Employee Insights into Perceptions of UK Organisational Change in 2014

Stream 4: Employee Engagement

Ross Kemble

Anglia Ruskin University

Ross.Kemble@anglia.ac.uk

Working Paper: 4974 words

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Abstract

The conceptual foundations of this paper, given the scarcity of longitudinal research on post -

millennium work practices, emerge from the prior research by (Hassard, McCann and Morris,

2009) in the publication Managing in a Modern Corporation which considers current work

practices. They observed increasing work intensification and change within multinational

financial services companies post 2000 and suggest that work practices are returning to

assembly line work: not only within the factory context, but also within other organisational

contexts. This means that work hours, stress and responsibility all increased. Therefore it

becomes critical to examine whether this trend will continue for employees and what impact

this has on engagement.

UK employees’ lived experience are considered in order to illustrate the importance of

perceptions of the workplace and whether they support concerns for ‘low road’ management

approaches in terms of impact on engagement. Data was gathered from a single company

within The Guardian (2014) list of the top one hundred companies in the UK’s East Anglian

region, in an attempt to gain added meaning that employees hold for the changing work

environment post-2008. A priori themes were used to develop an initial template, since the

benefit of template analysis lies with its potential plasticity. Further sequential analysis of the

interview template between every three meeting sessions allowed for adjustments to the

interview template. This paper reports that the data collected concurs with the observations of

Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009), further problems stemming from control, time frames

and quality appear to raise additional issues. As such, the paper considers the possible impact

upon engagement of the employees and thus the relationship to organisational performance.

Key words: Global Financial Crisis (GFC), Employee Perceptions, Template analysis,

Employee engagement

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Introduction

Improved employee engagement, as a crucial element leading to greater profit, has been

regarded as a ‘holy grail’ of people management thinking, however engagement appears to

relate to how ‘connected’ employees feel towards their employer (Keeble-Ramsay &

Armitage, 2014). This is where employees feel engaged with their work, direct benefits

within improved customer service and resulting sales have been clearly demonstrated (Smith

et al, 2012). Despite the claims that they can add value to stakeholders, the limited adoption

of alternative ‘high road’ management approaches is disappointing (Hague et al, 2003). The

question of ‘why is there limited uptake’ must be considered when examining this issue, and

the answer may perhaps lie in the western financialisation of firms, leading to a capitalistic

disconnect, which means that any aspirations towards ‘high road’ Strategic Human Resource

Management (SHRM) work practices are undermined by short term / short view ‘low road’

managerial imperatives (Thompson, 2003).

The CIPD (2012) suggests that employee engagement is defined as an employee’s

relationship with an organisation and its brand alignment. But is it merely a refinement of the

much older concept of job satisfaction? Macey and Schneider (2008) seemed to struggle

somewhat with the notion of engagement, suggesting that engagement was layered with

inconsistent interpretations. This has been argued and readdressed by Wollard and Shuck

(2011), who have offered a clear definition of engagement as “An individual employee’s

cognitive, emotional, and behavioural state directed toward desired organizational outcomes”

(p.429). Shuck and Wollard (2010) also suggest that the term of engagement could possibly

be a passing fad among HR (Human Resource) consultants and HR professionals.

The role of employee perceptions has recently received greater attention in terms of its impact

on performance (Cullen, et al, 2014). Examination of employee perceptions might also

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highlight the difference between what 'management' claims as policy versus what has actually

been viewed from the workforce perspective. Furthermore, has the Global Finical Crisis

(GFC) had an impact on HR management within the UK (see Colley, 2012; Kamp, Lund and

Hvid, 2011; Teague and Roche, 2013) The Work Place Employment Relations Study (WERS,

2011) identified that work intensification has risen from 27% in 2004 to 34% in 2011 in the

UK. The WERS (2011) report further presents that since 2004, pay freezes, recruitment

freezes and redundancies within most sectors have led to ‘more work for less pay’.

