University "Divestors in People" Awards

international | worker & community struggles and protests | press release

Wednesday June 06, 2007 22:39

by A Bullied Academic

Imperial College, Wolverhampton and UCC

‘Divestors of People’© is a standard awarded to Higher Education institutions that excel in mismanaging, bullying, and harassing their staff.

The first three recipient institutions are Imperial College of Science and Technology London, the University of Wolverhampton and University College Cork Ireland.

Nominations remain open for the Hall of Shame.

‘Divestors of People’© is a standard awarded to Higher Education institutions that excel in mismanaging, bullying, and harassing their staff.

The criteria are:

1. Lack of strategy to improve the under-performance of the institution. This does not exist, is not clearly defined, or is not communicated to staff.

2. There is lack of coherent investment in staff development.

3. Whatever strategies exist to manage staff, these are implemented to promote cronyism, incompetence, favoritism, or inequality, and to disguise management failures

4. The capabilities managers need to learn and manage staff are not defined. Managers received little or no training to improve their communication, behaviour and people skills.

5. Managers are ineffective in leading, managing, and developing staff. High levels of over-management or under-management.

6. Staff are not encouraged to take ownership and responsibility through involvement in decision-making. There is no accountability and transparency in the decision making process.

7. Staff are demorilised, de-skilled or demoted. The working environment is toxic.

8. Lack of improvements in managing people is chronic.

9. The working environment shows high levels of work-related stress.

10. Internal grievance procedures are used selectively by managers - against staff. Some managers are untouchable despite their failures.

11. Staff report high levels of bullying and harassment by managers. Fear prevails among the silent majority.

12. The governing body is detached from the staff and is in the same bed with the management. Governors show no visible interest in the affairs of the staff.

Nominations are open to all staff in all universities. Institutions qualify for the ‘Divestors of People’© award if they meet at least 50% of the above criteria and this can be verified by at least two different staff members from the same organisation. Nominators can remain anonymous.

http://bulliedacademics.blogspot.com/2007/06/divestors-....html
http://bulliedacademics.blogspot.com/2007/06/divestors-....html

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Comments (3 of 3)

Thank you

by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon - bulliedacademics.blogspot.com

Thu Jun 07, 2007 00:41

We appreciate your help in promoting this award.

UCC's "achievements" under the new president

by Stuart

Thu Jun 07, 2007 18:51

Burying and perhaps building upon the management culture that places UCC right at the top as one of the most litigious universities in the Irish university Litigation League http://www.iol.ie/~stuartneilson/bullying/bullying_iesc...c.htm -

Appointed - Dermot Gleeson, a former director of Independent News and Media, publisher of the Irish Independent, 28 March 2007.
http://www.ucc.ie/en/NewsandEvents/PressReleasesArchive....html

Honoured -Ted Crosbie, director of Thomas Crosbie Holdings Limited and publisher of the Irish Examiner, 25 May 2007.
http://www.ucc.ie/en/NewsandEvents/PressReleases/Headli....html

Vanished - the Malone Report (Irish Examiner, 03/02/2007 "Report highlights ‘mistrust and animosity’ at UCC") http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2007/02/03/story24...3.asp

Accused Again - Joe Gantly, UCC Governor, member of UCC Audit Committee, staff member, private venture partner, shareholding beneficiary and chair of the Restructuring Steering Committee is accused of corporate governance issues in the High Court, Naujoks v National Institution of Bioprocessing Research and Training Limited: "In September of this year certain issues arose between the plaintiff, as CEO of the defendant, and the head of a research team employed by the defendant. It is the plaintiff’s case that these issues arose out of his commitment to ensure compliance with the best standards of corporate governance. The defendant attributes these issues to the plaintiff’s management style, which, it has been asserted, created difficulties in the workplace to the extent that the plaintiff ultimately lost the confidence of the Board of the defendant [Chair Joe Gantly]. It is not necessary, for the purposes of determining this application, to make any determination as to what has given rise to those issues, but they are the context for what happened on 12th October, 2006 and subsequently." http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2006/H358.html

Blocked - http://bb.ucc.ie/viewtopic.php?t=9114 - Professor Clarke's "corruption" allegations discussion on the UCC Forum - *FUCC: University Matters: Professor Clarke in the Examiner today.... - We're sorry, access to http://bb.ucc.ie/viewtopic.php?t=9114 has been blocked by the site owner but is still available.

