‘Less management and more responsibility for the workers’, will be the message Dr Paul Thomas, Glamorgan Business School, will have for employers as part of a new programme for BBC One Wales.
‘Ban The Boss’ will be shown for the first time on Wednesday 17th March (9pm) and follows Paul as he gets the chance to put his theories into practice in the public sector as Council bosses sign up for what could be a sobering period of change for both workers and managers.
Like local authorities across the UK, Blaenau Gwent Council is under pressure to save money but improve services. As with other institutions, some practices have been set in stone with things done the same way over many years, just because it’s the way it’s always been.
Dr Thomas thinks it’s time for a revolution in management thinking – in short; he wants to remove managers and allow workers to take that responsibility for themselves.
In the programme, Paul’s mission is to get the Council’s refuse workers, and the recycling and transport teams, to buy in to his vision – to see them making decisions themselves. In a bid to prove to them they can do it he removes the managers for a period of time, handing responsibility for the day job over to those on the front line.
The transport workers are the keenest to change, and embrace the idea with enthusiasm, while the recyclers, although lagging a little behind, start to see the benefits when they realise they can spread their recycling message into schools and among the public.
Dr Thomas commented, “Working on this programme has been a fantastic opportunity to put my organisational theories into practise and to raise the profile of my work and that of the Glamorgan Business School.”
