Blair Mcpherson
Blair McPherson is a former director of community services at Lancashire Council where he was responsible for care services and equality and diversity. He also writes management books. Blair has been one of the most active experts on our panel during the past year and can answer a wide variety of questions. His specialism, however, is management.
Recent activity
Blog Posts (2)
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Has equality gone as far as it can? Clearly not.
Equality for women in the workplace has gone as far as it can go says Catherine Hakim a sociologist at the London School of Economics, but this doesn’t fit with the evidence on equal pay produced by the Human Rights Commission, says Blair McPherson.
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What this means for choice, independence and dignity
Service cuts, changes in housing benefit, reduced funding for Supporting People and new rules for disability benefits disproportionally affect social housing tenants and combine to reduce choice, threaten independence and undermine people’s dignity.
Blair Mcpherson contributes to:
Comments (6)
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Comment on: Anchor names new chief executive
So the woman who knows where the bodies are buried becomes the woman in charge.
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Comment on: Early exit for NLH chief exec
Bullying is in the news. It would appear to be a lot more prevalent than most people assum. Yet there has been very little advice on how to survive a bully .Here are my tips as a survivor.
The formal processes are not really designed for tackling a senior manger. So this is how to survive whilst finding another job.
Avoid the bully. It’s amazing how much of your job you can do without seeing your manager or talking about work. Keep them off work topics by talking about whatever they are interested in whenever possible. Don’t take your holidays at the same time this way you can spend the best part of summer without seeing them. Six weeks annual leave is twelve weeks you don’t have to meet. One to ones can be stressful so seize the initiative fill the agenda with information about what’s happening in your section/service. Fill the time and don’t leave space for the introduction of contentious areas or opportunities to criticise you or your work. Offer to turn the notes you made in preparation for the meeting into a record of the meeting. That way you control the record of the meeting reducing the chances that they will be used to further undermine you. Never re-arrange a meeting they have cancelled and make sure your diary has no gaps when they are free.
Resisting new and unreasonable demands can be difficult since you are clearly not allowed to say no or point out you already have too much to do. One perfectly reasonable strategy is to say that you are happy to take on new pieces of work but as you are fully stretched with existing work what would they advise are the priorities. You then run through all your existing pieces of work just to remind them. I once did this and my manager stormed out of his own office. I’m not sure whether this is a good recommendation for this course of action but at the time it felt like a small victory of sorts.
I survived the last six months by changing his diary when his PA was out to lunch. All meetings were entered in pencil because if someone more senior wanted his attendance this took priority. He was forever cancelling his meetings and rearranging his diary. I just rubbed out the meetings. The space would be quickly filled. I didn’t complain about the lack of opportunities to meet and he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Not a long term strategy but sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to get you through the next few weeks.
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Comment on: Commencing countdown
I view the changes as placing greater responsibilities on boards to be more actively involved in how their Housing organisation is run. As such I anticipate increased tension between the board and the senior management team. As the board flexes new muscles we may see some power struggles between Chairs and Chief Executives. This is not uncommon in the NHS or LA's and there has been recently a high profile casualty in one of the largest HA's
Blair -
Comment on: Are they worth it?
The news that the Chief Exec of a Housing Association is drawing an annual salary plus bonuses of £400k is shocking but not surprising. Shocking because this is a " not for profit" organisation whose purpose is to provide care and social housing. Not surprising because many Housing Associations have enthusiastically embraced commercial values under the banner of being more businesslike. In fact they behave as if they were commercial companies believing that their Chief Exec and senior managers are motivated by money and that bonuses and big annual pay rises are necessary to stop them taking their talents elsewhere.
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Comment on: Elbows at the ready
And then after you get the job what training and management development will you need to keep your career on an upward trajectory?
Traditional management development is expensive and few organisation can justify spending a lot of money of a very few managers. The MBA may look good on the CV but it is not the most effective way of growing the type of manager specific to your organisation needs.
What organisations increasingly need is a cost effective way of developing the leadership skills of large numbers of managers in a way that moulds them in to the type of manager best suited to the organisations' needs. Preferably without taking them away from their day jobs. Ideally through an approach that allows them to dip in and out when time and opportunity permits. Such an approach focuses on a management development programme based on executive coaching, management learning sets, mentoring and posting discussion material on the intranet. The aim is to give managers insight into how their behaviour affects others and to provide opportunities to share and reflect on their experience.
