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Senior Tory Mark Clarke was expelled from the party after allegations of bullying which resulted in the tragic suicide of a young man (legal bit – Clarke denies the allegations).
But despite the extremely negative publicity surrounding the allegations, Clarke strangely still has a high-flying career as a Senior Director at Unilever:
I say strangely because Clarke himself has openly written about the need for firms to be able to fire employees who have done nothing wrong but are “not going to make the next level.”
“I had an employee who was not going to make the next level. There was nothing abysmal about her but in the performance driven culture of that company it was time for her to move on.”
I would imagine after all of the bad publicity surrounding him, it would be extremely hard for Clarke to “make the next level” in any company.
So Unilever should fire Clarke now.
It’s what he himself would want.
.
Clarke’s 2006 article for Conservative Home in which he admits to firing an employee even though she had done nothing wrong:
Mark Clarke: We Need A Looser Labour Market – The Swiss Model
Mark Clarke is a Strategy Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and prior to that was a Brand Manager for five years with Procter and Gamble. He has lived and worked in the UK, the US and in Switzerland.
What do you do if you have an employee who is just not delivering? It is not that they are demonstrably and wilfully not co-operating. It is not that they have been caught with their hands in the till. It is just that they are not delivering with the high level of competence and passion that you think your organisation deserves. Well, in this country the answer is that there is legally very little you can do. You cannot get rid of someone for being ‘barely adequate’ – despite the fact that your customers demand products and service well in excess of ‘barely adequate’. In an increasingly people based economy, many companies see this is a problem.
The major companies get around this problem by effectively bribing their ‘barely adequate’ management with a mixture of sizeable pay-offs and good references in return for leaving quietly. Obviously this places an additional cost on business.
But the public sector has no such recourse available. For example, the former Chief Inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead, said ten years ago that there were 15,000 incompetent teachers in our schools. Common sense tells us this was right. We all remember the good and the bad teachers at our own schools. Well, the bad ones are still there. They haven’t raided the school funds or got caught in the wrong changing rooms so they are allowed to continue with ‘barely adequate’ teaching.
So what can we do about it?
Working in Switzerland for a major multinational introduced me to a different employment model. I had an employee who was not going to make the next level. There was nothing abysmal about her but in the performance driven culture of that company it was time for her to move on. Our company lawyer was on holiday so I called the largest law firm in Geneva to talk to their employment practice to obtain some advice. They did not have an employment law practice. I called the second largest firm. They didn’t really understand what I was asking for. Finally I found a generalist lawyer who explained the situation to me.
Essentially, in Switzerland they have contract law not employment law. They have contracts which appear in a very similar form as in the UK. Except that they are two way contracts. In the UK the employee can leave by giving the employer the standard notice period; but the employer cannot enforce the same contractual terms. In Switzerland, however, the notice period is two way. The employer can terminate the employment with no cause – in exactly the same way an employee can and does. Essentially, the State does not feel that it should interfere with a contractual relationship between two adult parties.
The effect of this ‘looser’ labour market is dramatic. Companies are flooding to Switzerland. In recent years Procter and Gamble, Gillette, Unilever’s Elida Faberge business, Caterpillar, Medtronic, Hewlett Packard, Dow and Frito Lay have all moved their European or global headquarters there. They have moved UK jobs to Switzerland and dramatically reduced their corporation tax payments to the UK. Their UK operations are now little more than powerless branch offices. 10% of Swiss GDP now comes from companies such as this. As a result, Switzerland has the lowest unemployment rate in Europe which is 25% lower than the UK’s already low unemployment rates at 4.3% vs the UK’s 5.3% or the EU15 at 7.6%.
If we want to remain competitive in the world we need to confront the global challenge of a global economy. We need to understand that companies have choices and are choosing to exercise that choice against the over-regulated UK and the EU model. We should be looking to further liberalise our employment legislation. We should not to be trying to defend the Thatcher reforms but instead, following Switzerland’s example, and extending them.
Incidentally, the woman who I had to let go is now far happier and far more successful in a different company with a different culture.
Pride's Purge 
One word.
ARSE!
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He may be a bully or not, but what’s wrong about his article on employment?
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What? You are restaurantuer and then you sack all the waiters because they have reached their full potential and are never going to become head chef?
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artmoscow: you need only read the replies to his article to understand the fallacy of his argument.