This paper seeks to provide initial insights into the changing nature of the UK workplace,

post GFC. It strives to engage with the subjective experience of the managed and examine

any evidence of ‘new managerialism’ (Klikauer, 2013). By considering arguments that

perceptions of ‘high road’ initiatives could facilitate a conceptual change towards an

improved organisational focus, then it may be argued that a move away from any perception

of a post-GFC, short-term focus of a ‘low road’ low cost approach is problematic in people

management terms (Thompson, 2011). By contrast, McClean and Collins (2011) state that

High Commitment HR practices are important within organisations. They suggest that social

exchanges including employees are more likely to be co-operative when the employees that

feel that an organisation values them and invests in them through HR practices.

Over the last 20 years, the UK has aspired to adopt more virtuous high commitment / high

involvement HR-based approaches. These initiatives have potentially been restricted by the

round of post-GFC austerity measures. A post-GFC, low cost or ‘low road’ approach may

have replaced any prior strategies, (Thompson, 2011) such reducing the sustainability of

aspirations, which could have the effect of hindering the UK’s economic recovery.

 This study attempts to understand the nature of management behaviour within one company

in the East Anglia region of the UK and aims to extend the current literature of this subject

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area by giving access in 2014 to the real lived experience of work engagement during the

recent period of austerity. With this being considered, two research questions were attempted

to be answered.

1. What are the perceptions of change in working practices further to the Global Final

Crisis?

2. Are there any differences in the perceptions of the approach of management at

differing levels in the organisation in 2014? 

The research fills a methodological gap in the current literature, whilst researching a

somewhat under-researched area. There appears to very little research done on the issues of

management over this period, particularly from the employee’s point of view. The research

explores the critical issues around the way in which employees have been managed and looks

at how this has affected the way the employees have engaged with their work over this time.

Rationale & Background

The rationale for the research stems from the confidence at the start of the century that the

workplace, from the employee perspective, was going to be enhanced by High Performance

Working (HPW). Wood and De Menezes (1998) commented that the innovative current

forms of organisations which are characterised as high commitment, high involvement and

high performance models were central to many management decisions and human relations.

At this time there was considerable optimism that post-2000 would see improved

management behaviour leading to better productivity with Keeble-Allen (2007) suggesting

that 21st century society would demand a highly skilled workforce and that employers would

gain their employees’ commitment through High Performance Working (HPW) systems.

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What was also apparent over the duration of the Global Finical Crisis (GFC) was the way in

which the UK government reacted to the financial situation and how the coalition

(Conservative and Liberal Democrat) Government chose to respond to the global credit

crunch. Colley (2012) states that austerity measures implemented by the Government did not

only make changes within the industry, but changes were introduced through practice and this

can be supported by the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study (WERS) -

Publications - GOV.UK (2013) with its finding that more work leads to less pay and the

expansion of pay freezes in most employment sectors. Colley (2012) suggests that austerity

does not only make changes within industry, it would seem that many changes have been

introduced through amending work practices or processes (WERS, 2013). It appeared that

some of the most notable areas relate to employee engagement.

WERS (2013) highlighted that even though there are fewer staff members, engagement had

actually risen since 2004, with a notable increase in methods being implemented to increase

engagement and commitment within the workplace. This was an area for further

investigation as to why that might have been the case. With this increase in engagement, it

could be assumed that employees also feel that their views are being translated into their

everyday working life and decision-making processes, but this does not appear to be case in

reality. WERS (2013) goes on to suggest that over half of the participants who took part in

the study were not satisfied with the level of their involvement in the actual decision-making

process within the workplace. So, in essence, the employees are being listened to, but those

specific discussions are not being acted upon and are quintessentially ‘papertalk’. Authors

(CIPD, 2013; Gruman and Saks, 2011; Macey and Schneider, 2008; Shuck and Wollard,

2010) found indications that companies have attempted to establish a robust link between

engagement and profitability with regards to higher productivity, more sales, customer

satisfaction, and employee retention. Furthermore, Anderton & Beven (2014) within The

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Work Foundation, acknowledge the tensions of currently constrained work which is

characterised by high intensity, low control and low skill organisations and how this might in

turn affect the culture of engagement.

