Less autonomy and a growing discontent with management

4.4.5 Less autonomy and a growing discontent with

been appointed (interview with Maria, October, 2003). Hence, the ethics of the 3AG was questioned, as were their managerial skills.

Annoyance with the lack of feedback on reports from merger preparations continued. For quite some time, there were employees who still hoped to have this feedback and perhaps some kind of reward.

Instead, there were individuals from these projects who were made redundant, or who were simply put aside, not having been assigned to a position with RiR. The 3AG had sent out a general thanks to all project leaders for their work, one of them (Maria, 8 October, 2003) explained:

…but we have not had any feedback founded on facts, and I find that strange, considering the effort that was invested, both in quantitative terms and in qualitative terms. I do not think that the 3AG realize that this is having a wearing effect on the organization.

Anger and disappointment with the 3AG in the general matters of managerial appointments and dismissals remained. Not least, this concerned Linda, who had taken on an important role and a big work load in a project under the 3AG in the spring of 2003. This did not only cause grievance with her, but also among other auditors among personnel, who became angry with the 3AG on her behalf. She had spread information to both RRV and PA. Discontent with the 3AG increased as the authority was exposed to negative media attention.

Many of the actions of the 3AG, like these dismissals, were considered unjust. The greatest injustice made by the 3AG, as perceived by personnel, appeared to be the limited influence that they had given the former PA organization. Most employees agreed that RRV had had far more influence in the merger process than PA. This did not only annoy former PA employees, but also many former RRV employees, who believed that PA had not been treated in a just way. They referred especially to the fact that no manager had been recruited from PA, but several from RRV. Many of the interviewed auditors described how they experienced that they had been insulted by the 3AG on a personal level too, sometimes just based on the way that they had been treated or spoken to at meetings.

Salaries was an important issue during this period. Due to time pressure, salaries were settled without much discussion or consistency,

causing loud objections from auditors. After some time, they were adjusted further, but the structure was not perceived as just, and the Equal Opportunities Authority (Swedish: Jämställdhetsombuds-mannen) was involved, due to unsatisfactory wage mapping (see section 4.5.4). The office issue also continued. There were problems reported by employees both in individual offices and in landscapes, and personnel continued to question how the NAC – or the 3AG, as they said (Luke being the chairman of the NAC, already in the autumn of 2002, when this choice was made) – could have made such a poor choice of office building.

Most of those interviewed described the first year with the new authority as very wearing, or chaotic. The personnel manager, Olivia, was one of these: “One is a bit tired after this year. It has been an incredibly tough year. And a very exhausting year.” (interview, 30 September, 2004)

At the Financial Department, PA employees explained that they were being subjected to mobbing, and the relationship with this department manager was strained. She had previously been the head of the Financial Department at RRV, and there had been controversies between her and Linda, the Administrative Manager at PA, already during merger preparations. After book-keeping issues had been highlighted in the media April 2004, problems at this department increased, and a new (temporary) Financial Director was appointed in May, 2004.⁴⁸ The former department manager was later moved to a non-managerial role in another administrative department.

Partly following policies hindering them from contacting the 3AG, personnel hesitated to contact them also to express concern or to object to decisions. The growing resistance against the 3AG was directed primarily to department managers, union representatives, and colleagues.

Despite of this, when asking managers, they claimed that there were no major issues in the organization. Sophie explained (20 November, 2003) that “Generally, things have worked well. We have succeeded with the overall assignment.”

48Protocol from board meeting, SACO-S/RiR, 14 May, 2004

She referred to the lack of time in merger preparations, and repeated that “given these conditions”, things have gone well. Luke (20 November, 2003) argued the same way, and said that there had to be a running-in period (Swedish: inkörningsperiod) for the authority, before everything was in place. Asking a department manager how things went at RiR, almost five months later (7 April, 2004), she replied: “I think things are going terrifically. In general things are going terrifically.”

When pressured on this matter, with reference to employees saying the opposite, this manager waves issues aside, saying it is beginner problems, they are natural “and can be handled”, it is nothing big - “It is a new organization, what do they expect?”.

Unions had informed the 3AG that there was a growing discontent among performance auditors, but they meant that it was hard to make the 3AG listen. An Auditor-General (Luke, 20 November, 2003) argued that it was difficult to tell if unions truly represented all of personnel or only certain groups of individuals;

I see participation in two ways, because it is not just unions that you negotiate with, but personnel have to participate. [...] If I have my negotiations with union organizations, I need to know for sure that they represent personnel, and that they do not only represent their own interests and opinions.

Asking Luke if he thought the unions did represent personnel, he answered that he did not know, and that he did not dare to answer that question. He emphasized that young and old people, for example, may have different opinions, and that the opinion of the younger employees perhaps is not reflected much in the unions. Therefore it is important to discuss things at each department.

A number of SWOT-analyses, showing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, were conducted in the spring of 2004. All personnel participated. When results from these analyses were presented, it became clear to the 3AG that discontent was widespread and focused largely upon their leadership, many auditors and managers

explained. In a summary of all SWOTs⁴⁹, weaknesses were described this way:

Departments mostly have opinions on different aspects of management and leadership. Opinions concern both the top management of the authority (3AG) and the managerial level beneath this. […]

Furthermore, it is argued that the competence of personnel is not fully used. Personnel do not experience that they can participate and they do not experience that decisions are anchored in a suitable way in the organization. It is considered a weakness that operations are run in a hierarchical way and that they are considered to be managed top-down.

A manager described how the 3AG had reasoned in their discussions, as results were presented, explaining that they had argued that a limited number of discontented employees had probably influenced these results too much. Unions and the 3AG agreed that an extensive employee survey should be conducted. In May 2004, an employee attitude survey was conducted, by the Swedish Statistical Bureau (SCB). This is one of the largest statistical bureaus in Sweden. Results were presented on 7 September, 2003 (see section 4.5.1).

4.5 Year 2: Recognizing resistance and taking