Jobs for the blue-eyed boys?

NO one would enjoy going to work every day knowing any moment you could be told you're out of a job. Even worse, if you are in direct competition with your colleagues to keep that job.

It may be a way of keeping staff on their toes - but it's hardly the best way to ensure good morale at work.

But, this is the situation middle managers with Network Rail find themselves in.

Nationwide, up to 700 Network Rail middle managers and clerical staff are to be made redundant by December 12 - possibly as many as 50 of them in York.

That's bad enough. But it's the way the axe is to be wielded that is causing most resentment.

No voluntary redundancies were requested. Instead, the company is assessing managers' performance according to a complex points-scoring system - and those who are identified as performing least well will be out. It's like a cruel form of performance-related pay - except your job is at stake.

Understandably, many middle managers are demoralised - especially because the 700 redundancies this year could be followed by up to 1,300 more in future.

Staff could be looking over their shoulders, worried about their jobs, for months. "It is leading to uncertainty, instability and fear," one senior manager who works in York said. "We have got to keep running a safe railway and this is not the atmosphere to encourage that."

Understandable that those whose jobs are at risk should feel that way.

But is what Network Rail is doing really so wrong? If 700 jobs do have to go - and the manager says most staff agree the company has to be trimmed to make it cost effective and put it back on its feet - isn't the company just being sensible if it wants to keep the best staff and get rid of the worst?

That, certainly, is the line Network Rail is taking. "We are committed to delivering engineering excellence within the rail industry," a spokesman said. "We are striving to improve and it is important we retain the staff that will help us deliver that."

Others, however, see it differently. Network Rail remains coy about the selection process being used to sort out who should stay and who should go - but insiders say it involves a number of criteria including employees' attitude, behaviour, sickness and attendance records, competency and skill.

Sickness and attendance records may be easy enough to assess - but several of the other criteria are notoriously subjective, leading to fears of favouritism.

The weeding out will be carried out by directors, in consultation with senior managers who will grade their staff. Staff fear this could lead to a "blue-eyed boy" situation, where people keep their jobs just because they are friendly with their manager, regardless of their skills and suitability.

That's not all. John Munday, negotiations officer with the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association - which is pressing for voluntary redundancies instead - points out Network Rail already operates a performance-related pay scheme which ensures there are no under-performing managers.

There will always be some people who perform better than others: but you can't run a company on the basis of firing staff who do a perfectly good job just because you find someone who can do it even better, he says.

More worrying, however, is the effect low morale and constant worry could have on managers' performance, he says.

And the fact that, by arbitrarily weeding out managers who are held to be performing less well, whole areas of Network Rail's operations could suddenly find themselves managerless, or led by replacement managers rushed in who are not fully trained for their new jobs. Those are both serious concerns, says Mr Munday, because they could have direct consequences for passenger safety.

It is easy to dismiss middle managers as bureaucratic pen-pushers. But the people who could lose their jobs are real people who have a real impact on what Network Rail does.

They are involved in running things such as track and signalling maintenance, renewal programmes, and railway safety.

What if, for example, several managers in a department responsible for checking rail maintenance suddenly found themselves out of a job? asks Mr Munday.

How confident could passengers be in the safety of the railways if the managers brought in to replace them were not completely familiar with the work?

What will be the effect on those managers who do remain after this first cull, worrying if they may be next?

"Staff will be continually looking over their shoulders to see what's going to happen to them," says Mr Munday. "It will destroy morale, and that will affect job performance as well."

Not so, insists Network Rail. Once the company has settled down and the uncertainty is over, performance will improve - and staff morale along with it.

"Nobody wants to work for a poorly performing company," the spokesman said. "If our objectives are hit, staff morale and job satisfaction will increase."

Updated: 10:28 Thursday, October 16, 2003