It might be reasonable to ask what is the meaning of democracy, are we all just here to create wealth for the few and find ourselves victim to the race to the bottom whilst those at the top get fatter and fatter?
Has it ever occurred to you that over the last forty years we have heard nothing but how we must all compete to find our place in the world, and the more we have competed the poorer we have become?
As an ex Unilever employee and Unilever pensioner I can tell you how successful Unilever policies have been in destroying jobs, precisely because they employ experts like Mark Clarke on their Boards; but back in the 1980s Unilever had 46,000 employees nation wide, at a pension dinner 4 years ago we were told that we now only had 6,000 nation wide, ever wondered why the pension pots have black holes in them?
Considering you ask the question, what about his article?…. and fail to offer an objective reply, I will explain for you how Neo-Liberalism has destroyed more jobs than it able to create.
Over the last thirty years Neo-Liberal governments have put business interests above the needs of ordinary people, those interests have seen jobs exported to where labour is cheaper and regulation is more relaxed, this has created a low waged, low skilled economy, which relies heavily on a corrupt financial sector that has indebted it’s population. This culminated in the 2008 crash which has further crippled the economy by using the crisis created by capital to asset strip the state.
To sum up the current economic problems we suffering from, it is not working people that have caused the worldwide crash and collapse, it is Neo-Liberal capitalism created by experts like Mark Clarke.
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You’ve never owned a business, I believe.
No, I am not a restaurantuer, but I happen to own a company of 200 employees which I built from scratch with a friend. If I sack all the waiters, I will destroy the business. Not because I couldn’t replace them, but because in the long-term the work climate will change which will lead to poor service and a myriad other problems. The guy’s article was not about that. It was about inability to fire an employee simply because the employer believes that the company will do better without that particular person. If someone is stuck in their job and is not developing, for my company, at least, he or she becomes a centre of discontent. Such people still have an ambition which I can not satisfy and they sooner or later start complaining and spreading their dissatisfaction around. I would prefer to let them know they’ve got 6 months to find another job, rather than bribing them into leaving.
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I have owned a business. If your business can only survive by bullying your employees it doesn’t deserve to survive.
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What bullying has to do with ability to fire people giving them an advance notice? Why do you keep mixing together his views, which i believe are well argumented and correct with his bullying behaviour, which no sane person can approve of?
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To: rotzeichen
What’s wrong with the idea that a business should have the right to give advance notice to an employee and fire him/her without penalties? This was my question. In 15 years of my career I can think of 3 cases when I could use this right, but I had to spend incredible resources in terms of time and money to get rid of these three people.
I appreciate your answer, which is written on a very personal level, but my question was very specific.
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artmoscow: So you are only concerned about having the absolute power to replace staff that you see as unfit for the position they hold. How do you know how efficient you are, who are you to be judge and jury over others?
I held a responsible position in a small tractor manufacturing company, I had three small departments with 19 staff underneath me, if I had a problem with any one member I personally dealt with it to rectify it.
We were a highly profitable section of the company, but that did not stop superior management from totally destroying everything we did finally closing the whole company down.
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Rotzeichen: why am i only concerned about laying off staff? Why do you feel the need to attribute someone else’s management mistakes to me with all the emotional bitterness that’s bubbling on top of your answer? I am concerned about long term profitability of my company which requires, among many other things, satisfied staff. And sometimes, I have to fire people who do not perform according to their ambition. This happened 3 times. If you can’t understand the question I asked, let me rephrase it. Will companies become more efficient if they have the right to fire people with advance notice? Will this have any negative social implications in the long run?
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You’re right, I have never owned / run a business like you. I doubt that I could. They way you put the case is far more humane than his. What you say at the emd of your comment is the sort of conversation that is acceptable. “look, this isn’t working for either of us and you should be thinking of moving into another work place” But he was talkin g in terms of people being losers and other winners. it is very difficult to seperate the way he expresses his view and the way he seems to have been acting with people younger and more vulnerable than he. Threats to ruin people’s career on which they are just starting out is simply not acceptable.
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artmoscow: I note from your replies that you do not see your own short comings only those you view as not up to the standard you require.
You exhibit all the failings I have seen in management in all the years I have worked. The profound authority to dictate. I managed staff with the view of getting the best out of them through their cooperation, allowing them to express themselves and not dictating how they achieve those ends, giving them positive support when needed, that’s how you get efficiency, not through threats of losing their jobs.
