time. When you say Terry hates this? He doesn’t like the factory term. Well it is. It’s like the Chicken factory and you’ve got to get 3,000 chickens out by the end of the day. We’ve got to close 300 accounts by the end of the day. It’s the same thing and he’s the manager of the same system. (Account Maintenance, 6.11.98; ten, twelve years’ employment)

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Sue expressed reservations about referring to the ASC as a ‘factory’ but this was linked to Terry’s disdain for the term, rather than her everyday experience. Niki, however, left no room for doubt. Neither did Lorraine, an employee of twentyfour years from the Cheque and Fraud Section, who felt that it is no longer like working in a ‘Bank’: I’d never filled in a time sheet in my life until working here. . . . To me it’s like working in a factory. I’m clocking in and out you know? But as regards of every minute of the day you have to have something against that minute. What you was doin’ and I just couldn’t recognise it. I didn’t expect it, I didn’t expect to have to do that. I can see the reason for it, I just think sometimes it’s too extreme you know? Because I think people can get on with the work without having t’ account for every minute and say what they’ve been doing. (14.10.98) Lorraine resented having to continually account for herself. She understood ‘the reason for it’ and accepted that she and others should be monitored. She therefore accepted her position within the hierarchical order of things but she was irritated by the extremity of the control and by the way that it has become so intrusive. The extent of the surveillance (see Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992 for a deterministic discussion of surveillance) makes her feel that she works in a factory rather than a Bank. Such ‘direct control’ (Friedman, 1977) is alien to these clerks, who experienced greater autonomy and responsibility in the branches. Sarah (clerk of two years), Andrew (clerk of three years) and Simon (clerk of eleven years) work on the PAPS (Pre-authorized Payments) Section that deals with standing orders, changes of address and direct debits. It employs twentyfive to thirty staff who are disciplined by an 0.03 per cent error rate, which is an allowance of three errors per thousand processed after which the staff begin to accumulate errors against their individual performance. Such acute controls are factory-like and, given this daily experience, it is unlikely that Terry can talk away such conditions by refusing to acknowledge them, as the following account indicates: Andrew: Processing basically, from image based. It’s like sent from someone else, somewhere . . . and then it’s routed to us and we’re all sat in queues. They give us like work and we just kinda work through the work as it appears until there is no more basically. Darren: Is that the case that there is no more work? Andrew: Well yes, ’cos I mean there are dozens of queues throughout the ASC and you are assigned one or maybe two at a time and you will work one for a couple of hours and they will say ‘Go on to this queue’. Sarah: They’ve changed it. You used to work one queue all day, then they changed it.

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Simon:

It was so boring working one queue all day it’s good to bring a bit of variety into it. Andrew: I don’t agree with those people. I actually preferred working one queue all day. Simon: You did? (disbelief ) Andrew: I know there weren’t many people who did but I actually did. (PAPS Section, 6.11.98) The staff sit at VDUs, individually processing work that ‘appears’ from ‘somewhere’ or some unknown ‘other’, who also sits and individually processes work. The way in which the work materialises is indicative of a sense of powerlessness (Blauner, 1964) on the part of the staff. Simon and Sarah stated that a more flexible approach to work allocation has been introduced and this reflects the findings of the WCCS programme. We can observe then that the regime can change and the extent to which this transpires rests upon the will of the ‘makers’ and/or the willingness of the staff to resist. The staff on the Enquiries Section also explained how work ‘appears’ or how ‘phone calls’ are ‘BLEEPED’ to them: Lorraine: You can actually be assigned a certain piece of work. Chris: The majority of work is as well isn’t it? Lorraine: Most of it is assigned yes. ’Cos you get things assigned to people on the phones ’cos they answer the phone but they also do a queue. They don’t just answer the phones all day. So they obviously got to have the less complicated things ’cos you can’t keep going in and out of yer systems when yer on the phones. Darren: So you mean when the phone isn’t ringing you are in another queue for process work? Lorraine: It’s great (laughter) and then you get error logged ’cos you make mistakes (laughter). Yer on the phones but you also get assigned certain work which is easier stuff. There are certain queues you get like ‘status enquiries’ when people write to Banks for references? They go to the phone because it’s just a case of typing out a letter. It’s only codes that go in, you don’t physically type a whole letter. So they are done on the phones in-between phone calls and things. But you don’t get the choice of a phone call. It just bleeps in your ear. You don’t sign on and off and pick the phone up when you feel like it (laughter). It just beeps so as soon as it comes you have to sort of . . . Darren: Just drop whatever you were doing? Lorraine: Yes, which is why you can’t do anything that’s too complicated. (Enquiries, 16.10.98) These staff explained how work materializes and de-materializes. At the end of a phone call on the Enquiries Section, unless another customer is waiting, a processing queue immediately appears on the VDU screen. If another customer calls, the staff are switched instantly through and so the staff have no control

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over the flow of work. Despite the Enquiries staff being assigned the ‘easier stuff ’, one might question whether this ‘forced’ switching back and forth is good for Customer Service. Moreover, as Lorraine explained, the staff do not even type a letter; they simply enter ‘codes’ and this depersonalizes the customer, rendering them a number. A living panopticon? In his most famous text, Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault (1977) discusses a system of discipline using the metaphor of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. The panopticon is a method of incarceration that was never actually implemented that amounts to a circular prison. The guard or observer is located in its centre and the inmates in its outer extremities. It is designed so that the guard can continually observe the inmates without them knowing when they are being watched. It is the thought of being observed, at any time, which leads to self-regulation. In their minds-eye, the in-mates watch and discipline themselves, knowing that they may be punished or rewarded if they do not conform. George Orwell’s Thought Police perform precisely this function, for ‘they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to’. Consequently, ‘you had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard’ (ibid.: 1947: 5). Orwell was warning of the totalitarian (total control) implications of state control and Foucault uses the metaphor of the panopticon to suggest that surveillance has become far more pervasive in modern societies, extending from education to prisons, healthcare and work. Thus, through methods of surveillance, such as the examination, statistical process control, the CV, medical records, tax codes or technology (e.g. CCTV), we are continually observed and so self-regulate our behaviour in ways that conform to work or societies norms (see Rose, 1989). Living in T Corporation seems to eerily accord with these dire warnings: Dorothy:

Janet:

Paul Janet: Paul

Basically they want to know how long you are spending on each individual queue. How much work you’re doing from that queue. Then they will work out how long you are taking to do each individual piece of work and if it doesn’t come up to a certain level they want to know why. You see there’s technology there in place that they can actually see what time everybody logs on in the morning. There is a print out everyday you are given or maybe you aren’t, and you can actually count down the number of items you’ve worked through in that day. But it’s all computerised and they can tell if there’s two of you doing the same queue, they can tell. [team leader]: Which one’s quicker. Yes basically. [team leader]: There’s also the idea that maybe there’s a training issue as well. If somebody is slow obviously they may not know how to do something, so they can help as well as comparing speed.

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Dorothy:

Janet: Dorothy: Janet: Dorothy: Janet:

If you really sort of looked at it and started panicking. You could really get yourself in a right state thinking it was Big Brother watching everything you did. But it’s not like that, you’re certainly not made to feel that way. (laughter) Well it is in reality (laughter). I don’t think it is, I don’t think it is. No I don’t, but it is fascinating what they can do with these figures. Oh I (everyone’s laughter). They can plan all the staffing level because they do actually on our team. They can actually look back on last year’s work, when it peaked and put the staffing in there and get people in from other sections. So there is a strategy there, a huge strategy. (Group interview, two staff, one team leader, 9.9.98; various sections)

The above discussion outlines class-based positions in terms of ‘they’ [the ‘makers’] who are watching ‘you’ [the staff ]. Although there appeared to be some disagreement as to whether the regime is totalitarian, there is much to suggest that it is experienced along these lines. The staff did not appear to be entirely free to speak because team leaders [Guardians? Thought Police?] were present who suggested that the surveillance serves as a training aid. Dorothy used the Orwellian terminology of ‘Big Brother’ to depict the regime before raising the caveat that ‘it’s not like that’ and Janet used humour seemingly to get Dorothy to fess up that her caveat was disingenuous. These comments are worrying not least because the staff seem to have internalized what the technology is capable of doing to them and this is how self-discipline works. Nevertheless, the staff are aware of such discipline and so the potential for resistance also remains. The staff on the PAPS (Pre-authorized Payments) Section switch queues every couple of hours between standing orders and change of address. The section deals with 2,000 to 3,000 items each day that are processed by twentyfive to thirty staff. The resulting repetition leads to a higher rate of errors than on any other section, and one could argue that such conditions contradict Customer Service because its monotony seems likely to generate errors. Until recently, the PAPS Section processed direct debits but this work has now been transferred to the nightshift. The latter includes new members of staff and Andrew, Simon and Sarah from the PAPS Section are required to check the work of these nightshift clerks, as well as the staff on their own section. Checking the work of other staff made them feel uneasy because they did not consider it appropriate for staff to be checking-up on each other. They felt like the Guardians in Zamyatin’s novel We or the Thought Police in Nineteen EightyFour, whose function it is to watch and monitor others. The staff resented how performing such checks made them feel, and how doing so, divided them from each other. The work regime creates a sinister sense of disempowerment whereby the staff feel that they are directed and re-directed by the flow of information:

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Andrew: Direct debits have disappeared haven’t they? Gone onto nights. The night staff are doing those. Those were the three queues [direct debits, standing orders, change of address] you find yourself moving onto as the day goes on and plus, at the end of the day, you can get a bit of paper work, sometimes a lot of paper work passed to you. Darren: What sort of paper work? Andrew: You know I’m talking, I feel horrible. Simon: Andrew just said the evening staff do the direct debit processing and because they are new to the Centre their work’s monitored and literally we do the monitoring. So we get a list of the work they’ve done the night before and we have to check that they’ve done it correctly. If it’s not then it’s fed back to them by the supervisor the next day. Cath: I also audit [monitor, check] people in the Section as well. Darren: What does an audit actually entail? Cath: Checking a standing order. Andrew: You are basically given a list of every item that you’ve dropped [processed and completed], the day before. Darren: Dropped? Cath: Worked. Andrew: The way it works is the item is scanned in by somebody . . . and all it’s given is a work title and it’s not put in anyone’s folder [assigned to an individual] and it comes to you as a piece of work in a queue. You then find that customer. You find their account details. You do whatever needs to be done with that item. You set up a standing order or you amend a direct debit or whatever and then you drop [put] it into that customer’s folder [electronic file]. The moment it’s dropped it then appears in that person’s folder and on your audit trail as you having worked it. At the end of the night or the end of the day or whatever, they print off a list of your audit trail of every item you’ve worked or dropped or re-routed to a supervisor. The next day or three days after, by the time you get round to it, you are given a list of somebody’s work that they’ve dropped. Like the night staff are new, you will do a 100 per cent check. You will check every item that they’ve dropped but as they get more confident that goes down to like 50 per cent and then 25 per cent. . . . It can be quite time consuming especially if you don’t know why they’ve done something. . . . It can take five, ten minutes to check one where it only takes forty seconds to input it. . . . These things are being done all the time it’s just that they don’t normally get passed to us in any great amount. It’s only when the queues have finished that we suddenly find ourselves doing this checking, (whispering) which I find is distasteful. Darren: Why do you find it distasteful? Andrew: Because I don’t think it should be up to me. ’Cos it’s called QTS, Quality Tracking System and ultimately this can dictate how well somebody does in the business. It’s like if you are perceived as being

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rubbish at your job you don’t get promoted which is fair enough. But I don’t really think it is my position to quality track somebody who is one of my co-workers. There are people higher up the food chain who I think that responsibility that should be. Especially if it is someone you know. You’re looking at it thinking ‘God they’ve done something wrong’ and I’ve got to fill in a form saying such and such a body has done this wrong. . . . It’s a horrible feeling ’cos you want to go up and tell them but you know if you do you’re going to look like the bad guy. It’s like ‘Well you’ve done this and I’ve had to error log you’. Everybody knows someone, somewhere is doing it but it is a bit weird when you are doing it for your colleagues basically. Darren: What were you going to say? Do you do this as well? Simon: Yes, I find it strange to. A strange system that you’ve got people of the same grade as we all are checking each other’s work . . . here you seem to have all the staff working checking up on each other. And it can feel a bit wrong but that’s the environment we’re in isn’t it? Andrew: It is. I mean I always joke about it’s like the Hitler Youth. It really is. It’s like, are your parents hiding Jews? . . . if so please ring this number now 0898 Goebbels. It does sometimes seem like that. You are expected, I mean I understand that quality has to be maintained but I don’t think it is my responsibility to enforce quality on someone else. Darren: How do you feel about it? Sarah: The same. I would say the same, yer just what Andrew has just said, it’s weird . . . Simon: Yer shooting yerself in the foot really. We’re actually doing their [management’s] job, checking up on ourselves. Pulling ourselves each one of us down and we’re giving them all the feedback and they are saying ‘Look you’ve done this, and this is why you’re not being promoted or perhaps not getting a bonus’ or what have yer. It’s ’cos we’re doing all the checking. Andrew: Because we work the queues ultimately it is a processing, it’s like the factory. The number of things you process and your accuracy rate. How you process is, for the people on our Section certainly, who process like seven hours of the day, the single factor that dictates how well you do in the Bank. Everything else you do pales into insignificance compared to how well you process and how accurately you process. . . . Everything else doesn’t matter. This is why we have such a problem with it and this is why they give such emphasis to QTS [Quality Tracking System]. . . . Now it’s like everyday somebody can come up to you and go two days ago you did this wrong, yesterday you did this wrong . . . Cath: Twenty five per cent twice a month. Andrew: Everybody gets checked. Cath: Everybody gets checked. (6.11.98; emphasis added)

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Andrew’s comparison of work with a totalitarian Nazi regime speaks volumes. One of the differences between the T Corporation regime and the one outlined by Zamyatin is that these staff are not uncritical adherents, who live by the rational demands of work processing. They resented being so closely monitored and, in particular, the requirement to monitor each other, comparing the experience to being in the Hitler Youth. Resistance, in this instance, can be understood as a combination of ‘satire’ and ‘cynicism’ (see Collinson, 2003; Flemming and Spicer, 2003). Thus, the very real fears and anxieties of the staff are expressed through mocking the system. In this instance, power serves to ‘individualize’ (Foucault, 1977) as the staff are marked out from each other and are individually monitored by each other through the quality tracking system (QTS). The staff are enrolled to enforce the system on each other and it is this that they particularly resented. They appeared to accept being individually monitored and understood ‘that quality has to be maintained’ but loathed having to force such discipline on others. Nonetheless, they did not formally challenge this requirement and so through their silence and compliance they become ‘makers’ through reproducing the system. They conformed even though they were ‘shooting’ themselves in the ‘foot’ and considered it to be ‘wrong’ and ‘distasteful’. It begs the question, at what point would they say ‘No’? Where would such staff draw the line? Individualization is an embedded feature of the regime but the decision to further individualize through peer-based monitoring reflects an operational decision and both could be resisted. The spectre of Nazism and Andrew’s reference to ‘people higher up the food chain’ provides a vivid account of the experience of work. It suggests that T Corporation is seen as an omnipotent, ruthless entity, which feasts on its staff. The workflow appears to be particularly disempowering, for work ‘comes to you’, ‘appears’, and staff ‘suddenly find’ themselves ‘doing this checking’. It conveys a sense of powerlessness. The self-disciplining pressure of the regime is also evident for ‘everybody knows someone, somewhere’ is watching and so they feel the pressure to conform. These staff seem to share the subjectivity of the ‘victim’ (Gabriel, 1995) and their comments suggest that they consider themselves incapable of resistance. Yet, it could also be the case that through such representations the staff are attempting to exercise power through me, as a researcher, in order to alleviate their plight. The individualizing pressure of the regime with its requirement to ‘track’ ‘co-workers’ is particularly disturbing. It was understood that this undermined their collective position as employees for, as Simon put it, they are ‘checking up on’ themselves and in doing so they are ‘pulling each one of ’ them ‘down’. So even as the staff disciplined each other and themselves, they were aware of their collective affiliations and class-based position. Such remarks could also be read as a rejection of the implementation discourse, for the staff balked at the individualized self that must take ‘responsibility’ for enforcing ‘quality’ on someone else. The panopticon-like gaze of control occurs through a variety of channels each of which focuses on employees as anonymous ‘numbers’ who have made errors

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or who have failed to conform. Like the glass city of OneState, it seems that everyone is observable and the staff act as guardians of each other. Each member of staff is symbolically represented on the ‘system’ as a ‘number’. It is not clear whether this was intended to depersonalize the system of control, but it supports the disciplinary regime because one is seemingly not dealing with fellow employees or even humans: If we go in and do a payment, we check someone’s number and say ‘032 you’ve done such and such’ and then we sort it out don’t we? ’Cos the payments got to be done there and then and it’s got to be sorted. (Jan, Payments Audit Section, 14.10.98) That Jan is dealing with ‘032’ and not Billy or Christine may well enhance control. Thus, it reduces the sense of betrayal experienced by Andrew and Simon (above) who seemed to know the names of the individuals they are tasked to observe at least in their section. Employees may check each other’s work or, alternatively, the Branch Network may serve as an additional arm of the control apparatus as Val, a clerk of nineteen years within the Support Section, explained: Part of the QTS (Quality Tracking System) is that branches will report on the errors. So that can be picked up on individuals within the centre and can be picked up by other branches. The branches can report on individuals whereby branches can go in and do a piece of work and they can discover that a person at an ASC has made an error and will do an error log on that individual. So reports of errors are coming in from several different sources. (14.10.98) The control network is pervasive and, although the staff are ‘individually’ monitored, measured, assessed and rewarded, their work lives are interconnected and this tightens the controls on them. Thus, the staff may consider it necessary to log someone’s error during the course of their work, because if they do not do so, it will reflect on their individual performance, as Val continued: People are timed on their particular queue. Now if you are in doing a piece of work and you’ve got a minute to do that piece of work, and because of an error made by somebody else that piece of work is going to take you four minutes. You’ve got to stand up and say ‘Well look it’s taken me four minutes because I’ve had to sort this out’. That the system continues is bound up with the decisions and actions of the staff in that collectively they fail to resist it. Although Andrew resented the system, many of the staff, including Andrew, were engrossed by their individual performance and by the individualizing features of the regime, as we shall now see.

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Individualized controls Our wages depend on us doing well. We have to be 110 per cent efficient and 0.03 per cent error rate and I think a lot of people have become obsessed with this. Because they have been obsessed you get a bit obsessed yourself don’t you? Because you want to think I’m not that bad really. (Sara, PAPS Section, 16.10.98) Individual performance indicators loom large over the lives of the staff. Work lives are dominated by such controls and the staff are acutely aware of them. Although the staff were critical of them, no one contemplated collectively resisting them, at least during the group conversations that I shared with the staff. Sara, above, commented that ‘you get a bit obsessed’ with performance measures. This seemed to be contagious in that she felt that her obsession reflected the obsessions of others. Rather than the staff being simply controlled, they are part of the disciplinary apparatus because they participate in it. Many were mesmerized by their individual performance in relation to the regime’s requirements and the performance of each other. Hence, Sarah was concerned ‘to think I’m not that bad really’ and such identity concerns grip her in a vice that is partly of her own making. The contradiction between the implementation discourse that preached teamwork and friendship, and the ‘individual’ experience of performance measures, could not be clearer. Reflecting concerns about their economic livelihood, the performance ‘figures’ have become all consuming for some staff. The tragedy, of course, is that one’s pay, working conditions or job security are unlikely to substantially improve whilst each member of staff seeks to distinguish themselves, through stepping on the bones of their peers: I’ve done 824 PAPS [change of title], 823 of them in that case are correct. I did them perfectly unless there’s any come back from a branch at a later date which could happen. You know? I might have spelt the name wrong on the cheque book or something and the customer has not opened their cheque book and realised it yet. So you can get back dated errors but you’re thinking 823 out of 824 is bloody good. I’m not trying to boast too much but you don’t then get the recognition for that. The previous month though I’d got three errors, which were genuine errors, I’d done a lot less probably 200 and something. Now my error rate was something like 0.7 because you can get penalised so much for one error. You could do 100 and do 1 error and you are way off target. (John, PAPS Section, 16.10.98; emphasis added) John’s work life is saturated by his individual concern with output and errors. His identity is enmeshed with how he has individually performed and so he can tell you precisely how many errors he has made each month. He highlighted the injustice of the system where a single error can mean ‘you are way off target’ but he did not begin to think in terms of challenging the system. Reflecting a

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masculine preoccupation with competition (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993), he simply locked horns with his work demands in an individual struggle that reproduced his suffering. John’s reference to ‘customers’ being able to ‘retrospectively’ report errors reveals yet another channel of control and the sense of individual accountability is palpable. The staff appeared to see no way out of their individualized lives that are drenched with individualized performance indicators: Darren: Joyce: Polly:

Joyce:

Polly:

How is productivity measured or performance? By those times. Everything is geared around those times, your time scale and the volume of work that you produce. They get a print out don’t they everyday of all the work you’ve done, like an audit roll, and then at the end of the month they put it all together and average it out. Because everything has a code like opening and closing accounts. They are able to pull off, and we’ve all got numbers. So they are able to pull off for each staff number what you’ve actually worked within the codes on our Sections. You’ve filled in your time sheets. . . . We give our sheets in at night and that is then put into the system. So over a month they’ll say ‘You’ve done like twenty-four hours on this and thirty-eight hours on that’ and you know, in that time, they will have built up this pattern for everything. As well as that though they’ve got error logs. So they are working out how many errors you’ve made working through all the months divided by a certain . . . (Account Maintenance Section, 14.10.98; emphasis added)

These staff referred to how ‘they [management] get a print out’, ‘they put it together’, ‘they are able to pull off ’, ‘they’ve got error logs’ and ‘they are working out’, in a way that conveys a sense of impotence and vulnerability. The ‘makers’ appear to be dealing with nameless numbers through the system of control and are exercising power in ways that the staff feel unable to resist. Material is put into ‘the system’ and a ‘pattern for everything’ is built up. One could almost be talking of a machine, a ‘maker’, the ‘Benefactor’, ‘Big Brother’ or Martians that are doing things to the staff. The staff expressed class-based positions around ‘they’, ‘we’ve’, ‘you’ in contrast to the ‘We’ of the implementation discourse and yet they did not articulate class-based affiliations in a more developed way. Paradoxically, the staff were ‘collectively’ preoccupied with their ‘shared’ individual experiences and yet they felt isolated and powerless to resist. In a panopticon-like way, control was all the more effective because the staff have internalized its norms. They absorbed beliefs regarding the knowledge that management is able to accumulate about them and felt all the less powerful for having done so. Yet, through industrial action, the staff could shut the ASCs down so as to effect change but this did not appear to occur to them. Too much seemed to be ‘individually’ at stake in

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terms of job loss, lost income, reduced promotion opportunities or lost pension entitlement, and yet they all faced such dangers. Their identities seemed to be bound up with a self that individually embraces rather than collectively resists corporate demands. Although Cath, Andrew and Simon from the PAPS Section have limited power as individuals, collectively, as employees, they have considerable power. They deemed themselves feeble, however, by only attending to their individual position within the labour process: Andrew: You can do quite well on a Section or you are doing quite well at a job and you can be moved to another Section. And if you don’t do as well as expected on that job, despite how well you may have been doing at the previous job, you will be treated as if you are crap at your job. And you’ve got no say over which Sections you go to because it is one big ASC. So you could be doing really well and then get moved to account closing say and be rubbish at that but you’ve got no come back. You can’t say ‘Well can I go back to X, I was doing OK on there. Everyone thought I was doing alright’. You are expected to perform as well on every single job that they put you on and you’ve got no control over what jobs they put you on. (PAPS Section, 6.11.98; emphasis added) Contrary to the implementation discourse, the system is experienced as disempowering for ‘you’ve got no say’, ‘no control’ and ‘you’ve got no come back’. Yet Andrew only contemplated his individual weakness within the regime, he did not reflect on the collective strength of the staff. The loss of paper adds a new dynamic to workplace control and exacerbates the sense of isolated paralysis. Thus, Steve, a Senior Processing Clerk of twenty years, reflected: In the branches you used to have your own desk, so to speak, and your own job. Don’t get me wrong it was always busy in the branches as well but, er, you had the paper in front of you. You knew exactly how much work you had in front of you. You knew exactly how much work you had and how long it would be, how long it’s going to take. . . . But here you don’t know what you’re doing from one day to the next. (23.10.98) The paperless office, in this context, creates a sense of flickering, fleeting symbols and figures, over which one has little control. It seemed to eat into the ability of the staff to pace themselves, which has been observed under more traditional forms of work (Roy, 1955). The loss of a sense of control is manifest in a variety of factors including the spatial/geographical shift from having one’s ‘own desk’, the loss of paper and the absence of task-based (‘own job’) norms. By contrast, one is trapped by a succession of images that materialize and disappear over which one apparently has no control.

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Manufacturing machines? It is true that labour produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labour by machines – but some of the workers it throws back to a barbarous type of labour, and the other workers it turns into machines. (Marx, 1844/1969: 99)1 At the strategic level, the ‘makers’ appeared to have machines in mind when they designed work in the ASCs. In this section, we will explore the implications of such thinking in terms of how it impinges on the lives of the staff. Repetition certainly features on the Pre-Authorized Payments (PAPS) Section, where the staff are required to complete forty-one standing orders or seventeen change of addresses or eighty-five direct debits an hour. On the Mandate Maintenance Section, staff must complete ninety signature card checks or process 125 cancelled cheques each hour. Images flash on the screen as soon as one job has been completed and the system does not allow for errors, for there is no going back, once an item has been worked or ‘dropped’: Lorraine: It comes into the Stops queue for the person to work it. Working the Stops queue all day can be very boring (laughter). That’s the only thing about jobs like maybe PAPS and Stops. I mean it’s not too bad because we tend to rotate more. Erm, but if you are just sat there working a queue it can be quite mindless. Darren: And you don’t have any control over the work that actually comes to you then? Lorraine: No. Sue: No, you don’t know what you’re going to get next do yer? (Cheque and Fraud Section, 14.10.98) Lorraine described the work as ‘mindless’, which helps elucidate the resistance that emerged during the WCCS course. If it is the advanced capacity for thought and sense making that defines us as human, then work that is mindless is surely corrosive of our humanity. The epigraph from Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead, at the start of this chapter, recalls his experiences of work in a Siberian prison camp, and it powerfully declaims such work: Darren: Do you find it interesting? Andrew: ERRERR (the sound of a buzzer usually denoting the wrong answer in a Quiz Show but in this case signifying that I had posed the wrong question). LAUGHTER. Andrew: Change of address? Cath: I love change of address.

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Andrew: Darren: Andrew: Cath: Andrew:

I mean I love change of address. Do you? Well no it is. I do like change of address. I like change of address ’cos when I started here I did it for two weeks short of a year. . . . It was good because you know you are dealing with people. You’ve got people’s names, people’s addresses, people’s accounts and you know you are working with people. And when you are doing standing orders and direct debits yer just doing numbers. Cath: Yer it just seems like a number. It doesn’t seem. Andrew: So you are just inputting numbers, moving numbers, changing numbers, dropping items and it is sometimes, well it is very repetitive. (PAPS Section, 6.11.98) Despite the emphasis on customer service in the implementation discourse, it seems that the processing of ‘standing orders’ and ‘direct debits’ divorces the staff from any sense of contact with customers as human beings. Customers are reduced to ‘numbers’ and work is rendered meaningless other than in terms of the movement of ‘numbers’. One of the key features of work in the ASCs, as in Zamyatin’s OneState, is its anonymity. Hence, customers become anonymous numbers, staff are required to monitor each other as anonymous numbers; images flow to and from one anonymous individual to another. In view of this, work that ascribes meaning or an identity to the numbers is ‘loved’ in contrast to the empty void of the numbers. It is important to remember that the implementation discourse defined the staff as anything but ‘numbers’. The contradiction between the emphasis on initiative, friendship, teamwork, etc. and the experience of the regime is therefore stark. Nonetheless, it is necessary to realize that, whilst the work regime defines the staff as mechanized, individualized, anonymous ‘numbers’, the sense of being separate from each other ‘must be provided by the controlled groups’ (Deetz, 1992: 253). Thus, we do not automatically become fragmented ‘numbers’ even if we are labelled and treated as such. Instead, we maintain and reproduce such conditions through tolerating them or engaging with them, although we may do so without reflecting on this situation and the possibility of it being otherwise. Sue, a member of staff of some thirty years, from the PAPS Section, commented that with ‘it being such a big Section, you are a number aren’t you?’. Whilst Val, a clerk of nineteen years in the Support Section, explained how the method of monitoring and feedback creates an anonymous state of being. Nevertheless, neither questioned the ‘system’ itself at least not during the interview. Instead, Val suggested that it needs ‘fine tuning’: I just think it’s a little bit de-humanizing personally. The way it comes through ’cos I see them [error rates, performance statistics] all the time and it says this person has worked at this level for this length of time, and produced this amount of work and got this amount of errors. So they are this

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Part II percentage for this week, month or whatever it might be. They are not taking into account the person. It’s got the capacity to reduce you to a statistic. . . . I can see on a Centre basis that you are dealing with 200 and odd people and so there’s got to be a measure of performance. There’s got to be standards, but what worries me is that when these statistics are taken into meetings, nobody is taking into account the fact that they are human beings. (14.10.98; emphasis added)

According to Val, the staff have become a ‘percentage’ or a ‘statistic’ and so local ASC practice seems to chime with the strategy discourse. She accepted the legitimacy of performance measures but lamented how such methods of accountability ‘de-humanize’ and fail to take into account that the staff are ‘human beings’. Clerks from the Enquiries Section described the work that grade 3s perform as distinctly less than human: Chris:

The grade 3 stuff just’s run of the mill. You could train a monkey to do it. That bad. Yer just pushing a button basically. Lorraine: Yer I couldn’t cope with that. Dave: Branch asks for a copy of a statement three years ago. You get the microfiche out, stick it in, do a print, send it to the branch. (16.10.98) It is intriguing that tasks that are otherwise meaningful are experienced as so intolerable. Intriguing, that is, until one realizes that, whilst harmless in isolation and potentially interesting, when performed repetitively, tasks can lose all sense of value. It is this experience that the ‘makers’ failed to take into account when they elevated a repetitive view of efficiency. Lorraine reflected that she could not ‘cope with’ such work and yet she/we do nothing to ameliorate the plight of those who are forced to do it. Despite the de-humanizing repetition, the ASCs could still be managed differently and this is what those who accept the intolerable fail to confront. Steve, a clerk of twenty-nine years, from the Payment Audit Section was unusual in that he indicated how things could begin to be otherwise: I think it comes down to your Section. I think the Section manager has the opportunity to make it more personalised doesn’t he? . . . It’s all about individuals. I mean as much as we’re numbers on a piece of paper here. At the end of the day you’re gonna work better if your Section manager treats you better . . . like a human being. (14.10.98) Irrespective of the thinking behind the setting up of the ASCs and the ideas that continue to inform their operation, it remains possible to manage them differently. Neither the strategy nor the technology would need to change if management decided to increase task variety, abandoned the extreme work demands and eliminated the individual measures of work performance. That the regime con-

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tinues reflects the ‘makers’’ belief that it is a cost-effective method of working. Greater humanity on their part but also reflection on the waste of under-utilized human capacity could change such thinking, as could resistance from customers, staff and local ASC management, which could make the system uneconomic (Friedman, 1977). The above depictions of the ASC regime illuminate the marginal impact of the WCCS programme on the culture of T Corporation and it vividly contradicts the implementation discourse. ‘Clock time’ for ‘robots’ ‘Clock time’ infused staff lives. In the Account Maintenance Section, where the staff open and close accounts, mechanical rhythms flood their consciousness: Linda:

The thing about here is that you have Time Capture and you don’t have a minute that shouldn’t be logged somewhere. Polly: You have to do so much in so much time. Joyce: To log every minute of the day. Darren: Was that not the case in the branches? Linda: Well yes but you prioritised the work whereas here it is prioritised for you. Each piece of work is timed. You move from one piece of work onto another. Joyce: Everything’s coded. So it’s a little bit production line in the fact that you’d be coded. Linda: So there’d be codes for your opening and you have to do like eight an hour. So you pick it up, work it and then drop it. (Account Maintenance, Clerks of two-and-a-half, two and thirty years’ employment, 14.10.98; emphasis added) The work environment for these staff resonates with the machine paced, production line work articulated by the ‘makers’, in Chapter 2. They are required to open ten or close eight accounts per hour, and they articulated their loss of a sense of autonomy and responsibility compared to their lives in the branches. For once ‘you prioritized the work’ but now ‘it is prioritized for you’ and this belies the implementation discourse. In the following extract, they compared their experiences to becoming machines: Linda: Joyce:

Polly: Joyce: Linda: Polly:

I think you’re more of a peg in a hole here aren’t you? I just found it too much of a production line when I came here. Just felt as if it started at one end and just rolled off the other. I think yer find you come in, in the morning and you sit there and just . . . You know exactly what yer gonna do for the whole . . . You know what’s on the queues. You know there’s not going to be somebody. I don’t mind that really once you get used to it. ’Cos when you get into a routine.

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Linda: Joyce: Polly: Linda: Darren: Linda: Joyce: Linda: Polly: Darren: Polly:

. . . the beginning is a bit. Like being a robot? Yes it is. I don’t mind it. You don’t mind it? You like the routine? Easy to please (laughter). Just point me in the right direction yer? (laughter). I’m suffering from ambition fatigue nowadays. I don’t aspire to be General Manager . . . whereas you probably I’d prefer to be out meeting people really . . . I mean I enjoy it but it’s not really. Is it what you thought you’d be doing before you came here? No it’s not really. I didn’t think it’d be as tedious as it is (laughter) I enjoy it (laughter) but I thought there’d be more to do like different day to day work. (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98)

These comments express that, for Joyce and Polly at least, who are younger employees, working in the ASC is experienced as harmful. One is required to ‘get into a routine’ so as to deaden oneself in order to cope with practices that run contrary to a meaningful existence. Linda stated that she did not ‘mind it’ but explained this in terms of her limited career aspirations and resignation. Her comments suggest that she has become institutionalized. After thirty years of service, she no longer questions and tolerates conditions that the others compared to ‘being a robot’. Yet, such stoicism sows the seeds for future generations who will also have to suffer and become a particular type of subject, that expects no more than to know their place, to limit their aspirations or leave. Linda no longer wants to be ‘General Manager’ and, even though this assertion expresses resistance through gallows humour, it reveals the stultifying effects that such work can have, rendering us ‘easily pleased’. Joyce seemed to empathize with Linda’s apathy when she asked ‘Just point me in the right direction?’ It suggests that at work Linda has become, at least in part, a robot – no longer willing to ‘make decisions’ or use her ‘initiative’. Polly and Joyce have yet to become such subjects but are flagging under the weight of the regime. Thus, despite expressing frustration, Polly continually reiterated ‘I enjoy it’, as if to convince herself that this is the case. Perhaps the tedium of each day being precisely mapped out requires her to pacify herself ? Polly and Joyce’s comments indicate that getting into a ‘routine’ means becoming ‘a robot’ or something less than human, and perhaps this fate is where both are headed? Whilst one does not literally become a machine, it seems that something is lost in the process, the ‘makers’ diminish something and yet the staff did not denounce their tormentors. Silently, as they ‘get used to it’ and dull to the routine, they absorb and reproduce a way of life and their position within it. They become ‘machines, stamped out like bottle caps’ (Dick, 1968: 162). Such experiences contradict and are far removed from the discourse espoused through the CBIs and during the WCCS workshops.