Be realistic if you want to get ahead don't push to be sent on an MBA instead ask about mentoring and explore the value of learning sets.
Blair Mcpherson
Discussions (6)
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signing tenancy agreements 2
Q: I am a housing support worker and one of my service users is a recovering alcoholic. She cannot remember signing her tenancy agreement when she moved into her home seven years ago. The housing
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When is a Housing Association not a HA?
In today's Guardian the acting chief executive of Anchor Trust is described as heading up a "social charity". I know they do more than provide social housing but housing and support is their business
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Are managers in the Public Sector really that bad!
Two reports published this week claim that public sector managers are ill equipped to respond to the challenges ahead as budgets are cut.
A report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Devel -
Who is running the show?
The Governance arrangements for social housing are about to see a radical change. From April the housing regulators the Tenants Service Authority (TSA) expect Housing Authority boards to take much mo
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Managers who don't really want to be managers
According to the charted management institute (CMI) 60% of managers fell into their job. The survey also reports that 40% of managers didn't want the responsibility. Do these figures sound about rig
Posts (49)
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Posted in: Surveying Elderly and people with Learning Disabilities
Best practice is don't ask too much, don't ask too often, don't get too defensive but most of all tell people what has changed as a result of their feedback. Any system of getting feedback needs to be supplemented so an annual survey needs to be supplemented by a more indepth approach to explore some of the issues coming out of the mass survey for example a focus group.
The biggest challenge is always to get people to participate in a survey. A 40% response rate is considered reasonable to questionnaires but can't really give you confidence that you're getting a comprehensive picture. Like wise focus groups are notoriously difficult to ensure they are representative and not just the usual suspects. People with a learning disability are going to respond better to face to face contact rather than forms and older people may not be keen on attending meetings but may be willing to give their views over the phone. A good example of how to get the views of a significant number of elder residents is the approach used by a large national HA. They set up a reference group call the 500. A cross section of residents were approached individually by managers and asked if they would be prepared to give their views this could be by filling out a questionnaire, being part of a focus group or just being willing to talk to someone on the phone.
The point being they chose what method, they had a certain status as one of the 500 and people appreciated the personal invitation. Clearly there was a lot of work involved in recruiting and maintaining the group but the quality of feedback gave the approach a great deal of credibility with senior management and the board.
If you or other readers would like to know more email Brenda Judge brenda.judge5@btinternet.com
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Posted in: FAO Housing and or Policy Officers
Whilst this is not a new problem it is certainly getting harder for young people to get jobs in housing when they have no experience. I don't think the answer is to offer to work for nothing this just comes over as desperate and good employers would not consider it appropriate.
You can off course do voluntary work in a housing related environment to get some experience. Working as a volunteer with a homeless charity would help you gain skills in working with some of the more challenging clients that housing officers work with and give you a reality grounding as a future policy officer. It would certainly make a future job application stronger and give you material to draw upon in a job interview. One more thing don't just look at housing probation and social services are frequently looking for volunteers.
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Posted in: Recent court ruling how does it affect staff homeless hostel
The part of this question that drew my attention was the statement that the management committee had not provided a written statement of policy and guidance for staff. This is unacceptable because it leaves staff feeling vulnerable. Will they get into trouble if they search some ones room for alcohol and drugs or will they get into trouble for ignoring alcohol and drugs on the premises?
Saying the manager said it would be OK is not a robust defence especially if the manager then turns round and says you misunderstood what I said. The management committee need to produce a written policy statement and guidance. If they are not clear what this should be then they need to take legal advice.
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Posted in: council make rent amount mistake on tenancy agreement
If you have a tenancy that states what the rent is then that is a contract and that is what you would expect to pay. There will of course by a provision for recalculating or revising the rent so your landlord may do this in the future but they can not reasonably backdate a rent increase as in the circumstances you describe.
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Posted in: Advice on Board Membership
If a member of staff can be a tenant and a tenant can be on the board then a member of staff who is a tenant can apply to be on the board. Provided that the boards constitution does not explicitly state otherwise.