Deleted - http://www.ucc.ie/eap/EAPSurvey.htm but is still available http://web.archive.org/web/20030909073942/http://www.uc...y.htm here. Working environment ( 22 respondents - 10% of all comments made): "Internal politics of UCC will always supersede staff concerns and staff difficulties", "We're not really part of mainstream UCC. Most of us feel isolated - very little support system", "Exploitation by UCC of its temporary staff. What can be done to reduce it?", "UCC has serious problems re: looking after staff welfare, and there is a problem that jobs, benefits/promotion is at stake if problems are raised again and again", "Concerns about job security after lodging complaint about workplace bullying and intimidating", "It does not deal with the type of bullying institutionalised in universities", "I have a very stressful work environment. The leadership culture in this organisation is a bullying culture. There's no transparency for accountability for leaders and I am considering giving up work as a result", "There is a problem with bullying in our office and I do not think that the current structures in UCC could deal with it effectively. I don't think the EAP is probably the best place to deal with these concerns, but it might help to let off steam. The problem is that the management at the top are bullies - it trickles down the management line so while we have excellent policies re bullying, harassment management they are (or I perceive them to be) not much use", "There is a culture of bullying & harassment in UCC - lot of tolerance of this behaviour", "Most of my work-related problems relate to the inadequate support structure provided by the College", Mistrust College systems for addressing these issues believe (rightly or wrongly) they would be weighed in favour of management", "I believe there are other cultural/morale problems in the University which need to be improved rather than a support service to deal with the problems", "The culture and operational mode of UCC is alien to EAP. Policy on paper is fine; reality totally different. UCC makes people sick - including HR modus operandi", "I do not have a strong opinion on EAP but would like to see it as a substitute for a HR Dept which is sensitive to working conditions of employees and which on a daily basis Fights for practical solution".

Deleted - http://www.ucc.ie/eap/AnnualReport.htm University College Cork 2001/02 Annual EAP Report (Revised) (1st October 2001 – 30th September 2002) is still available http://web.archive.org/web/20030517163841/http://www.uc...t.htm here (UCC shows sharp differences from other clients of Dovedale Counselling).

Deleted - Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) Service Evaluation, but is still available http://web.archive.org/web/20030509041326/http://www.uc...l.htm here.

Discontinued - Publication of the http://www.ucc.ie/en/SIN/UCCSU/GoverningBodyReports/ - Governing Body minutes lasted for just three meetings (12/12/06, 06/02/07 and 27/02/07).

Inaccessible - the meeting of http://www.ucc.ie/en/SIN/UCCSU/GoverningBodyReports/Gov...0207/ - 7 February 2007 says 3. Code of Governance. The 'Code of Governance for Irish Universities' issued in January 2007 by the HEA was adopted and it was agreed that the University should aim to enhance the standards set by the Code. The full text of the Governance Code is available at the following http://secretary.ucc.ie/governingbody/Reports/Reports20...s.doc LINK and following the link from outside campus leads to You are not authorized to view this page - You do not have permission to view this directory or page from the Internet address of your Web browser.

Discontinued - http://www.ucc.ie/en/NewsandEvents/PressComment/ - Press and Comment from the UCC Public Affairs Office has not been updated since 31 Aug 2004 - but http://www.geocities.com/stuartdneilson/UCC_Reference.htm makes up for it.

Abolished - http://www.ucc.ie/en/SIN/Communications/UCCExpress/Expr...0307/ the UCC Express student newspaper, abolished on 27 March 2007.

Replaced - Head of the German Department Prof Howard, by former litigant Dr ScheweUCC (http://www.ucc.ie/en/DepartmentsCentresandUnits/Departm...rman/ UCC German Department Staff).

Threatened - I was threatened by UCC "Chief Legal Officer" Robin Graham with unspecified legal action.

Suddenly Departed - Chief Legal Officer Robin Graham - "7. Senior Management vacancies: It was noted that the Secretary/Chief Legal Officer will leave his post on 9 March 2007 , and that the President will bring forward proposals to the next meeting of the Governing Body for the filling of the position." (6/2/2007).

Warned #1 - UCC critics have been requested to remove web content by ReputationDefenderInc - "we'll carry out our proprietary DESTROY process!"

Warned #2 - other web site owners who have quoted or commented on content here have been falsely informed that all matters discussed here are "settled".

Divestors of People

Thu Jun 07, 2007 22:38

OK, the above confirms that this particular organisation is a serial offender - the award is well-deserved.

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Comments (3 of 3)