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Although Linda asserted that she did not ‘mind it’, she made a direct comparison with her working life and that of a robot: Linda:

On opening or closing that’s what you do all day opening or closing all day. And it comes up on your queue. You just sit there and your number goes in and up comes your next piece of work you know? So it is a bit sort of robotic in that sense. (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98)

If Linda does not mind being ‘robotic’, it suggests that something has happened to her or that she is different from the other staff. The analogy of a ‘robot’ to depict how it feels to work in the ASC was used elsewhere, and one could describe this as the emergence of a ‘counter discourse’ (Foucault, 1979). Thus, Chris (employee of twenty-two years), Lorraine (eighteen years) and Dave (twenty-nine years), all from the Enquiries Section, contrasted life in the branches with their life in the ASC. The Enquiries Section acts as a help desk, dealing with problems that arise in the ASC, the Call Centres or that are raised by external customers. By comparison, this work is far more interesting and varied than for the majority of the staff in the ASC. Nonetheless, the staff reflected upon their lives as follows: Darren: Chris: Lorraine: Chris: Lorraine: Chris: Lorraine: Dave: Lorraine:

What struck you about working here that’s different from when you were working in the branches? The branches were fun. Yes, you talked to people (laughter). You popped out to the shop. Get a bit of fresh air er, see people. You got treated better as well. Yes treated better. So just a number. Yer like robots here aren’t yer? And it’s all timed here. You’re all worried to death about yer queues, getting yer timings done. (16.10.98)

The geographical location of the ASC, far from the city centre, seems to have had a detrimental impact on the QWL of these staff. They are not only treated as ‘numbers’ but are isolated and tied to the ASC building. It is not possible to pop ‘out to the shop’, to ‘see people’ and indeed it is dangerous to ‘get a bit of fresh air’ given the ASC’s location. But the ‘makers’, who probably viewed the location as a cost-effective site, would have given little thought to such matters. Although the majority of the staff that I talked to resented the mechanized, clock-demands, that infected and dictated their lives, many had internalized this discipline. This is a process that began long ago (see Thompson, 1967) and indeed begins for many of us at school. Sue, an employee of nine years from the Cheque and Fraud Section, was concerned to know whether there is a system

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other than ‘Time Capture’, which could be used to measure work, but she did not question whether the work should be measured. As the extract below indicates, she considered ‘time discipline’ (Hassard, 1990) to be inevitable, the logic irrefutable and, in this sense, she has absorbed and assimilated the demands of the machine. It needs to be remembered, however, that Sue ‘sometimes’ covers for team leaders and ‘stays late’. Her views on time capture may therefore be coloured by her career aspirations: What other way is there of measuring it? If you can come up with another way Terry [Head of ASC] will be really, really pleased because he doesn’t like Time Capture anyway but he can’t think of any other way of doing it. . . . But really it’s the only way when you think about it. If you have an annual review, reviewing your year, seeing what you’ve done wrong and seeing what you can do and everything, and hopefully your grade will either still be the same or you’ve gone for a higher grade or something like that. It’s the only way of doing it. I can’t really see another way of doing it. (14.10.98; emphasis added) From Sue’s point of view, measuring performance, although problematic, is normal. Indeed, even monitoring performance in a highly individual and regimented way is normal. It is part of her taken-for-granted view of the world and, like the ‘makers’, she can see no alternative to it. Others were still learning this ‘time discipline’. Hence, the following conversation refers to the time sheets that the staff are required to complete. The staff discussed the need not only to record specific tasks that have been completed but also any unusual events that may have impacted on their performance. Such issues can be taken to their monthly, six monthly or yearly reviews in support of, or to defend, their performance: Lorraine: Yer write on yerself do you? Or tell them if they’ve not got it recorded? Greg: You don’t have to write down everything you’ve done. Obviously if you want to keep it for your review at the end of the year but if you want to write anything down specifically for that month. Sue: Like I’ve had this fraud case that lasted me three hours I want that marking down (laughter) which is awful really because it’s getting a bit picky isn’t it? Lorraine: But you’ve got to ’av this evidence of your own and I always write it down, tek’ it in, when I ’av like, six month, whatever, but I didn’t realise it was writing it for anything you’ve done good. You know what I mean? But I do record it myself now because it just pays yer to record. ’Cos, like I say, I’ve never done anything like this in my life before but it does. I’m learning now, you record everything. . . . If anything weird happens, you know on Friday, I wrote it down and I’m glad I did because it was something good on my part. . . . Nor-

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mally I would have thought, anywhere else, it doesn’t really [matter] but you’ve got to write everything down. Darren: What was this good thing? Lorraine: Oh it’s just that we’ve had a lot of sickness in our Department, long term, really bad and holidays. . . . The volume was high and we literally covered and asked to work lunch time and we got refused [overtime]. So I made a note of it because we could see that it would need it and come 4.30 we’re still here and we didn’t get overtime for it. So I wrote it down because it was an oversight of the supervisor really not to prepare the people to be in, in the morning with me. I had mentioned it the night before to prepare and we didn’t get any recognition for it so I made a note of it . . . So I did actually record it and I’m glad because normally I would not have bothered about something like that. I would have thought ‘Well it’s just one of those days’. But I thought ‘Well no’, you know, so I have made it noted now and they know about it. (Cheque and Fraud Section, 14.10.98; emphasis added) In the above instance, Lorraine expressed that she is learning to account for herself and, indeed, is making a project of her work and, of course, herself. Thus, ‘you’ve got to write everything down’ so that evidence can be provided in support of your performance. Lorraine is having to forge herself anew as a subject that ‘calculates about itself, and that works upon itself in order to better itself ’ (Rose, 1989: 7–8). One could interpret her actions as a means of coping with the demands of the work regime in that Lorraine wants to be able to defend her performance. One can also reflect on the wasted time and effort that goes into such recording. Given that allowances can be made for unusual activities, the staff are developing a sensitivity towards this situation. The staff seem to be looking at their work as an identity project, whereby tasks that otherwise may have been completed as part of one’s everyday job, are now significant in terms of representing and accounting for themselves. This could be interpreted as an act of resistance whereby the staff are constructing a particular image of themselves that draws on the flaws and peculiarities of the regime. In short, the staff are learning to play management at their own game in a way that the ‘makers’ may not have foreseen. This is likely to have further individualizing consequences, however, as work becomes unique to each individual’s account of it. The emphasis on individual accountability may have unintended negative consequences for management. Hence, the intense rigour of ‘time discipline’ may establish limits around the amount of effort that the staff are willing to expend. Anything beyond the norm will begin to be seen as ‘extra’. Rather than the staff giving ever more of themselves in relation to increasing ‘work pressures’ as the implementation discourse called for, the ‘effort bargain’ (Baldamus, 1961) will be carefully scrutinized. The staff will expect anything beyond the norm to be rewarded. Thus, the rigid time discipline may create a culture of minimal effort that meets the job requirements but contradicts and stifles the call for helpfulness,

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sharing knowledge and customer service. It is these delimiting consequences of machine thinking that the ‘makers’ failed to take into account when designing a system based on a narrow understanding of efficiency. Evaluating performance through output and error rates may also create staff frustration. Thus, if management is only concerned with statistics, as the basis for evaluating performance, then they are not taking into account the wider efforts of the staff. This contradicts the implementation discourse and it is likely to breed animosity, as we shall explore in the following sections. Despite the exacting control over work, the staff found ways to play the machine, especially the statistics, so as to cope with the demands of work. The following accounts illuminate instances of resistance but also some of the problems of measuring performance in a highly rigid way. Resisting the machine He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking. (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949: 174) Making do: coping with work Although there are different ways to cope with the demands of work, one way is for the staff to subjectively disengage, which Collinson (1994) refers to as ‘resistance through distance’. Judy, a clerk of twenty-eight years from the Mandate Maintenance Section, explained how she sometimes welcomes the more ‘boring’ work because it allows her to create a distance between herself and the job, allowing her to take a mental break. Although the work involves limited intellectual stimulation, the staff cannot entirely disengage. Indeed, it is perhaps the necessity to concentrate on work, which is boring, that creates resentment as it prevents the staff from fully ‘switching off ’. Truly monotonous work, therefore, came as something of a relief for Judy, as it allowed her to unyoke her mind: On a personal level sometimes I quite like doing a boring job for half a day because you can just switch off a bit from it. Mundane jobs. (Judy, Mandate Maintenance Section, 16.10.98) The work had the unintended consequence of forcing some staff to ‘let go’ or detach themselves from the work. This was not something that all of the staff welcomed because some wanted to engage but they found that the work regime prevented them from doing so: Darren: Sue:

So you preferred the responsibility of the branch did you or . . . Well I suppose I felt I was appreciated more because . . .

In the belly of the machine Sara:

Darren: John:

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I think perhaps the work you’re doing because I’m doing sort of team leadering. I’ve still got the responsibility. I must admit, I think people in the branch who came here find it hard to let go of the work, because you do your part of the work, and then pass it on to somebody else, to do their part of the work, where we used to have to follow it through. If you made a mistake you would look into it and find out what they’d done and rectify it. Where now, all you do is look at it, OK yes and pass it on to somebody else. . . . I thought it was quite hard at first to let go. I think a lot of people in the branches found it difficult to pass work on because they felt as if they weren’t doing their job properly. Is that something you felt? When I first came here I was on Mandate Maintenance and I found that. I thought hold on, you know? I’m half way through this erm but my actual duty on that item of work had been done and I was going in too deeply. It was something they said to me in my appraisal, you know? That I was trying to get too deeply involved and it was trying to train yourself to. (PAPS Section, 16.10.98, employees of thirty, twenty-two and twenty years service; emphasis added)

The above extract illustrates how both the organization of work and how it is policed militates against the staff engaging with what they do. Thus, work is organized so ‘that the worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object’ (Marx, 1844/1969: 97). Rather than alienation being the inevitable outcome of work in a capitalist system, the staff did not want to distance themselves but found themselves forced to ‘let go’ by the regime. John recounted how in his appraisal he was asked to stop getting ‘involved’ and he is now ‘trying to train’ himself to become detached. Such dynamics seem far from ‘logical’ despite the ‘makers’’ claims and they certainly contradict the implementation discourse. That the staff are forced to disengage hardly seems conducive to customer service. Sue, from the same section, expressed a similar experience. She explained that, in her job, ‘sometimes you end up investigating, which I’m not sure you’re supposed to really’ (16.10.98). She lamented that despite performance figures that aim to limit her involvement, she found it impossible to obey, ‘I can’t help myself. If you see something and you think “That’s not quite right” I’ve got to do it’. Here we can glean the absurdity of a work regime that requires the staff to suppress their ‘initiative’ and how using one’s initiative, under such circumstances, could almost be seen as an act of resistance. Other staff expressed the frustration of being pressurized to disengage from their work: Janet:

I think new people, ’av bin in branches a long time, comin’ here, it is hard. You’re told really aren’t you what to do? You are not allowed to think for yourself (laughter).

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Dorothy:

That is the hardest thing. (PAPS Section, 9.9.98)

These former branch staff felt aggrieved by the limits of their new ‘program’, like the Androids in Philip K. Dick’s novel, they wanted to do and be more. They could not accept an enfeebling system that prevented them from addressing problems that they were able to resolve. In doing so, they refused to become machines. Nevertheless, this capacity to say ‘NO’ was used for, rather than against, the machine. Hence, the staff refused to switch themselves off and this served to ensure the smooth running of the machine. The ASC regime contradicts the implementation discourse, which asked the staff to take responsibility for their work and to use their initiative. The regime is bound up, therefore, with contradictory exhortations, discourses, controls, cultures and demands that illuminate the ambiguous and inconsistent way in which power is exercised. The staff juggled, coped and made sense of these various competing demands and in doing so they made the machine work. The need for managers and employees to balance the competing demands of work quantity versus quality has been well documented (Knights and McCabe, 1998; Bain and Taylor, 2000). This is usually seen as a source of staff complaint and a discipline that management needs to perfect, so that both are equally taken into account. In particular, management are castigated for sacrificing quality for quantity output. Yet, from a staff perspective, what has been missed is how such balancing can promote interest in, and a sense of control over, work that is intrinsically dull. Work in the ASC requires the staff to juggle with time so as to compensate for, and accommodate, different types of work, difficult jobs, technological problems, different staff aptitudes, shifting levels of concentration, day dreaming and this can generate interest in work that is otherwise uninteresting. Like the ‘Banana time’ that Donald Roy (1961) identified, such balancing helps break up the day thereby providing interest in, and a means to cope with, work that is unrewarding. These struggles appeared to be a means to ‘make do’ rather than ‘make out’ (Roy, 1952, 19692; Burawoy, 1979). Thus, ‘making do’ smooths the edges of the competing work demands and compensates for flaws in a mechanical, simplistic work system, which does not take into account the unexpected, technological failure, individual idiosyncrasies, inaccurate job timings, etc. It is unlikely that such uncertainties can be eliminated no matter how determined and mechanical the management approach, and perhaps one could argue that the management should not attempt to do so. This is because juggling such demands, although not intended, provides a modicum of stimulation out of work that is monotonous. They enable employees to get through the day and also facilitate the organization and operation of work. Such struggles are the oil that makes the machine hum and tick over. Although they reflect a work regime that was imposed on the staff, which sought to render the staff powerless, in practice, ‘making do’ highlights the power that the staff continue to be able to exercise. Just as a work-to-rule illuminates the capacity of employees to resist, this

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dynamic of ‘making do’ illustrates just how little can be achieved without employee consent, as we shall now see.3 Following the WCCS programme, a number of the staff commented that management has sought to rotate them more often. Nonetheless, due to the ‘boring’ nature of the work and out of a sense of inequity many staff bent time, whilst others invented their own targets to create job interest. John, from the PAPS Section, an employee of twenty years, who processes changes of address, sets himself what could be seen as ‘masculine’, individualized goals, whereby he pitted himself again the queue and himself as a method of coping with the boredom: Darren: John:

Do you have targets? I think it’s 6.74 you need to do an hour to reach the target. So that keeps you on the go. Er, to a degree it keeps your incentive up. Particularly if you come in, in the morning, you see about fifty to sixty odd on the queue you think ‘Well Christ that’s a lot’. It gives me, I think ‘Well if you can crack it and do it all in a day without any help from anybody else to help finish a queue’ yer feelin you’ve achieved something and you can go out at the end of the day and feel that I’ve had a good day today. (16.10.98)

Although John faced managerial work demands, he set himself individual goals to ensure that the work is completed. Rather than ‘making out’ (Roy, 1952, 1969; Burawoy, 1979) by fiddling the system, he ‘made do’ and in this context such acts can be thought of as resistance to the monotony of work. He sought to make the machine work but he did not do so out of a sympathy with the ‘makers’, but out of an individual, competitive, ‘masculinity’ (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993) and a desire to engage with what he is doing. Thus, he set himself challenges, foregoing ‘help from anybody else’, so that he felt a sense of personal achievement at the end of the day. He therefore created meaning in order to cope with the drudgery. Of course, such coping cannot be considered in isolation because John’s struggles are bound up with his material need for an income and job security. Moreover, his long service (twenty years) no doubt keeps him at the queues, so to speak, for he has accumulated a large redundancy and pension entitlement, which may not be far from his thoughts. Rather than openly resist the ‘makers’, John found ways to cope with what Roy (1961) described as ‘the beast of boredom’. Another member of staff explained how it is necessary to wage psychological warfare against the figures, so that one is able to cope and come through, such soul-destroying working conditions: Lorraine: The thing is right, this is psychology. The thing is, if you are working a queue all day you have to set yourself a target whether it be stupid or not. You sit and you think ‘Oh I’ll do so many in this length of time’. My daughter is at University, came here in the

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Sue: Lorraine:

Darren: Lorraine: Darren: Greg: Lorraine: Sue: Lorraine: Darren: Lorraine:

Darren: Lorraine:

Sue:

Summer and she sat round and said ‘I’m going to achieve so many today’. It’s the only way she could sort of . . . Motivate? Yes get through and she was really pleased because she’d got through the many she’d set herself for doing that day and the next day she’d set herself more. It’s a bit sad I know (laughter). But the thing is, you know if you did that, if you set yourself those targets. Yes, you put yourself under pressure. Yes you could be increasingly doing that. I tell you how I do it I just plough through. Just plod on see how many you’ve done at the end of the day. You can make a game of it. Yes. That’s another way of doing it. How’s that? Well you can sort of make a game of erm putting things in a different way but then you tend to make mistakes if you’re not careful (laughter). How do you mean then? Well just doing something slightly different. If you can go onto automatic, there’s to, if you go on to automatic, you can still make mistakes ’cos you’re just soley on automatic. It’s like drivin’ to work and thinking ‘I don’t remember goin’ down that road. How did I get here?’. Well that’s the type of thing. So you can go onto automatic and you can still make mistakes. If you decided to go about something a different way. Erm, let’s say put SRI on afternoon main menu or vice versa, you can make mistakes but it’s a different way of doing it. It might make you just think a bit more. Yer, you’re trying to break the monotony aren’t yer? (Fraud and Cheque Section, 14.10.98; emphasis added)

The notion of ‘making do’ refers to the ways in which employees, rather than fiddling (Mars, 1982) or ‘making out’ (Roy, 1952, 1969; Burawoy, 1979), seek to work within the parameters of the job to make the work more stimulating or less debilitating (Roy, 1961). Rather than going ‘on automatic’ and becoming machine-like or switching off, as in ‘resistance through distance’ (Collinson, 1994), they played games. This can be understood as an internal dialogue, whereby one sets oneself targets. One uses one’s capacity for autonomous thought, initiative, decision making in novel ways that allow for self-expression. In this way, the staff engaged creatively with work that did not allow for selfexpression. In the above instances, the staff were ‘making do’ in various ways. Lorraine and her daughter set themselves individual goals that were in line with managerial demands but reflected their own targets. She reported how her daughter

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sought to outperform the system and in this way risked intensifying her workload. Of course, she was never able to beat the system because the queues do not go away and, even if one queue is finished, the staff can be switched to another queue or to the same queue in a different ASC. Nevertheless, the staff used this method of individual target setting to ‘get through’ the day. Rather than the machine controlling them, they felt a sense of control over the queues and gained a sense of meaning, even, that is, if this is ultimately fallacious because such endeavours serve to reproduce the machine and enhance management control. The ‘makers’ did not envisage and are probably unaware of such individual target setting. It supports the system as an unintended consequence of the staff seeking to survive or gain some interest out of what they do. Lorraine recognized that such ‘games’ can intensify work but it was seen as a necessary means to cope or, as Sue described it, to ‘motivate’ oneself. The external pressures of control were inadequate for ‘getting through’ the day, for, unlike robots, Lorraine needs to engage with the work at least at some minimal level. Lorraine also played games by switching her work around and this manipulation or switching tasks sometimes led to errors but, as Lorraine explained, so can going onto ‘automatic’. The difference, however, is that the staff are able to retain some sense of integrity from remaining consciously engaged with the work. They are able to use their initiative rather than become ghostly appendages of the machine. Lorraine’s ‘games’ help her ‘get through’ the day but unlike Burawoy’s (1979) games that involved appropriating corporate time and resources, Lorraine’s were more akin to the ‘times’ that Roy (1961) identified. Thus, rather than suffer the ‘beast of boredom’, Lorraine reconfigured the order of her work, so as to import variety and entertainment into it. This need for stimulation is something that the ‘makers’, who appeared to think of the staff as machines, are seemingly oblivious to. Other members of staff recounted how they play similar games: I just sort of tend to find a way to plough through it all. You do every now and then just do something like different to liven your day up. If you’re passing something on to a different queue, instead of putting thanks on the end you put eighteen different ways of saying thankyou at the end of your memo, just to like liven your day up a bit (laughter). You know you’ve been doing it a bit too long when you start doing things like that. (Greg, Fraud and Cheque Section, 14.10.98; emphasis added) The alternative is to ‘go onto automatic’ and suspend thought and become the machines that the ‘makers’ deemed the staff to be. Lorraine compared such subjectivity to a car journey when one can arrive with little memory of how one has got there. Such emptiness cannot be good for work that is ultimately dealing with customer accounts and it is certainly inconsistent with the implementation discourse. The ‘makers’ did not contemplate this potential for error due to dreary working conditions, when designing the regime. This game playing or

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coping can be understood as a means of resisting ‘managerial “logics of efficiency”’ because application of these ‘logics’ produces something less than ‘efficiency’ (Roy, 1969: 372). Here we can observe another example of ‘the blurred and ambiguous boundaries between opposition and control’ (Collinson, 2003: 540). Thus, the staff resisted in ways that enhanced management control and reproduced their plight. Moreover, such forms of ‘making do’ do not question or oppose the overall corporate structure, hierarchical norms and extant inequalities. Greg explained how he copes through ‘ploughing through’ or ‘plods on’ and these animalistic comparisons communicate an unthinking subjectivity. As a beast of burden, one adopts a mindless ‘routine’ that appears to offer some staff a means to protect themselves from the rigours of the day. It is as if one wears rather than becomes the routine. It could be construed as a survival strategy that amounts to one step at a time. Thereby protecting oneself from corporate corruption. It is not the case, therefore, that the human becomes machine because the creative capacity allows humans to find ways to cope and express themselves even in the most dire circumstances. Although playing games made things less boring for some staff, switching tasks around ran the risk of making errors or failing to meet ‘the figure’. In view of this, some staff preferred not to ‘play around’ with the order of work: You can swop things round to make it less boring I suppose. You’re always like, it’s always in the back of your mind isn’t ‘I must get my finger out. I’ve got to get sorted. I look like, you know?’ My boxes are getting empty here, I’m not really doing them quick enough here today or whatever. ’Cos that is on your mind isn’t it you know? You must, you know, get a reasonable figure at the end of the day. So you haven’t really got the time to play around as such, to mess about out of your ordinary routine, let’s put it that way (laughter). If your routine works you stick to it don’t yer? You know, if you’re getting the figure what you need at the end of the day you know? (Sue, Fraud and Cheque Section, 14.10.98) Sue was aware of being able to ‘swop things around’ but avoided doing so for fear of making a mistake or missing her target. We can observe how the discipline of the figures acts like the gaze of the panopticon, for ‘it’s always in the back of your mind’ rendering Sue conscious of what she ‘looks like’. This limited her ability to ‘play’ with the routines of her work. The figures that the ‘makers’ attached so much weight to are integral to the ‘contested terrain’ (Edwards, 1979) of employment. We can see that Sue strove to meet them but other staff shielded themselves with the figures and wielded them against management. The figures are central to their lives and to the dynamics of how they approached the work: Sarah

[team leader]: People are just so paranoid about these figures I think. There are some people who are to the point of distraction, obsessed

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with their figures in the view of they won’t do anything. If you ask them to do anything at all ‘Er where can I put this to say I have done this extra work?’ Like going for drinks. It got to the point on one Section, one person wouldn’t go for drinks because it used to take them long and they used to add it into your figures. So if they didn’t go for drinks then they would have better efficiency figures than people who were going for drinks, which is just ridiculous isn’t it? But where does this paranoia stem from? [team leader]: From the top. (PAPS Section, 16.10.98)

Far from mechanical beings, Sarah’s revelations indicate how some staff are using the figures to play the ‘makers’ at their own game. As was suggested in the previous section, some staff use them in a highly punctilious way to defend their position. Treated as machines, they responded in a way that could be compared to ‘working-to-rule’ in that nothing is done unless it is clearly documented. This daily contest could be said to add spice to their lives, and, in another way, it protects them. It could be interpreted as a form of resistance that simultaneously holds the system up for ridicule. Although Sarah felt that such actions express paranoia, it is important to remember that she is a team leader, and appears to have been frustrated by the staff asking for everything to be documented. One could only regard such behaviour as paranoia if one forgets how strictly staff performance is measured in terms of their statistical output. Moreover, as Sarah conceded, the responsibility for such an absurd situation lies at ‘the top’ for the ‘makers’ created the system. That the staff engage in such subtle interchanges of power, indicates that they are far from unquestioning machines, who simply perform their work duties. Nonetheless, such actions merely lubricate the machine in that they provide an outlet for staff anxiety, creating limited job interest, whilst only slightly frustrating supervisors/managers. Such acts expose the terrible waste of resources that flow from fragmented forms of work and rigid performance indicators that belie any notion of trust. Making out The above discussion of staff ‘making do’ does not mean that employees were unable to ‘make out’ (Roy, 19524; Burawoy, 1979) or, in other words, fiddle or cheat the system (see Mars, 1982). At T Corporation, both are an integral aspect of work, the dynamics of which are tied up with informal coalitions, personal relations, historical ties and friendship bonds. In contrast to ‘making do’, in the case of ‘making out’, the staff deployed their ‘initiative’ to avoid work rather than to cope or make the machine work. One could argue, however, that ultimately is it equally supportive of the status quo. For, rather than challenging the hierarchical order, it provides a channel through which the staff can vent their frustration, cope and also gain interest out of deadening work conditions. What

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is interesting about the events at T Corporation is the multiple, shifting, complex and ambivalent ways in which the staff struggled with the competing demands that are made of them. Thus, one might ‘make do’ in a way that makes the machine work at the same time as maintaining a cynical distance. One might ‘make out’ by manipulating one’s work performance and yet this ensures the smooth running of an imperfect machine. The point is that resistance and consent are more fluid and ambiguous than any simple categories can convey. Thus, we limit the richness of experience by placing it in neat, mutually exclusive categories. For example, Simon (below) maintained a cynical distance from the regime but, in other ways, he was also deeply engaged in it as he reflected on his condition and sought to balance competing work demands: Simon:

Sarah:

Simon:

Andrew:

I literally come in 9–5, get the job done and go home. I just treat it as a job [distance] and not a career obviously. Yer job in the Bank eleven years ago, I was hoping for a career but that’s gone out the window. I find it a little bit stressful I have to say, when I get my monthly figures back I do, I’m waiting for them. I have to say, I mean everybody’s different aren’t they? Erm, I dread my monthly figures. Either you are too slow but your error rates great or you’re too fast and your error rates through the roof. It’s just finding that happy medium is a pressure, isn’t it? (balancing). It isn’t a science, there’s no great machine that’s making the system work. We fill out our time sheets how we wish to, so we could all like [fiddle]. What people decide are errors and what people don’t decide are errors [informal friendship ties]. There are people in the ASC who are being creative in their time sheets it has to be said [fiddling]. Their figures look better as a result or their error rates look lower as a result. All of us could do it because if you spent three hours of the day doing one job and three hours of the day doing another job and you know that job A has been easy today, there’s been no problems whatsoever, but job B’s been a bitch. The system has been slow and loads of crap [technological problems]. You could easy, when you are doing you’re time sheet, ‘Well I’ll just take half an hour off job A and put it on B’. . . . Nobody would know because, short of going through everyone’s audit trail, and comparing the times that they processed items with their time sheets, you can do it. So people are fudging their time sheets, and people’s error rates are amorphous, because I know some people aren’t being error logged for things, that they would have been error logged for, if somebody else had checked it. I mean I know it sounds nasty but there is a kind of old boys’ network [friendship bonds]. It’s not institutionalised, but there are people here who are more than just friendly with some of the people they work with, and slack does get cut [inequity]. . . . There is something called 901 (inactive time, coffee breaks, visits to toilet, exercise).

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I do five minutes throughout the day [of 901] whereas some people take half an hour off [inequity]. Simon: If I do equal time on standing order and change of address, I take fifteen minutes off each. Sarah: Oh do you? I don’t, I do it at the end. Darren: What and only have half an hour for your break? Simon: We’re allowed twenty minutes break for the day which is natural breaks. Er exercises that we have to undertake, drinks what have yer. So we are allowed thirty minutes of the day and it’s left up to you. So literally we are only processing 6 hours. At the end of the day if you’ve spent three hours on each job I will then take fifteen minutes off each queue for me breaks. But as Andrew said, if you think you’ve done really bad on one queue that day, you can then take that thirty minutes off job A and if you think you have really done bad, you can take another thirty minutes off job B, that you’ve really done well at. So literally rather than (balancing). Andrew: So you’ve taken an hour off. Simon: Yes, so your efficiency looks better because you know you have been doing really well on that job. Andrew: All of us are better at one thing than another [individual idiosyncrasies]. I mean I’m much better at change of address. So everyday I can take thirty minutes of that figure and put it on change of address and know that I can absorb that figure. Simon: There’s nothing wrong with that is there? Andrew: I mean the system is going to be exploited. It’s exploited by management because they will quote us figures verbatim at you and then say it’s not important [injustice] . . . but it’s always going to be that way, but the other thing is with the slow processes like change of address. It’s easier to know how well you’re doing. If it takes you 2–3 minutes to do something, you can literally keep a tally [engaging] but if you are doing ninety items an hour, you cannot think how quickly you’re working. It’s impossible to keep track with how well you are working. You can either work as fast as you possibly can and go home and go to bed at half six every night and be knackered. Or you can think ‘Am I doing OK, am I doing OK?’ ’Cos Simon and me, we used to keep track for fifteen minutes [self-monitoring and selfdiscipline]. We used to go ‘Right let’s see how quickly we’re doing for fifteen minutes and then times by four to get a rough guesstimate of what we’re doing in an hour’ [games]. And that’s the only way you can really do it. ’Cos you think ‘Am I going fast? I’ve just spent ten minutes staring out into space. I don’t know’ (day dreaming). Simon: I have to keep tally’s of myself every now and again [self-discipline]. Sarah: I do. . . . So you must be bothered then, mustn’t you? Of how you are doing in a day? [engaged]. Simon: Well I know if I didn’t give a toss, and I didn’t do it, I’d come out

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The above extract reveals a number of issues that shed light on the complexity of work and the work experience. Simon maintained a cynical distance because he understands that there are few opportunities for career progression within the Bank and therefore he perceives that he has ‘a job’ rather than a ‘career’. As Fleming and Spicer (2003) argue ‘When a central purpose of cultural control is to target the very selves of workers, then cynicism could be a disruptive force (in a limited sense) because employees thwart the managerial demand to become the kind of people the company wants them to be’ (ibid.: 171). The curious situation here, however, is that Simon would prefer not to be ‘cynical’, he would prefer to engage and understand his job as a career. It is the regime that has created the cynicism. Simultaneously, however, Simon studiously paid attention to balancing his time sheet to ensure that he met his efficiency targets. The importance of ‘finding that happy medium’ was experienced as a ‘pressure’ that required him to engage with the work but only out of a sense of self-preservation because otherwise he would ‘get bollocked’. This process of ‘balancing’ competing work demands appeared to generate a scintilla of interest as he sought to fiddle his work sheets and beat the system. Both Simon and Andrew engaged in processes of self-monitoring independently of managerial intentions in a way that flouted the rules; thus, like Roy’s (1952) machine operators, they timed their own performance. This allowed them to massage their performance figures whereby they accommodated jobs that they were simply better at than others; bouts of daydreaming, system or technological problems or particular difficulties/complexities experienced on a job. These factors are simply not catered for by the standardized rigours of the system and yet the way in which Simon and Andrew coped and adapted to the situation supported the system. They lubricated management controls that were otherwise too rigid or that generated inequities stemming from a slow system or work queues that had been ‘a bitch’. These employees recognized such nuances and flaws in the system and they know that other individuals are fiddling their time sheets. They are also aware of an ‘old boys’ network’ or friendship ties whereby some individual’s errors are logged but not others. Consequently, they felt vindicated in fiddling not least because managers exploit the system through using the figures mercilessly and capriciously. One is faced with a choice of being ‘knackered’ or self-monitoring and juggling one’s work. In contrast to Roy’s (1952) machine operators, it was not possible to ‘make out’ in the sense of storing up long periods of time when one is idle, although some space could be found. Of course, when one balances all this against the thinking behind the strategy discourse and the contradiction between the strategic and implementation discourses, it seems to me that the employees are vindicated in their fiddles. It is interesting that, despite the extensive attempts to regulate both identities and

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working practices at T Corporation, there is no single mind at work, no sovereign power, orchestrating everything. Andrew made this point, for ‘there’s no great machine that’s making the system work’. This is why it is possible and necessary to fiddle. It is also why employees are forced to balance the contradictory demands and flaws in the system.5 Val, a clerk of nineteen years, from the Payment Audit Section, also suggested that there are limits to the Time Capture system in that it is ‘as accurate as you are at filling out the forms’ (14.10.98). Other staff confirmed this ‘space’ (Knights and McCabe, 1998) for resistance: Darren: Joyce: Linda: Joyce:

Polly: Linda: Joyce: Polly: Joyce:

How accurate do you think the measures are then of your productivity or performance? As accurate as we fill in the figures. You can fiddle, can’t you, anyway? If you put different things on your time sheet then obviously they use your time sheet against what they thought for that and marry them together. So they have to come up with a picture of how many hours you put as coded and how many hours. But does that go down purely on your discretion as to what you put down? Well you’d have to fill your seven hours, wouldn’t you? Got to fill seven hours. But thirty minutes of those seven hours is called 901 which you’re supposed to use for exercises but we don’t. . . . And going for your coffee’s and your natural breaks. (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98)

These staff relied on management not checking the discrepancy between time spent on the different processes as recorded by the ‘system’ and the figures they recorded on their time sheets. As in the first extract, the staff used the thirty minutes allocated for breaks, exercises, etc. to manipulate their performance. We can glean, therefore, that there is a shared understanding of the scope to fiddle and these staff talked openly about it. Mars (1982) has highlighted how fiddles vary due to different social dynamics at work. Although the fiddles in T Corporation are individual and are not coordinated, they were openly discussed, at least by the staff, rather than being a hidden, isolated or unknown act: Joyce:

Darren: Joyce:

The system is the actual work you have done and the time sheet is the time you’ve spent on each one. So say you’ve had something and it’s taken you a long time to do something. You could say ‘Well I’ll knock half an hour off that and put half an hour on such a thing because I know I’ll go faster on that. So you get a better average’. Right and it couldn’t be found out? Well it could, if they actually went in and brought out the times out that you’d worked each piece of work. If Polly went off opening at

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Linda: Joyce:

two in the afternoon, and went on closing, and she decided really I haven’t done enough on opening today, I’ll knock half an hour here and me closing’s fast, I’ll stick half an hour on there. If they actually pulled them off, they’d be able to see what time the last piece of opening work was dropped. But they don’t do that. . . . To be honest I don’t think many of us would be bothered . . . You might sort of mess around with an odd ten minutes here and there. It depends what you massage then? It is open to somebody if they wanted but I don’t know how many people would. It takes me all me time. . . . (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98)

Joyce’s account of the fiddle highlights her knowledge/understanding of how the system seeks to render her accountable. The fiddle allows the staff to use their ‘initiative’ and ‘decision making’ capacity, as elevated through the implementation discourse, against the machine which otherwise prevents them from utilizing such abilities. It is interesting that, although the staff are not on piecework and are service sector employees, who use quite advanced technologies, they share similar experiences to the machine operators described by Roy (1952). Thus, some jobs are understood to be ‘gravy jobs’, whilst others are ‘stinkers’ (ibid.: 429) and the staff juggled them in similar ways. Joyce seemed to want to talk down the fiddling at least towards the end of the conversation and perhaps she feared that such information would be reported back to management. This fiddle was not the only way to escape control: Linda:

There’s other ways of like fiddling and things as well. If you’ve got something on a queue, I mean I don’t know about the queues round this way, but say on Enquiries. You’ve got queries and you have to ring customers up. Ring a company and you’ve like picked up a piece of work and it says ‘Do this, this, this’. You think ‘God this is going to take me half an hour, I’ve only got quarter of an hour to do it’. You could just put in. I mean, I’ve seen people doing this and you can tell who they are ’cos you see it all the time with their number on saying ‘Phoned, engaged, please try again’ put it back in the queue. So they’ve spent two minutes, got that down on their list as a worked item, which has taken them a quarter of an hour. Erm, and it’s gone back in the queue, and somebody else will pick it. So there are ways and means of fiddling the figures. So that does happen but it’s because they put so much emphasis on this time and motion. Because they do that, because it’s perceived to be unfair sometimes because some things do take twice as long, people do fiddle it. (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98; emphasis added)

Linda explained how the staff on the Enquiries Section claim phone calls that they have not made. The sense in which the staff are forced to play the system

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appeared pervasive. Such fiddles are ‘common knowledge’ in that the same issues were raised by different groups of staff, from different sections, in front of their peers who were equally savvy. These actions, though individual, reflected a ‘shared’ sense of injustice due to the perceived unfairness of the system. Linda repeatedly legitimized them in relation to what ‘they’ (the ‘makers’, management) do to the staff. Thus, they rigidly enforce ‘time discipline’ and do so even though such measures are often inaccurate. It would be incorrect, therefore, to simply dismiss such acts as ‘individual’: Darren:

In terms of measuring productivity or your performance what’s taken into account? Chris: Speed and errors. Lorraine: This is what we, this is what everybody is so annoyed about because there’s no. Chris: No enjoyment, no pleasure. Lorraine: It’s just your. Chris: Beating the clock. Lorraine: It is and some people are better at it than others aren’t they? Some people don’t do all the work to get their times up. . . . It’s very easy to phone somebody up and say ‘Customer not in’ and then you drop that piece of work, and go to the next one, and certain people do it whereas other people stay on the phone for ages trying to get through and it’s just silly. Chris: And yet it still counts as one item you see, even though you’ve done nothing to it. (Enquiries, 16.10.98) Lorraine felt that the system is ‘just silly’ as the stringent emphasis on ‘times’ is counterproductive. Thus, a customer phone call is recorded as an item of work even if the member of staff has been unable to talk to the customer and indeed even if the phone only rang once. The fiddling seemed to bemuse Lorraine because she could not understand how some staff ‘get away with it’ (Enquiries, 16.10.98) and Joyce explained that ‘the odd few know the system and can work it to their own advantage’ (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98). These comments indicate that not everyone fiddles and knowledge of the system, combined with an ‘old boys’ network’, equips some staff to fiddle better than others. Rather than leading to inter-staff friction, however, such actions were understood to reflect a general sense of ‘annoyance’ with, and the injustice of, the system. For example, different processes may be measured according to the same efficiency rate and yet some processes are more involved than others and therefore one is immediately at a disadvantage in terms of output per hour: Linda:

On processing code, the minimum you would do is input two lines on the computer. You might have to write a cheque out or do a letter or whatever. On another part of the desk, their processing is counted as

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Joyce:

one line of input. So they are immediately 50 per cent faster than you. We feel that you cannot block things together that have got a huge discrepancy . . . (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98)6

Joyce from Account Maintenance and Lorraine from Enquiries articulated a position or sentiments that the staff collectively (‘we’) adopt or feel. One could argue that the fiddling is justified because of the unjust demands of the work and also because it was designed as if the staff are machines. Another example that was offered of the inequity of the system is that a job may require an extensive amount of work beyond the allocated hours and, whilst a supervisor may approve this, no adjustment is made to the operator’s efficiency figures. The unyielding and sometimes iniquitous adherence to figures therefore legitimized other fiddles: Linda:

Joyce:

Darren: Joyce:

Linda: Darren: Joyce:

Darren:

Those figures are set in stone. They are typed onto your report and they don’t alter that. They say ‘OK I realise why you’re not 100 per cent’ but they don’t make any alteration. You think ‘Well, why didn’t I just put it in and drop it and do another quarter of an hour’. The system itself . . . You could every ten minutes, fifteen minutes, put it [a job] back into the system and then pick it up. So you could in effect (laughter) if you wanted to, keep picking that same piece of work whilst you are still working on it. How? You can put it in and time it for later on. You could if you wanted to, you could pick it up now and say ‘OK I’ll make a phone call’. Type in something and then diarize it for like three this afternoon and in quarter of an hour’s time pick it up again. It shows each time you’ve worked it, each time you’ve picked it up. And you can keep doing that if you want to. You have to refer them [ jobs] if they have been down more than twice. Would you do that if you say ‘There’s been a problem with it so I had to put it down and then picked it up again’? Sometimes, we might order copies of vouchers and it comes up in the morning and might say copies received but sometimes they are not received by eleven and you might think ‘Well we’ll not get it till nine o’clock in the morning’. But you’d have to put it on for two in the afternoon. Diarize it for two in the afternoon. Pick it up again and see if the copy has come in. So you can diarize for later on. It can be abused. So you know how you said you can do those sort of things on your previous Section [to Linda] those sort of things aren’t available say on this Section?

