Managing without unions

Abstract

In an industrial town on the outskirts of the Greater Manchester conurbation, Marks & Spencer has a well-placed and invariably busy store. In this respect the town is like many others, as virtually every desirable high street in the country plays host to the UK’s most profitable retailer. Every week 14 million customers pass through the doors of M&S stores, buying the St Michael branded goods that have a deserved reputation for quality and value for money. Inside the stores the company’s 42 000 employees (two thirds of whom work part time) are well looked after. The proverb ‘Do as you would be done by’ (Sieff, 1990:84) is the golden rule of the company’s human relations policy — so-called because, as the former Chairman Lord Sieff (1984:28) explained, ‘we are human beings at work not industrial beings’. Any policy derived from the ‘law and the prophets’ carries with it a strong moral obligation, as Lord Sieff makes clear (ibid:55, 118). Indeed the extensive provision of welfare and medical benefits such as subsidised meals, hairdressing, chiropody and dental check-ups, ‘is an act of faith. When asked why the company spends so lavishly on the health of its employees managers reply that it “feels right” to do so’ (Financial Times, 30 April 1991). Lord Sieff was always less speculative: ‘Good human relations at work pay off; they are of great importance if a business is to be efficiently run’ (1990:56). The latter is certainly true of Marks & Spencer, a company hailed by Peter Drucker (1974:98) as one of the most efficient in the world, and recently voted Britain’s ‘best managed company’ for the third year in succession by a panel of institutional investors, captains of industry and business journalists (Financial Times, 19 March 1997).