NEC is going for excellence
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EMPLOYEES are not greedy when demanding their share of additional profits. That is the experience of the National Freight Consortium, according to its personnel director, Bryan Wilson.
Speaking this week at a conference in Northampton, Mr Wilson said that NFC had found employees made moderate demands, provided the financial facts were placed before them. He said that there is an acceptance that capital must be serviced and shareholders rewarded. Still, less than 50 per cent of NFC employees have taken shares in the company.
Mr Wilson said negotiations based on both basic salary and incentive schemes had taken much of the acrimony out of the discussions.
He was referring particularly to driver's wage negotiations. In 1983, NFC tried to negotiate salary status for drivers but they were unsuccessful. "We will try again," he said.
In the interim, many NFC companies and branches had replaced bonus payments with incentive payments at the request of the drivers. This has encouraged NFC to believe that salary status may soon be acceptable.
NFC's optimism is based on experience. For four years, managers have enjoyed incentive schemes. Administative staff have operated the system for two years.
However, Mr Wilson believes that this is only stage one. "We are conscious that incentive is not enough. We need even more involvement and committment from our Workforce if we are to meet the market demands of the next twenty years," he said.
Stage two of NFC's plan is to take on quality targets. "We must aim for excellence."
All staff including drivers, who would be on salary status, would be rewarded on the attainment of both quality of service and profit percentages. "The awareness of profit must be total," he said.
Mr Wilson said that while profit could be measured, awareness of quality and excellence was not so evident. This demanded an examination of what satisfied the customer.
By involving staff at all levels in the incentive scheme, NFC believes management and drivers will no longer be adversaries at the negotiating table. It believes that the scheme is self motivating.