In the belly of the machine Polly: Joyce: Polly: Darren: Polly:

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They are yes. You can do the exact same things if you want to. Pick them up and usually diarize them for 2.30. But you don’t actually drop [process] the piece of work but what you’ve done is you diarize it for later on. So there you are picking it up at say ten o’clock and then you might get it again at 2.30. So you’ve picked it up twice. But each time you are allowed the eight minutes or whatever it is to do it? Yes. (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98)

Once again, these ways to work the system seemed to be shared and learned whilst working the queues. Thus, whilst the operators may perform individual fiddles, there appears to be an informal social network through which they become common knowledge. Hence, the staff were willing to discuss them openly with me. One could argue that they are class-based in the sense that the ‘staff ’ used them to cope with demands imposed by the ‘makers’, who are referred to as ‘they’ or ‘the system’. Nonetheless, such localized fiddles do not seek to challenge the system only to mollify its inequities and to render life on the queues tolerable. In the above instance, it is apparent that the staff have gained an intimate knowledge of the ‘system’ and its flaws, which they are able to work to their advantage. We can observe them deploying their ingenuity, creativity and initiative against the machine and yet it is the ‘makers’’ designs that have forced them to do so. Such fiddles do not stem from the staff distancing themselves from their work because they must be attuned to, and engaged with the system and its demands in order to figure out how to evade it. Nevertheless, the staff have distanced themselves from the implementation discourse and the official organization, and the unjust demands it makes of them. We can observe therefore that even distancing oneself operates in different ways and at different levels. Certain staff ‘make do’ so as to meet efficiency targets (e.g. set their own standards, play games), whilst others, like Burawoy’s (1979) employees, ‘make out’ by recording different figures on their time sheets. It is apparent that some staff both ‘make out’ and ‘make do’. Nonetheless, such instances serve to reproduce the regime that is the source of their misery. Whilst the staff juggled and fiddled their time allowance and self-monitored their performance, they did not challenge the system. Their attention was taken up trying to cope or make the machine work, or escape its demands. To this extent, the myriad ways in which staff distanced themselves, coped, fiddled, escaped and juggled all served the machine, though not as part of some grand scheme. Indeed, they are an unintended consequence of machine thinking, and one cannot rule out the possibility that shared frustration could boil over into a challenge to the ‘makers’. The 901-time allowance, which covers toilet and coffee breaks, exercises, reading circulars, etc., was extended following feedback from the WCCS programme, from fifteen to thirty minutes. Initially, the fifteen minutes was only for

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exercises but the extended time allowance now encompasses toilet breaks and coffee runs. It is evident then that the resistance expressed during WCCS course was neither in vain nor entirely unheeded. Yet, this limited attempt to humanize the workplace has had the unintended consequence of some staff rigidly sticking to the time allocation. Some staff explained that once they would not have gone for a coffee or to the toilet if there were long work queues. Yet now, following the formalization of ‘break times’, they make sure that the time they are allocated is fully used. Whether or not they want to use the toilet or whether there are large work queues, the staff use their allotted time and so ‘901 time’ has been sucked into the ‘contested terrain’ (Edwards, 1979) of workplace relations. This unforeseen outcome should be seen as a reflection of the regime itself rather than mean spiritedness on the part of the staff. Thus, the response is bound up with the context of a debilitating work regime. Andrew, a clerk from the PAPS Section, felt that ascribing a ‘time’ to use the toilet or to get a coffee is ‘petty’. He rejoined that if management are going to be ‘petty’ then so will he. Articulating class-based ‘them’ and ‘us’ positions, he neatly summed up the problems facing the regime and such intelligent insights illuminate the vast potential that the ‘makers’ are squandering: What we do is painfully simple but the way it’s administered is painfully complicated because ultimately we’re just doing a machine process. It’s dead simple what we do but to then make it to the point where they can compare what we’re doing, to what somebody around the corner is doing. They have had to devise [unclear word] machinery so they can tabulate everyone’s performance and of course, that’s where human error comes in to it. Both from the way we interpret what we do and how they interpret what they do and how they work out how efficient we are. (PAPS Section, 6.11.98) Andrew elaborated how a simple job has been rendered ‘complex’ (see Roy, 1969) due to the close monitoring of performance and this gives rise to the multifarious interpretations, subjectivities and actions we have considered so far. The staff on the Enquiries Section have more autonomy than most in the ASC because their work is more complicated and in-depth. The staff deal with ‘different’ queues that are allocated ‘different’ hourly rates according to their complexity. For example, they have six minutes per item on the Voucher queue and thirteen minutes per item on the Customer Service Calls queue. Yet, despite this, it was apparent that the staff, even on this section, fiddled. Despite the variations in queue length, it seems that some issues on each queue are more convoluted than others. In view of this, the staff used various methods to ‘pass-on’ the more labyrinthine issues because they can have a deleterious effect on their productivity figures. In effect, they are side stepping work, so that other members of staff will have to deal with the more entangled matters. This fiddle could, therefore, be regarded as a fiddle against one’s works colleagues. In a sense, it defies the ‘makers’, but, in another way, it is a self-inflicted ‘dividing practice’ (Foucault,

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1977) because it simply enhances one individual’s performance at the expense of another. It does not pose a challenge to the system other than in a tangential way: Anne:

Darren: Anne: John: Anne: Mike:

Anne:

You find that there are certain people that manage to get rid of the stuff that’s, you know, move it onto another queue or something, or just diarize it, if it’s a lengthy enquiry. So you do tend to know that you’ve ended up with something that . . . How does that work? How do you pass something on to another queue? Well you would route it. Maybe say that it is . . . The wrong queue. That there’s not enough time or not enough information. I mean, like say if the system is going slow or isn’t working [technological problems] then very well you put it back in the queue to diarize it and somebody else will pick it up. But if you’ve just gone in and loaded it, and waited for it to diarize and put it back in the queue, it’s probably taken you a few seconds but if you had actually waited for it to load and carried on doing it. It takes you a lot longer. So effectively you’re getting rid of the stuff but you are just passing the buck. (Enquiries Section, 6.11.98)

In the above instances, the staff explicated reasons for not working a particularly intricate item such as insufficient information or time to deal with the job. Another way is to say that the job was on the wrong queue. These are legitimate reasons for passing work on but they can also be used as a fabrication to avoid complex issues. The staff may diarize items purporting that they have experienced technological problems when seeking to load a document and gain the six or thirteen minutes for that piece of work. As Anne stated ‘Well it is easy to say that something isn’t loading or you can’t get into the archive system or something like that, who’s to say whether you can or can’t?’ (ibid.). The staff used their ‘initiative’ to exploit the technology and found different ways to work the system (see Knights and McCabe, 1998). In doing so, they effectively wasted their creative energies to gain some breathing space through manipulating ‘time’. Four minutes are allocated to download images from the archive system but, despite the beliefs of the ‘makers’, the technology is not ‘perfect’ and the staff can claim that they have been unable to successfully download information. Busy periods, at the end and the beginning of each month (i.e. when people receive their salary/wages and pay direct debits, standing orders, etc.), mean that the system is systematically slow at certain times and so there is scope to regularly blame the ‘technology’. This is exacerbated in a paperless environment because the hard records are no longer there and one is dependent on the image system. The ‘makers’’ narrow view of ‘efficiency’ through ‘repetition’ attends only to the formal organization of work and it is oblivious to such dynamics and

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wasted effort. The technology is vulnerable, therefore, to the staff using their ‘initiative’ to create space and time, as the staff from the Enquiries Section explained: Paul Paul:

Dorothy: Paul:

Dorothy: Paul: Dorothy: Paul: Darren: Paul:

[team leader]: You can play the figures if you want. (Group laughter) Well something you would be able to do on Enquiries basically you get your time capture sheet back the following day. Well my particular job this week is you print off the operator’s audit trail, which is all the work they’ve done that day. Now what you would do the following day is, say, if you’ve been working one of them queues and you’ve been doing it for three hours. You just count down how many items you’ve worked. Now the system works, if you’ve worked an item and you diarize this item because you are waiting on customer contact or something like that, for example, if you had to put a narrative down on the screen you get four lines for a narrative. If you’ve got a bit of War and Peace to put on, then you fold one and you pick it up. That would be classed as two items. It’s listed on as two items on your audit roll the following day so you can count that as two. So that’s an extra item straight away and if you’re working XTC queue that’s another seventeen minutes. So hey I’m efficient straight away. You do your own times? Umm. Ours are done automatic. You have to rely on the Operators’ honesty. (Laughter) When you say you put a narrative down what does that mean? Well, if you’re on say PAPS refund. Erm and say a customer sent in a standing order as a quarterly one, the operator set it up as monthly, depending on when it’s found, he might have made £200–300 too much payment. So our job would be to refund the customer, send a letter of apology, contact the beneficiary. If charges have been involved we either refund charges. You might have to have a statement. What we’re gonna do and all that. As I say you get four lines [to explain the job on the system] and more often than not you might go over four lines. So you put continued, enter, pick it up, continue with the narrative. So that the next person, say, getting this in a week’s time, knows exactly what they have to do. So that would cause two items to be listed on your sheet the following day. (Various Sections, 9.9.98)

In the above instance, Paul shared a fiddle, which staff, such as Dorothy, are clearly familiar with. Items that require ongoing work necessitate a narrative to

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explain what the problem is, what has been done and what needs to be done. If one is succinct and uses only four lines of text, this counts as a single job. If one is more verbose and goes over the four lines, then the job counts as two. The joke regarding ‘War and Peace’ is that some items become extremely long narratives. Thus, if each member of staff goes over the four lines and the case is ongoing, then the narrative becomes something of a ‘War and Peace’. This creates problems because the longer the narrative, the less likely it is that a member of staff will attempt to resolve the matter. The narrative will become longer and more involved and will take time to read and therefore it is easier to add to the narrative, thereby gaining the extra time allowance. Moreover, the longer the narrative, the more likely it is that a member of staff will simply pass the job on because of the time it will take to read the extended narrative. Janet, from the PAPS Section, explained that this is a ‘downside’ to work in the ASC. Thus, work that would have been resolved by a single person in the branch network has become fragmented and no single person is responsible for it. Again, we can observe that, whilst ostensibly efficient, the fractured nature of work and the intense individual discipline generates waste: That’s probably the one downside of this place. If you were in the branch you would deal with that yourself and you would follow it through from start to finish. But here that’s left on the queue and it’s whoever picks that work up. So there could be five different people working on that piece of work but the old fashioned way was you saw the customer in the branch. You would like say, ‘Leave it with me, I’ll be in touch’. At the end of the day you would have got to that end result wouldn’t yer? (Janet, PAPS Section, 9.9.98)

Summary This chapter has examined the experiences of staff who ‘work the queues’ and who toil in the belly of the machine. It has identified that, whilst the machine dominates their lives such that some experienced the pressure to become ‘robots’, they still found ways to distance themselves, cope with and escape its demands. Chapter 2 discussed the rational for creating the ASCs, and it revealed that its ‘makers’ gave little consideration to the people who would have to work in them. Irrespective of the moral issue, as to whether people should be required to work as cyborgs, this chapter has identified how the ASCs often fall short in terms of the managerial drive for efficiency, cost cutting and customer service. Thus, the ASCs are in many ways irrational from the point of view of the customer and lead to a curious dance whereby the staff are forced to devise ways to subvert and render interesting otherwise intolerable working conditions. The effort that goes into this dance is a waste of the initiative and ingenuity of the staff that, from a managerial point of view, could be deployed far more effectively. Thus, many staff used their creative powers against rather than for the machine. Nevertheless, the ways in which the staff ‘make do’ and/or ‘make out’

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reproduced rather than challenged their degradation. Having said this, fiddles were often shared and are understood to be legitimate responses to the inequity of the system. One cannot rule out the possibility, therefore, of this shared understanding growing and acting as a catalyst for a more formal, organized challenge to the ‘makers’. The system regards the staff as machines, and some went on ‘automatic’ to cope with the pressure to become robots. Others refused to do so and deployed their cunning to manipulate the machine and manufactured interest where the ‘makers’ had eliminated it. On the whole, the staff were forced to disengage from work in various ways and to distance themselves from the demands of the machine. Even those who ‘make do’ did so for reasons that were distant from the intentions of the ‘makers’. Indeed, the subjectivity of the staff in the ASC could be said to be detached from the demands of the ‘makers’. The regime contradicted and undermined the way of being propounded by the implementation discourse. The next chapter explores what it means to live in the ‘reengineered’ branches and a contrasting experience of work, whereby the staff engaged to a far greater extent than in the ASCs, albeit in ways that also appeared unrelated to the ‘makers’’ intentions.

6

Coping through teamwork or how staff oil the machine

Why, you might wonder, should prisoners wear themselves out, working hard, ten years on end, in the camps? You’d think they’d say: No thank you, and that’s that. We’ll shuffle through the day till evening, and then the night is ours. But that didn’t work. To outsmart you they thought up work-teams – but not teams like the ones in freedom, where every man is paid his separate wage. Everything was so arranged in the camp that the prisoners egged one another on. It was like this; either you got a bit extra or you all croaked. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1963: 51–52)

This chapter explores a phenomenon in T Corporation’s branch network that I found puzzling. That is, why the branch staff, in contrast to the prisoners’ of the gulag, work in intensive ways as if they have no choice in the matter? Employees embraced teamwork to cope with work intensification following the restructuring and the redundancies, in ways that intensified their workload. The power that such workers are able to exercise to say ‘no’ is evident and yet they helped, rather than resisted, those who caused them distress. Economic demands can only partly account for this dynamic and other factors seem significant such as cultural ties and community bonds, identity and an internalized customer service ethic. The outcome can be summarized as ‘teamwork-by-necessity’.

Reorganizing the branches This chapter focuses on life in the branches post the ASC migration, but first it is necessary to place the changes in context. Although the new work processes and branch structure was determined by a small coterie of managers, it was deemed necessary to involve the staff, to a limited extent, in the process of reorganizing the branches: The details of the blueprints should not be adhered to without regard to local circumstances or be implemented without involving branch staff in the planning process. Indeed it is essential that branch management does consider local circumstances and discuss the post ASC environment with their

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It was not possible to determine in advance, across a network of 1,700 branches, which staff will perform which duties not least because the branches vary in terms of size, geographical location, market niche, etc. and staff skills and aptitudes differ. Moreover, the number of staff redundancies was not uniform across the branches and was negotiated between local and area branch managers. Even after the restructuring, the branch work has continued to include more than 200 core tasks and these needed to be re-organized through taking local conditions into account. In view of this, it was not possible to impose a single branch model on the staff; nonetheless, branch managers were left in no doubt that change is ‘mandatory’. The resulting consultation process could therefore be described as ‘pseudo’ (MacInnes, 1986) for there was no attempt to share power. Instead, consultation and staff involvement was deemed necessary to smooth the process of change but it is at least indicative of the limits to managerial power. The ‘makers’ believed that change could be ‘imposed by management’ but recognized that a price would have to be paid for doing so: where staff are involved, they have typically proved much more willing to refine things in the light of experience. Solutions imposed by management without any consultation, and particularly where they are rushed through in the days immediately before or after the ASC migration date, give staff little encouragement or confidence. (Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 15) The price to be paid for imposing change is that the staff might lack ‘encouragement or confidence’. This could be translated to mean that the staff might resist. Nonetheless, following unitary assumptions (Fox, 1974), it was felt that ‘communication’ could resolve any conflict or ‘negative thought’ that may arise: Involving staff also provides an opportunity to address fears and misunderstandings, and release any negative thought about forthcoming changes. Clearly setting out the objectives of ASC and initiating full staff involvement should enable all members of the team to approach things in a more positive frame of mind. Good and regular communication is an important element in achieving a successful migration. (Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 15 emphasis added) Reflecting the ‘one team’ metaphor of the unitary organization, the possibility of conflict was linked to irrational emotions such as fear or a breakdown in communication, which might stem from a misunderstanding. Thus, conflict was not

Coping through teamwork 145 envisaged to have any substantive or legitimate grounds. To avoid conflict, it was deemed necessary to ‘clearly’ communicate or set ‘out the objectives’ of the planned changes so as to ensure that misconceptions are swept away. Through this process, the staff can release ‘any negative thought’ and approach the changes with a ‘positive frame of mind’. It was understood that those with a ‘negative’ frame of mind would need to be educated in relation to the wisdom of the programme. Historically, the branches were structured around work processes and the job titles reflected this: for example, there were statement clerks, card clerks and PAPS clerks. Customer contact ‘occurred on an intermittent basis, driven by the enquiry bell or the telephone’ with ‘sales activities’ forming ‘a relatively small part of most individual’s total work’ (ibid.). The restructuring therefore heralded ‘a sea-change in branch focus’ requiring a ‘profound change’ (ibid.: 13) in culture and work practices. Branch managers were encouraged to ‘make at least some adjustment to the desking/seating arrangements as a way of signalling very visibly that both the branch focus and individual job roles are changing’ (ibid.: 28). It seems curious that if the changes are so profound that ‘leaving the current layout untouched may leave the impression that little has changed and there may be a tendency for staff simply to occupy “their” desk and attempt to recreate a previous role’ (ibid.). Nevertheless, the concern was to deracinate the prevailing branch culture and branch managers were ordered to make ‘symbolic’ (Pfeffer, 1981) spatial changes such as moving desks. The concern was to signify to the staff that there has been a change and for the staff to accept change and to reconstitute themselves accordingly. The changes that the ‘makers’ wished to convey were expressed to the ‘Branch Management’ as follows: Even with some reduction in headcount numbers, branch staff are released from traditional back office work. Whilst some pre-processing does remain, there is a fundamental change away from a processing oriented branch, to one which is more biased towards service and sales. (Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 6; italics added) The communication directed towards the staff did not use the term ‘headcount’ and played down staffing reductions. We can see then that the differences between the strategic and implementation discourses continued to be played out as the programme of change unfolded. The reorganization divided the work of the branches into four broad areas including Lending, Sales, Servicing and Administration. This in turn led to generic staffing roles including Lending Clerk, Counsellor, Cashier and Financial Planning Officer. The new priority was ‘on having highly trained customer orientated teams’ (ibid.: 13; emphasis added). Thus, the language of ‘implementation’ was evident and branch managers were instructed to stress ‘the need for a high degree of flexibility and teamwork’ (ibid.: 15). Branch managers were exhorted ‘to reshape the duty list in a way which more overtly emphasises customer service and sales’ (ibid.: 5). The intention was for each branch to have

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‘three core teams’ (Sales, Service and Lending) reporting to the branch manager. Despite the specific ‘team’ focus around sales, service and lending, it was recognized that: It is neither possible, nor indeed desirable, to structure things so that the sales team undertakes only sales tasks to the exclusion of all others. Indeed, staff may need to be completely flexible with every member of the branch team able to handle any customer request, whatever its nature. However, in most branches, with the constraints of existing premises, technology and staff skills, some degree of team focus remains appropriate. Thus sales should be the focus of the sales team. (Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 9; italics added) An emphasis on ‘teams’ was central to both the branch reorganization and the implementation discourse. The branch was to become a ‘team’ and within this there were three functional ‘teams’. The introduction of teams, especially the ‘sales’ team, was instrumental in that it was linked to ‘income generation’, which ‘required a change of culture and an allocation of tasks that, subject to premises, enabled staff to work as far as possible in the customer area’ (ibid.: 9). As the above extract indicates, it was recognized that the pressures of working in a branch may require the staff to work flexibly and for there to be multi-skilling. The smaller branches have traditionally worked in this way but in the larger branches the division of labour has been more marked. The reduced number of back office staff who were primarily engaged in processing has generated a pressure for mutli-skilling: Traditionally, in the majority of branches, there has been a pool of BackOffice or Processing staff which management have been able to call upon in order to meet peaks in customer demand. In a post ASC branch however this resource will be significantly reduced and management will therefore need to be more flexible in the way in which individual jobs are designed and the branch is staffed. (Ibid.: 41) The emphasis on flexibility appears, therefore, to reflect business imperatives rather than QWL issues (although the two are not mutually exclusive). The loss of staff appears to ‘necessitate’ that staff work in more flexible ways, but this is curious because removing processing work was supposed to free the staff up to deal with customers, for ‘even with some reduction in headcount numbers, branch staff are released from traditional back office work’ (ibid.: 6). It seems, therefore, that staffing levels have been reduced to such an extent that work pressures are likely to increase for those who remain in the branches and this does not bode well for Customer Service. The concern is to encourage the branch staff to complete tasks themselves rather than to pass work on to other clerks in the branch. This ‘empowerment’

Coping through teamwork 147 contrasts with life in the ASCs and appears to reflect work demands and the priority attached to selling. It was stated that ‘in larger branches’ these new pressures for flexibility, empowerment or intensification (see McArdle et al., 1994), ‘may require management to instil a change of culture supported by the requisite training’ (Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 16). Selling is a pressing matter in the new branch structure, for ‘by referring to a sales team, the aim is to explicitly elevate this function and put income generation at the heart of the post ASC branch’ (ibid.: 9; emphasis added). This emphasis on ‘sales’ in the ‘Manager’s Guide’ sits uncomfortably with the notion of ‘Customer Service’ extolled through the implementation discourse and so another discursive shift appears to be taking place. The priority is to maximize sales, whereas the changes were initially legitimized and represented by drawing on the language of Customer Service. The intention is for as many members of staff as possible to work in the banking hall (front end of the branches) and ‘members of the sales team should be encouraged to think of the banking hall and the counselling areas as their new “office”’ (ibid.: 28). The concern is to avoid the sales staff moving into the back office area away from customers. This is why it was deemed necessary to remove the surplus desks and chairs from the former back office areas. Managers are required to manage space so as to ‘actively discourage the “claiming” of personal desks’ in order to ‘assist the change in culture’ (ibid.). Thus, the sales staff must constantly be available to customers and this visibility enables customers to exert a panopticon-like gaze over them. In addition to selling financial services, the sales team also prepares the processing work that is transferred to the ASCs for scanning onto the image system. The work is separated into ‘out-trays’ for each ASC work area (e.g. standing orders, closed accounts). Specific members of staff are held accountable for specific out-trays and the manager’s guide states that ‘trays should be “owned” by the counsellors [sales staff ] who assume responsibility for completing the associated end of day procedures’ (ibid.: 32). Clearly, such ownership and responsibility seeks to ensure direct lines of accountability over documentation. It seems somewhat inconsistent, however, with the ‘Customer Service’ skill criteria, which was based on ‘understanding internal and external customer requirements, taking appropriate action to build relationships based on trust and confidence’. The service team includes the work of cashiers who are responsible for money transmission. Branch managers are required to ensure that service team members are under constant surveillance. Hence, ‘the servicing team leader will require their own desk. This will typically be located in relatively close proximity to the rest of the service team and allow sight of the closed circuit television monitors’ (Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 29). Again, this does not suggest that management, in the new structure, is inclined to ‘trust’ the staff, although the staff are required to build relationships with customers and each other ‘based on trust and confidence’. The lending team includes business banking managers and account managers, together with clerical/administrative staff. Their work includes credit and

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relationship management issues but sales also impinge on this function for ‘it should be the case that the lending team will themselves wish to contribute fully to the achievement of the branch sales plan by identifying income-generating opportunities, both in terms of new business and cross sales’ (Branch Reorganisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 12). The priority attached to sales is underlined by the statement that the ‘members of the lending team cannot pass processing tasks over to other branch colleagues’ because ‘if they do, salesoriented staff will be pulled back from the front office’ (ibid.). Thus, the lending staff must take responsibility for completing whole tasks for to do otherwise may detract from sales. The use of empowerment is therefore instrumental because the concern is to boost sales rather than enhance QWL. Despite the explicit concern ‘to elevate the sales function’ the following extract states that customers must not be aware of this: Whilst the intention is to elevate the sales function within the branches, the title is for internal use. Whilst customers may be ambivalent as to whether the bank officials are called Customer Service Managers, Assistant Managers or simply Managers, it is not the intention that managers should have business cards showing a title Sales Manager or sign off correspondence in this way. (Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, June 1996: 10) The implementation discourse discussed in Chapter 2 sold and legitimized the changes to the staff, in terms of improved Customer Service rather than increasing ‘sales’. It seems, therefore, that the ‘makers’ did not want the sales focus to be transparent to the staff and, in the Branch Re-organisation Manager’s Guide, the concern is to conceal the sales focus from the customers. In both instances, the ‘makers’ appear to be concerned to avoid revealing the cold business logic behind the changes or perhaps the focus simply shifted as the strategy ‘emerged’ (Mintzberg, 1994). In the above section, we have observed the ascendance of sales and, as we shall see, this has become central to the lives of the branch staff. It appears that at the point of implementation, as the structures and practices of work were put in place, the emphasis on Customer Service gave way to one of ‘sales’. The implementation discourse had helped gain staff acquiescence but it is not clear that the ‘makers’ wielded these disparate discourses in a Machiavellian way. The contradictions between and within them seem too stark for this to be the case. Instead, it appears to be the case that different ‘makers’ dealt pragmatically with the changes along each step of the way and drew on discourses that seemed appropriate to them at the time. These discourses reflected functional and managerial ways of talking, thinking and the intended audience. Nevertheless, although not part of a consistent, unified or omniscient plot, each step along the way is inextricably bound up with power.

Coping through teamwork 149 Life in the branches The next section explores the experiences of the staff working in three branches that can be loosely described as Small, Medium and Large branches, all of which are in the northwest of England. In particular, it attends to how the staff responded to the intensification of work, the ‘new’ emphasis on teams and the demand for sales. Group interviews were not possible in the branches due to the pressures of staffing and so individuals were interviewed separately. The staff were interviewed for forty-five minutes but the interviews with more senior individuals usually lasted over an hour. All of the interviews were taperecorded. The Large Branch is situated in a busy city centre and serves largely business clients and customers who work in the city. Eleven interviews were conducted in Large Branch with five members of staff, three team leaders and three managers. It has a pool of 120 staff but this includes five smaller satellite branches whose staff can be moved to cope with staffing demands such as sickness, holidays, etc. Its furnishing is modern being brightly lit with cheerful colours and new carpets. It is organized on three floors with the ground floor being the point of contact for customers. Small Branch is situated on the outskirts of a city centre near a university and it serves a large number of students. This creates particular problems for the staff because it is difficult to sell students financial products such as mortgages. Its décor largely consists of wood panelling and it feels dated but cosy. It was possible to interview the branch manager and a regional branch manager who was visiting the branch. Four of the five members of staff were also interviewed and on one occasion I sat adjacent to a cashier who would pop back and to as customer demands permitted. Jo, a clerk of twenty-three years, asserted that ‘it’s like a family unit really’ (16.12.98). Prior to the restructuring, the branch had nine members of staff and so nearly 50 per cent of the staff complement was lost. The busiest time of the day for Small Branch is the lunch hours between 12 and 2 p.m. Due to the limited number of staff, the staff do not take a lunch break and instead the branch closes early at 4.30 p.m. Medium Branch is located in a small town that has suffered due to deindustrialization. Eight individuals were interviewed at Medium Branch including the Customer Services Manager (CSM), a team leader and six members of staff. Three other managers and the branch manager are all involved in lending but they do not participate in the day-to-day management of the branch, which is the CSM’s responsibility. Following the restructuring, the branch lost 30 per cent of its staff and it now employs seventeen full-time and eight part-time members of staff. Linda, the CSM, described the area as ‘depressed’ as it has a high level of unemployment and she felt that this is not taken into account when the ‘makers’ set ‘sales’ targets for the branch. The branch serves a number of large corporate clients, which the ASCs are not equipped to cater for and this has meant that a number of processing jobs have remained in the branch. Such local variations do not appear to have been taken into account by the ‘makers’:

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Part II The ASCs are very much ‘We can do this but we can’t do that’. Er and we certainly feel the effects of that at the branch, which puts added pressure you see? And when you get that pressure, you know, sometimes it is quite unbearable. But, erm, we have good times and we have bad times. Sometimes, you know, we seem to manage it a bit. Other times, if you get sickness in the branch, I mean the things that hit me this morning on a staffing level . . . now the fewer staff you’ve got, the more impact it has, ’cos you used to have those other staff that could have helped you out. (Linda, Customer Services Manager, Medium Branch, employee of twenty-three years, 12.10.98)

A vivid example of the pressure facing Medium Branch is that one interview had to be cut short when the member of staff was asked to immediately return to the counter. We were told ‘it’s getting busy’. As one might expect, the larger the branch, the more business-like and impersonal it becomes. Observing the service area of Medium Branch, customers and staff clearly knew each other and they casually chatted as they greeted one another. The small and medium-sized branches seemed to be far more communal and different functional groupings were less evident. By contrast, Steve, an Account Manager in Large Branch, explained that the staff are ‘organized into teams but whether they feel like a team is open to debate’ (28.10.98). Caroline, the Customer Service Manager at Large Branch, summarized the differences between the smaller and larger branches as follows: very different between a big branch and a small branch, very different because in a small branch where you’ve got six or eight staff, or even ten staff, every member of staff that’s left in that branch has to be able to cashier, to open accounts, to do everything and to be totally sales, service focused. When you’ve got a branch here, where I’ve got 120 staff, erm it’s a slightly different concept because we still do have quite a lot of processing jobs. (Employee of twenty-one years, 8.10.98) Steve, the Account Manager of Large Branch, supported this interpretation: When I was in a branch with twelve people and it went down to eight you had to reengineer because if you didn’t it all went wrong. You literally had to, you had to get staff to be able to multitask, be flexible, change their outlook. Whereas in a big branch, staff can still, to a degree, hide and almost do the same job as they did ten years ago. I think the bigger the branch the more you’ll find that some are multitasking and some aren’t. (Employee of eighteen years, 28.10.98) Although Steve may underestimate the extent to which the staff, even in the larger branches, are required to be flexible and ‘sell’, his remarks support the

Coping through teamwork 151 broad difference between the larger and smaller branches. It appears to be the case that the redundancies are having a greater impact in the smaller branches where the workforce is smaller. This has forced them to ‘reengineer’ or rethink the way they organize work. The new regime: customer service versus sales Darren: Karen: Darren: Karen:

Do you feel that you’ve got more or less responsibility than before? Everybody’s got more responsibility. Why’s that? Erm I think probably workload. Everybody’s got more work to do than they always used have to do I think. Even in the ASCs but they have taken so many staff out of the branches. Everybody’s really pushed for time and you’re very aware that you could, obviously, you can’t make a mistake. A lot of times you’re dealing with a lot of money and you can’t make a mistake. You know that’s where a lot of the responsibility comes in, and obviously even though you’ve got an awful lot of work, you’ve got to be on the ball all the time at everythink you do. (Counsellor, twenty-four years, Large Branch, 25.11.98)

One of the significant features of life in the branches post the restructuring is the sense of work intensification. Karen indicated this through her description of being ‘really pushed for time’. This has led to anxiety because the staff are aware that mistakes might be made which is unacceptable. Karen seemed to want to confess that she has made errors or that she could make errors, but she drew back from doing so. Clearly, this possibility is a threat to Customer Service and perhaps she feared that I might report her to management? Although the emphasis on sales may benefit some customers, it was apparent that many staff experienced the increased ‘responsibility’ as a threat to Customer Service. It appears then that the enterprise self (du Gay and Salaman, 1992) must cope with contradictory demands around sales versus service (see Knights and McCabe, 1998). In this inconsistency, we can observe flaws within, and limitations to, the ‘enterprise’ or implementation discourse. The priority in the branches is ‘sales’ and, like processing in the ASC, it seemed to take precedence over Customer Service: Yvonne:

Darren: Yvonne:

Before I thought it was pretty good, when I first joined. I mean they were more for the welfare of the staff, they’re not now. They erm are more interested in what they can get out of yer and the customer side of it rather than the welfare of the staff. When did you start to notice that changing? I think when they started erm getting us to sell really, when it became more competitive with other companies. I mean, I’ve always, when I worked full-time I got up to grade four level. Now I work part-time, I

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Darren: Yvonne:

just work the counter but you can see the difference. Erm we’ve got to be more competitive in the relation that we have to sell on the counter. Before we were just cashiers. We served customers’ needs at the counter and that was it, but now, as I’ve said, we’ve got to sell. Most of us, because we weren’t trained to do it when we first came in, find it difficult. I think the younger ones find it easier because they come in and they are automatically assumed that that is what they are going to do. That’s part of their job. But when I came into the Bank your job was solely to meet just the needs of everyday, you know, what the customers’ want. What they came in for, but now we’ve got to put into their heads that they need more than what they actually came in for (laughter). What is it you don’t like about that? Well basically I don’t like selling. It’s hard to learn when you get older. (Yvonne, Cashier, Large Branch, employee of thirty years, 25.11.98; emphasis added)

