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How Large Should a Passenger Unit Grow?

30th March 1951, Page 46
30th March 1951
Page 46
Page 46, 30th March 1951 — How Large Should a Passenger Unit Grow?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

The Importance of Preserving Personal Contact Between the Operating Manager and his Staff is Emphasized as Under takings Expand

AGUIDE to the maximum useful size to which a transport undertaking ought to be allowed to grow was given by Mr. A. F. R. Carling. M.A., M.Inst.T., general manager of Southdown Motor Services, Ltd., in an address to the Institute of Transport, in London, last week. He was speaking on "Management and the Size of the Operating Unit." It was sometimes said, Mr. Carling pointed out, that the growth and power of the trade unions had caused a loss of touch between management and workers. The individual did not, however, the less appreciate his manager's personal interest in him because he himself was a member of a powerful trade union, but if the manager took less personal interest in him than in his union officer that fact would not go unobserved.

Personal Contact As a rough working basis, Mr. Caning suggested that a transport officer holding a local command should be able to have a brief chat with each member of his supervisory staff at least once a fortnight, and should be able to recognize individually and occasionally talk to about 75 per cent. of the rank and file with 12 months or more service

"If the unit of management is too large for such personal contacts to be possible, then the unit is likely to be too large for all purposes," Mr Carling declared.

Later, he said that be was best acquainted with the system in which the work of the traffic, engineering, and secretarial and accountancy departmentswas controlled locally by area managers, each responsible for a fleet of 100-250 vehicles.

250-vehicle Limit

-• For effective control of inter-urban operations based on a group of garages, and to provide the flexibility necessary for coaching operations—service, excursions and private hire—I regard 250 vehicles and up to 1,000 personnel as the limit of what can fairly be expected of a manager who bears full responsibility for his staff and a large measure of responsibility for the local public relations of the undertaking," said Mr. Carling. "The most efficient number in such circumstances is probably under 200 vehicles. Entirely urban systems, such as those of the municipalities, without difficulties of distance, dispersal or variety of service, naturally lend themselves better to centralization; although in the largest cities some form of divisional control must be necessary if the staff are to be really able to feel the personal touch of the manager responsible for their operations."

Mr. Carling believed that the size of the operating unit and the scope a36 allowed to each manager might be decisive in the important task of maintaining and, if necessary, restoring the transport worker's natural zest for his work.

Describing modern trends in industrial relations, Mr. Carling said that "joint consultation" was the fashionable recipe for goodwill. It was new only in the form it took. The pioneer bus manager was in constant joint consultation with his men. The modern technique was merely a restatement of first principles, .but on account of the vastly increased size of the unit of management, two difficulties were created.

In the first place, joint consultation tended to be conducted not with the men directly affected by a contemplated change, but with representatives who were elected for a different purpose, such as to fill the office of union branch chairman or secretary. These delegates conceived their primary duty to be to bring pressure to bear on the management, and therefore might not be the best men to try to share responsibilities with it. Secondly, it tended to shortcircuit intermediate links in the normal chain of authority.

By-passed "It is a bad thing," said Mr. Carling, " if the foreman can feel that certain of his subordinates are in closer touch with his superior officers than he is himself It would be worse still if both the foreman and his superior officer could feel, on a practical operating matter, that joint consultation was effective only between the highest and lowest, and passed them by."

The larger the undertaking, the greater was the temptation to make short circuits in consultation. Where uniformity was aimed at, all decisions tended to become decisions of principle, and therefore required to be made at many levels higher than the one which they would most directly concern. This might have an even worse result than slowness of decision and inadequate intermediate consultation. It could reduce the local manager to the status of a post-office.

However energetic or able a man might be, he could not lead effectively unless he bore responsibility and was allowed to exercise his own judgment. Every question affecting his men which he needed to submit to higher authority reduced the chance of his commanding their respect. Every time he was allowed to answer on his own responsibility, there was a potential increase in his future usefulness as a leader.

"It will be objected, with justice, that wide devolution of authority risks wrong decisions and ensures conflicting ones," Mr. Carling observed. "But in a large organization, the perfect answer may be very difficult to find at the centre;

the organization may even be so large that it does not exist. On the other hand, men respect a man who bears a burden of personal responsibility, and will accept from him a less than perfect answer, provided he is fair and sincere. No one respects a committee in that way; a committee cannot be completely sincere; its motives are almost certain to be mixed."

Whatever the virtues of personal responsibility and decentralization, the manager who frequently made mistakes must be removed. The case, however, of the manager who gave decisions different from those of his opposite number in another area, raised a different matter. Neither need necessarily be wrong, for the situations they dealt with were never precisely the same.

Is Uniformity Essential ?

"Is the semblance of uniformity so very essential? " Mr. Carling asked. "If it can only be'obtained at the cost of stamping out individuality of method and differences of self-expression in the management at lower levels, is it worth while?

"If public transport is to prosper, it must attract to it men of vigorous personality who are willing to take the initiative and are capable of command. Without them, the rank and file will lack the form of leadership they best understand and are readiest to follow."

Examining the qualifications of the ideal operating manager, Mr. Carling suggested that as a basis he must have a thorough knowledge of his particular branch of transport, which should be acquired only by training and experience. Moreover, he must have enthusiasm and common sense, and an interest in people.

Freedom and Reward

The operating manager should have as much freedom as possible in the exercise of his command, and, theoretically,. 'should, like the proprietormanager of the pioneer days, have the prospect of ample reward if he were specially successful. In these levelling times, it might not be easy to achieve this object. Differentials both of•salary and privilege might become so narrowed that it was impossible, adequately, to mark differences of responsibility and effort.

Nevertheless, remembering the continuous nature of the manager's responsibility, he should be rewarded as well as possible, making up in other ways for the financial advantage which.could no longer consistently be his. Travel privileges could be of assistance, and were often appreciated at well above their intrinsic value. They constituted a badge of rank, and suitably acknowledged the fact that the true operating manager could never be completely offduty.

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People: Caning, R. Carling
Locations: London

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