Themes have been drawn from the previous work of Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009)

‘Managing in a Modern Corporation’ in which a monograph was created from previously

published empirical articles and will act as a firm basis on which to revisit the themes of their

studies in the post-2008 environment. The paper builds on the previous research by critically

examining how the world has changed and adapted with regards to the recent Global

Financial Crisis (GFC). By changing the context of the previous studies, the researcher is

looking to examine a different timeframe and it is hoped that the researcher can really begin

to understand the employee’s perceptions of this changing environment and how the

employees are engaging with their work. The reliance on agency staff and temporary working

is also something which was acknowledged and how this may affect the organisation, with

Ward (2001) suggesting a further reliance on agency / temporary workers at the start of the

century.

Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009) has suggested that their previous research pointed out

that one of the key findings regarding the degradation of work related to the amount of work

required to achieve, post 2000, resulting in increased stress and accountability. Possibly

similar to the opinions of Braverman (1974) and Marx (1884) in relation to the changing

nature of work, in essence it could be understood that Hassard, McCann and Morris

(2009)sought to understand the likely important areas of how working life could be

developed. Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009) suggest that there was little evidence of any

likelihood for major organised resistance to an ‘over working’ culture. Moreover, McCann et

al (2010) recognised the ‘dirty secret’ that corporate down-sizing and de-layering, apparent in

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the modern corporation, does not in reality actually improve productivity and that this must

be understood so that pressures at work can be redressed.

Method

Access to the real ‘lived experience’ of the participants is certainly desirable, but the aim of

repeating themes derived from Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009) demonstrates that work

actually requires a degree of conceptual continuity. The researcher must assume that

concepts extracted from these earlier studies have the same ontic weight in 2014 as they did

in the pre-crisis milieu from where they originated. Bearing this in mind, there appears to be

a need for ontological compromise between a fully constructed reality that is innate to the

context of the current study’s participants, and the requirement that ideas taken from previous

research contexts should remain meaningful.

After collecting themes, pulling them out of the original text by Hassard, McCann and Morris

(2009), the researcher could then start to develop questions around the themes. At this time,

the researcher felt the questions could be developed further through the template analysis. The

initial themes chosen to use were adapted from the (Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009)

monograph and they comprised work intensification, communication, job security, career

management restructuring and GFC. These have then been enhanced by iterative steps in

which the interviews are reviewed and some new themes emerge.

Due to the influences which impact upon the actual nature of a repeat study, it was deemed

necessary to use a developing template to assist the evolution of a qualitative model of repeat

study to pre-empt and to evolve new themes. Symon and Cassell (2012) suggest that template

analysis is more flexible with fewer procedures, allowing the method to be tailored to a

particular project. In contrast, having a more controlled repeat study and using a non-supple

approach would have restricted the power of the present study because of its inability to

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establish the genuine, fluctuating perceptions of participants when viewing their

interpretations of their lived experiences. Symon and Cassell (2012) identify three main

deciding factors when choosing template analysis: a flexible coding structure, use of a priori

themes which lead to development of the initial template. Thus template analysis was

selected as it had been deemed the most suitable option for the research, owing to the

potential plasticity of the interview template between interview sessions.

The Guardian (2014) top 100 companies in the East Anglia region were contacted by letter to

enquire if they would be interested in participating in the proposed research. It was hoped that

from this initial introduction, a number of companies would be interested and willing to

participate. From this initial exercise, twelve leads were identified and relationships were

built. It was decided that three separate case study companies would be used, each offering an

initial insight, of which one has been used for the focus of this paper. It was presumed that the

characteristics of the population would require around 7-15 participants to be used in each

case, although it is impossible to predict the point at which data exhaustion will occur. Ten

participants were finally proposed by the individual case study companies and it was felt that

information would be collected regardless of exhaustion or not.

Access was an issue with this project. Shenton and Hayter (2004) suggest that one of the key

factors is gaining access and involves both securing entry to the organisations and then

ensuring that the participants, such as employees, can serve as informants. On this basis, ten

participants were selected so not to cause undue disturbance in the place of work. In the

extended data collection (only including one, within the current piece) each of the three case

studies there were at least 5-6 Employees, 3-4 Middle Managers and 1 CEO/Chairman upon

whom to test the final template. In total, thirty employees were interviewed with interview

duration being approximately 25-40 minutes, with ten interviews being used within this

current piece of work.