Yvonne felt that selling takes priority over both staff welfare and Customer Service, and has intensified her workload because ‘you didn’t get anymore for doing it. You just had to do it’. She experienced the demand to sell as a requirement to transform herself for ‘we’ve got to be more competitive’ and despite not wishing to do so ‘we have to sell’. Consequently, ‘you have to communicate in a different way and put your point over in a way that they [customers] will accept it. Be pushy really (laughter)’. This is experienced as incompatible with Customer Service because previously Yvonne’s job was ‘solely to meet just the needs’ of customers. Now, however, she must sell consumerism. She must transform customers as well as herself by putting ‘into their heads that they need more than what they actually came in for’. Yvonne complied out of a sense of economic necessity ‘I think in today’s world you’ve got to be a bit pushy to sell . . . I’m not pushy. I do it because I know I’ve got to. At the end of the day because I need the job (laughter)’. It is grinding economics that leads Yvonne to tolerate her plight but this is not separate from her subjectivity. She accepted the demand to transform herself and customers but was not dumb to the commands and flaws embedded in the pressures on her. She weighed up the inconsistencies and acted accordingly rather than being simply reconstituted. Steve, the Account Manager of Large Branch, expressed the inconsistency between the strategic and implementation discourses. He suggested that the restructuring was presented in a way that had little to do with the changes that followed: the principal reason for that [the restructuring] is a cost saving not a customer focused initiative. I do believe it’s masked in a language that, you know, they are trying to say like customers’ better, but I think the main reason for doing it was the cost implications. (Employee of eighteen years, 28.10.98)

Coping through teamwork 153 Steve considered that the changes were dressed in a way that purposely ‘masked’ the ‘makers’’ intentions. Yet, he was not fooled by the different discourses that were deployed. The comments of Jean, a clerk in Medium Branch, also support the view that cost cutting is paramount in the ‘makers’’ minds. She discussed the erosion of staff benefits and contrasted T Corporation unfavourably with how other employers treat their employees. The Bank was deemed to be ‘mercenary’ in that after twenty-five years of service employees only receive a £25 gift voucher and after thirty years of service they receive a £300 gift voucher. These matters were close to her everyday experience because she had recently served thirty-two years in the Bank and felt diminished by such awards. In a way that is eerily reminiscent of Zamyatin’s novel, the strategy discourse and life in the ASCs, she lamented: We’re just numbers to be quite honest . . . We’ve become less. I mean, I think it’s really diabolical that we have to pay, a mean, a customer pay’s for a bank draft. Pay’s £10 for a bank draft. Well we have to pay £10 now [previously free]. A think as staff, as an employee, I really think that should be a perq. But you don’t get any perq’s whatsoever. All they’re interested in is their profits. (Jean, Clerk of thirty-two years; Medium Branch, 23.10.98; emphasis added) Jean felt the loss of financial perquisites as a slight by the ‘makers’. In the eyes of her employer, she felt that ‘we’ve become less’ and yet the ‘makers’ would probably view such cost cutting as ‘good business’, oblivious perhaps to its impact on the goodwill of the staff. Linda, the Customer Services Manager at Medium Branch, felt that the restructuring has compromised Customer Service. Thus, it has distanced the staff from the customers, disentangling their lives, which were once part of a local community: We think our customers have lost perhaps a lot of the contact that we would have had. We found that because some of the work is centralised you’ve got a missing link there, whereas it used to be in the branch and everybody would know from start to finish. Whether you are dealing with it or not, you can’t help that your ears are tuned to about three or four things, that are going on in the office. But sometimes things are coming in the post and going off to the central departments and you don’t actually know what’s happening with your own customer. I mean your own customer could be in the branch but you don’t really realise what’s happening. They could have got married and you don’t know whereas at one time somebody ’ud come in, person serving them wud say ‘Oh they’ve got married’. Everybody would know ‘Oh Mrs So and So has done this’, or got divorced or so and so has died . . . the ASC deals with deceased customers for instance . . . but it will always be dealt with by the branch initially but it’s a centralised process and they tell us not to keep any paper work. So this person then comes in, an’ really expects that you’ll know about them or whatever. With

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Part II centralization, we’ve no paperwork and we don’t know anything about it anymore and sometimes we feel that we’re losing that sort of continuity with our customers. We could miss something and certainly the ASC could miss something. They [the ASC] don’t know who is the big Managing Director of such and such a company [local]. They don’t know the fine details, the links between people that we know. How to deal with certain things. They would just deal with it very black, white. (Linda, Customer Service Manager, employee of twenty-three years, 12.10.98)

Linda’s references to ‘our’ and ‘your own’ customers, and local knowledge, is indicative of an intense identification and contact with customers and this appears to be under threat following the restructuring. This customer identification elucidates how the labour process is not simply an economic activity, which was the focus of Braverman’s (1974) analysis. Thus, many staff performed their work having internalized a customer service ethic. They accepted additional work pressures not just because of the economic consequences of failing to do so but also out of a sense of loyalty to customers. In this way, customer service has become part of their sense of self and the culture in which they swim. Linda’s sense of loss seems to be bound up with a sense of community both within and beyond the workplace. Thus, Branch Banking, at least for Linda, means being part of something that includes a knowledge of local people. These are not just ‘customers’ but members of a community, who marry, die or divorce. Linda’s sentiments suggest that, irrespective of the customer service rhetoric, embedded in the implementation discourse, much is being or has been lost, through the restructuring, whereby localized knowledge, links, fine details, relationships, community and continuity are being undermined. In its place is the strategy discourse with its emphasis on costs, statistics, numbers, repetition, the black, the white and sales to anonymous subjects. The sense of community that is bound up with customer care is being displaced in favour of an ‘individual’ responsibility for sales. It is important not to romanticize this customer service ethic but it appears to be more substantive than that espoused through the implementation discourse that has all too readily given way to an emphasis on sales. Thus, Philippa, a lending clerk of twenty-three years from Small Branch, expressed her concern that customer service is being eroded and compromised by the focus on sales: Philippa: Darren: Philippa:

You are expected to meet targets. You are supposed to make X number of appointments a week or tell them why you can’t. And that’s new is it? What do you think of that? I don’t think it’s unreasonable providing that the target is reasonable but I still think that Service to the Customers is paramount rather than trying to always sell them things. I don’t think necessarily the customer needs to be sold something when they come in the Bank. I

Coping through teamwork 155 think they want a good service and if you can point them in the right direction then that’s great. (Philippa, Small Branch, 16.12.98) One could interpret Philippa’s comments as resistance in that she is turning the implementation discourse with its stress on customer service back on the ‘makers’. She may be seeking to resist the pressure to sell because it intensifies her work and renders it less pleasant. Yet, it could also be the case that she is genuinely committed to customers and feels that recent developments are impairing the service provided as her subsequent remarks suggest: Philippa:

Darren: Philippa:

I am customer orientated. I will sell what I am comfortable with, within the criteria that, within the customer’s expectations and within what I feel comfortable doing and I will always pass anything on, ’cos they needed something fine, but I won’t sell somebody something that I don’t think they need or want. Why? Why? ’Cos I’m not that sort of person. I have some erm, I think it’s very much a case of you’ve got to look at the customers’ expectations and what they need and want. If I don’t feel that I can make that decision I would pass it on to somebody who can. I am happy to do that, to say ‘Well I don’t know about that product and I will pass you on to somebody who does’. I have turned down loans for people because A) they can’t afford or B) they don’t need or C) there is another way round. So I think you’ve got to be honourable. (Lending Clerk of twenty-three years, Small Branch, 16.12.98)

Here Philippa pitted her identity (‘I am customer orientated’; ‘I’m not that sort of person’; ‘you’ve got to be honourable’) against the demand to sell even though selling could enhance her income, job security and profile in the company. For Philippa, being ‘honourable’ and attending to customers’ needs take priority over the ‘enterprise self ’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992) that presumably would place sales as an entrepreneurial activity above all else. Here we can observe resistance to the elevation of market forces and competition. In some instances, the way in which power is exercised through prioritizing sales is tangible in that the staff are required to reconstitute customers as well as themselves. Nevertheless, sales did not always sit easily with the customer service ‘skill’ and its requirement to display ‘empathy’ towards customers: Darren: Karen:

If they now want someone who sells have you had to change the way in which you behave or have you always been the same sort of ? Yer, we have had to change ourselves because any time anyone walks up to the counter with a cheque to pay in and it’s over £5,000, you’re thinking ‘Hang on, can I try and sell them something here?’ ‘Do you want a savings account or do you want this or do you want that?’ Or

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if someone orders some foreign money off you, you’re supposed to say ‘Well have you got your travel insurance?’ and constantly, all of the time, trying to think of something to sell them. ‘And have you got a credit card while you are going overseas?’ and can I sell you one of those. Darren: Is that something you didn’t do before then? Karen: Erm it wasn’t, I mean you’ve got to concentrate on it more now than you used to do. The targets are very, very high now and you’re pushing all of the time. Author: Do you object to that or? Karen: Sometimes yes, ’cos you end up you saturate your customers with information and you say look ‘Can we do this, can we do that for you?’ I mean you get your regular customers everyday and there’s only so many things you can sell that customer before they just say ‘Don’t ask me, I don’t want anything off yer’. And this is how it gets. (Clerk of nine-and-a-half years, Small Branch, 16.12.98; emphasis added) Karen clearly empathized with the customers and, despite the pressure to change herself through ‘pushing’ sales, she held back certainly with ‘regular customers’. The demand to sell is having a disciplinary effect with the staff having to change themselves by ‘constantly’ trying to think ‘of something to sell’. The stress on sales seems to be creating frustration and a sense of injustice among the staff as Linda, the Customer Services Manager at Medium branch, recollected: Now I feel it’s wrong, that it’s the sales side of things, that you’re monitoring your staff for, more than your operational. It’s swinging well that way and the girls feel, the girls will say to me. ‘It’s not fair. We don’t get any credit for the fact that we’ve opened the accounts accurately. That we’ve undertaken costings of accounts or dealt with very complex share issues or foreign currency issues’. But that doesn’t really count for a lot. It does because if you do it wrong you’re going to know about it but you don’t get any brownie points for doing that all right. All your brownie points come from the sales side of things. (Employee of twenty-three years, 12.10.98) Clearly, in the above instance, Linda empathized and agreed with the ‘girls’ that everything is being sacrificed, inappropriately, to sales. She explained that the staff resent being narrowly assessed along the lines of sales when this excludes issues such as quality and also essential processing work. Such comments indicate that Linda is at least partly opposed to the new entrepreneurial self. Eileen, a cashier of thirteen years in Large Branch, was dispirited that, following the restructuring, the number of tills that are permanently open has been reduced from eleven to seven. The resulting demands on the staff are compounded by branch closures in the surrounding area, which has increased customer pressure on the staff who remain. Through this lament, Eileen revealed

Coping through teamwork 157 her identification with customer service, as well as a capacity to critique the implementation discourse in terms of how it is being enacted by the ‘makers’. Her concerns are not just about work intensification but are also about the reduced number of tills and how this will impact on customer service. Elieen’s team leader is Sue, and she also felt that the loss of staff is having a negative impact on customer service: I definitely think that we need more staff though. I mean everything is Customer Service now. You know, dealing with the customers, makin’ sure they are served within three minutes or whatever and sometimes it’s physically impossible when you haven’t got the staff. (Cashier Team Leader, Large Branch, Employee of nineteen years, 18.11.98) In Medium Branch, Janet, a cashier of twenty-two years, articulated how training courses that promote teamwork, such as the ‘Winning Team’, are irrelevant in relation to her everyday experience in the branches. This is because her working conditions render it difficult to provide customer service: Janet:

Darren: Janet:

And the thing is when you go on all these courses like the ‘Winning Team’. Erm, the things that they ask you to do. It just doesn’t come into practice when you’re in a branch. A mean this branch in particular have had a lot of long-term sickness. We always seem to have struggled here with long-term sickness. So er, like on these courses, they want you to go that little bit further with the Customer Service but it’s very hard. Yer sort of just doin’, I’d say bare minimum with customers, erm and then you need to get on to the next part of yer job. When yer on these courses they want you to take it that little bit further. But what you’re saying you can’t because of . . . Well because you’ve not got enough time because they’ve done it now so that each job has got so much work to get through and there’s not as many people generally speakin’ in the branches. (17.11.98)

Here we can observe Janet, along with the other staff, picking holes in the discourses used by the ‘makers’ and yet they continued to work in ways that supported the ‘makers’. Thus, both consent and dissent ran together and the staff seemed concerned that the ‘makers’ should live up to their own discourses. Appraisals: an individualizing examination The branch staff have individual appraisals on an annual and six-monthly basis. They also have individual ‘sales folders’, which are checked each month. Sales folders include details of the number of sales referrals each member of staff has

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passed on, service issues where staff have provided good service and information on the cross-selling of products. The staff had not received a cost of living rise for two years at the time of the research and, in order to gain a pay increase, the staff needed to obtain merit awards during their appraisal. Through the appraisal, staff performance is evaluated largely in terms of how much commission the staff have generated for the Bank: (U) is unsatisfactory, (IR) is improvement required, (G) is good, (H) is high achiever and (O) is outstanding. Once the staff reach the top of their grade then, unless they are promoted to a higher grade, their income is fixed. At this point, the staff are entirely dependent on T Corporation’s profit-related pay awards for salary increases: Karen:

Darren: Karen:

Darren: Karen:

A lot of people work hours without being paid. Work their lunch hours because of pressure of work and I really don’t think they appreciate the staff. Why are these hours being worked without pay? Because of pressure of work because you’ve got that much work to do sometimes. I don’t think they know how much work is actually being. Well they must know what is being done at the branch but I don’t think they know the volume of work that is being done at the branch. Why would you do that work then if you are not getting paid for it? ’Cos you think, well, if you say, you know, I can’t cope with this you are always worried about your job I think. Or then would it go on your report to say that you can’t cope with the job and you lose your grading. (Cashier, twenty-four years, Large Branch, 25.11.98)

In the above extract, Karen enunciated how the staff work unpaid hours because to do otherwise raises the fear of redundancy or being downgraded. These economic pressures have an individualizing effect when combined with the appraisal scheme. Rather than collectively challenging the ‘makers’ and their designs, the staff act in ways that intensify their workload. Instead of directing her anger towards the ‘makers’, Karen excused them by suggesting that they are ignorant of the situation (‘I don’t think they know’). Through their individual ‘sales folder’, the staff are required to build up a portfolio of evidence about themselves. This is largely bound up with providing evidence of sales and through it the staff must learn to sell ‘themselves’. The two are linked because, as Arthur Miller so powerfully depicts in his 1949 play ‘Death of a Salesman’, salespersons are required to sell their personality: Eileen:

Darren:

We’ve got to be able to portray ourselves really for these interviews and personal development plans that we have. We’ve really got to sell ourselves if you like, because if we don’t sell ourselves er nobody else will . . . Why do you think there’s been this shift to you collecting evidence? What do you think the reasoning is behind it?

Coping through teamwork 159 Eileen:

I think what they are trying to do is to make us more professional people and by professional person you’ve got to sell yourself again and prove that you’re worthy of working within the Bank. (Eileen, Cashier of thirteen years, Large Branch, 2.12.98; emphasis added)

Eileen was not critical of this concern to re-make her and she saw it as a means to secure an improved individual pay award. According to Eileen, a ‘professional person’ is someone who is able to ‘sell’ herself or himself. Other staff, however, tended to suggest that professionalism amounted to more than selling, that it has something to do with a ‘customer orientation’ and being ‘honourable’ (e.g. Philippa). There are, therefore, conflicting interpretations of professionalism, one that is linked to compliance and another that is bound up with defiance. Eileen was the only person that I interviewed who appeared to fully embrace the individualized, enterprise self, which the ‘makers’ are attempting to forge (albeit in contradictory ways) because: as far as sales is concerned it’s up to you to er, it’s up to every cashier to ask customers and be responsible for their own sales. You know, you don’t get sales from other cashiers. Obviously it’s everyone for themselves now (ibid.). The demand to reconstitute one’s subjectivity so as to ‘portray’ or ‘sell’ oneself as a ‘professional person’ appears to be contributing to work intensification. Thus, the staff considered it is necessary to work ‘their lunch hours’ or do extra unpaid hours of work in order to meet such expectations. The staff must make a project of themselves to themselves and others. Philippa, from Small Branch, lamented this shift: Darren: Philippa:

Darren: Philippa:

Darren:

What do you have to do to get the better grades? You have to actively show that you’ve done something about your performance and that would be evidence sheets, I would say. Something that I’ve always complained about, you have to go around saying how wonderful you are to people. You know ‘Oh I’ve just done this, just done that’. You know, ’cos you can’t write everything down that you do but, erm, it does seem to be the case that you have to tell your manager. Let it be known that you’ve just done something fabulous (laughter). So you hope that they clock it in their minds so that when they do your appraisal. But you will be asked for evidence. That sounds like the Gestapo. It is, it is very much, it is [hesitant]. Well it depends what sort of a person you are, I mean some people like to go around saying how wonderful they are but other people think ‘Well that’s just part of my job to do that’. What about you, do you tell people how wonderful you are?

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Philippa:

No. I’ve had to start ’cos other people I know and I know what they do, seem to be very highly thought of and I’m thinking ‘Well I do more than that but I just don’t talk about it’ (laughter). So it is making you much more conscious of . . . (Philippa, Lending Clerk of twenty-three years, Small Branch, 16.12.98; emphasis added)

Philippa explained that the regime requires the staff to sell themselves to their seniors. She resented this and would prefer to simply get on with her job. Nevertheless, she is aware that others are playing the game and as a consequence are ‘highly thought of ’. In view of this, she has begun to adopt a similar approach. There certainly seems to be something artificial about this game, which requires the staff to direct their efforts into creating a persona of enterprise. Philippa indicated that she does ‘more’ than others do but considers this to be ‘just part of my job’. Yet, she must now appear to be enterprising because other staff are presenting this image to management. We can observe that power is being exercised but not necessarily in ways that are fruitful because energy is wasted manufacturing the appearance of enterprise. Those who are most successful in this endeavour may simply be better actors or players rather than being more enterprising. Jack also noted the gamesmanship that is occurring whereby the staff must play roles and this can require them to be dishonest with themselves: Darren: Jack:

Darren: Jack:

What do you feel that you have to do not only to get a promotion but to get the better grades within your appraisal? You’ve got to make the right noises. I’m not saying that you’ve got to be a right brown noser and that, but you’ve got to do a certain amount of toadying. What are the right noises though? Well, you’ve got to be not too cynical. Erm, you’ve got to look to be enthusiastic, erm seen to be enthusiastic, even when you’re not. Erm, which is fine, be enthusiastic, but it lacks honesty. I think, if things are happening and you don’t agree with them and you think they are bad ideas then say so but that’s not maybe a good career move. It’s a certain lack of honesty, disingenuous to a degree. Bit of bullshit you know? (Clerk of fifteen years, Small Branch, 16.12.98)

It is intriguing that honesty was one of the values that the WCCS programme elevated and yet Jack expressed that to be ‘honest’ is not necessarily a good ‘career move’. Thus, one must not resist through appearing ‘cynical’ or question the regime and its ‘makers’. This individualizing dynamic is likely to suppress anything that the ‘makers’ do not want to hear. It is anti-empowerment and creates a culture of obedience that may well stifle ideas that could improve customer service. It is also potentially totalitarian (Willmott, 1993) because the staff are urged not to be true to themselves and this promotes dishonesty.

Coping through teamwork 161 The appraisal directs the staff to channel their efforts into sales. Thus, according to Janet, a part-time clerk of twenty-two years in Medium Branch, ‘to get the outstanding thing you have to be a super-seller. You wouldn’t get anything more than a good unless you were really doing well in sales. . . . No matter how good you are at yer job unless you get a lot of commission you wouldn’t get more than a “G” for good’ (17.11.98). We can see then that the appraisal system, with its emphasis on sales, is squeezing out everything else. It is promoting a stunted version of the enterprise self that was elevated through the implementation discourse. Thus, one can only be enterprising to the extent that one ‘sells’ and a quality or a customer focus is strangled through this process. The appraisal exercises power in much the same way as an examination (Foucault, 1977) in that it fragments the staff and establishes a pecking order between them upon which rewards are bestowed or withheld. This is evident in that it has a tendency to promote ‘secrecy’: Collette:

People don’t tend to tell each other how they’ve got on in their reports. It’s just not something that you do, tell other people. Darren: Does the Bank ask you not to say what grade you got? Collette: No, they just, I mean some do. No the Bank doesn’t I don’t know why it just seems somet’ personal. I’m not saying I just tell people but nobody ever seems to ask so they just say ‘How did it go?’ and that’s that. (Collette, Team Leader, Medium Branch, employee of eight years, 22.10.98) The appraisal, in this instance, appears to be a force for shattering the staff as a collective as each person becomes locked into a ‘personal’ relationship with their examiners. Although secrecy is not a managerial policy as has been found elsewhere (Knights and McCabe, 2003a), it seems that the staff are contributing to a culture of secrecy whereby ‘people don’t tend to tell each other’ about their grading. Consequently, the danger is that the staff become ‘isolated competitors’ (Sulkunen, 1982: 107) engaged in a clandestine war with one another and this undermines the potential for collective resistance. It needs to be remembered that culture is not something that is simply done to the staff because they are deeply engaged in its creation and reproduction. Thus, for a competitive culture to take hold, the staff have to participate in it and act in ways that are supportive of it. Elsewhere, staff have resisted the individualizing demands of appraisals (McKinlay and Taylor, 1996) and so such an outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless, the disciplinary pressures of individualization are keenly felt at T Corporation, as Barbara’s remarks illuminate: Barbara:

Darren: Barbara:

The staff reporting systems changed. A report used to be done on you by your manager. Now you have to produce the evidence to prove to them what grade you feel you should be, what level you should be at. Why has there been that shift? To be perfectly honest I don’t really know. I suppose in some ways

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Part II it’s fairer because if you’re relying on one manager doing your staff appraisal. It sort of went on what he said and nothing else, whereas, in this way, you’re conscious throughout the year that you’ve got to produce the evidence if you want to get any kind of upgrade or performance bonus or not. (Counsellor of twenty-five years; Team Leader, Large Branch, 18.11.98)

If one contrasts the above dynamic with pay rises that are awarded through collective bargaining, the individualizing effects of power comes into sharp relief. The very notion of producing ‘evidence’ encourages the staff to be selfdisciplining or, as Barbara put it, to be ‘conscious throughout the year’ that they have to ‘produce the evidence’ in support of an ‘enterprising’ self (du Gay and Salaman, 1992). Individuals are required to ‘become increasingly skilled manipulators of self, reputation and image’ what Collinson (2003: 538) describes as a ‘dramaturgical self ’. In such instances, the staff must exert a panopticon-like gaze over themselves and subject themselves to continual scrutiny (Foucault, 1977). Jean, a clerk of thirty-two years service at Medium Branch, expressed the economic force that gives teeth to this dramaturgical self and the appraisal: Rather than just be a plodder you’ve got to stand up. You’ve got to stand out in a crowd because you don’t know when they are going to do it again [redundancies]. So I do think that you fear mostly now, you fear redundancy because they’re streamlining all the time. I mean the lending is going out next year to the ASC. So I feel, I mean people keep reassuring me an sayin’ ‘It doesn’t mean to say ’cos you’re the lender that you are going to go’. But, you know, you do fear redundancy ever since the ASC because they’re streamlining all the time. (23.10.98) The fear of job loss adds weight to the individualizing and dramaturgical pressure to ‘stand out in a crowd’ or to differentiate yourself from others. It hinders the ability of the employees to act collectively and so challenge their collective fear of job loss. Linda, the Customer Service Manager at Medium Branch, explained that the appraisals are creating antagonism between the staff and one could argue that this is precisely their appeal for management: on the staff appraisals, they are constantly being asked how many appointments have you done? What’s the commission you’ve done on that? If you’ve sold a personal loan, did you get credit protection with it? And they are having to monitor their own performance because they know that at their year end – appraisals. We’ve got to have all that information otherwise they can not be seen to be doing their job correctly. . . . They might not have got the sales. There might be a reason for it. . . . It’s no good to say the figures say ‘You did this and you did that and therefore you’re not good enough’. It’s certainly caused quite a lot of upset and when you’re trying to

Coping through teamwork 163 build up teamwork it doesn’t help when you’ve got girls fighting, and I mean fighting, over an appointment because they needed that appointment, because they knew that I was going to ask ‘How many appointments have you got this week?’ So er, on the other hand, you know, I suppose it works, because they know they’ve got to get it and by hook or by crook they’ll get ’em. (Employee of twenty-three years, 12.10.98) There could be no more vivid illustration of the fractious effects of targets and appraisals, than members of staff ‘fighting’ over who has secured an appointment. The appraisal, in this instance, seems to be more like an inquisition than an opportunity for staff development. Linda has resisted the impersonal demands of the machine, which require her to judge the staff entirely on the basis of ‘figures’. She articulated how the resulting antagonism is incompatible with teamwork. Thus, we can observe that the strategic emphasis on numbers and the new sales culture contradict the implementation discourse with its stress on teamwork and customers. Linda’s resistance reveals that power is not simply exercised in a consistent, top–down way and as a local manager, she has to cope with the contradictory demands that are made of her staff. Despite the pressures of the new regime, Steve, the Account Manager at Large Branch, suggested that the staff are capable of playing with and manipulating the discourses that the ‘makers’ wield and that he is tasked to instil. Thus, neither local managers nor staff are simply passive conduits or recipients of the appraisal system and so the staff can turn the discourses to their own advantage: If you take a number of staff through a system and say ‘This is what I’d like you to do, could you do that and sell’? They’ll tell you what they want you to hear. Staff become very attuned to the question you’re asking and will give you the right answer. However, whether they actually then do that is a different, you know, takes longer. (Employee of eighteen years, 28.10.98) Brian, the Assistant Branch Manager of Large Branch, confirmed that the staff creatively deploy the sales discourse in their defence. It is interesting that he did not believe that people have been, or can be, reconstituted by corporate discourses. Thus, in terms of sales, he stated that there are different aptitudes but despite this ‘everybody’ will present themselves as ‘sellers’: We have to a great extent got people more sales orientated but you can’t get away from the fact that some people have got it and some people haven’t. But there will be nobody will tell you that they don’t like sales now. Everybody will tell you that they like sales, because that’s the way we are. (Employee of thirty-six years, 28.10.98) Both Steve and Brian’s comments indicate that a dramaturgical self is not a

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passive or simply static outcome of a new management regime. Thus, employees ‘can become skilled at choreographing their own practices and managing their reaction to the ways they are monitored’ (Collinson, 2003: 539). Dorine, a member of staff of twenty-eight years at Medium Branch, expressed how the ‘appraisal’ system has become part of the ‘contested terrain’ (Edwards, 1979) of branch work. Thus, it has become a battleground and discourse is the ammunition used by both sides: You’ve got to go armed, like when I ’ad me appraisal, I’ll have pages like that of my evidence to prove why I am a high achiever. I’ve got to go in . . . state me case why I am and then I’ve got to have all the evidence to prove it. That I am making sales, that I am doin’ this. (Cashier/typist, 17.11.98) Dorine’s experiences during the appraisal can be understood as both ‘compliance and opposition’ (Collinson, 2003: 539). She provides evidence in support of corporate norms but views the encounter as a battle. We can observe that irrespective of whether one is able to make the right noises, one still has to produce evidence of sales in order to secure rewards and so once again language is bound up with practice. Although the appraisal system seeks to promote self-control, it also reflects the limits to management control. Thus, a number of staff explained that they are required to collect evidence because management cannot watch them all of the time and that management are not entirely aware of their performance. The increased pressures of the regime for both managerial and non-managerial employees has, therefore, limited ‘direct control’ (Friedman, 1977). In view of this, the appraisals aim to promote a ‘confessional’ self (Collinson, 2003: 535) as an alternative means of control. Collette explained the limits to direct control and her comments reveal why self-discipline is so appealing to management: Darren: Collette:

Darren: Collette:

You know in this appraisal, you’re supposed to bring evidence, what’s that about? Well, if you’ve had a letter of praise from customers, which hardly anyone ever writes in, do they? They only write in to complain. Erm, have you got evidence of your sales levels? Erm, if you reckon yer good with customers, how can you prove that? If you think you’ve done a good turn for somebody you make a note of that. It’s where you’ve gone over and above what’s required of yer job. Well why do you have to record that information if management are monitoring your performance? Well because they mightn’t have seen it ’appen. I mean there’s only Linda (Customer Services Manager) based downstairs so she can’t see everything that’s going on all the time. (Team Leader, employee of eight years, Medium Branch, emphasis added, 22.10.98)

Coping through teamwork 165

Teamwork-by-necessity I think it’s put us in a position where we have to be a team because if we’re not a team we wouldn’t survive. I think by cutting all the staff, I think they’ve made it so that if you’re not a team player, I don’t think yer’d survive. So I suppose that’s one way of encouraging yer to be a team player is by what they’ve done. (Jean, Clerk of thirty-two years, Medium Branch, 23.10.98) The above comments by Jean are redolent of the opening epigraph to this chapter when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described his experiences in Stalin’s Gulag. The demands of work, the redundancies, the appraisal, the new branch structure, sales and functional targets, have generated both the conditions and pressure for teamwork. Julie, a Counsellor of twenty-two years in Medium Branch, felt that whilst teamwork has always existed in the branches: it’s been increasing in importance in the way that the Bank has got it over to the staff over the years and now it is so much ingrained into people that it isn’t really a problem anymore because it’s what you do, you know? And what you know that is what the Bank expects. (Emphasis added, 22.10.98) Teamwork is an ‘enduring’ (Buchanan, 2000) feature of life in the branches but it now has far greater priority and it is something that the ‘makers’ expect from the staff. Julie expressed that teamwork has become ‘ingrained into people’ and this implies that it has become an embedded feature of staff subjectivity. Hence ‘it isn’t really a problem anymore’. The demands of the regime appeared to push the branch staff in the opposite direction than in the ASCs’. Rather than simply fracturing the staff and dividing them from each other, as in the ASCs, work intensification drove them to work together. Nevertheless, there are competing, contradictory pressures at work in the branches. On the one hand, the staff are required to embrace an individual sales culture and, yet, on the other, they are expected to work together as a team. This is another contradictory feature of the ‘enterprise’ discourse (du Gay and Salaman, 1992) that renders it problematic in practice. Kay, a team leader from the Admin Section in Large Branch and an employee of thirty-one years, attributed the teamwork to the necessity brought on by staff reductions: I think it is something that has come in because you can’t provide the cover er that you could have done a few years ago because there aren’t the staff available anymore to do it. If someone was on holiday you always had somebody spare to cover the jobs. If someone was off sick nine times out of ten you had somebody who you could try and slot in to cover the job. That just doesn’t happen now. So if someone’s off fortunately the rest of the team muck in, that’s it. (18.11.98)

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The loss of processing staff appears to have removed a buffer of cover, which must be made up for by the remaining staff. Consequently, when something unforeseen occurs, such as sickness, the surviving staff must pick up the pieces. Sue, the team leader in the Cashier Section in Large Branch, elaborated on this dynamic: Darren: Sue: Darren: Sue:

Is work organised around individuals or teams? No teams really. If we didn’t have a counter team we couldn’t function. Why’s that? Because you’ve got to work as a team to reach your goals, you know? Individuals, you can’t have individuals, you’d never reach your goals if that’s the case. I have to have cashiers that can serve but also support say our compound processes or security bags. Sometimes that’s very pressurised. Now if I had a cashier that just said ‘Well I just cashier all day, that’s got nothing to do with me’. We’d never get the work processed would we? You have to work as a team and I have to get involved. I couldn’t expect people to do what I wouldn’t do meself. I mean I have to rely, I think you’re going to speak to Kay [administration] as well aren’t you? She’s on the third floor. Now, if I’m – queues out the door and I think I’ve got a spare till, I’ll phone Kay and say ‘Kay can you spare me anyone for fifteen minutes just to serve on the till?’, ‘Oh yes, certainly’. Well that, at the end of the day fits the customer doesn’t it? And then, when I’m quiet, I phone her up and say ‘Listen, I’ve got a spare half hour. Do you want a cashier to do anything for you?’ It’s the only way you’re gonna get your targets isn’t it? And get your work processed. So you have to work as a team. (Large Branch, employee of nineteen years, 18.11.98)

The insights of Karen, a member of staff of nine-and-a-half years, elaborate on this situation as she experienced it in Small Branch. She explained how the demands and deadlines associated with work provide a disciplinary incentive to work together as a team: We work as a team mainly ’cos we help each other . . . We work as a team to get through the day really. To get rid of the work to get it off to the processing centres. We can’t meet deadlines unless we work as a team. I mean all of the work is collected at four o’clock every night and we’ve got to have everything ready at four. If we don’t work as a team it doesn’t happen. So it’s deadlines really. (16.12.98) These remarks that ‘If we don’t work as a team it doesn’t happen’ indicate the considerable power that the staff could exercise should they refuse to ‘help each other’ and yet they use this power against themselves through intensifying their work load. The dynamic of teamwork-by-necessity calls to mind Parker and

Coping through teamwork 167 Slaughter’s (1988) account of teamwork in the automobile sector, which they described as ‘management-by-stress’. Thus, production line workers are required to cover for each other as management speeds up the line, increases their range of tasks and/or reduces employment numbers. In Medium Branch, Linda, the Customer Services Manager, affirmed how the loss of staff has worked in a similar way providing an imperative to work as a team: Linda:

Darren: Linda:

What we decided was that we had to have as many people downstairs [the front end] as possible. So all the jobs that ‘ad gone what we did was made as much room as possible to bring everybody downstairs. We wanted our files close to us because we didn’t want to be on a phone to a customer and have to go walking upstairs to find a file. . . . You had to move everybody, you know, close together. ’Cos when you go in, obviously, losing your staff, you know, you all need to work together to teamwork . . . we had to bring everything on to one level so that we could all team and labour with each other rather than people being. What was that? Team and labour, well sort of help each other. Just there to help each other out. (Employee of twenty-three years, 12.10.98)

Linda explained how she had to re-organize the branch to cope with the loss of staff and to facilitate teamwork. This was more keenly felt in the smaller branches as Jack, a member of staff of fifteen years and a shop steward in Small Branch, explained: Darren: Jack: Darren: Jack:

You said you work here as a team? Reasonably so. Is that more or less than you did previously, prior to the ASC, for instance? I think there’s more because there’s so few of us now. I mean staff have been thinning out for twenty-five years in the Bank but the ASC system really did, you know, it was a third of your staff gone [clicking his fingers] like that. With so few of you left you really did have to pull together a lot more. I think it was actually more teamworking certainly in small branches than there was before. It’s really borne out of necessity there’s so few of you there. (16.12.98)

The need to cover for each other is partly met through flexibility and multiskilling. Yet, pressure in the branches often means that staff movement is on the hoof and at the margins as determined by necessity. The assistant branch manager of Large Branch felt that staff restrictions have limited flexibility, which is an impediment to teamwork:

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Part II We don’t have the rotation that we did because we are so tightly staffed. It’s far easier for us to leave somebody in a job consistently because you probably find that when somebody’s been doing a job for 12–18 months you’re probably getting 120 per cent from them on that job. If you move them to another job, where they’ve got to learn the job, years ago, somebody learning a job would go and sit next to somebody for maybe up to a month and then they would just take over. Well now you just take over and learn the job, so yer probably getting 60 per cent out of them to start with, we can’t afford that. So you tend not to get the rotation. (Brian, employee of thirty-six years, 28.10.98)

Brian indicated that the staff need to be utilized at maximum capacity at all times and this does not lend itself to training. Instead, the staff must move and learn new jobs as demand dictates. The loss of staff is therefore undermining ‘skills’ and reducing flexibility. This could also damage customer service through poorly trained staff who may be de-motivated from having to complete the same job for twelve to eighteen months at a time. In Large Branch, prior to the restructuring, work was described as far more leisurely. A cashier would only be expected to serve on the till and would not be required to help out in other sections or indeed to sell. The loss of staff, combined with the new emphasis on targets, has transformed this situation creating pressure points that the staff must relieve: Darren: Yvonne: Darren: Yvonne:

Darren: Yvonne:

Do you work as individuals out there? On the counter er you have to work as a team really. Why’s that? Because there’s that much work to do. I mean apart from just the counter work we have a secure room, where the bulk work is done, you know, Securicor bring in the work from shops? So that is done in a room by two of us on Monday, one of us through the week. Erm, then we have to do the envelopes from the paying in machines. Now we have to, I mean the person in the room is supposed to, do all the envelopes, do all the bags. But if they don’t come in sort of handyish, they come in later, it all has to be done by 3.30. Then we have to work as a team. We have to, the people on the counter when they finish serving they have to do some of the work from the room. Erm, and because we are on the computer system now. Erm, we still find we’re having to help each other, you know, find bits on the computer relevant to what we’re looking for . . . How did that arise that you’re working as a team in that sense? It has arisen as well because of the targets we’re set now. Erm, the targets we’re set for commission [sales], the counter has got to earn through the year. Erm, we have targets for shorts and overs in cash. We have targets for how many accounts we can get the customers to open apart from the ones that they’ve already got. It’s basically

Coping through teamwork 169 targets, so we’ve had to sort of work as a team. Because we’re in like an office within an office erm, the way they’ve designed the Bank now, we are more like a team. Before, you see, the counter sort of snaked its way right across the Bank and there was a back office downstairs. But because they’ve opened it out to the customers, we have just the counter and it’s a separate unit really. So part of it is the way they have designed the Bank now and partly because of the targets and because we’ve gone onto a new system. We’ve had to. (Cashier of thirty years, Large Branch, 25.11.98; emphasis added) Although Yvonne felt that the re-organization of the branches has resulted in each separate area working as a team. It was not felt that the branch as a whole works as a team. This was attributed to the separate targets for each section, and this applies more to the larger branches. Rather than the staff having internalized the notion of ‘teamwork’, Yvonne felt that the driver for change is economics. Thus, the staff work as a team in order to meet their targets and to avoid redundancy for ‘I think a lot of people are looking at the security of the job. At the end of the day there’s gonna be somebody who’ll step into our shoes and do it and we’ll be out the door’ (25.11.98). Such resignation presents the staff as powerless and Yvonne continually remarked that ‘we have to’ work as a team, which suggests compulsion. Yet, when Sue, the cashiers’ team leader, was asked what would happen if the staff ‘did not work as a team?’, her response was as follows: Sue:

Darren: Sue: Darren: Sue:

It’d fall apart. If we didn’t work as a team say on the counter we would never get through the volumes of work that we have to get through. If it was all left to the individual to cope. Well, on a Monday they could process 197 credits, plus the paying in machines, plus the fast banks, by one person? There’s no way they could cope with that. So if I didn’t say right ‘You’re under pressure, give the envelopes to Till 1, let Till 1 concentrate on the envelopes’. That to me is team. You’re all working as a communion. So you’re keeping the ship afloat through teamworking? Uum . . . . . . but if you didn’t . . . That’s the worst really. We are, we all are staying afloat by working as a team. If we had more staff, the ship might float a bit better (laughter) really. But that’s in the financial sector again isn’t it? Everyone’s losing jobs, all to cut costs isn’t it? (Large Branch, employee of nineteen years, 18.11.98)

Such insights convey the considerable power that the staff could exercise through a work-to-rule (‘it’d fall apart’) if they had the collective will to do so. That Sue raised the spectre of unemployment in relation to the possibility of resistance underlines the economic disincentive to resist (Collinson, 1994). It seems that without teamwork or the collective goodwill of the staff, the branches

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could not cope and yet the staff can see no alternative but to continue working as a team because ‘everyone’s losing jobs’. This economic threat rubbed out alternative possibilities and led the staff to work in intensive ways. There is a tangled web of control and consent. On the one hand, T Corporation could not function if the staff did not work together as a team and works only because of staff consent. Yet, on the other, the staff are controlled through their fear of job loss and forego collective resistance which enhances the ‘makers’’ control over them. Customer demands also exert control over employees and yet simultaneously the staff control customers at the point of service delivery. TancredSheriff (1989) has outlined the enormous power of front-end service staff because ‘lacking direct control, management must seek reliable workers who can be counted upon, even when distant from management, to act on its behalf ’ (ibid.: 50). The tragedy of the T Corporation workers is that rather than exercise power to resist work intensification, like so many others, they tend to ‘become the facilitators of management control’ (ibid.: 49). Teamplayers versus individualized selves Although an individualized self is not entirely compatible with teamwork, in combination, both ‘section’ and ‘individual’ targets contribute to the pressure to work as a team: Darren: Eileen:

Darren: Eileen: Darren: Eileen:

Is teamwork something that the Bank formally encourages? Yes I think it does now. Counter have their own team. Reception and counsellors have their own team and each team has its individual target. So really erm, you have a summary every week on the Commission, which the manager puts up on the notice board. It’s nice for the Counter to be noticed. I mean we feel that we’ve really achieved something if counter is mentioned ‘Oh done well this week on Commission’. Erm ‘My thanks go to Counter’. If you see Counter written up in lights it’s nice as a team to see that. Who does that? The manager. So what does she do? Well every week we have a target in the Bank for Commission and every week a list is put up on how much Commission has been made and then it’s broken down then. How much each er, team or well, how much each person actually has attained and then along side each person’s name it’s either Counsellors or Counter or Managers. Whoever it is that has attained the Commission and then underneath there might be a note in lights saying ‘Well done to Counter if they’ve achieved’. (Eileen, Cashier of thirteen years, Large Branch, 2.12.98)

In this instance, Eileen did not distinguish between herself and her counter team

Coping through teamwork 171 members. So, if a fellow team member has attained commission, then this was deemed to reflect equally well on the team. Nevertheless, her subsequent remarks suggest that she is preoccupied with her individual performance. It appeared to be the case that whilst teamwork is being pushed by management and indeed, is a necessity for the staff, individualism is also promoted and they make for uncomfortable bedfellows: Darren: Eileen:

Would you say it’s more or less of a team than it was a few years ago? Well you’re very much your own person on the Counter now and er, you’re very much conscious of er, getting your till correct as well. Cash errors is another thing. Cash differences, this all goes down on your appraisals as well. The less cash differences you have erm, the better for you. You know? Your performance is rated better. So you’re not really wanting to make any errors on the till. Yes, maybe it is less of a teamwork. We work as a team from a Counter point of view. I mean if a customer comes to a Counter first, before going to reception, erm, we like to think that we’ve asked that customer first whether he’s got a pension, before he goes over to reception for them to get the credit for the pension. ’Cos all our targets, all our Commission, goes towards the Counter target. So, in that respect, it’s teamwork but yer very much wantin’ your own individual scorin’ as well. (Eileen, Cashier of thirteen years, Large Branch, 2.12.98)

Although Eileen acknowledged the importance of teamwork, she was one of the very few individuals, that I talked to, who appeared to view herself largely as an individual, who is in competition with other staff. The new self that the ‘makers’ appeared to be trying to forge is one who can engage in ‘doublethink’ whereby they can both focus on themselves as individuals in competition with others and yet fully participate as ‘team players’ (Finley et al., 2000; McCabe, 2000a; Knights and McCabe, 2003) and see no contradiction between the two. Karen, a Counsellor of twenty-four years in Large Branch, outlined the type of person management are looking for. Her remarks suggest that sales and the targets associated with them have come to dominate her life: Karen: Darren: Karen:

Darren: Karen:

They want people who don’t make any mistakes, work and don’t complain. Like me (laughter). So you’re the ideal? Oh yes, definitely (laughter). No I think as long as just carry on and do sales and don’t complain about anything that’s fine. Targets, targets, targets, all the time. Always sales. Everything boils down to sales all the time. How do you cope with that? You just have to get on with it. They just ask and ask and ask. (25.11.98)

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Karen expressed that the ‘makers’ are looking for compliant selves that do not question or complain. This compliant individual will concentrate on their individual sales because ‘everything boils down to sales’ and this may mean that teamwork will be sacrificed. The thoughts of Sue, the team leader from the Cashiers section in Large Branch, support this interpretation, for she suggested that individual Commission is increasingly taking precedence: Darren: Sue:

Darren: Sue:

So you mean at present you have a team target? Yes, but I think in time we will all get individual targets and, you see, how well you do is determined by how well you do in your annual appraisal. Right and you [as a team leader] do that do you? No each team is assigned a different manager. They write up their annual appraisal on my team. I give them the information and say so and so has got X amount of Commission. X amount of credit cards. Made X amount of appointments. Got no cash differences. That’s the evidence that forms their appraisal. Erm, they’re a hard worker. They show initiative. They help other departments. That all forms part of their appraisal but Commission, I have to say, now has a bigger sway. If you get the Commission you seem to get the rewards at the end of the year. (Employee of nineteen years, 18.11.98)

These insights reveal that the amount of sales one generates already outweighs how much the staff ‘help other departments’, use their ‘initiative’ or work ‘hard’. The enterprise self turns out to be a one-dimensional creature and this elucidates the contradictory demands at work in the branches. Teamwork is not linked to a more enriched or enjoyable form of work but is narrowly tied to corporate requirements, although the two are clearly not mutually exclusive. The intensity of work seems to be impacting on the sense of being a team through provoking internal disputes: Darren: Yvonne:

Is there a difference between teamworking and a team spirit. Well yes in certain respects. You can work as a team but you’re not particularly happy. Erm sometimes the pressure can cause a lot of backbiting. I mean we’ve just had an incident on the counter where some of us do work round the back of the counter like on standing orders and letters and that. And that means basically that other people are left on the counter to do the bulk of the work. But sometimes, you get a bit of a niggle because you think ‘She’s not doing anything round the back. She’s skiving’. You know? So sometimes the pressure can cause a few rifts now and again. (Cashier of thirty years; Large Branch, 25.11.98)

Although one should not regard the past nostalgically (Gabriel, 1993), it does seem to be the case that the rigours of work are increasingly a source of friction.

Coping through teamwork 173 Yvonne’s comments are reminiscent of the tensions Solzhenitsyn (1963) experienced in the Gulag for ‘when you’re working all out, you’re a sort of teamleader to your neighbours yourself’ (ibid.: 82). Thus, in the Gulag, individuals disciplined each other and when someone was deemed not to be pulling their weight, prisoners’ complained ‘you’re slacking, you rat d’you think I’m going to go hungry just because of you? Put your guts into it, scum’ (ibid.: 52). Peer discipline, as found elsewhere (Barker, 1993), appears to intensify as work pressures increase. Linda’s depiction of the staff ‘fighting’ in Medium Branch over who had won a customer appointment provides a frightening illustration of the demands of work. Through ‘peer pressure’, the staff can become entangled in a web of power relations that is all the more difficult to resist because they are responsible for policing them. Nevertheless, that the staff must enact peer pressure holds out the possibility that they can resist the demands that are made of them. The use of ‘individual’ commission and sales targets combined with teamwork creates a contradictory and unstable form of government (see Knights and McCabe, 2003a). It poses a threat to the local branch community as Collette, a team leader, explained: Darren: Collette:

Is there an emphasis on teams within the Bank? There’s an emphasis on teams insofar as we’ve all got to work as a team. I mean each branch is set its own target and if we don’t work as a team we’re never gonna veer towards them. We work together because we’ve had long term sickness in the branch and it’s meant that you’ve gotta help your colleagues or somebody’s gonna go struggling. The staff in this branch are quite good friends and that helps ’cos obviously yer wonna help your friends, you know? If they’re behind and they don’t mind telling yer that they are behind. The one thing I think is a shame is that you used to, obviously you’ve got to work to sales because if we don’t work towards sales, we don’t make a profit. But we used to do that as more of a team and now it seems to be more individual. We used to have, like say, erm one team and another team, and they’d work together on a campaign and they’d ’av a team leader ’n’ team leader ’ed pass on the information, when sales people came down. We weren’t in competition. It was just that some, like, say research, and some don’t mind doing telesales. But now, it’s very much individual and you’re working to your own aims and your goal that’s on your job description. You know, nobody now would dream of passin’ on one of their leads to somebody else because then somebody else would get the recognition for their lead. It’s a shame. (Medium Branch, 22.10.98)

Collette was not opposed to teamwork and she appears to have internalized the need to ‘make a profit’ and ‘to work to sales’. To this extent, she is a consenting member of staff but she opposed the priority given to individual sales and

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targets because they undermine teamwork and render work less ‘fun’ and ‘enjoyable’. Julie, a counsellor of twenty-two year service in Medium Branch, viewed the simultaneous emphasis on teams and the individual as ‘contradictory’. She felt that teamwork has been ‘so much ingrained into people’ but the importance attached to individual targets is rubbing against the teamwork grain: Well I think the team spirit side of it is difficult when people have individual targets to meet. You know what I mean? I think that is contradictory in itself. If you give somebody an individual target, team spirit by the very nature of what you are doing has to be effected for the worse. You know? Because people are going to hone in on their individual situation aren’t they? And I think that team spirit here is very much in line with that individual Commission target. You know what I mean? People are very much that is my lead and I am gonna like follow it through to the end. There have been instances here where there has been conflict over who should get it. Which I don’t think does very much for a team spirit or branch morale . . . when you say this is your target and you must do your very best to achieve it, it is detrimental to team spirit definitely. (Julie, 22.10.98; emphasis added) Although the staff continue to work as a team in a way that reflects friendship ties, individual competition is taking its toll as Diane reflected: Darren: Diane:

Does the Bank seek to encourage you to work as a team or be teams? No I don’t think so. Because I think that by giving us individual targets they’re not encouraging us to work as a team. I mean there has been instances where there’s bin, erm, you know, a customer has done something, some sort of investment and one member of staff thinks it belongs to them. ’Cos you know, different members o’ staff speak to different customers about certain things and another member of staff ‘as thought it belongs to them and because we’ve got these targets now, and we’ve got to get a certain amount of Commission, well it’s not, that’s not teamwork is it? Because they’re both trying to get it for the theirselves . . . yer desperate to get a Commission target, you know? And you think it’s yours. Your gonna say ‘Well that was mine’ and it can cause a bit of friction between the staff. So I would say that by giving us individual targets no, they’re not helping us to work as a team. (Employee of fourteen years, Medium Branch, 17.11.98)

These staff appeared to resent being in ‘competition’ with other members of staff and experienced the identity that the ‘makers’ are seeking to fabricate as contradictory. This poses limits to the attempt to reconstitute subjectivity because it is inconsistent. Rather than challenge the ‘makers’, however, the staff

Coping through teamwork 175 simply wanted teamwork to be applied in a consistent and less contradictory way. This thwarts the ‘makers’’ attempts to exercise power but it does not nullify it because the staff have absorbed aspects of what it means to be an employee. The corrosion of community Although the work is organized around teams, and teamwork is promoted to a far greater extent than before, the sense of in-branch community seems to be under threat. This results in a curious situation where teamwork is more pressed but is less heartfelt, as there is a sense of something lost or fading. Steve, the Account Manager at Large Branch, explained that ‘the team is imposed now. It’s not, they don’t feel naturally a team as much, which is strange really’ (28.10.98). Brian, the Assistant Branch Manager of Large Branch reflected on the changes as follows: Darren:

Brian:

Darren: Brian:

In terms of the past it [the branch] was half as big again. Presumably there was a greater hierarchy than currently exists. Was there more of a sense of a community then? Yes, it’s quite a good point that. You notice it erm when there’s functions, somebody’s ‘Leaving Do’. You can get a wrong impression to some extent because people have to be more flexible now. People come in earlier and leave earlier. Some people come in late and leave late. But you do notice it if there’s a ‘Leaving Do’. You don’t find nearly as many people, ’cos there’s only half the people here but sometimes it can be quite embarrassing how few will go to something and I think there’s a lot of people just want to get. You see everybody works a lot harder now. There’s no doubt about that. . . . There’s an awful lot of people don’t take lunches anymore, that sort of thing. I think it’s noticeable now that people just want to get home at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t they take their lunch? Just pressure because we are constantly increasing the work volumes and yet we seem to be constantly reducing our staff as well. (Employee of thirty-six years, 28.10.98)

This dynamic of the staff not taking the breaks to which they are entitled indicates that there has already been a culture shift. The individualizing pressure of the appraisals seems to have intensified work with each member of staff striving to create the ‘impression’ (Goffman, 1959) that they are a ‘hard worker’ and a similar dynamic has been found in Japan (Dohse et al., 1985). More generally, fear has crept into the workplace leaving the staff afraid of the next round of redundancies. Thus, they intensify their efforts for fear of being singled out and yet it is only through collectively resisting that such a threat could be ameliorated. Such pressures seem to present a double-edged sword in relation to teamwork. On the one hand, it forces the staff to cooperate so as to cope with the

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demands that are made of them. On the other, it destroys the sense of community or team spirit, which one experiences through spending time with colleagues. The work experience becomes less pleasant and people retreat simply wanting to ‘get home at the end of the day’. Thus, people no longer want to socialize after work hours perhaps because their work lives have become so distressing. Teamwork is often associated with positive experiences such as camaraderie and intimacy and yet, at T Corporation, the imposition of teamwork appears to be accompanied by a sense of loss. Hence, Caroline, a Customer Service Manager, reflected: Caroline: I think it’s probably lost a little bit of its close-knit ness. I mean I do hear the comments from time to time ‘We never have time to talk’. I think rightly or wrongly in times gone by we had more time to get to know each other. Erm, I was talking to one of our staff the other day and I realised that a couple of years ago I went on holiday with her sister and the two of us went, ‘We just didn’t know’. And it was a skiing holiday, so it was a holiday that stood out, and so I said ‘Oh when I went to France and I was skiing’. She’s saying ‘Our Helen went to France’. I said ‘I went with a girl called Helen’, and I have worked with this girl for quite some time but I don’t really know her. I think you find that a lot more now. The friendships aren’t the friendships that you used to have, time to have a bit of chitchat. You used to go out for your lunch hour. Everybody’d go into the canteen for an hour. Nowadays you find that a lot of people, 10–15 minutes in the back of the gents. There’s a great variance but the tradition of going to the staff room and sitting and doing your knitting for an hour or playing snooker. I mean we’ve thought about removing our snooker table, nobody ever uses it. But whereas if you looked back a couple of years there’d be a gang of people upstairs every lunch hour using it. Darren: But why is that not the case now? Caroline: I think you find nowadays that people are busier, erm. I suppose there’s less staff in the branches. Staff are more pressurised with the work that they are doing. They are spending more time giving Customer Service. Erm and a lot of the staff are very committed to the jobs that they’re doing. If they’re half way through serving a customer and they’re due to go to lunch at twelve. They’ll still be there at 12.30. Now they’ll go for half an hour. They’ll be back at one, to keep, because that’s when they are due back. I think people used to feel ‘I had an hour and it was my right to have an hour’. Whereas nowadays people, they don’t see it as much as a lunch hour or whatever, and that’s when a lot of the community building was done. (Caroline, Customer Service Manager, Large Branch, employee of twenty-one years, 8.10.98) Caroline confirmed that the staff are not taking their breaks and if one is too busy to ‘get to know each other’ during work hours, then this is likely to impair

Coping through teamwork 177 socializing outside of work. Work colleagues become people one works with, with whom one ‘talks shop’. The personal or the intimate is squeezed out. This process appears to reinforce individualization and destroys the bonds of ‘trust’ that management espoused through the implementation discourse. It is also likely to impair the sense of unity necessary for collective action so as to resist such conditions. Brian’s comments that some staff do not want to socialize after work hours has been found in another financial services provider (Knights and McCabe, 2003a) and it seems to reflect a diminished sense of community. Whilst we should not romanticize the earlier sense of community, everyone that I interviewed felt that they are working harder than before and this seems to reflect that the workplace is a harsher environment. The lack of socializing after work is also bound up with gender issues in that childcare responsibilities continue to fall primarily on women and this hinders socializing: One of the parts to it as well is there’s so many married women now with children and they’ve got to be off at five o’clock, or whatever, because they’ve got to go to the crèche because what always amuses me is these crèches always seem to close about half five. You think they’d be open 7–8 o’clock but there seems to be this time limit. We must have about twothirds of our staff are women anyway and because of the age of people an awful lot of them have got children. (Brian, Assistant Branch Manager, Large Branch, employee of thirty-six years, 28.10.98) It’s difficult really, here, because a lot of the women here. The majority of the women have young families, know what I mean? So I think that in itself means that you are not available to socialise as much as you might want to, know what I mean because your family commitments are stronger. (Julie, Counseller, employee of twenty-two years, Medium Branch, 22.10.98) Family commitments especially for women take precedence over socializing after work, and this has been found in both the financial services (Knights and McCabe, 2003a) and in the police (Thomas and Davies, 2005). In such instances, the identities and responsibilities of motherhood and parenting thwart workplace identities and demands. Thomas and Davies (2005) present such nonwork selves as a challenge to the ‘competitive masculine self ’ whereby staff ‘resist the demands for competitive presenteeism’ so as to ‘recognize and respect a home/work life balance’ (ibid.: 692). Such gender commitments and inequalities are hardly ‘new’ and yet Julie and Brian suggested that they are an illustration of the faltering sense of community. Other dynamics may be at work such as the growth in part-time working. We can observe therefore that ‘the mere fact of accepting a job outside the home does not liberate a woman or begin to make her equal with men. Rather, it usually means coping with two jobs with her position in the work organization being little different from her

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position in the home’ (Hearn and Parkin, 1992: 66). Nevertheless, gendered identities may well provide an obstacle to the enterprise self (du Gay and Salaman, 1992) which asks employees to sacrifice everything to work. Of course, one cannot dismiss the possibility of ‘nostalgia’ (Gabrial, 1993) at least as a partial explanation for this sense of loss. The reduction in staff numbers has intensified work as has already been noted, but Jack, a clerk of fifteen years in Small Branch, felt that this has had a knock-on effect on the sense of branch community: There’s less bodies. They took quite a bit of the work with them [the ASCs] but they took a lot of people. And with the people going I think they took a lot of the social interaction. Erm, which might have been a pleasant bunch, it might have been an unpleasant bunch. But there’s so few of yer in most of the offices now there’s no real scene going on. No real crack. (16.12.98) According to Jack, the lack of interaction simply reflects that most branches have lost a significant number of people with whom one can interact. The emphasis on sales also impairs the sense of branch community. Thus, Sue, the cashiers’ team leader at Large Branch, reflected on how different types of branch work impinges on one’s ability to ‘sell’. This generates resentment between the staff because so much weight is attached to sales, which is linked, in turn, to careers, job security and income: To be honest, the targets that are set can be very pressured ’cos you know sometimes, we have charts up on the board and each Department has a target. Counter’s [cashiers] target is £10,000 a year. Out front [counsellors] will be a higher target it might be £225,000 because they are talking to customers on a one-to-one basis. They’ve got application forms in front of them so they can cross-sell other products, whereas with the counter, we are going on a customer either paying a bill or cashing a cheque, and we’ve got to go from that and say ‘What can I offer this customer?’ And we say ‘Oh, have you got a T Corporation credit card?’ Now that to me is harder than out front because you’ve got something in front of yer [the screen]. Now upstairs [administration], would never have a customer one-to-one they do everything by phone. They’ve got a target and they’ve got £3,000. Every Department has a Commission target. Some people don’t like it but sometimes I think it plays one off the other because we are, at the end of the day, supposed to be a team. I don’t really like the targets, you know, but you have to live with them. (Employee of nineteen years, Large Branch, 18.11.98) Targets appear to be fragmenting the staff, creating numerous fissures between them. Here such fracturing is linked to the differential ability to sell linked to the different types of work that the staff perform. Sue’s belief that ‘you have to live

Coping through teamwork 179 with them’ [the targets] suggests a resigned subjectivity and it conveys a sense of powerlessness. Brian, the Assistant Branch Manager at Large Branch, also referred to divisions within the branches that reflect the different rewards that can be gained from selling: There is a bit of resentment over sales because the financial planning managers they have big targets for sales but if they get over certain targets then they move into different categories and they get big rewards then. I mean they can go on holidays and our cashiers and the like think ‘Well that’s fine but they wouldn’t have got that without us’. You know? A Cashier would have got a bottle of wine, something like that. (Employee of thirty-six years, 28.10.98) The structure of work around different functional groupings is more marked in the larger branches. Nevertheless, in Medium Branch, Linda, the Customer Service Manager, articulated how detached from one another the different functions can be: Upstairs [lending] are completely oblivious to what’s going on downstairs [cashiers, counselling]. I mean a customer collapsed in the Banking Hall. Now upstairs they’re working merrily away no idea of what’s going on and the fact is we’ve got a major crisis downstairs. So you could have six phones ringing downstairs and they wouldn’t know that somebody’s been pulled out to get a stationary order in, or to go on the counter, or answering the phone or helping the customers. (Employee of twenty-three years, 12.10.98) To sum up this section, we can observe a number of dynamics, which are eroding the sense of branch community. Rather than a spontaneous development grounded in the branch community, teamwork is increasingly imposed from above. The individualizing pressures of appraisals, staff shortages, the drive for commission-based selling, work intensification, job insecurity and functional fractures, all seemed to be uprooting the traditional sense of branch community. In the smaller branches, an individualizing shift was also apparent but the sense of community was more resilient and teamwork was bound up with a stronger sense of branch collectivism. Coping through teamwork/why don’t they resist? Given the deteriorating conditions of work, the intriguing question is why the branch staff continue to work together as a team? Why do they not confront the ‘makers’ through collective resistance? The next two sub-sections seek to explore workplace dynamics that help elucidate these questions. Rather than ‘resistance-through-distance’ or ‘making out’, it examines teamwork as a means of coping with work pressure. This is another instance of the staff ‘making do’

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in the sense that they are drawing on their creative capacity so as to make the system work. The staff exercise power in the service of the ‘makers’ but what is evident is that they are not ‘making do’ for the ‘makers’ but rather for themselves, for each other and out of economic necessity. Although management created the conditions that led to work intensification, the system is made to work by the staff not because of, but despite management, and this highlights the considerable power that the staff are exercising and could exercise against the ‘makers’ should they wish to do so. Teamwork for each other Although the staff in Medium and Small Branch worked as a team out of necessity, the staff tended to stress that they worked as a team for each other, to a far greater extent, than in Large Branch. This community-based identity served as a mechanism through which the staff reproduced their suffering. Thus, they channelled their efforts into coming to each others’ aid so as to cope with work intensification rather than challenging the ‘makers’: Darren: Jean:

Darren: Jean:

Darren: Jean:

What would you say morale’s like in the branch? I think morale’s OK in the branch. I mean a just think we are a, just seem to be a particularly good crowd. A mean we go out together erm, you know, if somebody’s leaves we go out for a meal. We ’av a quiz night on Tuesday erm yes I would say there’s nothing wrong with morale . . . Is there an emphasis on teams here? Oh yer we all look out for each other. A mean I think we’re two short staffed today. So we all like muck in and help each other really. If somebody’s particularly bogged down, yer know, if I can help or if anybody can help, people do help. Why? ’Cos we’re helping our friends. We wouldn’t want to see a friend er getting upset or getting stressed. We do it to help a friend really. (Jean, employee of thirty-two years, Medium Branch, 23.10.98)

Although the staff are under pressure to work as a team, it is evident that such teamwork is not simply determined from on high. Jean explained that the staff ‘look out for each other’ and ‘muck in’ but the motivation appeared to be bound up with ‘helping our friends’ rather than obeying orders. Janet, another member of staff from Medium Branch, attributed her willingness to help others to a sense of empathy with fellow members of staff because she has been in a similar situation herself: Janet:

People have always helped each other out. If you can help, if you’ve seen that someone else is struggling with lots of work. If you’ve been able to help. I’d say even now, you wouldn’t leave ’em to struggle. If

Coping through teamwork 181

Darren: Janet:

you was up to-date yourself, you’d still help each other. But the thing is that there is very rarely that there’s someone who’s doing nothing, that doesn’t really happen. Why would you do that? Why would you go out of your way given that things are so tight in terms of staffing? Because you know what it feels like yourself you know? Especially when we’ve been on that branch clerk job for two years, yer sort of just grateful for anyone to help yer. (Employee of twenty-two years, Medium Branch, 17.11.98)

Janet’s preparedness to work as a team did not seem to reflect the implementation discourse or the ‘Winning Team’ training course, but rather her past experience of being ‘just grateful for anyone to help’. She was, therefore, willing to assist other staff who may be feeling like that. Such actions and subjectivity cannot be ascribed simply to the ‘makers’, but to Janet’s everyday life experiences. Teamwork is not something that is simply done to her but is part of ‘a common framework within which the members of the group understand their own and each other’s actions’ (Sulkunen, 1982: 108). This is what Bourdieu refers to as the ‘habitus’, which ‘is constantly being formed in the daily practices of individual subjects . . . and whilst it is a structured system of meanings it does not follow any mechanistic or “algebraic” logic’ (ibid.: 109). Jean was explicit that she worked as a team for her colleagues and not for T Corporation: You’re doing it to help your colleagues. That’s the only reason you’re doing it to help your colleagues. I don’t think you’re doing for T Corporation. You are doing it to help your colleagues because sometimes you can see they’re getting really upset and they’re getting really busy. So, rather than them get busy, you do it for them. You’re not doing it for T Corporation. . . . You do it to help your colleagues. You don’t begrudge doing it. You do it willingly. (Jean, employee of thirty-two years, Medium Branch, 23.10.98) In these instances, the staff employ their labour power in the service of each other and this serves to make the machine tick over. Their subjectivity appears to be bound up with a community-based understanding of what it means to be a branch clerk, and this seems to be only partly related to corporate instructions. According to Diane, the staff continue to work as a team, even though the individualized regime puts pressure on them to do otherwise: Mainly because of the type of people we are . . . some people y’tend to sort of do the job and that’s that, but at this branch, because we’re friends, I would say, we help each other out despite these targets you know? (Employee of fourteen years, Medium Branch) One could almost interpret such teamwork as an act of defiance against a regime that is imposing individualizing demands on the staff. Indeed, it was important

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to Jean to explain that she is not doing this for T Corporation but for her friends. Such staff worked as a team despite and not purely because of the demands of the ‘makers’. As at Large Branch, the staff are under pressure to work through their dinner breaks and this is impairing workplace bonds. Thus, social interaction is being rubbed out and with it the sense of community: Dorine:

Darren: Dorine:

Darren: Dorine:

I don’t think this is a happy branch. I think yer get on, ’cos like yer get on with people, ’cos yer get on. I don’t think there’s any like bitchiness in this branch, where everybody talks about like everybody else. I think we’re just too busy to do that. But I think we all sort of like get on, even when we like go out socially, we all get on. Is there still a social community? Not as, like we used to, like we all used to go over to the pub, which was called the sub-branch, over the road. Nobody goes anymore, ’cos they’ve not got the time to go anyway. What you mean they go in the dinner break? Yes, there used to be a lot of that when I first came here. Not any more and like Christmas is comin’ up and we’re going on the Christmas Do. Most of us are goin’ on that or someone leaves and you ’av to make the effort an go out but not like it used to be, in the old days (laughter) bet you’re sorry I came in aren’t yer? (laughter). (Medium Branch, 17.11.98)

The subjectivity that Jean expressed is one of resentment against T Corporation because it is not a ‘happy branch’ and it is ‘not like it used to be’. The sense of ‘nostalgia’ (Gabriel, 1993) is palpable and it indicates that staff subjectivity has not been reconstituted through the implementation discourse so as to render the staff docile. The staff are not untouched by the discourse but neither are they consumed by it. Teamwork for self and ‘other’ As the above extracts indicate, in the smaller- and medium-sized branches, a sense of community continues to prevail and the staff work as a team for each ‘other’, that is to say, for their ‘friends’. This is also bound up with their sense of identity: I’m the type of person who won’t sit and do nothing when I can see someone running around like an idiot. But that is me, I won’t do, I can’t do that. I mean we used to have people like that who would sit and look out the window all day, that used to irritate me. But I personally can’t do that. I cannot, not that, we’re very, very, very rarely have nothing to do. There’s always something to do but on the rare opportunity, if you see someone in a real bad way, erm, you’ll kind of put your things to one side,

Coping through teamwork 183 thinking well ‘My things aren’t important I’ll go an see if they want any assistance’. (Jean, employee of thirty-two years, Medium Branch, 23.10.98; emphasis added) Jean’s explanation elucidates how the staff ‘make do’ or exercise power so as to make the system work. Whilst it may appear to be the case that the ‘makers’ have enacted conditions over which the staff have little choice or power to resist, the branches continue to function because the staff exercise power in ways that make them work. This ‘making do’ underlines how work cannot be performed without some minimal level of support from the staff, and the potential for resistance, therefore, remains. In such instances, the staff use their autonomy and goodwill to help each other due to friendship bonds and out of a sense of personal integrity. Thus, they understand themselves to be a particular ‘type of person’ who will not stand by and watch someone suffer. Philippa, from Small Branch, explained that whether one helps others ‘depends on who you are’: Philippa:

I think it depends where you work. In a smaller branch it’s much more so. Erm, because if somebody’s struggling on the counter at three o’clock, you’ll say ‘Well can I do that for you?’ Or you go and help out, you do that. I think in a bigger branch it might be slightly more difficult but I’ve been on a Lending Team and it has all been a case of ‘Oh right you’re behind let me take some of your work for you’. I think it depends on who you are as well. Some people like to have their own little bit that they deal with, then go home, but from my own personal, I’ve always felt being part of a team. Darren: Has that increased over the years? Philippa: Oh it’s much, yes, I mean the Bank wants you to be a team, definitely. But as I said I can only speak as I’ve been and I’ve always worked like that anyway. (Philippa, Lending Clerk of twenty-three years, Small Branch, 16.12.98) Such dynamics allow the machine to continue pumping but not simply as a consequence of the ‘makers’’ designs. It is a tragic reflection of the best in people that their loyalty to one another and their sense dignity served to intensify their burden. Despite the immorality of a system designed with little or no regard for the staff, it was the staff ’s sense of rightness that enabled it to thrive. Thus, Jean would not and could not ignore the plight of others. Of course, it could be argued that Jean does so due to her fear of redundancy or out of an individual preoccupation with gaining a good grade at her next appraisal, but I do not believe that this is the complete story. One cannot separate her actions from the economic context but to attribute them purely to the economic would be to neglect the social or cultural context within which she has formed social ties and loyalties, and through which she expresses her identity or sense of self. Thus, Jean does not have to help others and indeed she must put ‘her’ own work to one

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side in order to do so. That she does so reflects her compassion and empathy for ‘Others’. Even though the ‘makers’ failed to display such understanding and solicitude for her, Jean expressed it for ‘Others’, in a way that contributes to the profitability and smooth running of T Corporation. This feminine concern for ‘Others’ was abundantly evident during a conversation with Dorine, a member of staff of some twenty-eight years, who currently works as a cashier but also performs secretarial work: Darren: Dorine:

Darren: Dorine:

Darren: Dorine: Darren: Dorine:

Darren: Dorine:

When you say it’s like teamworking on the counter, how is it teamworking? Well, say you get an awkward customer. You go and help them [other members of staff ] and show them this, show them that, or at the end of the day when you’ve balanced. Like I should go upstairs [to do secretarial work] but I don’t, I empty all the drawers out all the batch . . . I don’t have to do that. I do that ’cos obviously like, I do it because I am part of the team for that day, and do what I can, and then I go upstairs. . . . Or somebody doesn’t balance, you try and help them look through all their work, to look for the differences. But you said you’re not supposed to do that? No not really. It should be left to the other cashiers. But the way I look at it, I think that my day is for cashiering and I should be helping them. Well what would happen if you didn’t help? Nothink really, they’d just have to do it. They’d just have to get on with it. So why don’t you do that? Because I am me. I am Dorine. Sometimes I am that laid back I fall over sometimes but I do get het up when I think that we’re taken advantage of. Are you doing it for the Bank? I don’t think you are doing for the Bank are yer? Yer doin’ it because at the end of the day, when yer come to ’av yer appraisals, yer six monthly or yer twelve monthly, like it all goes down. It all gets noted. (Medium Branch, 17.11.98; emphasis added)

Here we can observe the deeply embedded nature of the interrelated concepts of self, the social/cultural and the economic. Dorine’s afternoon job is to perform secretarial work but she does not do this until she has helped other cashiers. According to Marx (1844), the alien character of work means ‘that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labour is shunned like the plague’ (ibid.: 99). Yet, neither Jean nor Dorine ‘have’ to help others. That they do so cannot be fully explained, therefore, by economic considerations. Of course, it cannot be separated from the economic because both fear job loss and want to gain a good grade in their appraisal. Nevertheless, Dorine helps due to a sense of

