GMB union officials yesterday accused iconic UK retailer
Marks & Spencer of using staff surveys to hunt down
dissenters.
The GMB's legal officer Maria Ludkin said a twice-a-year company
survey of staff opinion was meant to be anonymous, but could only
be filled in online. This meant that each questionnaire could be
tracked back to the individual employee who filled it in.
Tony Goode, the customer relationship database manager
sacked by M&S last week for blowing the whistle on the
retailer's plans to cap redundancy payments, said that in some
cases where a staff member had criticised management, senior
managers had drilled down to identify the source.
Goode was in discussions with The Times newspaper over leaking
results of the staff survey to support his concerns about staff
morale in M&S.
He wrote that he was "struggling to get the survey figures as
they have been removed from our company intranet site. The highest
figure, related to bullying and discrimination being tolerated in
the workplace, was 41% and covered our marketing and customer
insight area."
An M&S spokeswoman said she had been assured by M&S's HR
director that staff surveys were anonymous. Online responses were
used for speed and efficiency in surveying 60,000 people, she said.
Replies were recorded over time to establish trends in departments
so that managers could, and did, act on them, she said.
She said the survey results were available on the internet.
"They were never taken down," she said, adding that the company
"did not recognise the statement relating to the 41% ."
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