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Then the researcher, using semi-structured interviews from the themes which Hassard,

McCann and Morris (2009) established during their studies and employing template analysis

to interrogate the data set, will create questions developed around this initial template which

will be further extended. Within this paper, the researcher looks to analyse one of the

companies, with it being a manufacturing organisation.

Discussion

Themes originally identified by way of Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009)’sprior studies

were progressed into 10 semi-structured interviews. The researcher attempted to capture a

snapshot of the perceptions of workers, expressed as their co-construction of experienced

reality. The summaries reflect discourse collected from participants in 2014 to provide

insights which were gained from their expressed comments as part of semi-structured

interviews. The interviews provide only insights and a wider scale research project would be

required to confirm any of the suggestions presented within this empirical study. It attempts

to capture evidence of the changing nature of organisations towards their work processes in

the post-GFC period. Some excerpts from the interviews are used to demonstrate extractions

of the participants’ discourse on the themes identified:

Work Intensification EmployeesMy workload was exactly the same as before I went away and I have now actually been given additional duties.I’ve got to backtrack and start catching up again. So, I quite often feel as though I’m constantly trying to catch up with some things.The knock on effect has obviously been that some of the work that she used to do, I’ve had to pick up some bits and pieces.You just get on with it and suffer because you don’t want to lose your job.You know something happens, everything you planned goes then gets delayed and you’re finding you are apologising to people internally and externally.More pressure to make sure you meet those targets.I have to do that work up and above my other work.

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This confirmed the themes from the previous Hassard, McCann and Morris (2009) study, in

conjunction with the current research regarding the individual case company in East Anglia

and the current nature of the workplace. Having picked three areas upon which to focus, there

appears to be an increase of work intensification over all levels, but it is more pronounced

within the shop floor/factory level with employees stating ‘My workload was exactly the

same as before I went away and I have now actually been given additional duties’, ‘I’ve got to

backtrack and start catching up again’ and ‘I quite often feel as though I’m constantly trying

to catch up with some things’. With the statements from employees being supported by

Anderton & Beven (2014) there appears with minimal variety and autonomy in low skill jobs

and this can be regarded as a barrier to job enrichment, high job quality, high performance

and the further development of the engaged culture of work being required. It does appear

that employees have been worried about their jobs especially over the first part of the Global

Financial Crisis (GFC) with Anderton & Beven (2014) suggesting that employees in 2012

were concerned about at least one aspect of unfair treatment at work, from threats to job

quality through to dismissal. This also reflects problems of financialisation which has been

referred to on a number of occasions throughout the data collection with employees making

statements such as ‘I think it just really it focuses your attention on to making sure that we hit

every sale and that’s where the emphasis has gone and it’s the right thing to do, but it has

caused stress in the business, definitely’ and ‘This is not so much to the current climate, but

generally, there has been some reorganisation, budgetary constraints, meaning that this has to

have been new initiative ways of working’. Anderton & Beven (2014) suggest that financial

constraints and employer attitudes, on top of the requirement for maximum production, are

necessary to realize the short term survival of the organisation.

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Work Intensification Managers (varying levels) Sometimes because another department might be late with their parts for you then it kind of falls on you to catch up.I have to do that work up and above my other work.There’s a lot more expected from everybody and there’s a lot more pressure on every individual… if anyone’s on holiday then basically we do struggle very badly we just haven’t got the extra resource.I find I’m letting people down, not because I want to let them down because I can’t please everybody all the time. I say you feel because your juggling so many balls in the air at the same time, occasionally you know, you don’t catch one and it does hit the groundThey’re extracting more and more from you, but giving you less and less time to do it in, if that.More pressure to make sure to make sure you meet those targets.

The workforce at times also is feeling disengaged with their work especially when managers

state that ‘I find I’m letting people down, not because I want to let them down because I can’t

please everybody all the time’. This point was highlighted by Hassard, McCann and Morris

(2009), with the intensification of work experienced by middle managers and this appears to

be continuing theme. Employee engagement was identified as somewhat limited, owing to

increased work intensification and the greater emphasis on targets. The feeling of a target-

driven workplace and the increased focus on financialisation as the main process appears to

have prompted an employee to state ‘I have to do that work up and above my other work’

thus adding to the intensification of work and returning to Hassard, McCann and Morris

(2009) whose previous study showed how the work force was struggling to engage.