Coping through teamwork 185 personal integrity (‘I am Dorine’) and out of a concern for others. The self cannot be understood as the ‘privileged’ or ‘primary’ concern (Ezzamel et al., 2001, 2004) but neither can the economic (Marx, 1861; Braverman, 1974), for the two are intertwined. Similarly, the ‘social’ or ‘cultural’ context cannot fully explain the reproduction of economic relations as Burawoy’s (1979) analysis tended to do, without reference to identity or the sense of ‘self ’. Hence, Dorine explained her willingness to help her colleagues and to act as a team player, by reference to her identity: ‘I am me’ or ‘I am Dorine’. Work is not, therefore, ‘the loss of his (her) self ’ (Marx, 1844: 100) but an affirmation of herself. Yet, it is also bound up with her ‘social’ ties to the ‘work group’ (Burawoy, 1979) and to her ‘economic’ (Braverman, 1974) need for a job and remuneration through her appraisal. There is an ‘economic’ incentive to work as a team that is linked to the appraisal and the threat of redundancy. This creates a pressure to conform (see Collinson, 1994). Many of the staff have been employed by T Corporation for a number of years and therefore want to remain in employment, so as to maximize their financial severance package but such ‘economic’ conditions are not the whole story: Darren:

Dorine: Darren: Dorine:

Darren: Dorine: Darren: Dorine:

You said that you get £250 for a ‘Good’ and £350 for an ‘Outstanding’ in the appraisal. All this additional effort that you are putting in, is it worth it to get an extra £100. Is it worth it? The Bank thinks we’re well paid but I don’t think I’m well paid. But why are you prepared to put this extra effort in? Because I was going to go after twenty-five years and I thought ‘Why should I?’ I’ll get twenty-five years service and pension, you know? Why should I go and take what twenty-five grand at the time, to go somewhere else and start work over again? Twenty five grand’s not going to last very long is it? So I thought ‘Why should I?’ So you’re doing all this extra then to make sure that you . . . To keep my high achiever, to keep that . . . Is the high achiever linked to you being secure in your employment, is that what it is? No it’s just what I’ve worked for. I think I deserve that for all my efforts that I have put in these last twenty-five years. Right, it’s hard goin’, these like last two-and-a-half to three years, to work, because like in the Bank, they just want 150 per cent all the time because nobody has one job to do anymore. And I’ve got to sort of like prove to them that I am, that I am good. And I have proved to them that I can cashier. (Medium Branch, 17.11.98; emphasis added)

Dorine was deeply shocked and upset by the Criteria Based Interview (CBI) that forced her to re-apply for her job after twenty-five years of service. She described this as ‘a smack in the face’ and despite the emphasis on ‘trust’,

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articulated through the implementation discourse, she remarked ‘I don’t trust the Bank as far as I could throw them’. She was therefore concerned not to provide the Bank with any excuse to dismiss her or as she put it ‘I’m just staying now for me pension. I want what T Corporation, they owe me’. We can see then that the ‘economic’ needs of the individual go some way to explaining the reproduction of workplace relations but it is also bound up with Dorine’s sense of self and the cultural community to which she belongs. The CBI was experienced as a threat not only to Dorine’s economic livelihood but also to her identity. Thus, she has had to ‘prove to them’ and, in effect, to herself that she is ‘good’, that she is a productive and useful member of staff. The outcome is an embittered sense of getting a return for her twenty-five-plus years of service rather than a sense of ‘commitment’ to the Bank. As she put it, ‘I mean I’m only doing it for another five years. I’m only being a good girl because I want what T Corporation owes me’ (17.11.98). The dynamics of self, the social/cultural and the economic are enmeshed. One does not make sense without the other. To explain teamwork and the willingness of the staff to help one another purely in ‘economic’ (Braverman, 1974) terms is to ignore Jean and Dorine as thinking beings who are part of a local culture. More importantly, it is to neglect the power that Jean and Dorine are able to exercise. Thus, Dorine and Jean could have said ‘No’. They did not have to help out. That they did so can be attributed to their sense of ‘self’, the economic (appraisals, redundancy, retirement) and the social/cultural (friendship bonds) that work together in unison. This dynamic interrelationship of the economic, the self and the cultural, should not be thought of as a totalizing trap that imprisons the staff. Although it serves to reproduce conditions that cause much misery, it is apparent that the potential for resistance remains (Foucault, 1982). Jean was certainly aware that she and others could act differently and that it is impossible to rub out such resistance: Darren: Jean:

But you said that there were people who were not like that [helpful]? But I mean you can’t make ’em I don’t think. I really don’t think those particular people who are like that. I think that they are like that and no matter what you do, I think the more you make a fuss, the more they won’t do it. (Employee of thirty-two years, Medium Branch, 23.10.98)

Here Jean is referring to staff who will not act as team players. These individuals, who seem to be in the minority, do not help out if they see colleagues struggling. Jean did not view their actions as resistance and, indeed, resented their lack of empathy for fellow members of staff, but we can see that it is possible not to conform to the expectations of others. In this instance, such noncompliant staff not only stand outside of the social group but also from the demands of the ‘makers’. The staff apply pressure for such dissidents to conform (Barker, 1993) and in doing so they make the machine tick over. But

Coping through teamwork 187 neither Jean nor Dorine have to conform. They exercised power to help, they embraced friendship ties, appraisal demands, and sought to be true to their sense of self in ways that reproduced their plight but this need not have been the case. They could have exercised power against, rather than for, the ‘makers’. Teamwork or helping one another enabled these staff to cope with work intensification in ways that reproduced their suffering and vulnerability. It is only through collective resistance, however, that the broader conditions of inequity can be altered. The next and final empirical chapter seeks to shed some light on the phenomenon of why the staff tolerate their plight and fail to collectively challenge the ‘makers’.

Part III

7

Divided and conquered?

But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. (Orwell, Nineteen-Eighty-Four, 1949: 72–73)

In the earliest stages of infancy, we identify ‘ourselves’ with the ‘Other’, that is to say we see no distinction between ourselves and say our mother, other children or the world about us. We do not have a concept of ourselves as a separate ‘I’. As George Herbert Mead (1932) argued, we only begin to develop a sense of a separate ‘I’ through imagining ourselves as, or taking on the role of, the ‘Other’. Thus, we learn to distinguish between ‘Others’ and ourselves. Mead also introduced the notion of the ‘generalized other’, which is the pooling of all these imaginary ‘Others’ (mother, father, doctor, nurse, train driver) into a collective sense of society beyond ourselves. He describes this collective ‘Other’ as ‘me’. It is against this ‘me’ (this collective ‘Otherness’) that we develop a distinctive sense of ‘I’. In this sense, we are ‘Others’ (me) because it is only through ‘Others’ that we develop our separate sense of self (I). In Western society, the ‘I’ has become so central that we are becoming numb to the ‘Other’ (everyone else) or the ‘me’ in ‘I’. We do not see our inter-connectedness and I believe that this divorce is at the heart of the problems facing T Corporation and its employees. In Chapter 2, we saw that the ‘makers’ had little concept of the ‘Other’ in terms of the employees when they designed the ‘new’ organization. The strategies that the ‘makers’ put in place reinforced the sense of a distinctive ‘I’ in that they separated the staff from each other in the ASCs and applied individualizing pressures to the staff in the branches. The staff in the ASC had little notion of ‘Other’ members of staff, or a sense of their collective inter-relatedness. In the branches, the staff had a greater sense of the ‘Other’ in terms of their branch community but this was under threat. There was little sense of a wider staff collective beyond the branch or the ASC section. The ‘Other’ tended to be understood only in terms of ‘disjunction’ (difference) not ‘conjunction’ (similarity) (Cooper, 1983: 206). To the extent that there ever was a sense in which the

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‘Other’ (me) and ‘I’ are one, it is being challenged at T Corporation. In terms of the ‘makers’, we have observed the creation of a brutalizing work regime, which showed scant regard for ‘Others’. There has been a partitioning of the workforce and the staff failed to embrace the ‘Other’ so as to challenge the conditions, which brought them such misery. It is this lack of ‘interdependence’ or coupling between individual and social [collective] that is of high significance in understanding ‘Otherness’ (ibid.: 207–208) and an analysis of this forms the basis of this chapter. It can be read as a call to both the ‘makers’ and the ‘staff’ to recognize that we are all in this together. On the one hand, it asks for different management strategies and innovations that take the ‘Other’ (the staff ) into account. On the other, it calls for resistance should the ‘makers’ be unwilling to embrace the ‘Other’. Of course, rethinking organizations so as to recapture the ‘Other’ will not simply obliterate extant power relations, vested interests, debilitating working conditions and inequality, but such reflection could at least help this process to begin. One of the insights of the philosopher Michel Foucault is how power is exercised in Western societies in ways that serve to individualize us. That is to say, how power is exercised so as to splinter and fracture us from each ‘Other’. He reveals how the modern self that is autonomous and separate from ‘Others’ is a construction that we now take for granted (see Rose, 1989; Somers and Gibson, 1994). This extends Mead’s analysis of our early self into a wider analysis of society, and Foucault’s (1977) concern was to illuminate the conditions of individualization so that we may resist them. In this book, we have observed how machine thinking individualized employees often in unintended ways, through creating fragmented work processes, based around parts of the machine. In the last chapter, we saw how individualizing initiatives are breaking up branch communities even as managers extol the importance of teamwork and unity. This chapter explores how extreme this division of labour has become whereby employees are tied to narrow sectional interests that are disassociated from the ‘Other’. We will observe how staff ‘construct identities (however multiple and changing) by locating themselves or being located within a repertoire of emplotted stories’ (Somers and Gibson, 1994: 38). These stories establish and reinforce their difference and sense of separation from ‘Others’. As we shall see, the condition of these ‘Others’ was generally portrayed as distinct and inferior to their own situation and this served to pacify the staff such that they appeared to tolerate their plight through the suffering of ‘Others’. I am not of the opinion that management consciously set out to create such conditions/identities or to divide and conquer the staff along individual lines but rather that, machine thinking, especially the division of labour, creates structures and forms of working that serve this purpose. Thus, the promotion of individual competition, for example, shreds communities, teams and our recognition of ‘Otherness’. This benefits management to the extent that is splits asunder staff coalitions, who otherwise share a common interest in challenging management decision-making and extant inequalities. Yet, such splintering does not simply serve management, for considerable effort then needs to be expended so as to foster cooperative relations

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and enrol staff subjectivity through teamwork and programmes such as WCCS. Through such endeavours, the ‘makers’ seek to encourage people to work in unison and to recognize the ‘Other’, even though simultaneously the staff are forced to work against or at least to neglect each ‘Other’.

Forgetting the ‘other’ Donald: I sometimes think the higher up they go, they tend to view staff as a cost rather than an asset. Something to be hired and fired at will and if we can save a few bob here we will do. And it filters down and then everybody’s like trying to pick up the pieces. I’m sure they don’t know what’s going on. By the time it filters up they just get to hear what they want to hear. Darren: You mean they don’t know what it’s like for people’s working lives? Donald: I don’t think they are interested to be honest. (ASC, shop steward of one year, employee of twenty-four years, 23.10.98) Donald suggested that, in the process of becoming a manager, ‘the higher up they go’, managers become separated from the staff. Managers come to regard the staff, insofar as they do, as ‘Other’. This staff ‘Other’ is seen as a ‘cost’ or a ‘head’ and this feeds down through the management levels. Donald suggested that fissures occur within the organization as a consequence of this thinking, which has to be resolved at the local level. This picking ‘up the pieces’ might involve the various forms of coping that the staff engaged in whereby they made the system work even though it was designed without taking them (the ‘Other’) into account. We have observed how fragmentation has led to the sense of cultural unity beginning to implode, although we should not romanticize the earlier sense of community. Jean, a clerk of thirty-two years service in Medium Branch, also felt that ‘Otherness’ pervades management thinking: They’ve cut the staff down to the bare bones and the number of people who go off with stress. A mean surely there’s someone up there, in a high office who kind of actually says ‘Hey, why are all these people going off with stress?’ But I don’t think they’re bothered to be quite honest. I’m not sure, but somebody may be very offended by what I’m saying but I don’t think they do. You know, yer a number. You come in, yer do your work and that’s it and they expect you to do more and more and more all the time. (23.10.98) A central question explored in Chapter 2 was whether managers become machines in the process of becoming managers and creating machines of others. Certainly, in Chapter 2, there appeared to be little evidence of compassion or feeling for those ‘Others’ in the ASC, who are on the receiving end of management decision making. Donald and Jean both suggested that as managers

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progress through the hierarchy, something happens whereby they begin to view the staff as something ‘Other’ than themselves, as a cost, a number, a factor, a commodity, a head. Perhaps it is, in part, the machine thinking that dominates our business schools, engineering and computer courses, which contributes to this subjectivity? Managers are not born unfeeling but, it seems, that ‘some’ become so through their education, work pressures, career and economic aspirations, hierarchical position and the privilege that comes with it, and their sheer distance from the experiences of ‘Others’, who are on the receiving end of their strategies and innovations: Sue:

Darren: Sue: Darren: Sue: Darren: Sue:

One thing I do find is I think, when we’ve had a busy day, a real busy day, a stressful day. You never see a manager come round and say ‘You worked well today, well done, whatever’. And sometimes I think staff need that to keep morale up? But would they be aware that you’ve had a stressful day? Well they should be because they are working on the ground floor, three managers are on that ground floor. Oh, sorry, you mean those managers [immediate line managers!]. They are the managers that I’m connected with. Yes you didn’t mean the ones above that? No Phil [the branch manager] only comes down and sez ‘Is someone dealing with that queue?’ You know? But sometimes I think that would go a long way because every now and then, you do need a bit of a pat on the back shall we say? I always try and thank my team. (Cashier Team Leader, nineteen years, Large Bank, 18.11.98)

Sue stated that managers rarely thank the staff after a particularly stressful day. As the above extract indicates, I initially assumed that she was referring to senior-level management, but Sue was alluding to her immediate line managers. It may be the case that these line managers have had a stressful day and yet no one has thanked them. Of course, one could argue that their rewards are superior, their work is more diverse and interesting and that it is their job to motivate the staff. Nonetheless, such comments indicate the gulf between management and the ‘front line’ of customer service or how work is experienced by the staff. Cathy, an employee of eighteen years in Medium Branch, confirmed this void: Darren: Cathy:

Darren: Cathy:

How would you describe the approach of the management? Above the branch level? They don’t really get involved with us at all. Very rare. Every now and again we have managers from above coming in but they don’t really have much contact with the branches. Or do you mean with the branch staff in particular? Yes. I would say very infrequent. For example, the area manager comes in and he just walks straight up to the branch manager and never even

Divided and conquered?

Darren: Cathy:

Darren: Cathy:

Darren: Cathy:

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walks round and sez anything to the staff . . . with managers above you don’t get to see them very often. When do you get to see them? Whenever they want to come round. Whenever they decide that they are going to come and visit the branches, which is perhaps once every six months or once every twelve months. I mean I’m talking the top ones. Well what happens when they come round? They do usually have a bit of a walk round the branch and have a bit of a chat to people individually. You know, as you’re working they’ll just have a bit of a chat but only brief. Do you think they get an insight as to what it’s like to work here? No, well everything’s disguised (laughter). They know that they’re coming and before they come they go round tidying the office, you know? (Senior Lending Clerk, Medium Branch, 17.11.98)

Reading Chapters 5 and 6, one cannot help but wonder whether the lives of the staff would remain unchanged if the ‘makers’ were forced to live their lives that are dominated by error rates and statistics, or targets and sales? Sue went on to expand upon the chasm between the ‘makers’ and the staff: Sometimes I think top managers are say graduates who come in who have never had Banking experience. Come into a plush office and make all these changes and they’ve never been in the real world. They’ve never been on the ground floor. I mean that’s not being nasty but that’s how it is and I think that’s with anything nowadays isn’t? They get their degree but they haven’t got the experience within the workplace and sometimes I think they’re sitting in their plush offices and they say ‘Right what can we change today?’ You know and sometimes it’s not reality half the time yer want to get on the ground floor. (Sue, Team Leader of Cashiers, Large Bank, employee of nineteen years, 18.11.98) How many of us, working in NHS trusts, schools, universities or other large private sector organizations, could echo Sue’s sentiments? It seems that a condition and consequence of individualization, according to these staff, is that we begin to see ‘others’ as ‘Other’, as something different and less than ourselves. This allows leaders to behave towards ‘Others’ in ways that they would not if they were dealing with themselves. Janet, a part-time member of staff of twentytwo years, sought to explain the separation between the branch management and the staff in terms of the spatial divide between them: Well like Paul, the main manager, I’d say he doesn’t have much to do with the majority of the staff. ’Cos he’s sat in that little room up on, have you

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Janet’s comments suggest that her branch manager has little understanding of, or contact with, her everyday experience of work. If such a fissure exists between the staff and branch managers then it is likely to be multiplied by many times at the level of strategists, accountants and system designers. Jack, a clerk of fifteen years from Small Branch and a shop steward, reflected on the restructuring in a way that highlights the distance between the ‘makers’ and himself. He explained that the nearest ASC is inaccessible by public transport and that this made it impossible for him to relocate. He discussed this in terms of the different and distant world that the ‘makers’ inhabit: The ASC is out in the middle of nowhere as far as I am concerned. You can’t get to it by train. You can’t get to it by bus. You have to drive and I didn’t have a car. I feel quite strongly that that was very bad. It presupposes that everybody has a car, can afford a car. I think when they set these places up I think they should be accessible by public transport. It’s not in the world of senior management of the Bank but I think they’d be amazed that some people don’t have two BMWs sitting on the drive. (16.12.98) It appears that there is an economic, hierarchical and spatial crevasse between the staff and management and this reinforces the sense of ‘Otherness’. In this instance and in the previous chapters, we have observed ‘that men as individuals can be economically oppressed, socially impoverished and psychologically cramped by the system which sustains the power of men in general’ (Coote and Campbell, 1982: 239; quoted in Burrell, 1992: 77). Nevertheless, it needs to be remembered that branch managers are also under new pressures. Jo, a clerk of twenty-three years from Small Branch, commented that ‘when there’s only six of you, if one of you is unhappy it rubs off. Erm James [the Branch Manager] obviously is feeling the stress of it’ (16.12.98). She explained that James had just resigned due to the pressures of work. Branch managers’ living standards are also under threat and they are also on the receiving end of the ‘makers’’ designs as Cathy, a Senior Lending Clerk from Medium Branch, explained: Darren: Cathy: Darren: Cathy:

Do you think you have a say in what goes on? No. Not at all? I would say no. I would say the managers don’t have a say in what goes on either. It all comes from the top and you know we just have to do whatever we’re told what to do. (17.11.98)

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Cathy’s comments convey a sense of powerlessness and, although there is a separation between branch managers and staff, it appears that they share more in common than either has with the ‘makers’: The industry is more cost driven, focuses on costs, which tends to equal less staff and more responsibility. I believe in terms of my peer group if you went back say, my job ten years ago. My peer group would have been solicitors, GPs er that type of professional. I don’t believe I’m in that category now. I’ve fallen a long way behind in terms of remuneration and yet I’m still expected to give the same level of commitment in terms of hours and professional dedication. (Steve, Account Manager, Large Branch, employee of eighteen years, 28.10.98) The ‘extent’ to which we are divided from each other is neither the outcome of some natural occurrence nor is it one over which we have no control. The tragedy is that it is only through embracing the ‘Other’ that we can challenge the conditions of our adversity and yet we are divided in multiple ways. Indeed, many staff in T Corporation appeared to tolerate their wretchedness because they believe that working conditions are worse for ‘Others’. In this way, a sense of ‘Otherness’ served to pacify them and reproduced their misery.

The self as ‘other’ This section considers some of the numerous ways in which ‘machine thinking’ has separated the staff from each ‘Other’ such that they tolerate rather than challenge their plight. The staff appeared to adopt parochial ways of viewing the world and each ‘Other’ that reflect the boundaries of the work they perform. Their identities appeared to be bound up with limited horizons that served to shackle them to narrow, individualistic concerns. The staff seemed to gain a sense of relief from the belief that their working lives could be worse, and, in the process, they failed to challenge why their work is organized so that people are degraded in the first instance. What is forgotten is that institutions are made and can therefore be made anew. We are all ‘makers’, in the sense that we all contribute to and are able to influence the Corporations we inhabit, albeit in different ways and with different access to scarce resources. The folly of our individualized selves and of thinking in terms of ‘Otherness’ is that we forget that we are also ‘makers’. In this sense, ‘Otherness’ is not simply done to us for we define ourselves through differentiating ourselves from others. In short, we create and reinforce the separation as much as those who create the systems of work that divide us from each other. The staff from the Account Maintenance Section discussed the relative merits of T Corporation and generally considered it to be one of the ‘better’ organizations for which to work. Clearly, some workplaces are better than others, and one manager may be worse than another, but such myopic ways of understanding work, oneself and ‘Others’ leaves unquestioned ‘corporations and their fundamental relations

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themselves’ (Deetz, 1992: 239). A consequence of this is that the staff rarely questioned the nature of their work, its hierarchical relations or management prerogative [at least in their conversations with me]. Instead, they simply understood their lives to be roughly ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than ‘Others’. In the process, they separated themselves from those in other organizations and learned to accept their lot: Nicki: Sue: Nicki: Sue: Sanjit: Nicki:

I don’t think that it’s any better or any worse than anywhere else. I mean it’s probably better than some. Yes. But it’s probably worse than others’ . . . It’s probably better than others isn’t it? So they say. It’s on both sides I’d say actually. On the better side. (Account Maintenance Section, 16.11.98)

The sub-sections to follow examine some of the various ways in which the staff of T Corporation are individualized and how this impacts on their work experience and outlook. As we shall see, multiple fault lines are evident that militate against broader collective affiliations. ASC staff divided from branch staff When asked whether the work was interesting, Simon, a member of staff from the PAPS (Pre-authorized Payment Systems) Section, laughed along with the other staff from his section. However, he appeared resigned to working in the ASC because the alternative of working in the branches would be worse: Simon:

Darren: Simon:

We were in a situation where branch staff were being reduced because this place was being set up and we were told re-apply for your jobs in the branch and re-apply to go to the ASC. . . . So having a family I wasn’t going to throw all me eggs into one basket and say ‘I want to go to the branch’ because I may not have made it. So I applied for the ASC as well. So I have had to live with it . . . get the same money as I would do at a branch anyway just that I haven’t got customer contact. But do you prefer that? Er yes I do yes because we’ve heard. We still have a lot of colleagues in the branches. Every time you speak to them on the telephone or what have you they are tearing their hair out. There’s queues out the doors ’cos they reduced the staff that much in the branches. . . . They think we’ve got it easy here, they do. That’s the general feedback I get but then again we’ve got the pressures about the error rates and what have you, the branches haven’t got that. (6.11.98)

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Simon catered for possible redundancy by applying for work in both the ASCs and the branches. His preference was to remain in the branches but he was selected to move to an ASC. In his resignation, ‘I have had to live with it’, Simon did not contemplate challenging or changing his situation. The structures of the organization and his working conditions are deemed to be beyond question or resistance. This is indicative of Luke’s (1974) third dimension of power whereby we internalize certain issues and take-them-for-granted. Simon partly accepted his situation because conditions are believed to be worse for those ‘Others’, in the branches, who he has ‘heard’, ‘are tearing their hair out’. Simon’s comments suggest that the staff are reinforcing the separate sub-cultures of the branches versus the ASCs. Thus, as they share experiences with each ‘other’, they elevate their ‘differences’ for in the branches ‘there’s queues out the door’. Yet, this attention to difference ignores how both groups of staff are under increased stress because as Simon noted ‘we’ve got the pressures about the error rates’. Steve, a member of staff of twenty-nine years from the ASC’s Payment Audits Section, explained that the branch work has become more intensive. Given the task repetition in the ASC, one might expect that the greater task variety in the branches would be hankered after. Yet, Steve reflected on his recent encounters in the branches in a way that demonized this experience. Thus, he lamented the pressures of having to perform so many tasks and the requirement to sell: In the branch you seem to be a Jack-of-all, you wore that many caps in the Branch and expected to know everything inside out. That was one of the reasons why I got out because I thought, and obviously the sales side of it as well. You had to know everything inside out, but you may not do that particular type of work for six months. It was just a bit too much for me. (14.10.98) Steve added to the growing cultural separation between the ASCs and the branches by articulating the inferiority and intensity of branch work. Interestingly, Sue, a member of staff of ten years from the Account Maintenance Section and, Val, a member of staff of seventeen years from the Payment Audits Section, indicated that negative representations of working in the ASC are also being constructed by the branch staff. Sue stated ‘when I was in London and I was saying I’m goin’ to an ASC, they said “God what is she goin’ there for? Factory, it’s just like a factory”’ (6.11.98). We can observe then that the staff, rather than just management, are creating cultural differences. These stories serve to divide employees according to their place of work. We can see then that individualization is not simply a Machiavellian plot that is done to the staff. Instead, it becomes embedded in the culture that the staff take up and contribute to: John:

We’re treated better than we would have been in a branch. I still get to hear horror stories from the branch network and I think I’m glad I’m over here, this side of the fence. (PAPS Section, 16.10.98)

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That John referred to ‘horror stories’ confirms the sense in which the different cultures are being mythologized by the staff. Stories generated by the staff reinforce and serve to reproduce their splintered lives in the sense that the staff in each culture feel as if they are different from us and perhaps, more importantly, that they are in a worse predicament than us. Such differences are not fabrications; however, the ASC staff seemed to minimize their own suffering and indeed their shared suffering, through drawing comparisons with branch work. That John used the metaphor of being ‘glad’ to be ‘this side of the fence’ renders the segregation tangible as voiced by other staff: Lorraine: Dave: Chris: Dave: Lorraine:

They have streamlined the branches so much that there’s no staff to help anyway. With me just coming from the branches. Nearly every branch that I’ve worked at are under tremendous pressure. Tremendous pressure. They just haven’t got the bodies to deal with it. Sickness levels are high, everyone’s off ill. (ASC Enquiries Section, 16.10.98)

According to these ASC staff, the staff reductions in the branch network have generated ‘tremendous pressure’ because ‘there’s no staff to help’ and ‘everybody’s off ill’. Their sense of ‘Otherness’ or separation seemed to pacify them because conditions are worse in the branches. This was not the outcome of some overarching managerial plan but another unforeseen outcome of the corporate redesign. It is one that the staff served to forge and maintain through creating a particular understanding of each culture. Branch staff divided from ASC staff As discussed in Chapter 6, despite the pressing need for flexibility in the branches, the staff were divided from each ‘Other’ along the lines of counselling, cashiering and lending. In Medium Branch, for example, such segmentation meant that a customer could collapse in front of the cashiers and counsellors and yet, the lending staff, on the second floor, would be oblivious to this cause of stress for their colleagues. Yet, the rupture between the branch staff and ASC staff is even greater. Just as the ASC staff created or relayed ‘horror stories’ of stressed branch clerks, the branch staff created images of ASC staff that cemented their sense of ‘Otherness’: I wanted to stay [in the branch] because I didn’t want to work at the ASC. I mean to be quite honest I like speaking to customers and I like the rapport that a have with customers. Erm, you know, I think once you go to ASC I think you become a bit like a Zombie. I’m sure they’d be very offended. Well we had a bloke here and he went to the ASC and he couldn’t wait to get back [in a whispered voice]. He said to be quite honest, you know, yer

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just sit in front of a screen and, you know, yer not paid to think, yer paid to do and I didn’t want that. (Jean, Clerk of thirty-two years, Medium Branch, 23.10.98) Jean’s account represents working in an ASC as a punishment, a sentence from which there is no return. Through such monstrous representations of ‘Others’ as Zombies, Jean rendered the staff in the ASC profoundly different to herself. Though she was not unsympathetic, the distance created through such imagery and thinking solidifies the sense of ‘Otherness’. From Jean’s perspective, the ASC staff do not belong to ‘our’ world and yet it is only through embracing the ‘Other’ that Jean’s own distress could be ameliorated through resistance. It is evident that both groups of workers suffer and yet both are seemingly soothed and separated by the belief that each other’s world is worse than their own. On the one hand, there are processing ‘Zombies’ and, on the other, branch staff who are ‘tearing their hair out’ due to the pressure to sell and staff shortages. Such beliefs, although grounded in the everyday, are also a work of the imagination as Collette, a team leader from Medium Branch, explained: You can’t picture, unless you’ve been out there. I don’t think you can really picture what it must be like to work in the ASC. You know, so you ’av an idea. I mean I always think, you know, working there it’s like working in a processing shed. I can’t, I wouldn’t like to do it but you know there’s obviously people who do like being told what to do and know what’s expected of them day by day. You know, not have to come across, I suppose, the challenges that come up in the branch. (Employee of eight years, 22.10.98) Collette explained that you cannot ‘picture’ or fully understand life in the ASC unless you have worked there. Nonetheless, she has an ‘idea’ of it as ‘a processing shed’ that informs how she understands both their and her life. This representation and understanding of the ‘other’ confirms the staff as members of their own sub-culture and the staff reinforced this difference: Val:

Darren: Val:

I chose to come here because I moved from Buckinghamshire up to Blackburn. I couldn’t get a job in the branch because they had all been thinned out with the Criteria Based Interviews. I’d had my interview and I’d kept my job in my branch but I couldn’t get a transfer to a branch. So rather than throw away all my years service the other option was to apply to come here which I did do. So you would prefer to be in a branch? Because I knew nothing else. In the branches you are always given a really bad view of ASC ‘Oh you don’t want to be sitting there all day in front of a machine. All you’re doing is just tapping away’. You know? ‘You don’t do anything, you don’t speak to anybody’. But it’s not like that. Since I’ve been here in January there’s no way I would

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Although the ‘makers’ wished to foster separate cultures around sales and processing, the belief was that this would enhance business by producing staff who are more in tune with the type of work that is required of them. It is unlikely that the intention was to undermine solidarity or to create cultures in which each subculture would view the ‘Other’ as inferior, or wildly different from themselves. The conditions that sustain inequality do not, therefore, follow a mechanistic logic that mirrors the schemes of the ‘makers’ but rather such conditions take on a life of their own, as the staff creatively swim around in the culture of their everyday lives. These unintended consequences illuminate that power is not simply exercised from above (Foucault, 1977, 1982). It is also evident that the staff could create a culture of solidarity by embracing the ‘Other’ rather than reinforcing their separation. As it stands, however, the staff are helping to create a divisive culture through stressing the differences between the ASC and the branch staff. Hence, Jack, a processing clerk in Small Branch and a shop steward, distinguished himself from ASC staff because ‘he prefers to deal with people rather than pieces of paper’ but it was his belief in the superior promotion opportunities available in the ASCs that was most telling. His comments should be considered in the light of the individualized scramble in the ASCs to obtain higher grades: The people who have remained in the branches, there’s absolutely no, well very little career progression, chance to get on. Whereas those people gone to the processing centre and some of them were as thick as two short planks have got upgradings and promotions. . . . Most people in the branches are well aware of how little opportunity there is to get on in a branch but they hear of ’em, of things, so many people have got big promotions in the processing unit. (16.12.98) Jack dismissed the ASC staff as ‘thick as two short planks’ and in this way expressed how the branch staff are more deserving of promotion than they are. He focused on the differences between the ASC and the branch staff rather than on their similarities. ASC versus ASC staff Despite the intentions of the ‘makers’, not every ASC appears to be managed in precisely the same way. On the WCCS programme, there was animosity between the ASC staff that reflected the different work experiences across the ASCs. Rather than shared stress being a source for unity, varying work experi-

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ences contributed to the individualization of the workforce. Thus, there appeared to be limited empathy from ‘some’ ASC staff towards other ASC workers, who appeared to be in a more wretched position than themselves: Judy: Kelly: Judy:

Darren: Judy:

Sarah:

The workshop itself was brainstorming wasn’t it? Yes. The part that annoyed me from our particular session was a good two hours of whinging and then I said ‘Well, can we move on?’ ’Cos this is just not getting. Everybody just wanted to have a whinge and ‘I’ll just get all this off my chest’ and you think ‘Right well that’s all done now’. We did, we moved on from that. Well, why do you think, I mean there must have been frustration that they felt they wanted to whinge in the first place. It was actually from another ASC. . . . I think it made us think perhaps we’ve got better management. I think we appreciated the management we’ve got. It was split between Chester and Liverpool . . . and it was surprising how many people whinged and then you think ‘We’ve not got it as bad as we think we are’. (Mandate Maintenance Section, 16.9.98)

That some ‘Other’ seemed to be suffering was a source of impatience for Judy. She appeared to be intolerant of the staff from a different ASC who felt the need to vent their frustrations. For Sarah and Judy, that other staff are more degraded seemed to render their own working conditions more tolerable. Thus, they began to ‘appreciate’ their management and felt that ‘we’ve not got it as bad as we think’. Such was their (our) individualized way of being that different levels of misery created rifts between employees who otherwise shared a great deal in common and had much reason to unite: Mike:

Anne:

Basically Sheffield felt worse than what we did and it was a case of like you’re treated like little school kids at Sheffield. You will sit down. You will not talk. You will get on with your work and you didn’t feel valued. It was just a case of like shut up and get on with it. I think the feeling from Chester was that we were a lot better than Sheffield were. Yes, and we felt pretty good really. (Enquiries, 6.11.98)

Given the discussion in Chapter 5 regarding working life in what we will call the Chester ASC, that the staff should feel ‘pretty good’ because conditions are worse in the Sheffield ASC, suggests a highly parochial way of viewing the world. Nonetheless, this difference indicates that conditions can be otherwise even with the same technology, job design and hierarchical structure. Power is not simply exercised by those at the top but also by those who accept and sustain

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such conditions and partitioning. This disconnected way of being has a broader resonance because it permeates society such that we tolerate inequality and adversity because, from our standpoint, we may feel ‘pretty good really’. As living standards rise for ‘some’, the disadvantaged become marginalized because ‘we’ feel ‘pretty good’ and have too much to lose by resisting for ourselves and certainly for ‘Others’. ASC section versus ASC section The sense in which ‘Others’ are more distressed on a different work section was another means by which the staff rendered their plight more bearable. Numerous staff referred to work on the PAPS Section as something they could not endure. Individualized nodes, fragmented through mechanized thinking, found solace, therefore, in the hardship of these ‘Others’ on the PAPS Section. The staff on the Account Maintenance Section, who referred to being treated like ‘robots’ in their section, discussed how the work in other sections is inferior: Linda:

Joyce: Linda: Darren: Linda:

Joyce:

I think there’s more [teamwork] round this side [Account Maintenance]. I was round there [Enquiries] for eighteen months. I think there’s more like teamwork sort of thing, asking, involving. Yes it’s a bit more sharing. Interaction, than it is round there. What was that one sorry? I was on Enquiries and I was on the switch board where you can’t really talk to anybody, and it’s just people in your ear all the time, but even when you are not actually on the switchboard, I don’t think there’s as much sort of interaction between the staff over there than there is round here. ’Cos if you say to somebody there ‘Er, what do you think I should do with this?’ They just say ‘Oh I don’t know’ because everybody’s so petrified of not meeting their efficiency rates but round here, I’m on reports, they all say ‘What do you think I should do with this?’ and everyone says ‘Well have you done this, done that?’ And it’s more relaxed somehow. I don’t think it’s quite so intense. (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98)

Work for many of the above staff was experienced as monotonous and yet they considered themselves to be in a better position than those ‘Others’ who are ‘petrified of not meeting their efficiency rates’. Each individual, tied to their individualized identity, focuses on their immediate work experiences, as opposed to recognizing similarities across that experience. That work was not ‘quite so intense’ in their section provided a sense of relief and of difference. Previously, Linda had expressed that she felt like a ‘peg in a hole’ on Account Maintenance, but she seemed to gain comfort from knowing that it is worse else-

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where. Consequently, she turned ‘inwards’ (Knights, 1990) rather than confronting the source of her distress. I am not suggesting that these staff rejoiced in the degradation of others but rather that they seemed soothed by it. A limited numbers of jobs in the ASC are afforded greater autonomy and involve more interaction with other staff and customers. Hence, Jan, an employee of seventeen years from the Support Section, explained that her job involves ‘anything from making sure the drinks machines are working, and the ladies loo’s are working, right through to highly confidential personnel issues’. She articulated how her job is different from other Sections ‘we’re not machine based. We’re not queue based’ (14.10.98; emphasis added). Her work is not measured and Jan expressed that it is not really measurable. That some jobs are more interesting than others further slices up the workforce, and mollifies staff who are not required to perform the more meaningless tasks. Such diversity worked against a universal or ‘typical’ (Taylor and Bain, 1999) staff experience whether of deskilling, monotony or intensification. Despite the obvious similarities discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 between ASC workers, they rarely recognized or talked [at least to me] about a shared collective experience: Steve:

