Comunión entre sector privado y público: planes de ordenamiento

exhortations and numerical targets for the workforce, such as zcro-defccts,....as the bulk of the problems belong to the system, and are beyond the power of the workforce."

All brigades used some form of slogan, exhortation etc., but mainly to meet legitimate goals, rather than overcome problems inherent in the system. This was not considered to be counterproductive.

No action necessary, based on the findings of the

investigation; however, managements may wish to ensure that the exhortations they do use are clearly reminders, prompts etc. as intended.

POINT ELEVEN Quotas and targets existed in all Managers need sanctions and "Eliminate quotas or brigades and these were considered reward mechanisms to enable work standards, and necessary to achieve effective control them to stand further back management by at the minimum identified necessary from the processes. In the UK objectives or numerical level. at least, this will require goals; substitute Targets regarded as meaningless will changes to national

leadership." be ignored or false returns given. agreements. All targets must be real, achievable and agreed. POINT TWELVE No structural barriers to pride of Managerial attitudes and styles "Remove barriers that workmanship were identified in any need analysing to ensure that rob people of their right brigade; however, managerial subordinates are being given to pride of workmanship attitudes and styles may be sufficient freedom and ....etc." hampering the ability of subordinates authority to perform

to perform to the full. effectively at all times.

POINT THIRTEEN Degrees of compliance varied; in- Broader managerial training "Institute a vigorous house programmes of training were for fire officers would be education and self- mainly vocational. beneficial, especially in

improvement brigades trying to change their

POINT FOURTEEN The brigades where change is being Greater managerial

’’Put everyone in the attempted appear to have been "transparency" required. This company to work to unsuccessful in convincing their will not compromise any achieve the workforces of their motives. aspect that a "command"

transformation.” organisation would

legitimately want to preserve.

DEMING’S POINT CONCLUSION RECOMMENDATION

Final Conclusions of the Investigation

■ Formal incident command systems were considered to afford a degree of empowerment to operational personnel. They provide clear and structured frameworks for action and decisions in the difficult operational command situation. The procedures are empowering, as they give clear guidance on what is required, without being prescriptive as to how it is achieved.

■ Managerial structures and styles were shown to be effective indicators of the degree of empowerment existing in an organisation. Evidence gathered during the course of this investigation suggests that there is a relationship between the lack of powers available to management to reward or punish, and the number of managerial tiers. Arguably, where there is no sanction, there is no deterrence to poor performance, resulting in a greater and continuing need to supervise, and "inspect-in" quality. This is very wasteful of managerial time and demands the maintenance of the narrower spans of control that were invariably identified. It is concluded that the structure is not exclusively a product of the nature of the task, but of the constraints imposed on management in such organisations. Managers need to be empowered as well.

■ A clear example of the above has been shown to exist in the area of discipline. Officers must be empowered to exercise their responsibilities as they see fit,

within a clear policy framework. If they are not permitted to do this formally, they will find ways around the problem to enable them to manage effectively despite the system. A danger for the organisation is that the close familiarity that develops on a fire station watch could result in less motivated managers failing to sustain the levels of discipline required by the organisation. This in turn would mean that varying standards could emerge on different watches within the same organisation, or even on the same station. Senior management may then feel the need to consider the imposition of controls, and withdraw freedoms that had been extended.

■ The discourse on the nature of the fire service in the discipline context serves also to demonstrate an important facet of fire service culture, as identified by Englander. That is that the strength of, and identification with, the watch team is closer and more powerful than identification with the greater organisation. This is perhaps necessarily so given the nature of fire service work. This, combined with the clear focus on the external customer that has been shown to exist in all of the fire brigades studied, suggests to the author that the fire service is fertile ground for true empowerment initiatives. However, the way in which any initiative is introduced must be sensitive to the differences in the fire service as a type of organisation. The line must be clearly drawn to show where empowerment and freedom of initiative ends, and command and control resumes. This is successfully done already at operational incidents and can be seen in a comparable industry at Zeneca, as described in Chapter One.

■ Recognising that if there were effective sanctions for failure there would probably be less need for the narrow spans of control that have been revealed in the fire service generally, would appear to be an argument in favour not only of greater availability of sanctions to the middle tier supervisor but of such devices as performance related rewards, short term contracts etc. Such measures would directly conflict with Deming's philosophy but would permit these artificially narrow spans of control to be expanded and enable managers to become less "hands-on".

■ The findings from the visit to Hong Kong made it clear that any investigation

into whether an organisation could benefit from empowerment must give due consideration to the political, social and cultural environment of the organisation,

in which the characteristics of the organisational culture are rooted.

It was the opinion of the author, based on the tenor of the interviews conducted, that all the brigades visited had good morale. This could be because in all four places, the "Hygiene" factors of pay, conditions, social needs and status were satisfied. Any model for implementation in a disciplined service should recognise the importance of morale.

