The need to pay proper attention to employee voice is an issue of growing importance, according to a new CIPD-sponsored survey. Adrienne Margolis visits a whisky distiller where the views of the workforce are expressed through the firm's innovative trade union partnership, while Mike Emmott (see below) sums up the research findings
13 Sep 2001
The management of change is too important to be left to management alone. So says Harry Donaldson, the senior union official representing GMB members at Glasgow-based whisky distiller John Dewar & Sons. And the company's director of HR, Paul Mosson, doesn't contradict him.
In fact, the two agree on most business issues. They share ideas, management books and even strategic decision-making. Between them, they have redesigned the firm's industrial relations strategy from scratch, following the Bacardi group's acquisition of the Dewar's brand from United Distillers two years ago. The new owner invested £8 million in plant and technology in Glasgow's east end, opening a bottling factory for William Lawson Distillers the small company it already owned and for Dewar's.
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