Val:

Steve: Val:

I was a bit concerned when I got here that I’d be doing repetitive stuff all the time, and one of the Sections that deals with Standing Orders, I couldn’t do that all day, but this particular one that I do, it does vary. As I say, you could spend two minutes on a piece of work and sometimes there’s some investigation that needs to be done, so it makes it more interesting. Some of mine is repetitive. Quite often I can have a payment come in from the same company four or five times a day and you get to think ‘It’s them again’, but if you get ‘Will’s Paid Back’ they need to have a bit more investigation. I mean, I speak to Customers, er Solicitors, on the phone so I have quite a bit of customer contact really. . . . I still get that one to one but not like in the branch when you are in the middle of something and then taken off to see somebody else. Then you go back and think ‘Oh God how much have I done of it’. I mean here each customer is dealt with at that time and it’s finished and then put away. Start to finish. It’s tidy isn’t it? Yes, you’re not interrupted. (Clerks of twenty-nine and nineteen years, Payment Audits Section, 14.10.98)

Steve indicated that he could not cope with the repetition of Standing Orders. The requirement to investigate matters rendered his work more ‘interesting’ compared to this Standing Orders’ ‘Other’. These staff also suggested that their work is less fraught than in the branches and so reaffirmed the branches as ‘Other’. They felt a sense of ‘closure’ around their work but other ASC staff did not feel this way. Indeed, as we saw in Chapter 5, in some sections, the work

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militated against the staff being able to take responsibility for it. In sections where the work is less diverse, work demands were experienced as gruelling and continuous. Despite leaving work, the monotony seemed to create a sense of déjà vu for some staff, making one day much like the next and so the work never seemed to finish: Judy: Sarah:

Judy:

It’s relentless the work . . . You complete all your queues and the next morning you are back to the same one and sometimes it’s like ‘Why did I do that then yesterday?’ You see that’s why the branches call this a factory. (Clerks of twenty-eight years and eight years; Mandate Maintenance Section, 16.10.98)

For these staff, the repetitive nature of work means that it spreads endlessly out so as to create a constant stream of machine-paced work. In contrast to the staff on the Payment Audit Section, they did not experience a sense of closure. Such toil could be otherwise but it is only through embracing each ‘Other’ through their shared experiences that the staff could begin to change their situation. Experienced versus less experienced ASC staff Some of the more experienced staff discussed their frustration that new recruits are employed on the same grades as themselves. These staff saw themselves as different from newer colleagues and they wanted the ‘makers’ to acknowledge this through financial rewards. One could argue that they resented the ‘makers’’ failure to further individualize them on the basis of experience and, clearly, economic matters were at the forefront of their thoughts. Rather than challenge the machine and their poor conditions of work and rewards, they simply wanted a superior income and status than the newer recruits. Linda was certainly resigned to her machine fate and identity as an ASC worker, because: in the end you’re not going to get an ideal workplace. You just put up with it don’t you? It’s just something you accept. I mean if they lay down the guidelines. The guidelines are, you are going to have Time Capture aren’t you? So you’re going to have error logs, this that or the other. And you either work in it or leave. (Account Maintenance, 14.10.98) Linda’s resignation suggests that there is little one can do to challenge the machine apart from leaving and in this sense she has been ‘divided and conquered’. Power and discipline are built into structures, technologies, hierarchies and systems of work and staff, such as Linda, appeared to see no way to resist them. The thought of collectively challenging was simply beyond her worldview. It seems that the longer one remains in employment and the more experi-

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enced one becomes, the more such conditions are taken-for-granted. Discipline is reinforced by the economic need for income/security but often employees accept control because they (we) aspire for promotion or higher grades and this leads them (us) to buy into, or at least tolerate, the status quo, thereby dividing them (us) from ‘Others’. The ‘economic’ threat gives teeth to staff segregation in that people accept their plight for fear of the consequences of failing to do so. Thus, job insecurity or the knowledge that one can be replaced renders one vulnerable. This experience was felt more acutely by the longer serving staff who had more to lose and it separated them from newer recruits or agency staff: Anne:

Mike:

Frightening, basically they are going to want people less experienced because the more experienced you are, the more ultimately you are going to cost the Bank, aren’t you? So I presume it is a phasing out exercise. You can bring in people from agencies, do agency work as they do, lower rates of pay, train them up. A company that is meking billions of pounds profits. I know we all say we have to cut costs and reduce the cost ratios and things like that but it all comes down to big business. (Enquiries Section, 6.11.98)

The threat that work can be taken away is clearly ‘frightening’ for Anne (us) and serves as a disincentive to resist (Collinson, 1994). For the above staff, the use of agency staff to replace more experienced staff is seen as something over which they have no control. It is something that ‘big business’ does to them. Despite the injustice of the Bank making huge profits whilst continuing to squeeze employees, these staff feel powerless to resist. Globalization heightens this danger and their (our) sense of vulnerability: Nicki:

Sue: Nicki:

You know the European market and manufacturing, everything’s made in Malaysia and Hong Kong isn’t it? Well, in the form of IT, what is to stop Closing Accounts being done in Taiwan? All they need is that screen. Yer. It can be done so much easier can’t it? In ten years or I mean our children. Ten years, twenty years, cheaper labour what is going to stop them doing that? I mean there’s all sorts of things you don’t know do yer? (Account Maintenance, 6.11.98)

The tragedy of individualization is that we can see no way out of our predicament. Nicki asked ‘what is to stop Closing Accounts being done in Taiwan’ in a way that suggests that the ‘makers’ are omnipotent. These staff are also divided from employees in other countries such as Taiwan or Hong Kong. There is no sense in which the ‘makers’ could be resisted should a decision be taken to relocate. It was not envisaged that their work or their lives could be different. Both Sue and Nicki appeared resigned to the status quo and are therefore complicit in

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its reproduction. Individualization is an unintended consequence of machine thinking and yet it supports the machine because through it we fail to question the machine. Rather than reflecting on their (our) role in relation to the whole or challenging the machine, the lives of the staff are caught up in, and are restricted by, their limited individualized horizons. The ‘Other’ in the branch, ASC, section or newer recruits is experienced as a source of division rather than a reason or means to challenge their vulnerability. Such individualized preoccupations are also evident in relation to trade unionism, to which we now turn.

The union as ‘other’: the union makes us weak? In 1995, the ‘makers’ initiated moves towards performance-related pay and profit-related bonus payments rather than annual pay increases. At that time, the union balloted its members and 80 per cent rejected this development. The staff were divided, however, in relation to taking strike action. Forty-nine per cent said ‘yes’ and 51 per cent said ‘no’, and so no action was taken to resist this movement, which was likely to further individualize the staff. In 1997, the staff voted to strike over the introduction of flexible working over the Christmas period but the strike had a limited impact due to the low turnout in support of the strike. Joe, an employee of twenty-four years, who is employed in an ASC and has been a shop steward for one year, reflected on the strike and role of the union: Joe: Darren: Joe: Darren: Joe:

Nobody goes to the branch meetings from here. How often do you have branch meetings? Once every six weeks, four weeks. Of the ASCs? No it’s just the Chester [psuedonym] area. T Corporation Chester. If we just had ASC no one would turn up. I mean usually it’s about twelve people that attend these meetings for the whole area and it’s always the same faces. Stewards or people from what we call the institutional committee. I mean to be honest I don’t think there’s a lot of interest in unions. It’s a bit like an insurance policy but that’s as far as it goes. Nobody really wants to get involved. . . . I mean when I was on strike. There was me and there was Alex [another steward] and one or two others that stayed at home. Everybody else just walked straight past. Even one or two said ‘Ee are I’ll join yer’. ’Cos the Bank literally has the power to scare people shitless. Ooops. They sent us a note saying ‘You’re in breach of contract. We can dismiss you and get away with it’. (23.10.98)

Alex, an employee of twenty years who has been a shop steward for seven years also felt that ‘people are scared’. He explained that ‘the Bank introduced a statement the day before the strike action was supposed to be taken that advised

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people they can be sacked if they go on strike’. This made ‘people think twice’ (23.10.98). It seems that the staff are afraid to take collective action and yet this reproduces their fear for they feel ‘scared’ and isolated from one another. That staff can walk ‘straight past’ colleagues who are taking strike action that the majority of union members voted for, in support of their terms and conditions of employment, illustrates the sense of disunity. We can also observe how ‘resistance and control interpenetrate one another in a unity of opposites moving on, in the next moment, to a new fusion which is both unpredictable and unstable’ (Burrell, 1992: 77). Thus, Alex and Joe actively resisted though joining the strike action but they did not question management’s prerogative or extant pay differentials, for example. Colleagues walked past them and refused to resist by joining the action even though once in work they may resist though distancing themselves (Collinson, 1994) or by ‘making out’ (Roy, 1955). Alex and Joe were able, through their resistance, to control the actions of others who joined them. Moreover, as targets of management control through programmes such as WCCS it is evident that the staff also exercise control over management as the latter are concerned to enrol their subjectivity. Thus, ‘the very existence of power’ can be ‘seen as relying on a multiplicity of points of resistance which play a role of adversary, target, support or handle in power relations’ (Burrell, 1992: 75). At the time of the research, the ‘makers’ were seeking to impose a new contract under the auspices of ‘flexibility’. Although it was voluntary, its introduction seemed likely to create further divisions between the staff. Thus, all of the new staff and staff who wanted to be able to apply for a promotion are required to sign the new contract. Flexibility under the new contract means first that the Bank can choose the hours that the staff work. Rather than a fixed thirty-five Monday to Friday week, the staff can be asked ‘depending on operational circumstances’ to work thirty-five hours over six days from Monday to Saturday up to ten hours a day. Such flexibility may reduce the already fractured sense of a ‘shared’ work experience. The second issue is that pay will be localized and so employees in different parts of the country will be on different rates of pay. Although one could argue that this will reflect differences in the cost of living, it will also divide the staff financially along geographical lines. Third, overtime, which is currently paid at time and a half, will be reduced to a flat rate. Fourth, the pay levels within each grade will be lower so that promotion for a long-term member of staff might not result in a pay rise. Finally, sick pay entitlement is to be reduced from a maximum of fifty-two weeks accumulated over a number of years’ service to twenty-six weeks. In return for this ‘flexibility’, the staff will receive a cash payment of £300 and £200 the following year. The reward for staff that have contributed many years of service to T Corporation is that they will be squeezed out of the organization, for, if they do not accept the new contract, they cannot gain promotion. One member of staff described the new contract as ‘cold hearted big business’ (Mike, Enquiries, 6.11.98) and Alex, a shop steward, remarked that the ‘Bank is happy for you to leave’ (23.10.98). He explained the new contract as follows

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‘you sign away your right to say I can’t work that time. You’re saying you’re flexible and you can work those hours’ (ibid.). The new contract will therefore splinter the staff along the lines of new staff and those who accept the new contract versus those who do not. Yet, despite the prospect of deteriorating working conditions, few staff saw the trade union as a means to combat these demands: Darren: Do you have a trade union here? Chris: Oh yer. Lorraine: Yer. Chris: For what it’s worth. Lorraine: For what it’s worth. Dave: Have a couple of union reps here. Chris: Yer. Darren: Well are you in the union? Chris and Lorraine: Oh yer. Darren: Does it not play a visible role or . . .? Chris: No. Dave: Trouble with the Bank unions has always been that the number of people in the union has never been that high . . . therefore if there’s any dispute it’s very difficult for the union to have any clout really . . . Chris: There’s always been the worry as well that people who want promotion and things. Well they wouldn’t want to strike because they wouldn’t want to be seen as, we’re not that sort of place. People don’t do it so even if they called us out on strike we don’t go because people think, you know? Dave: There was a problem over . . . Chris: That was over Christmas, and all the redundancies and that go through, and yet they called a strike over working Christmas Eve (laughter). It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe that. Dave: They [the ‘makers’] wanted us to work the full day instead of finishing at twelve. So ballot went out and it was something like 56 and 47 per cent something like that, can’t remember exactly. But people who voted, it was only a low per cent that voted, so they went on strike but a lot of the branches still opened. Some staff went in, some didn’t. If a branch was closed in a locality they’d get staff from that one to go to the other one, so they could open the other branch. Darren: I mean given your experiences that you’ve recounted to me, it’s the sort of things that people would get upset about and seek to change. Chris: Well, as I say, if I mean, I want to strike over half a day Christmas Eve and yet they’ve [the union] not done anything about us not getting a pay rise for the past four years or all the redundancies. There were a lot of people made redundant who didn’t want to be and the people who wanted weren’t, were they? Because they [management] knew they’d leave anyway and it was just done so underhand and badly handled. But they [the union] didn’t do any-

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thing about it and yet as I say they called a strike over working half a day on Christmas, which most other people have to do anyway. So, I don’t know, you don’t feel that they’ve [the union] got, I don’t know, they [the union] just don’t seem to do anything do they? I mean yer we go to them. They [the union] are aware of the problems but nothing seems to happen. (ASC Enquiries Section, 16.10.98) As we have seen, employees are divided from each other along various lines. In the above extract, other fractures are evident. Thus, there are those who aspire for promotion and fear that joining in union activities will hamper their career aspirations. There are staff that vote to strike and others that do not; there are staff that vote to strike but will not support the strike action; there are some that join the union and others who will not. There are also staff who will move from branch to branch thereby undermining industrial action by keeping the branches open. Chris criticized the unions for not resisting the lack of a pay rise over recent years. Yet, the members voted not to strike over the introduction of performance-related pay and he noted that, even when the union calls for industrial action, many members will not support it. Chris’ remarks are interesting in that he presented ‘us’ and ‘them’ positions in relation to the staff and the union. The union was presented as ‘Other’ and his remarks suggest that ‘they’, the union, rather than the ‘makers’, are ‘responsible’ for the plight that the staff find themselves in. There is a sense in which the staff are not responsible for their working lives as if they are separate from the union, as Alex, the shop steward’s comments, reveal: Darren: Alex:

Are the new recruits joining the union? Yes. Slowly. It goes back to Thatcher’s Britain. Look after number one and that’s it. You know? Unions are bad. I think it’s gone too far the other way. I can accept that er, the strikes in the ’70s. There were a hell of a lot of strikes and that but everything’s gone towards the boss. There are plenty of good employers but people can abuse the system and they do. People say the pay disputes go to ACAS [Arbitration, Conciliation and Advisory Service]. They think ACAS can actually enforce a ruling. ACAS can’t. ACAS just goes between the two sets of people and if the Bank refuses to actually budge then there’s really nothing they can do. So the Bank turns around and says ‘We’ve been to ACAS and er you’re not getting a pay rise and that’s it’. (23.10.98)

In the above extract, Alex pointed out that the staff believe that ACAS can solve their problems with T Corporation. There is a sense of separation, a belief that ‘Others’ will solve their problems for them. There is no understanding that, if T Corporation refuses to accept the recommendations of ACAS, then it is the

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staff who must act, through the union, to ensure that they do. Alex noted that some new staff are joining the union but not all. He explained that part-time employees refuse to pay the part-time union rate of £3.50 a month and so we can observe yet another way in which the workforce is splintered. Yvonne, a parttime cashier in Large Branch and an employee of thirty years, commented on this part-time/full-time divide that the staff help sustain: Sometimes it can be pretty bad, particularly when they’re all running around like headless chickens ’cos there’s no staff (laughter). I mean they made a lot of people redundant and they just expect the people now who are here to cover for that fact. I mean a couple of people go off sick on the counter and the part-timers have to work extra. Or always asked to work extra. I find here it’s because the counter is separate. Is a total sort of separate unit in itself. It’s very much a case of part-timers versus full-timers. You know, there’s a bit of. They don’t tend to mix very well. Only the full-timers who actually work on the counter mix with the part-timers. But it’s very much there’s them. They work full-time, you work part-time ‘Oh well you don’t do much do yer?’ That type of attitude, but we do just as much as them, sometimes more. (25.11.98) In this instance, we can see that even within the branches there are numerous lines along which the staff are divided. These include the ‘counter’ staff as a ‘separate unit’ and part-time/full-time divisions. Once again, these fissures are not simply done to the staff but rather they are part of the living culture that the staff produce and reproduce. Such cracks in the workforce are hardly conducive to launching a coordinated campaign against the ‘makers’ as has been noted elsewhere (see Danford, 1997). The staff generally felt that the union has a role to play in the Bank but they did not seem to grasp that ‘they’ are the union. Thus, some saw the union as a toothless ‘Other’ without recognizing that ‘they’ are its teeth: Darren: John Dorothy: John

Janet: Dorothy: Luke

Is there a need for a trade union here or? [team leader]: I’m not in the union. I think it’s lost its way a bit. [team leader]: It seems such a waste because we always get put in for some extortionate pay rise every year. The Banks says ‘OK, we’ll give you this’. We get what they give us. When they do strike action because it’s not a closed shop, some people turn out I guess, but because there’s so many not in, it doesn’t seem to have much strength. It’s just not strong enough is it basically? The Bank just ignore um. I mean I’m in the union but the Bank just ignores the union completely. [team leader]: I’m in it for selfish reasons really if they ever want to try and get rid of yer.

Divided and conquered? Dorothy: John Luke John Dorothy: John Luke Darren: Janet: Darren: Janet:

Dorothy:

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Yer. [team leader]: That’s the only reason in’t it? [team leader]: Obviously you need someone who knows the way and the legal costs. [team leader]: I think in this place it’s not really likely is it? Perhaps in the old branches and things like that, if your face didn’t fit. Oh God yer. [team leader]: But here. [team leader]: It’s just handy to know that somebody knows what they are taking about. Are you in the union? Yes, yes. Why are you in? Basically I do believe in unions. I think there’s a need for them in this Society and that. I think it’s a shame that they’ve lost their way, probably the Conservative government, but trying to come through again aren’t they? I don’t think they’ll ever be as strong as they were. I don’t say that they should be as strong as they were because they went to ridiculous proportions but you definitely need your unions. I think a lot of the time though, when we went through the erm, two or three waves of redundancies, they [management] made people frightened and they just didn’t want to strike in case they may be next in the or, in the next wave. So the staff stopped supporting the union and the union just lost its strength. (Various ASC Sections, 9.9.98)

The tragedy of individualization is that it can lead us to turn ‘inwards’ (Knights, 1990) and consequently the staff (we) are unwilling to challenge the conditions that make ‘people [us] frightened’. In the above instance, Dorothy made it clear that the union has ‘lost its strength’ because the staff ‘stopped supporting the union’. Yet, this connection between the staff and the union was rarely acknowledged. Instead, the union tended to be referred to as ‘Other’. This explains Janet’s view that ‘they’ve lost their way’. It is as if the union alone can find its way back to a position of strength. This ‘Othering’ or dis-identification is at the core of the union’s weakness and the vulnerability of the staff. John’s comments are illuminating. He stated that he is not in the union and that it is a ‘waste’ of time because the ‘makers’ impose pays awards. He also noted that the union does not ‘have much strength’ because ‘there’s so many not in it’. As a member of staff, who presumably would want a pay award, he harbours under the illusion that some ‘Other’ is responsible for getting it for him. The union is seen as a ‘waste’ because of its low membership and yet John is not prepared to join it. He has perhaps embraced the individualized self and believes that he alone is capable of securing his career and financial advancement. Lynn, a union member who has worked in administration in Large Branch for twenty-two years, also expressed the disconnection between the union and the staff:

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Lynn:

Darren: Lynn:

Darren: Lynn:

I don’t think they’ve got that much negotiating power anymore. Things come round and they make protest like sort of things, like closing times on Christmas Eve and that, but it never seems to change. But it is said that trade unions are only strong as . . . . . . the members, exactly. I mean I’ve never been to a union meeting in my life, you know? I mean obviously when something major like ASC came in and there were the possibilities of compulsory redundancies there were meetings that you could have attended, you know? I mean people are in it but nobody. I think there are very few people that take any sort of active part. Why do you think that is? Apathy. Most people are. (2.12.98)

The belief that the union is ‘Other’ is at the heart of the staff ’s inability to collectively resist. Lynn is conscious that for the union to be strong it requires the members to be active but she has never attended a union meeting. She attributed the overall lack of activity to ‘apathy’, whilst other branch staff, such as Lorraine, a cashier from Large Branch, ascribed it to ‘fear’. Yet, such fear can only begin to be challenged if the staff embrace each ‘Other’ and render the union ‘Us’. There was a sense of resignation among many of the staff and some branch managers. T Corporation has refused to recognize or negotiate with the union in relation to managerial level staff, which Steve, the Account Manager at Large Branch, considered ‘disgraceful’. Nonetheless, his resignation and apathy are evident in the following lament regarding targets ‘The screw began to turn eight years ago and gets tighter every year but it is life as we know it I’m afraid’. His sense of powerlessness is palpable and whether this is an intended or unintended consequence of machine thinking, it reproduced the very conditions that impoverished both his life and the lives of the staff. Karen, who is a counsellor, expressed her grievances towards T Corporation and she was one of the few who made the connection between union strength and member participation. She supported the view that people are afraid to take action whilst articulating her own fears: Karen:

A lot of people are saying that they haven’t had any wage rises for years which we haven’t. We don’t get a cost of living rise or anything like that which is a bit of a bug bear for a lot of people because most people now have been in the Bank many years, and are right on the top of their grading, and the Bank haven’t been givin’ a cost of living rise. I think last year they gave us a couple of hundred pounds but that was in cash. They didn’t increase our salaries so it doesn’t increase our pensions and this year we didn’t even get a cost of living rise. A lot of staff have been here many years that are just on clerical grading, can’t really understand why we’re not getting any cost of living rise. I mean, I haven’t had a wage rise for don’t know about years, my salaries been the same.

Divided and conquered? Darren: Karen:

Darren: Karen:

Darren: Karen:

Darren: Karen:

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How does the Bank justify that then? I don’t think they can. The staff really work. We work very hard and I really don’t think they are appreciated. Obviously they have talks with the union but I don’t think the banking union is strong enough. But what makes a union strong? I know it’s the staff and the staff here wouldn’t normally go on strike I don’t think. Last time they called a strike was ’cos Christmas Eve because Bank opened a full-day and people went on strike . . . and the pay offer, but not many people went off. Why? I think people are scared of their jobs and I think now because evidence is kept on people [appraisal]. I didn’t go on strike anyway (laughter). Why? This isn’t going in your evidence file. One of the reasons that I didn’t go on strike was because I was actually off for three months last year because me mum was terminally ill, and I was off for three months and I thought if I’d gone on strike, it wouldn’t have been very good. (Counsellor, twenty-four years, Large Branch, 25.11.98)

Karen was concerned that because she has taken time off due to her mother’s illness, taking industrial action would have singled her out for retribution. Fear seems to be all the more divisive because the ‘staff ’ are individualized through the ‘evidence’ that ‘is kept on people’. The performance-related pay, which is linked to the appraisal and was not resisted, is, therefore, having a deleterious impact on the staff as a collective. Even in the smaller branches, where a stronger sense of community remains, the staff felt uncertain that their colleagues would support them if they took action. Consequently, they pondered upon their individual anxieties rather than embracing each ‘Other’: Darren: Janet:

Do you think you would go on strike over pay? I don’t know ’cos you always think it’ll go against yer another time. You know? That’s why people don’t like going on strike, is because they think that in the future if there was a way of getting rid of you. Well if you gain so many points for this and that. That would be a downer wouldn’t it, if you’ve been one that’s gone on strike? It wouldn’t be so bad if everyone did, but you don’t know that do you, when you’re going out on strike. If everyone went out on strike that’s OK like at St. Helens last year. They all went out on strike so that’s OK. But if there’s only a few of yer, get labelled. So I don’t know, I’d probably be checking with everybody else (laughter). (Clerk of twenty-two years, Medium Branch, 17.11.98)

Janet expressed a willingess to take action providing that her fellow branch colleagues would be willing to do so. She did not identify with a ‘We-ness’ or a

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totality in terms of the trade union but could envisage acting ‘with concrete others, as opposed to relating to a totality’ (McDonald, 2004: 585). The fear of victimization and staff apathy appears to be bound up with the threat to their economic livelihood. Thus individual preoccupations with one’s ‘record’ militate against the type of collective action that could assuage these individual fears; even, that is, when the staff clearly made the connection between the union and its members: Darren: Cathy:

Darren: Cathy:

What sort of a role does the union play in the company? It plays a negotiating role but I would say that the union is the members that are in it. They are not militant at all. I mean we’ve had quite a few over the last few years they’ve sent us ballots to go on strike and that sort of thing. But people don’t want to go on strike. I mean people want the union to negotiate for us but then they’re not prepared to strike or take action like that. Well why do you think that is? Well I think they’ve got too much to lose if they do strike. It’s to put against yer record isn’t it when you go on strike. (Senior Lending Clerk, Medium Branch, 17.11.98)

Despite these fears and the apathy among the staff, they have the potential to exercise considerable power. Jack, an employee of fifteen years in Small Branch and a shop steward, elaborated on this potential: Jack: Darren: Jack:

T Corporation, they know that our union has got no muscle, they just ride rough shod over ’um. Why hasn’t it got any muscle? Is it because if it calls on its members they won’t act? Yes. Well a union is only as strong as its members and quite a few times the union has called upon the members and the members have not voted for it. I mean I always used to say that we didn’t realise our power. I mean if there was a national bank strike of just a few days, within hours cash machines would run out. Shops would have no change, you know? You would only need a national strike of 2–3 days a week to get whatever you wanted. But there just wasn’t the militancy there. It wasn’t like, like the miners had it. The miners were on strike for a year and there still hadn’t been a single power cut. You know, but there isn’t the militancy in white collar er as there is in blue collar. We have some marvellous reps, some poor officials but we have some marvellous full time officials but if the members are not bothered or too apathetic, or too frightened or too lazy or what not, to do something, it really becomes little more than a talking shop I think, our union. (16.12.98)

To this one can add the point that Tancred-Sheriff (1989) made regarding the

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power that sales and service workers could exercise if they had the will to do so. That is, ‘customers could behave very inappropriately for the enterprise, such that their behaviour could become destructive of all capitalist purposes, were it not for the interface provided by the sales and service workers, their controlling and encouraging presence and soothing demeanour in times of dispute’ (ibid.: 48). These comments suggest that action short of a strike that disrupts the customer–staff interface could have a major impact on T Corporation, for example, a Smile Strike. The absence of a collective union tradition in T Corporation suggests that collective identification must be built. To this end, the branch or the ASC Section could serve as a potential ‘affinity group’ which ‘is made up of relationships of trust’ where members are defined ‘by a reciprocal relationship where they know the other as a person and are known as such by the others’ (McDonald, 2004: 585). Thus, friendship ties could provide a focus for unity and such bonds are evident especially among the staff in the smaller branches and in the ASC Sections. These local collectives could provide the basis for a wider collective organization. Aspects of the implementation discourse, such as the notions of ‘compassion’ and ‘trust’, could be taken up and turned back on the ‘makers’. Collectivism could be promoted by and through the union but the important point is to (re)establish ‘an experience of the self and the other ... that is neither one of fusion, nor separation’ (ibid.: 587). Instead, it would need to be an inclusive subjectivity constructed around shared ‘experiences’ in this case of anxiety, work intensification, fear, deteriorating work conditions and rewards. Rather than promoting a naive ‘fusion experience’ (ibid.: 589), the concern would be to establish ‘an ethic of presence, where the I encounters the other’ (ibid.). The ‘I’ does not become ‘We’ but rather reaches out to the ‘Other’ that is known, that can help, that has helped and that one can help in return. Consequently, one does not become ‘We’ as expressed by the ‘makers’ through the implementation discourse or an anonymous collective number, but instead establishes relationships with the ‘Other’.

Summary This chapter has discussed the concept of ‘Otherness’ and differences have been established between management and staff, branch and ASC staff, different ASC staff, and between the union and members of staff. Such differences refer to parts of the whole workforce or organization that are rent asunder. The staff tended to stress the differences between themselves and ‘Others’, the ‘disjunction’ rather than the ‘conjunction’ (Cooper, 1983). There was an absence of a collective identity where there is a ‘correspondence’ between the ‘I’ and the ‘We’ and ‘personal identities dovetail with a movements’ collective identity’ (Snow and McAdam, 2000: 52). The ‘We’ was seen as ‘Other’ in relation to both T Corporation and trade unionism. The implementation discourse failed to promote an unquestioning Corporate ‘We-ness’ but neither did a counter collective ‘We-ness’ arise. Many staff identified with unionism and understood the need for unions but this did not translate into action. There was also identification with

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work, customers and colleagues and the staff exercised power to make the machine tick over. In view of this, there was no simple division between collectivism and individualism (McCabe, 2007) or resistance and consent (Collinson, 2003). There is a sense of a collective staff body at the local level where the staff are willing to ‘help’ each other despite regimes that prompted them to do otherwise. Yet, this localized empathy did not extend to a wider sense of a staff collective. This appears to be an unintended consequence of machine thinking but also some intention on the part of the ‘makers’ that is evident in the use of ‘individual’ Criteria Based Interviews, appraisals, the imposition of performancerelated pay and the refusal to offer collective, cost of living, pay awards. Of course, individualization also reflects wider societal and cultural influences embedded in the healthcare, education and tax system. The differences between the staff are not imaginary or immaterial but I have sought to demonstrate that the staff often missed significant areas of similarity. It is apparent that all of the staff suffered, albeit in different ways, whilst huge profits were made and forgetting this sense of shared suffering allows others to become ‘Other’. I have represented the ‘makers’ in ways that accentuated their differences from the staff, although they are all paid employees. The ‘makers’ were concerned to stress their ‘conjunction’ through the implementation discourse but they pursued contradictory strategies. Thus, through disparate discourses, they both urged conjunction and disjunction and the staff experienced this as inconsistent. This alone reveals that the ‘makers’ are far from omniscient or unified in their thinking and actions, and it holds out the possibility for organized resistance. It has been my desire to encourage reflection on the part of leaders so that greater synchrony can be attained in organizations. Yet, in the face of intransigence on their behalf, it has also been my intention to promote greater unity among staff, so as to promote resistance to the disjointedness and inequality that infuses their lives. The concern has been to promote an understanding of the sameness of the staff, which is the basis upon which they should unite, to resist the conditions they find so debilitating. In order to do so, the staff must recognize that through their differences they remain fundamentally related to ‘Others’. The division of labour that is integral to machine thinking and that divorces the staff of T Corporation from each other also makes up the machine in toto. The ASCs and its various sections, the branches and its functions, together make T Corporation tick through the exercise of power by both management and staff. All the members of T Corporation are therefore united through their difference. Both the staff and the ‘makers’’ need to recognize this unity through difference so as to ameliorate unnecessary suffering. It can be achieved together or through reinforcing the ‘makers’ and the ‘staff ’s’ difference, through resistance. The staff need to recognize that the experience of ‘Otherness’ is fleeting and partly of their own making rather than ‘something this other has’ (Ahmed, 2002: 562). Thus, once someone moves from there to here or from the unknown to the known, then they do not remain ‘Other’ in the same way and so we need to overcome the illusion of ‘Otherness’.

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Cooper (1983) argues that ‘the concept of consent is bound up with the idea of symmetry or return’ (ibid.: 218). At T Corporation, consent has largely been forthcoming from the staff, despite significant upheavals in recent years, yet, what is absent is any sense of ‘symmetry or return’ for their endeavours. My hope is that the ‘makers’ recognize the need for reciprocity but should this not be forthcoming then the staff will need to embrace the ‘Other’ in order to seize a return for their labour. Of course, whether initiated by the ‘makers’, the staff or both, well-intended changes cannot guarantee outcomes. Nonetheless, I believe that we should at least attempt to restore some semblance of equity and set out to create new ways of working characterized by greater symmetry. Challenging the ‘makers’ through collective means may achieve a fairer workplace but it needs to be remembered that it will not signify an end to power relations. Embracing the ‘Other’ through resistance for the purposes of obtaining a pay rise, for example, may be empowering but it does not necessarily entail transforming or questioning corporate power relations. It can continue to promote consent because it leaves intact the notion of being a T Corporation employee or any other employee (Jacques, 1996). It asks employees to temporarily join together with those who are ‘like me’ (Ahmed, 2004: 38) and, in this sense, it is parochial. Thus, employees in different organizations or countries will continue to be seen as ‘Other’ and will continue to suffer. In view of this, industrial action, even if it challenges mechanized working conditions, can reproduce ‘Otherness’ rather than challenge broader divisions. Nevertheless, from small acorns grow large oaks, and endeavours to embrace the ‘Other’ must begin somewhere. It should not have gone unnoticed that the majority of the senior managers and branch managers in T Corporation are men whilst the majority of the clerks are women and this is yet another source of division. As Mills and Tancred (1992) have noted, ‘a Concentration of women in the lowest clerical or manual grades coupled with an absence of women in management positions’ sends ‘a very definite and negative message about the relative worth of females within the organization’ (ibid.: 9). It has been argued that men embrace the autonomous and individuated self whilst women ‘have a sense of agency still tied primarily to their social relationships’ (Somers and Gibson, 1994: 54). This could help to account for the gulf between the managers and the staff of T Corporation. Thus, as managers [men] climb the managerial and masculine hierarchy, they begin to view the world in an increasingly individualized way. The bonds at the local level, between predominantly female staff, despite pressures to embrace individualism, may be partly accounted for by their feminine identities. Yet, following Somers and Gibson (1994), I do not want to create a simple duality between men and women because it is evident that some of the bank clerks (e.g. Eileen) and Kate Finch the Senior IT analyst, have embraced an individualized self, whilst some male branch clerks held on to a sense of branch community (e.g. Jack). Nevertheless, feminine ways of understanding identity could be another basis upon which to organize and to recognize the ‘Other’, at least in terms of stressing alternative ways of being that are more relational and caring. It could

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also feature in the re-education of managers, so that less individualizing regimes are created in the first instance. This would require the ‘makers’ to embrace something of their own discourses that stress relationality in terms of empathy, teamwork, trust and cooperation. It should not be concluded that a community identity or togetherness offers a simple panacea because it does not escape power relations but rather it offers a less fragmented identity to aspire to than that elevated by the ‘makers’ (even though they promoted contradictory identities). Ahmed (2002) warns of ‘the violence of seeking to assimilate difference back into a category of the same or of having an encounter with an “other” in which I seek to appropriate or contain that “otherness” as a way of establishing my identity’ (ibid.: 560). Thus, communal relations are not necessarily liberating for ‘relationships may be more or less bonded, the experience of them may be more or less constricting or enabling’ (Somers and Gibson, 1994: 66). Barker’s (1993) research reveals that embracing teamwork can lead to intense peer pressures and work intensification. Moreover, earlier, more communal paternal banking relations were characterized by class and gender inequalities (see Kerfoot and Knights, 1993; Knights and McCabe, 2001). In view of this, any changes that T Corporation or indeed that the staff instigate should not be thought of as an end in themselves. It must not be assumed that a shift away from individualization will simply provide a utopian solution reminiscent of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Individualism and collectivism cannot be thought of dualistically in this way. Nevertheless, potential problems and unintended outcomes should not dissuade us from seeking ways to alleviate the suffering of the staff in T Corporation and elsewhere, and this must entail an attempt to embrace and engage with the ‘Other’.