It is concluded that, in several instances, organisations and individual managers felt that they were adhering to some notion of devolution or empowerment, but were in fact paying lip service to the concept. It would suggest that sometimes there is a gap between the concept and the form it takes in implementation. Training and development of managers is clearly important in this respect. Based on the evidence of the "Big Five" initiative, the success of the "District Teams", and the general attitude of the personnel interviewed, it is believed that Phoenix Fire Department is experiencing some success in moving towards an empowered workforce. It is not racing towards an ideological goal, but progressing in a way that it believes will result in a better service to the community. Empowerment, to the extent that it exists, has proven a successful vehicle for process improvement. Cultural considerations must weigh heavily in the decision about whether to attempt to change attitudes in this way.

The hypothesis upon which this investigation has been based must, therefore, be widened and it must be emphasised that neither fire service cultures, nor command structures alone, determine or limit the degree of empowerment of a workforce. The national culture and socio-political forces must be added to the equation. For successful implementation, a compromise must be found that will permit the benefits of empowerment to be realised as far as these constraints will allow.

TQM, and empowerment, are packages that can only be delivered if certain basic conditions prevail. The socio-political environment and culture must permit it; the organisational culture must offer an opening; the leader of the organisation must believe in and drive the initiative and the individual member must wish to participate.

An Empowerment Initiative for the Fire Service

Bureaucracy

hierarchies

"Life and death situations in working environment Managers want to be "hands on" "Fear" or "Blame" cultures Senior management intransigence Legitimate need for "Command" style of management Poor organisational communications Negative factors in the effort to empower Positive factors in the effort to empower SUCCESSFUL EMPOWERMENT IN A FIRE SERVICE COMMAND STRUCTURE

A well trained and motivated workforce, led by competent and respected officers, operating

within a framework of clear guidance,

Recognition of the need for change Resistance to change Clear system s and procedures Service ethos A "Customer facing" organisation History of Team-based working Staff have Pride in the job

Restrictive \ towards agreed and realistic objectives. M?

practices and W ell trained

Union workforce intransigence Highly motivated workforce Workforce well regarded by custom ers (the public) Generally good industrial relations

Summary: An Empowerment Initiative for the Fire Service

The findings of this investigation have been condensed into a model (previous page) which represents the main issues that would invariably be faced by a fire brigade embarking on an empowerment initiative. Strengths common to all of the brigades investigated are represented on the right; the left side shows difficulties that the managers of the initiative would have to overcome. Some will remain as constants, such as the hazards of the job, and will result in other constants, such as the need for a command style of management at operational incidents. The conflict between the appreciation of the need to change and the desire for the maintenance of the "status quo" that was equally clear in the brigades that had already commenced an initiative of this type is also represented. The central element of the model, which represents the objective of the initiative, recognises that empowerment in the fire service does demand that morale and good leadership from officers are key elements and that a framework of clear guidance is essential to success.

Summary of Chapter Eight.

Certain questions have been suggested throughout this investigation. For example, is empowerment within a command hierarchy a practical objective? The conclusion that has been arrived at during this investigation, is that empowerment is indeed a practical objective. However, the success or failure of any initiative revolves around how well "empowerment" has been defined and contextualised for both managers and other employees. Many apparent constraints are not due to the nature of the fire service as a command organisation, but variously, its status as an arm of local government, an enforcer of legislation, and as a mirror of the national culture that constitutes its environment.

Another question might be, what is the correct balance between empowerment and control? In the complex, political, and hazardous world of fire brigades and their operations, it is naive to believe that empowerment can succeed merely by removing long standing controls and procedures. The fire service does not perform simple tasks, such as road sweeping, where a failure can be readily identified and corrected at relative leisure; nor does it make a simple product, which can be taken or left by the consumer. In common with other professional services such as hospitals, the justice system, and the police, the services delivered are complex and have a considerable moral dimension. This

makes the constraints very different for a manager in the fire service as opposed to a counterpart in commerce or industry. The nearest parallel to the fire service in these terms in industry is probably that of the chemical manufacturers, discussed in Chapter One, where the stakes in terms of litigation, health and safety, and political interest are high. Nevertheless, the driving ethos in that industry is profit, not service.

Finally, it must be asked, is such an initiative worth the effort? Will the organisation benefit in a measurable way from the processes involved and will the process eventually "add value" to fire brigades' service delivery? It is concluded, principally from the experiences of Phoenix, that it is worthwhile to explore such initiatives. They not only have a positive impact on the consumer of the service but also create greater care, involvement and awareness amongst staff. This will be very important in the UK fire service in the coming decade, given the political and financial challenges it will face. Many familiar practices will be focused upon in great detail and forcefully challenged; without the awareness that participation in TQ and empowerment initiatives can provide, staff will be ill equipped to participate in structuring the fire service of the twenty-first century and may become marginalised. The final consideration in this respect, as revealed during the interviews with many senior officers in the four locations, is that it would be futile for the fire service to attempt to preserve a structure of long standing practices and traditions when the values and frameworks of society are changing so rapidly around it.

References in Chapter Eight

1. Parasuraman A, Zeithamsi V A, Berry L L, "A Conceptual Model of Service

Quality and its Implications for Future Research", Journal of Marketing, Fall 1985, pp41-49

2. Block P, "The Empowered Manager; Positive Political Skills at Work", Jossey-Bass Ltd, 1987, p xiii