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Work Intensification Senior Management (President/ Head of HR)This is not so much to the current climate but generally, there has been some reorganisation, budgetary constraints meaning that this has to have been new initiative ways of working.Quite rightly efficiencies have been realised, in others there have been some… mistakes made where workers intensified and it’s had a negative spiral.At any given moment when they have too many plates spinning.Various areas there’s a higher expectation of individual performance now than there was in 2008, I think, and there’s certainly less free time.I certainly find more in Europe… the expectation nowadays is that very much immediate responses to most problems.I like to have a written record of any significant agreements and I find e-mail whilst you do miss the idle chit-chat. These days because you’ve got such a barrage of everyday stuff that needs to be handled by fewer and fewer people.

Senior management has also seen an increase in work intensification, but it appears that there

is an international perspective with regards to their intensification stating ‘I certainly find

more in Europe, the expectation nowadays is that very much immediate responses to most

problems’ with the globalized environment expecting things to be done immediately. There

are perceptions of global competition ranging from the existence cheaper labour rates which

can be sourced from other countries, adding to the current downsizing within those countries.

Senior managers also acknowledge that intensification has affected employees, ‘Quite rightly

efficiencies have been realised, in others there have been some mistakes made where workers

intensified and it’s had a negative spiral’, but how much do they fully understand the effect,

with others stating, ‘These days because you’ve got such a barrage of everyday stuff that

needs to be handled by fewer and fewer people’. If this is understood by senior management,

then continued cuts would only be in order to generate greater profits.

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Change EmployeesPartly my fault because I’ve come back part time.I was obviously very secure to start with. When I went off on maternity, I wasn’t so.Probably different departments have gone through slight restructures.Over the last couple of years we’ve now got three or four semi-senior heads of department.I hear grumbles because we hear grumbles… the factory is not in the state it used to be in tidiness-wise and cleanliness.They just picked other people and very quickly said you’ve got to leave as of now and paid them off.I think it was better years ago in what they were taking on probably they’ve still got over these last few years, a lot of people have gone or they get rid of them but they do get rid of some good people.It has got worse, yes. Just purely and simply in a way don’t really trust you.Too many chiefs and not enough Indians!

There were a number of themes which emerged from the participants, which was lack of

engagement and quality, which approximately half of the employees picked up on, a point

which did not seem to be acknowledged by the senior management. There were clear and

consistent indications towards the erosion of work practices through work intensification and

constant changes in management stating ‘over the last couple of years we’ve now got three or

four semi-senior heads of department and too many chiefs and not enough Indians!’. There

were few examples of positive effects perceived from the post GFC period. This could mean

that either the perceptions of the workforce have been manipulated by a management focused

on financialisation, resulting in increased demand upon the workforce, or that certain

managers are treating employees better than others. If increasing work intensification

continues through the post GFC era (Liff and Anderson, 2013) as a response to the demands

of the market place in the pursuit of profit, this could lead to the degradation of the workforce

(Cushen, 2013; Cushen and Thompson, 2012; Thompson, 2013) and their subsequent output

levels.

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Change Managers (varying levels)They took like three months to replace him and in the meantime, the management were trying to do it but not doing a very good job.You’re not getting the service you are expecting.You know, we’ve lost some suppliers along the way and personally, I haven’t lost many suppliers.If they did cut it anymore, then you know, I think we just push everyone who’s left over the edge to be honest with you.So the more they sell, the more they can justify bringing more people into manufacturing to back that up with the product.We were moved as a department over to one under a different director completely.We certainly use agencies for now the… well, we’ve used them for that four year period.Certainly something that has changed and they’ve all had their own theories, their own direction in they’ve taken us.I think it’s just really it focuses your attention on to making sure that we hit every sale and that’s where the emphasis has gone and it’s the right thing to do but it has caused stress in the business, definitely.