8

Conclusion

This book sprang from the sadness and repulsion I experienced whilst talking to the staff and managers of T Corporation but it took a number of years to gestate. At first, I thought that there were at least two academic papers that could be written about the lives of these individuals but, having started a new lecturing job, I found that I did not have the time to analyse the research materials that would allow me to write them. And so the fragments of workplace culture that I had observed continued to bubble and ferment largely at the back of my mind over a period of years. During the summer of 2004, I began to listen to tapes and study documents that eventually resulted in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. I found the contradictions within and between what I have called the strategy and implementation discourses bewildering. I had not thought about the materials as distinct discourses, nor had I anticipated the contradictions between them, before I sat down to write and they struck me as both fascinating and horrifying. I already understood something of the differential and at times contradictory work experiences of the staff, and this rendered these written documents, verbal statements and management practices, all the more engaging and perplexing. Following my conversations with the staff and as a gross simplification, I associated the experience of work in the ASCs with work repetition and work in the branches, with ‘pushing’ sales. I therefore found the claim to be promoting ‘customer service’, ‘teamwork’ and of encouraging the staff to use their ‘initiative’ puzzling but illuminating with regard to the inconsistent, ambiguous and shifting ways in which power is exercised. In the summer of 2005, I began listening to tapes that would allow me to complete much of Chapters 5, 6 and 7. Some years had passed since I had conducted the interviews and I found myself listening to the conversations as if for the first time. The suffering of the staff is what struck me and I hope that this is what comes across for the reader. Whilst writing this book, I have had the curious experience of it seeming to write itself, consonant with the experience of forgetting myself, as I sought to engage with the experiences of others. Of course, it is never possible to entirely forget oneself or forego the intrusion of self in terms of presenting an objective and realist (value and error-free, absolute, exhaustive) account; nevertheless, this does not mean that we must

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‘give up on objectivity as a process’ (Keller, 1983: 135). That is, a robust approach towards our research that seeks ‘to represent our experience of the world in as comprehensive and inclusive a way as possible’ for ‘in that effort we seek a maximal intersubjectivity [or shared understanding] (ibid.: 134). The title that I proposed to the publishers for the book was ‘Machine Head’ and hopefully the reasons for this are self-explanatory. The publishers did not, however, feel that this would attract a wide audience and after numerous other suggestions such as ‘Manufacturing Machines’ and ‘Making Machines’, I went back to a title that I had thought of a number of years before I sat down to write – ‘Power at Work’. This title does, I think, sum up the content and concerns of the book. The exercise of power by the ‘makers’ fills its pages as it did the lives of those who work in T Corporation. Yet, forms of resistance are also legion from ‘making out’ to cynicism, from distancing to playing games. Although such resistance was often individual, it is also a shared way of coping with the demands of the machine. Despite the presence of a union and active membership of it in some cases, a collective challenge to the ‘makers’ was largely absent. It appears to be the case that, without organized resistance, the ‘makers’ will continue to organize work in unequal and oppressive ways. In order to address this situation, employees need to embrace each ‘other’; to attend to their shared plight rather than the ‘differences’ between their work experience and nominal status. I have provided more than a helping hand in letting stories crawl onto the pages of this book. Some I have not found space for but if I appear unsympathetic towards management, I must make it clear that my gripe is not with those who sweat and graft to operationalize a machine that they have largely inherited. It is with those who lack the imagination, courage and empathy for others, which leads to the type of mean-spirited work we observed in the ASC. It is with those whose lives appear to involve saying one thing whilst being another even if they are unaware that this is the case. In simple terms, the book is about two worlds. Viewed from the top, at a safe distance, it is about feelingless, nameless numbers who scurry around doing the ‘makers’’ bidding. No one suffers for employment and pay are ample rewards for these digits on legs. The cogs whirl, the machine splutters, profits are made and all is well. Yet, viewed from the bottom, bedevilled though it is with problems of interpretation, the demands of the machine are experienced as stifling, gruesome and gratuitous. One-dimensional processors and sellers are shunted, stunted and squeezed into place. If nothing else, this book has sought to render this life at-the-bottom transparent for those at-the-top. To rip away the layers of comfortable living that divides these worlds and to indicate that conditions can and should be otherwise. Some may ask whether those at-the-top care about those at-the-bottom? Many of the T Corporation staff considered that they do not. Yet, the important insight of this book is that ‘makers’, whether they care or not, must strive to know what it is like to work in the corporations that they help create. If not out of pity, or a sense of congruity between what they say and do, then out of an

Conclusion 223 appreciation of the resources that are daily squandered in every T Corporation. They should do so in the knowledge that the ‘numbers’ may not always be divided. Moreover, that competitive advantage will be lost if ways are not found to optimize rather than stifle the creativity and ingenuity of the workforce. Thus, customer service or teamwork is unlikely to flourish if fragmented and individualized systems of work continue to prevail. My concern has been to urge resistance to debilitating working conditions and to ask leaders to reflect on the wasted lives and misery such work entails. It asks such individuals to live up to the promises of their discourses through reflecting on and designing different ways to work. This does not mean that outcomes will match intentions nor are new forms of work necessarily an escape from ongoing power relations and inequality but we can at least try to introduce less harmful ways of working. The main issues raised by this book concern the implications of work that is designed as if employees are only partly human. It has been argued that a consequence of this is that managers then have to devise ways to enrol and engage their staff. Thus, through Criteria-Based Interviews and World Class Customer Service programmes, managers attempt to transform employee subjectivity based around the notion of ‘enterprise’. Such interventions seek to colonize employee emotions and drive out resistance through promoting responsible, team-based, customer focused, empowered individuals. Yet, this subjectivity is contradicted by the everyday lives of the staff. It is negated by the divorce between the conception and execution of work, the centralized decision-making, task specialization and repetition, individual rewards and work measures, and work intensification. The question then is whether there is an alternative to this self-defeating Taylorism of work and self ? Must work be organized in ways that slice, dice and shred employees lives? I believe that the findings of this research point towards an understanding of how organizations could move in a different direction. We have observed that the work experience in T Corporation was by no means universal. A sense of community (albeit threatened) prevailed in the smaller branches, whilst individualism was more prevalent in the ASCs. Lessons can be drawn from this in that smaller work units can help promote a greater sense of intimacy and interdependent tasks allow for more interaction and an enriched work experience (see Trist and Bamforth, 1951). The staff in the ASCs longed for work that would allow them to engage in teamwork and to be able to help each other and some asked to be able to elect their team leaders. Why then is work organized in ways that prevent employees from working together and which requires managers to devise schemes to promote teamwork as an afterthought? Excessive specialization carries with it its own inefficiencies as we have seen whereby staff resist, make out, switch off, make errors, fail to share knowledge/experience, waste their talents and generally have a poor understanding of what they are doing, which, in turn, hinders customer service. The costs of such inefficiencies are rarely calculated and indeed may be incalculable because they are often invisible. It also appears to be the case that managers are

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often blind and deaf to such costs. The study indicates that work need not have been designed in an individualized way and could still be re-organized even after implementation. The branch restructuring and centralization removed employees from the customers and the communities they serve. The decision to centralize was linked to reducing staff numbers and to the cost of the technology, yet, it neglects to consider the consequences of breaking the connection between the community and the Bank. It does not lend itself to the cross selling of new products because branch staff are increasingly divorced from the customers they serve. The cost of technology is likely to have fallen since the restructuring and so it may now be possible to reintegrate the staff into localized branch networks. In Chapter 2, it was evident that customer service or service quality was insufficient to justify change and yet it is customer service that distinguishes one Bank from another. Leaders who pay lip service to customers or quality need to ensure, therefore, that those lower down the hierarchy (including senior managers) are able to put customers first and not declare that ‘you’ve got it the wrong way round’ when they attempt to do so. Since the centralization, the sharing of knowledge and experience is being undermined in the ASCs. ‘Tacit knowledge’ (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1994) regarding customers is being lost through the divorce between processing and service in the branches. The senior managers who drew up the Business Case Document, who placed a premium on instant profits calculated through a ‘headcount’ reduction, did not consider such possibilities. Lives are being stunted and work has become wearisome throughout T Corporation and yet the ‘makers’ seem oblivious to, or unconcerned with, the lives of the staff. There appears to be ample grounds for more democratic decisionmaking and a reintegration of the conception and execution of work. There are too many hierarchical layers that allow for a separation between the staff and leaders and an absence of forums for an open exchange of ideas and experience. I am not referring to ‘talking shops’ but arenas for taking into account various voices and serving multiple interests whilst not being able to entirely satisfy all. Decisions were taken before ‘consultation’ with the trade unions and misleading information was passed to them. Yet, perhaps if there had been a genuine sharing of ideas concerning a range of issues and not just a calculation of ‘numbers’, then alternative ways of organizing may have been considered. Such measures do not begin to tackle the inequalities of income or status in T Corporation. Yet, numerous unintended consequences accompanied the introduction of the new technology and the restructuring and so we cannot know the outcome of other changes in terms of creating a more equitable organization. In terms of technology, it is evident that jobs could have been designed so as to allow for a more enriched work experience for the ASC staff – ‘single’ rather than ‘multiple’ stop processes could have been used. All that was lacking was a mandate to design work that catered for QWL issues or that recognized a link between work repetition and boredom, errors, fiddling and poor customer service. Involvement of others (e.g. trade unionists, branch representatives) at the strategic and design level could have generated a more rewarding work

Conclusion 225 experience because other viewpoints would have been taken into account. Even after implementation, work can still be re-organized in the ASCs so as to promote greater task variety and involvement in day-to-day decision-making. More diverse and enjoyable forms of work reduce the need for ‘direct control’ (Friedman, 1977) and the supervision that this involves. There is no essential or economic reason why the staff or customers should be regarded simply as ‘numbers’ or machines. Alternative ways of organizing could remove the need for programmes that promote teamwork or customer service because such issues will already have been thought through when designing jobs. If employees are engaged in communities that have at their heart a concern with the customer and the lives of the staff, then the staff will not need to be convinced as an afterthought that they are part of something. Nor would such claims be so obviously contradicted in their everyday lives. It was evident from the research that different branches face different market needs. Yet, removing phone contact and processing from the branches distances the staff from customers and the markets they serve. If the branch staff are to engage with their local communities (markets), then a greater devolution of authority is required whilst continuing to take advantage of technological advances (e.g. telecommunications, document image processing). Some of the staff complained that there are strict, centralized controls over lending decisions that do not allow them to use their initiative. This contradicts the ‘enterprise’ discourse and dis-empowers the staff even when they suspect that a customer may be fraudulent. Thus, the ‘system’ asks the staff to input customer information and informs them whether a loan should be made or not. This is incompatible with the discourse of customer service, taking responsibility and of being entrepreneurial. The emphasis on achieving ‘individual’ sales serves to pit one member of the branch staff against another, and this is unlikely to promote a coordinated, collective, team drive towards serving customers. It seems obvious that, if the branch ‘community’ is responsible for selling, then greater cooperation will result and yet rewards unfairly fall on those ‘individuals’ who are deemed responsible for the sale. As a number of the staff pointed out, this ignores how everyone in different ways helps to contribute to the sale. It therefore fractures teams, generates animosity and breeds inequity as when a senior sales person gains commission that is unavailable to a cashier. Sales should not take precedence over service but a number of the staff felt that this is increasingly the case. If the staff are only rewarded on the basis of how many individual sales they achieve, then this is likely to promote misselling or at least inappropriate selling. Yet, if customers feel that the Bank is genuinely serving their interests rather than flogging them products, then loyalty and trust will be fostered which, in turn, will generate additional business. Linking rewards to a narrow focus on sales is likely to hinder a more rounded approach towards work. It militates against the staff taking responsibility, participating in teamwork, customer service, adopting a quality focus and sharing information as the staff of T Corporation indicated. Moreover, poor wages that bear no relationship to increasing profits or even annual cost of living

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rises provide no incentive (indeed they are a disincentive) to delivering customer care and taking responsibility. As Parker (2002) has argued ‘if managers talk about responsibility’ in relation to the staff, then there is every reason for employees to expect managers to act ‘within the same logic’ (ibid.: 58). In order to develop closer contact between the branch and the local community, time will be needed for the staff to interact with customers in a friendly not a ‘pushy’ way. If the staff are tasked to engage and act in enterprising ways, then they should be able to make more decisions about the issues that impact on their lives such as opening times, staffing levels and how rewards are distributed within the branches as well as those gained from sales. To build a sense of branch community, the staff need to be able to interact with each other, to make friends and to share knowledge/experience in a non-hierarchical way. Such interaction should not be exclusive to, or encroach upon their lives beyond work, not least because this impacts unfairly on women who continue to be unequally burdened with family responsibilities. Not everyone may be equally engaged with work perhaps because of leisure or domestic commitments and this should not be penalized because families and communities are the lifeblood of business, customers and future staff. Not everyone therefore can be expected to get involved to the same extent. Many local businesses falter due to cash flow problems or a lack of investment funds. If a closer working relationship can be established between local businesses and local branches, and staff are given the opportunity to make informed decisions about clients, then perhaps local businesses could be helped to thrive. Rather than pulling the plug when a business defaults, the Bank may have to take ‘risks’ and act in ‘entrepreneurial’ ways with customers that it has learned to trust and has built relationships with. Perhaps branch staff could be seconded to a business to establish a greater understanding of its needs or to a university to improve their education? Or, more generally, establish closer links with the community (e.g. local schools, NHS Trusts, charities, businesses, farmers) to establish its financial needs. The Bank could even become an investor in businesses that it works closely with. This level of engagement begins to blur the traditional boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ either in terms of management versus staff or our organization versus another. If local staff are able to generate income through engaging with their local communities, then they should also gain a proportionate share of the profits that accrue from this involvement. It may be that once a certain level of income is attained, different staff may decide to reduce their time in employment and spend more time with their families or in leisure pursuits and so work will be created for others. The scenario I am envisaging is not one of people working ever harder for the same rewards or even increasing rewards. Furthermore, as the staff contribute towards profit making then they should also have some say over how the profits are invested suggesting that more democratic forms of governance are required. It also indicates that hierarchical structures and controls, currently reproduced through interventions such as Excellence, TQM and BPR, would begin to collapse or require re-thinking even though bureaucracy will remain.

Conclusion 227 All of the above may seem like utopian nonsense and yet, as Parker (2002) has argued, there is more than one way in which to organize. If everyone organizes in the same way, then how can companies gain a distinctive position in the market place? Moreover, how can employees ‘as our most important asset’ be engaged and fulfilled through a centralized bureaucratic model that treats them as machines? Re-imagining work in the above way could lead to a more embodied work experience. Work would no longer be something that is simply done to us over which we have little input, that is characterized by gross inequalities of rewards and work experience. In combination, changes such as these could radically alter the way in which we understand work. Even the partial adoption of these suggestions could begin to open up spaces for other changes. None of them will free us from power, conflict or problems but they could begin to change the dynamics of power relations from centralization, repetition, conformity, distancing, inequality and indifference towards decentralization, embodiment, community, respect for diversity, equity and engagement. Such a shift is likely to herald a different subjectivity whereby employees begin to ask different questions and demand further changes as they engage more with the local communities in which they live. To understand the possibilities of the ‘new’ organization, it is useful to draw on Stanley Deetz’s (2003) metaphor of the cinema experience in relation to the socially constructed nature of organizations. Our current experience and understanding of organizations is like going to the cinema and accepting the film that we see as a living reality. In doing this, we are oblivious to the thousands of people involved in the film’s production, the scriptwriters, the sound engineers, the costume designers and the thinking and assumptions that created the film. We currently understand organizations in a similar way. Thus, we do not ‘see’ or question the hierarchical structure, the divorce between the conception and the execution of work, the inequality, the tiresome nature of work, the right of managers to make decisions, etc., instead, we simply take them for granted. Yet, if we ‘see’ organizations as socially produced, then we might begin to ask why things are as they are and begin to press for change. Finally, this book has explored the ways in which employees reproduce the machines in which they work. Employees take-for-granted managerially imposed norms, hierarchical structures, inequity and debilitating working conditions. They use their creative powers in individualized ways to ‘make-out’ and ‘make-do’ so as to escape or cope with a system of work that regards them as cyborgs. I have argued that it is only through collective resistance that staff can hope to challenge and transform such conditions. Yet, alternative methods of organizing can be introduced. These would encourage employees to engage in more rewarding and less unequal forms of work. The staff would continue to reproduce the organizations in which they labour but they would do so from a more enriched, embodied, knowledgeable and equitable position, and we cannot know what the future outcome of such changes might be in terms of creating a fairer and more humane society.

Notes

1 Living with innovation 1 Following Foucault (1977, 1980, 1982) power is not understood to be a possession, a commodity that is held by those who own or control property, or who hold a particular office. This understanding deviates therefore from the commonsensical, Marxist and managerial view that there are people who are powerful and people who are powerless or at least relatively powerless. Although in our everyday lives we observe the exercise of power by seemingly powerful men and, to lesser extent women, they do not possess power as one possesses a commodity. Instead, power is a condition of social relations in the sense that we are all capable of exercising power. If a president or CEO was suddenly transported to an uninhabited desert island, they would not be able to exercise power through others whether by waging war, murder, torture, work intensification or redundancy. They are only powerful therefore in the context of a social relationship and are only able to exercise power, if we consent to them doing so. Of course, pain, fear, hunger, responsibility or even love may mean that we allow others to exercise power over us but even in the most adverse circumstances those deemed to be powerless have been able to exercise power. Think of Spartacus facing the might of the Roman Empire, Gandhi facing the British Empire and Mandela faced with apartheid. Even in these dire situations, the seemingly powerless were able to exercise power and not simply as a reaction to power but as a condition of the power relationship. Given the potential for us all to exercise power the question arises as to why we accept oppression or inequality whether in relation to race, gender or class. The answer, as this books aims to reveal, is bound up with how we absorb and are constituted through power relations such that we accept and take-for-granted the socially constructed world(s) into which we are born. 2 Marx (1976: 271) in Capital Vol. 1 describes this creative capacity as ‘Labour Power’ or the ‘aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities, existing in the physical form, the living personality, of a human being’ (quoted in Cressey and MacInnes, 1980: 25). 3 Discourse is understood to refer to the language that is used in relation to a particular body of knowledge but also to the practices through which this language is enacted. So, for example, one may refer to a quality discourse associated with innovations such as Total Quality Management, Service Quality or Customer Service programmes. This refers to the use of a particular language in terms of ‘right first time’, continuous improvement, zero defects, fitness for purpose, putting customers first enshrined in texts such as Deming’s (1986) Out of the Crisis and Crosby’s (1979) Quality is Free. It also includes practices such as Statistical Process Control, Brainstorming Techniques, Customer Surveys, Employee Surveys, Quality Improvement Teams or Quality Circles, Newsletters, Videos, training courses, etc. In terms of an academic setting, the Quality discourse may form part of the syllabus of Business Degrees that is taught in a

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particular way using a particular language. Coursework and exams are set that seek to evaluate the knowledge that students have imbibed on these courses. Rewards and punishments are linked to these discourses that are established and enforced by those in hierarchical positions of authority and so power is embedded in discourse and the knowledge that it generates. Discourse also has implications for subjectivity because it is bound up with constituting the ways in which we think about and understanding the world. Discourse cannot be understood separately from the practices through which it is enacted nor can it be seen as separate from power, knowledge and subjectivity (Foucault, 1977; Rose, 1989; Knights and Morgan, 1990, 1991; du Gay and Salaman, 1992). It also needs to be remembered that there are multiple discourses that may be enacted in contradictory ways and that they can be wielded by both the ‘powerful’ and the seemingly ‘powerless’. Thus discourse is not something that is simply done to us because whilst we are fabricated through discourse we also take them up, use them, embrace, manipulate or resist them. 2 Do managers dream of electric staff or a design for drudgery? 1 Parker (2002) has analysed a number of novels and films that indicate a growing unease with large-scale corporate business and contemporary understandings of management. His point is not that we must abandon organization but that we should recognize that the current managerialism is not without problems nor is it the only model through which to organize. 3 Mechanizing emotions 1 Marx considered work in a capitalist society to be inherently alienating. This is because the product of labour and the means of production are not owned or controlled by the worker and it is therefore alien to him/her. The worker comes ‘to face the product of his activity as a stranger’ and through ‘the very act of production’, the employee is ‘estranging himself from himself ’. For if ‘the product of labour is alienation, production itself must be active alienation’ (ibid.: 99). 5 In the belly of the machine 1 Despite the certainty and indeed the determinism of this statement, it should be apparent from Chapter 2 that such an outcome need not be the case even if it is intended to be so. Nevertheless, I am sympathetic to the sentiment it expresses at least in relation to T Corporation given the strategy discourse and the experiences of working in the ASC. 2 Roy (1969) describes ‘making-out’ as ‘resistance to and subversion of formally instituted managerial controls on production’ (ibid.: 359). 3 The practice of ‘making-do’ is not explicable in terms of, nor does it lend support to, the view that employees necessarily view themselves as being in a ‘ceaseless war with management’ (Roy, 1952: 427). 4 Making out for Roy’s (1952) machine operators involved ‘quota restriction’ or manipulating one’s work effort in order to secure a rate for the job above the base rate without having to work excessively hard. In some instances, workers were able to complete the required output or ‘make out’ in four hours on a job that should have taken ten hours. So ‘making out’ can be understood as getting ahead of the allocated time and freeing oneself up from productive labour whilst still earning a reasonable income. To do otherwise and to seek to maximize one’s pay would lead to the rate being cut by management and so inefficiency was built into the system. If rates were set so tightly that they did not allow the workers to ‘make out’ they used various methods to slowdown and did not attempt to meet the required output rate let alone

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make out. This was ‘goldbricking’ retaliation for the excessively tight rate: a warning to management. A revised rate, however, simply meant a return to ‘quota restriction’. 5 This point helps to illustrate Cressey and MacInnes’ (1980) argument that not only does capital employ labour but ‘labour employs capital’ (ibid.: 13). For ‘only by controlling the means of production in the sense of subjecting them to its own physical and mental operations, its own will, does the workforce actually expend any labour’ (ibid.: 14). Thus, ‘the workers themselves actually control the detail of the performance of their tasks, and the importance of this, though it varies with the production process, never disappears altogether’ (ibid.). This illuminates the enormous potential for resistance and also the untapped reservoir of human capacity in T Corporation because nothing is done without employees doing it. 6 Roy’s (1969) workers also ‘justified’ making out because the times allocated for jobs were unfair (p. 362).

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Index

ACAS (Arbitration, Conciliation and Advisory Service) 211–12 accountability 121–2, 134 Acker, J. 16, 26, 40, 50, 55 agency staff 207 Ahmed, S. 218, 219, 220 alienation 5–6 Alvesson, M. 16, 39, 61, 76 apathy 214, 216 appraisals, staff 120–1, 157–64, 171, 172, 175 Area Service Centres (ASCs): culture 47–50; division from branch staff 198–208; experienced staff versus less experienced staff 206–8; living and working the queues 102–41; overview 21–41, 97–8; recruitment 46–7, 55–7; separation from branch staff 198–208; separation of sections 204–6; separation of staff 202–4; setting 98–102; strategy discourse 14–41 autonomy 26–8, 62–4

discourse 50; sovereign bank 53–4; sovereign customer 51–2 branch staff, separation from ASC staff 198–208 branches: culture in 47–50; life in 149–51; reorganization of 143–64; task variety 43; teamwork in 165–87 Braverman, H. 3, 14, 24, 27, 66, 88, 154, 185, 186 breaks 130–1, 133, 137–8, 175, 176–7, 182 Breem, D. 21 Brown, C. 70 Bryman, A. 61 Buchanan, D. 165 Burawoy, M. 6, 8, 97, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 137, 185 Burns, T. 8 Burrell, G. 196, 209 business awareness skills 58–9 business development skills 60 business process reengineering 14–41

Bain, P. 124, 205 Baldamus, W. 81, 121 Bamforth, K.W. 35, 223 Barker, J.R. 173, 186, 220 benefits, staff 153 Benschop, Y. 34, 55, 66 Bentham, Jeremy 105 Blauner, R. 5, 104 Bourdieu 181 branch managers 195–7 branch networks and implementation discourse: constituting the ‘new’ culture 47–50; Criteria Based Interviews (CBIs) 55–7; moral discourse 52–3; ‘new’ skills definitions and job profiles 58–65; overview 42–7; secreting the new

Campbell, B. 196 Capra, Frank 220 career progression 130, 132 ‘careerism’ 22, 24–5 Carter, C, 22 Casey, C. 84 Champy, J. 8, 14, 27, 31, 38 Chaplin, Charlie 1 cheating the system 129–41 Clegg, S. 22, 53 ‘clock time’ 117–22 Collinson, D. 8, 16, 22, 32, 39, 45, 46, 52, 53, 56, 57, 59, 60, 90, 109, 122, 126, 128, 162, 163, 169, 185, 207, 209, 218 Collinson, M. 29 community: branches 153–4; corrosion of 175–9; identity 180–7; threats to 173–5

Index ‘competitive presenteeism’ 177–8 compliance 172 ‘confessional self’ 164–5 consultation process 143–4 contracts 209–10 controls, individualized 111–13 Cooper, R. 30, 78, 191, 217, 219 Coote, A. 196 coping strategies 122–41, 179–87 corporate goals/mission statement 58–9 Cressey, P. 65, 66, 228n2, 230n5 Criteria Based Interviews (CBIs) 7, 43, 49, 55–7, 185–6, 201 Crosby, P.B. 49, 228n3 cultural separation 198–208 cultures 47–50 customer service 15–41, 42–65; versus sales 151–7; see also World Class Customer Service (WCCS) customers 51–2; distancing from 153–4; empathy with 155–6 cynicism 130–1, 132 Danford, A. 212 Davenport, T.H. 30–1 Davies, A. 89, 177 Death of a Salesman (1949) 158–9 decision-making skills 61–2 Deetz, Stanley 33, 39, 68, 76, 115, 198, 227 Delbridge, R. 66, 88 Deming, W.E. 49, 66, 228n3 Dick, Phillip K. 13, 14, 55, 118, 124 Discipline and Punish (1977) 105 discipline system, ASCs: clock time 117–22; individualized controls 111–13; manufacturing machines 114–17; overview 105–10 discursive inconsistencies 85–8 disengagement 122–4, 126–8 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) 13–14, 124 Document Image Processing (DIP) 13–41 Dohse, K. 175 ‘dominant masculinities’ 22, 24–5 Doorewaard, H. 34, 55, 66 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 97, 114 ‘doublethink’ 171–2 ‘dramaturgical self’ 162–4 Dreyfus, H.I. 91 Drucker, P.F. 6, 14 du Gay, P. 4, 7, 19, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 65, 71, 151, 155, 162, 165, 178, 229n3

239

economic incentives 184–5 Edwards, P. 29, 128, 138 empathy 202–4 enterprise self, manufacturing 7, 42–65 environment, ASCs 98–102 error rates 106–13 ethnographic research 4–6 exercise 99 experienced staff versus less experienced staff 206–8 Ezzamel, M. 185 ‘factory’ environment 101–3 family commitments 177–8 Findlay, P. 171 Fineman, S. 56, 61, 81 Fleming, P. 109, 132 flexible working: ASCs 209–10; branches 145–7, 150–1, 167–8; potential for 29–30 Fordism 30, 34 Foucault, Michel 4, 6, 7, 9, 16, 17, 43, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 65, 68, 85, 90, 98, 105, 109, 119, 138–9, 161, 162, 186, 192, 202, 228n1, 229n3 Fournier, V. 4, 49, 55, 57, 61, 90 Fox, A. 53, 71, 144 Friedman, A. 103, 117, 163, 225 full-time staff versus part-time staff 212 functional groupings 179 Gabriel, Y. 65, 109, 172, 178, 182 Gehling, R.G. 21 ‘generalized other’ 191 Gibson, G.D. 192, 219, 220 Gibson, M.L. 21 Glennon, L. 39 Goffman, E. 17, 175 Gouldner, A.W. 1, 14, 35 Great Dictator, The (1940) 1 Grey, C. 4, 33, 49, 55, 57, 61, 90 Grint, K. 23, 27, 30, 31, 32 ground floor experience 195 Gulag 165, 173 Hammer, M. 8, 14, 27, 31, 38 Hassard, J. 120 headcount savings 15–41, 45–7, 52–3, 101, 152–3 Hearn, J. 16, 22, 32, 39, 45, 46, 52, 53, 59, 60, 178 hierarchical structure, ASCs 99 Hitler Youth Resistance 109 honesty 76–9, 87–8, 160

240

Index

House of the Dead, The (1860/1985) 97, 114 identity, sense of 182–3 implementation discourse: constituting the ‘new’ culture 47–50; Criteria Based Interviews (CBIs) 55–7; moral discourse 52–3; ‘new’ skills definitions and job profiles 58–65; overview 42–7; secreting the new discourse 50; sovereign bank 53–4; sovereign customer 51–2 ‘impression management’ 17 inactive time 130–1, 133, 137–8, 175, 176–7, 182 income generation, focus on 146–8, 151–2 individual goals/targets 125–7, 170–5 individualization, tragedy of 213–14 individualized controls 111–13 individualized selves versus teamplayers 170–5 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) 3, 4, 13–14 initiative 123–4 innovation: employee experience of 4; ethnographic research 4–6; overview 1–3; strategic design/thinking 3–4 integrity 182–7 intelligent operators 34–41 internalizing of issues 199 Jacques, R. 6, 85, 100, 219 Japanization 30 job design 25–9 job loss: cause of 165–6; effects of 167–8; fear of 162–3 job profiles 58–65 job titles 145–6 jobs, re-application for 185–6 Jurgens, U. 175 Kanter, R.M. 6 Keller, E.F. 222 Kerfoot, D, 54, 112, 125, 220 Knights, D. 6, 8, 46, 47, 54, 63, 85, 97, 112, 124, 125, 133, 139, 151, 161, 171, 173, 177, 205, 213, 220, 229n3 Kornberger, M. 22 Labour Process theory 3 large branches 149–51 Law, J. 40 leadership 64–5 lending team, branches 147–8

Liberatore, M.J. 21 line managers 194 Linstead, A. 64, 65, 79, 84 Linstead, S. 78 local knowledge, branches 153–4 Lukes, S. 6, 43, 60, 75, 89, 199 Lyon, David 13, 14, 34 McAdam, D. 217 McCabe, D. 7, 17, 27, 32, 33, 46, 47, 61, 63, 85, 91, 102, 124, 133, 139, 151, 161, 171, 173, 177, 218, 220 McDonald, K. 216, 217 machine mentality 27–9 MacInnes, J. 65, 66, 144, 228n2, 230n5 McKinlay, A. 161 ‘making do’ 122–9 ‘making out’ 129–41 Malsch, T. 175 ‘management-by-stress’ 167 managers, separation from staff 193–7 Mandela, Nelson 82 manufacturing machines, workers as 114–17 Marglin, S.A. 66, 88 market relationships/attitudes skills 59–60 Marks, A. 171 Mars, G. 8, 14, 126, 129, 133 Marx, K. 87, 114, 123, 184, 185, 228n2, 229n1 Marxism 3 ‘masculine authoritarianism’ 32–3 Mead, George Herbert 191 medium-sized branches 149–51 Metcalfe, B. 64, 65, 79, 84 Miller, Arthur 158 Miller, P. 62, 89 Million Dollar Brain, The 51 Mills, A.J. 32, 39, 219 Mintzberg, H. 22, 148 Mitev, N. 33 monotony 30–4, 114–17 moral discourse 52–3 morale 180 Morgan, G. 3, 6, 13, 39, 229n3 multi-skilling 25–6, 27–8, 32–3, 145–6 multi-tasking 150–1 Mumby, D.K. 79, 82 Murray, F. 30, 46 My Autobiography (1966/2003) 1 Nazism 109 negativity 81–2

Index ‘new’ culture 47–50 Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) 78, 81, 82, 102, 105, 106, 122, 191 Nonaka, I. 6, 64, 224 offshoring 207 old boys’ network 130, 132, 135 Oliver, N. 30 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963) 143 organizational skills 63 Orwell, George 42, 52, 56, 57, 58, 78, 81, 82, 102, 105, 106, 122, 191, 192 ‘other’: management separation from 193–7; overview 191–3; self as 197–208; union as 9, 208–17 Parker, M. 3, 4, 30, 46, 66, 88, 166–7, 226, 227, 229n1 Parkin, P.W. 178 part-time staff versus full-time staff 212 pay increases 158, 159, 161, 211, 214–16 pay rates 209, 215 peer pressure 173–5 peer-based monitoring 109 performance-related pay 215 Peters, T. 49, 61, 66, 71 planning skills 63 ‘Poise for Health’ 99 productivity measurement 99–113, 117–22, 128–41 professionalism, interpretations of 159 promotion 211 psychological warfare 125–6 Putnam, L. 79, 82 quality: of staff 34–41; of working life (QWL) 25–9, 30–4, 34–5, 119; versus quantity 124 Quality Tracking System (QTS) 107–8 Rabinow, P. 91 rebellion, points of 85–8 redundancies 43–7, 54, 144, 210–11, 213 Rees, B. 57, 59 reorganization, branches 143–64 repetition as route to efficiency 30–4, 116 resistance: to centralization 45–7; cheating the system 129–41; economic disincentives 169–70; ‘making do’ 122–9; ‘making out’ 129–41; rubbing out 78–81; to teamwork 179–87 responsibility 151

241

revolution, WCCS as manifesto for 81–2 Rose, N. 62, 64, 89, 105, 121, 192, 228–9n3 routines 117–22 Roy, Donald 8, 113, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 134, 138, 209, 229n2–4, 230n5 Salaman, G. 4, 7, 19, 49, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61, 65, 71, 91, 151, 155, 162, 165, 178, 229n3 sales folders, branches 157–64 sales targets, branches 149–50, 178–9 sales versus customer service 151–7 Sanders, S. 3 Sayer, A. 30 Scientific Management (1911) 23 secrecy, culture of 161 section relationships, ASCs 204–6 section targets, branches 170–5 self as ‘other’ 197–208 self-regulation 105–6, 109, 131, 161–2 senior-level management 194–5 Service Delivery Strategy (1994/1995) 14–41 service team, branches 147 Sewell, G. 103 Shivastava, P. 16, 25, 39, 44, 48 Sinclair, A. 49 skills definitions 58–65 small branches 149–51 Snow, D. 217 social dynamics 133–4 social interaction 175–6, 180, 182 social networks 137 solidarity, culture of 202 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr 143, 165, 173 Somers, M.R. 192, 219, 220 sovereign bank 53–4 sovereign customer 51–2 spatial divide 195–6 Spicer, A. 109, 132 staffing pressures 149–50, 156–7 Stalker, G.M. 8 standardization 25, 26 Stephens, C. 1 Story, J. 91 strategic design/thinking 3–4 strategy discourse: Area Service Centres (ASCs) 21–41; overview 6–7, 14–21 strikes 208–9, 210–11, 213, 215–16 Sturdy, A. 97 Sulkunen, P. 161, 181

242

Index

Takeuchi, H. 6, 64, 224 Tancred-Sheriff, P. 170, 216–17, 219 Taylor, F.W. 7, 23, 68 Taylor, P. 124, 161, 205 Taylorism 30–1, 34, 98 teamplayers versus individualized selves 170–5 teamwork: branches 145–6; emphasis on 49–50; for each other 180–2; for self and ‘other’ 182–7 teamwork/team leadership skills 64–5 teamwork-by-necessity 165–87 teamwork, coping through: branch reorganization 143–64; lack of resistance 179–87; overview 9 teamwork, war of the discourses 83–5 Theory X 59, 79 Thomas, R. 89, 177 Thompson, E.P. 119 Thompson, P. 171 Time Capture 72–3, 74, 75, 79, 99–113, 117–22, 128–41 Training courses 157 Trist, E.L. 35, 223 Turnbull, P. 30, 66, 88 unions: as ‘other’ 9, 208–17; relations with management 100; role in centralization process 44–5 values 76–9, 88 Van Maanen, J. 17 Veblen 27

Victor, B. 1 War of the Worlds, The (1898/2005) 21, 25, 27–8, 29 Watson, T. 17, 46, 47 We/‘We’ 68–9, 76, 82, 85, 93, 106, 115, 153 Weber, Max 1, 4 Wells, H.G. 21, 25, 27, 29, 34 Wilkinson, B. 30, 66, 88, 103 Willis, P. 6, 63, 97 Willmott 16, 17, 31, 33, 59, 76, 97, 160, 185 ‘Winning Team’ 157 Woolgar, S. 23, 27, 30, 31, 32 work avoidance 129–41 work intensification 151–2, 156–7, 178 work practices, questioning skills 62–3 work pressures 158, 168–9, 172–3 work queues 102–41 work standards skills 63–4 working hours 158, 159 ‘working-to-rule’ 129 World Class Customer Service (WCCS): course/course content 75–81; as manifesto for revolution 81–2; overview 8–9, 69–70, 71–5, 98, 104, 114, 138–9, 202–3; staff response to 82–8; workshops 88–93 Worthington, F. 185 Zamyatin, Yevgeny 67–9, 76, 82, 85, 93, 106, 109, 115, 153