There were also a number of references to part-time workers in 2014, and it appeared that the

workplace was in a sense reliant upon agency workers to sustain the business and at times

kept agency workers for over two years, but also they were regarded as expendable and would

be the ‘first to go’. Ward, et al (2001) recorded as far back as 2001 that temporary work

accounted for an increasing amount of new employment within the UK’s labour market and

that temporary agencies represented a significant role for entry into organisations. There

appears to be an impairment of part-time workers which could perhaps further demonstrate

the destruction of any sustainable employment organisation emerging in the post-GFC period

(Buchanan et al, 2013). At the forefront of the economic downturn, the downsizing of the

workforce appears to be an accepted activity by its effect upon performance. It may leave the

organisation short-staffed and has been often undertaken despite recognition that policies for

pay reduction might better resolve financial constraints without affecting organisational

performance (Luan et al 2013). However, within the case company there was a round of pay

reductions at the very beginning of the GFC, but this did not appear to have continued

throughout the time period. On reflection, employee engagement had been affected with

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regard to the three themes mentioned and had been identified as being a negative influence on

the workplace during 2008-2014.

Change Senior Management (President/ Head of HR)It will undoubtedly damage morale, you know and it’s something that needs to be managed.I do certainly in areas where reorganisations have limited resources.Let’s not get away from it, that’s what it is, affecting people’s lives.As I say it damages morale. There’s no getting away from it and I think if anyone tries to say any different, then they’re not being completely honest.I would have to say that is the case. In many cases, the implementation of certain technologies has resulted in.I think the impact of the recession at the start was that there was less demand for goods and services. So, instead of focusing on perhaps some of the softer sides of HR, like we’ve already mentioned, the talent and the motivation.Fair to say that destabilising people generally causes stress. We tend not to overly restructure the company.Disrupting people’s comfort patterns is generally a beneficial thing.Its changed dramatically for us in that we would have literally have gone out looking for mid-career experience and now we literally don’t. So, I think that position is changing but certainly when the policy came in, we were looked at aghast by a lot of people thinking we were a bit nuts.

There have undoubtedly been areas of change over this period for senior management, but

their impression seems to be somewhat different to that of the employees. ‘Fair to say that

destabilising people generally causes stress. We tend not to overly restructure the company’,

but in terms of the employee perception there has been change, not only in restructuring, but

also in terms of the way the company hires employees and the target demographic for the

employees hired (university graduates) has led to some discontent. Also the point was made

that senior management felt it was a positive choice to take employees out of their comfort

zone, ‘Disrupting people’s comfort patterns is generally a beneficial thing’, which certainly

does not point to engaging the workforce. Waves of change are seen as beneficial by

management, with WERS (2013) proposing that ‘changes to the nature of work, such as the

reorganisation of tasks, increases in workload’. This, coupled with a change of policy in

hiring graduates, could be suggested to have gone some way to destabilising the workforce.

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Communication Employees

We all almost look a bit silly

Yes, we had to say whoops, sorry Carol hasn’t told us that. Sorry about that. So, definite lack of communication there.

If I had a problem I could go in there and see her. So there was never sort of an issue with that. It’s probably just lack of communication with something.

We don’t know what our new boss is doing or even where he is. He doesn’t say where he’s going or how long he is going.

WERS (2011) recognises that communication has improved over the recent years since 2004,

with suggestions that there has been a growth in the methods used for providing information.

During the aforementioned period of 2004 to 2011, a proportion of employees have felt

increasingly committed and in turn have felt an upturn in engagement. So as a knock-on

effect, it could be assumed that employees feel that their views are being interpreted into the

everyday decision-making process. However, this does not appear to be case, as within the

current context communication appears to be failing with comments such as, ‘We don’t know

what our new boss is doing or even where he is. He doesn’t say where he’s going or how long

he is going’. WERS (2011) also acknowledged that at this time over half of the participants

who took part in study were not satisfied with their level of involvement in the decision

making process within their place of employment and this has been supported by a worsening

perception of not being kept in the ‘loop’. There did appear to be a breakdown of

communication with regards to what senior management were achieving and communicating

it fully with suggestions such as, ‘we all almost look a bit silly and we had to say whoops,

sorry Carol hasn’t told us that. Sorry about that. So, definite lack of communication there’. So

this confirmed the presumption that communication was failing to keep employees informed

within the case study company.

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Communication Managers (varying levels)

The MD stands up and does a quick sort of an update of how we did this previous quarter.

There’s always e-mails flying around because we’re such a large organisation.

Communication is the best I’ve ever seen it.

Communication from the President of our company down to my managerial level and I communicate with my team on a daily basis.

There was a positive reaction to communication from the middle managers interviewed with

some stating that ‘communication is the best I’ve ever seen it’ and ‘communication from the

President of our company down to my managerial level and I communicate with my team on

a daily basis’. So, in essence, at the managerial level there appears to be a dearth of good

communication and that the middle managers appear to see that as a positive, but the question

has to be asked why in fact does this not appear to permeate down to the level of the

employees. Anderton & Beven (2014) propose that through empowerment and effective

communication of the organisational goals, employees can begin to identify their role and the

contribution they are able to make to the organisation, which can in turn lead to further

ownership, pride and an interest, which can promote further engagement within their work.

However, at the middle management level within the case study company communication,

did not appear to be a coherent theme as it was only mentioned with a positive paradigm.

Communication Senior Management (President/ Head of HR)I’ve yet to find any organisation where communication is perfect. Certainly you’re able to communicate all hours of the day which has its positives and negatives. Whereas if I wanted to send an e-mail, it could be picked up at any moment.Challenges in that you almost get too much of it. Disciplined approach to e-mail where people start to think does everybody need to be copied on a message. If I’m pitching something significant to my boss who’s going to commit the company to a lot of money, I want to look into his eyes.

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I want to take it forward and I have quarterly employee briefings where I share an awful lot of commercial information with the staff.

What was fascinating to note was the point that senior management acknowledge that ‘I’ve

yet to find any organisation where communication is perfect’ almost an admission of guilt

and a realisation that there is fault with regards to communication. The senior managers have

highlighted that it has become easier to communicate with improvements in technology and

they also mention that it is possible to have too much communication. With regard to the

intensification of communication, the use of email was highlighted as an issue ‘if I wanted to

send an e-mail, it could be picked up at any moment’ and that a disciplined approach to e-

mail was required where people start to consider whether everybody needs to be copied in on

a message and challenging the over-use of email. The interesting point is that employees feel

they could still be better communicated with in order to be made to feel more informed.

Anderton and Bevan (2014) suggest that the development of communication channels differ

between the various levels of staff and this could lead to a more highly engaged workforce.

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Conclusion

This paper stems from an empirical study of the post Global Financial Crisis period and has

sought to gain insights into the experiences of UK employees and to further their perceptions

of the changing workplace post-2008. When viewing the empirical insights into the post GFC

period, there is recognition of the limitations to the scalability of the study. Links between

the current UK labour market and the perceptions of the recession were observed in Ireland

by Teague and Roche (2013). Their interpretations in Ireland of work processes to stabilise

the economic climate appears to indicate there is a tendency towards work intensification,

which had also been observed by (Hassard, McCann and Morris, 2009).

The purposes for the research was to understand the various influences, which may have

impacted upon the case study company and changed their work practices, post-GFC. The

nature of this change has been insightful when reviewing individual perceptions, across the

workforce as a whole. There appears to be a need for further research into the employer’s

point of view through the GFC and to also understand the potentially ‘low road’ responses

which have been acknowledged. There does appear to be a disparity of what is experienced

on the employee level with that running through the company up to senior management.

Engagement appears to be hampered due to the flux of management and the lack being fully

informed due to a disconnection in communication. Finally there does appear to be a

mismatch between the experience of employees and what managers intend to convey and also

the perceptions of management seem to be somewhat ‘positively tinted’.

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Limitations

It has been recognised that there remains a gap in empirical material available to further

extend and support the experiences of employees within the UK, post 2008. There is criticism

for failing to pay attention to the employee. The results cannot be generalized and merely

aim to give an insight into the employee perspective of life in the workplace over 2008-2014.

Therefore, given these limitations, this paper recognizes the need for empirical studies and the

author has identified that future research needs to be carried out after this initial discussion.

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