But then I wasn’t ever a power freak.
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Excellent. You simply decided to bully me. Ok.
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Bill, you are right about me, and may be you r right also about the bully guy, but i need to get to my computer to go thru his article again. Thank you!
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If you call a few home truths bullying, then that tells me everything I need to know.
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No problem, that’s exactly textbook trolling, which doesn’t bother me at all.
Oh, by the way, and for the benefit of other readers, my company has the highest retention rate in its industry and the highest satisfaction score across Europe, according to the latest employee satisfaction survey.
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That’s extremely good news, I would be delighted to see it, could you provide us with the facts?
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No, I am not feeding you any more.
I still hope someone can address the original question.
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FIRE AT WILL
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Bill: I re-read his article. I don’t see threats to ruin young people’s career in it. Firing recently employed people before giving them a chance to “find themselves” within the organisation is simply unprofitable, given the transaction costs of hiring, training, firing and re-hiring. If a manager cares about business profitability he would fire a young and recent hire only if the latter lied about his qualifications and simply can’t do the job. I don’t see any of such things in the bully’s article.
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So you can fire ANYONE for ANY REASON then does this include race religion sex or any other prejudice?
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“Oh, by the way, and for the benefit of other readers, my company has the highest retention rate in its industry and the highest satisfaction score across Europe, according to the latest employee satisfaction survey.”
But I thought you had already made the case, you are such a good employer there would be no need to sack anyone.
But then we are not wholly in charge of the facts so can’t make a proper judgment.
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As someone who has been sexually harrassed I can just imagine the power this would give unscrupulous managers – and it might not only be women who felt powerless. Also, some employees have no actual skills, but are adept at rubishing the better ones and attributing their achievements to themselves. It is surprising how often I have seen UK management fall for that one, and how the ones who rely on management flattery skip undeservedly up the promotion ladder to the point where bullying to get results is the only weapon they have to hide their incompetence. It is hardly impossible to fire poor and underperforming staff, even in the UK, and even in the public sector – it is done all the time – but why demand the right to get rid of average ones? No matter how competent and brilliant at their jobs the staff are, there is always an average. That’s how the world works. Even where the staff are not so hot, maybe they are “average” because they are being lied about with another agenda in mind, or their ideas taken and promoted by others, and maybe they are average because their boss is only average (or worse) at training, encouraging and incentivisiing them. UK management are known wordwide as poor, but somehow it is OK if they are rewarded for failure. I think the right to sack an employee should be bound up with a duty to sack yourself, as boss, for failure to inspire, inability to spot real talent, falling for rhetoric, spin and hype above substance, and for encouraging a bullying unsupportive cuture in which most people will not thrive – without a severance payment, just like the staff!! Also nobody seems to have spotted the ratchet effect which is now out of date even in the States – as what is regarded as “average” creeps up people get bullied and scared and scramble to keep up the outputs required of them. Sress and poor performance, lying and hiding failures instead of learning from them rockets, people lose loyalty, and look to game, until the system, or the person, breaks. In the end draconian steps and fear of poverty and starvation are needed to keep the population working..as we see in India and China, and previously in the UK in the 18th and 19th century. And still the incompetents at the top think they have a right to reward themselves. Since Switzerland has such a small population and all these firms are competing for them, I hardly think it is a fair comparison. Might the tax breaks have more to do with it???
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I would guess that within the morally repulsive, internal culture of Unilever, Clarke’s attitude to firing employees and the allegations of bullying are making him Employee of the Month.
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If artmoscow has to concentrate so intensely on firing employees, I’d hazard a guess that artmoscow’s skills of discernment at recruitment are sadly lacking.
If you keep hiring people you deem as “wrong” then you need to look hard at yourself and your practices.
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I’m not sure I can see any connection. Switzerland has different laws regulating employment and it works very well for both employees and employers (I know because I’ve worked there). I don’t know where the allegation that he “fired” the Swiss employee came from, because that seems to untrue.
If Clarke wants to argue that Swiss is law better than UK/EU employment law then that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Bullying employees is an entirely different matter and no doubt if the allegations are proved then his job at Unilever will be in jeopardy.
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You haven’t read Clarke’s article. He says he ‘let her go’
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Reblogged this on paulh121.
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Mr Pride – I did read it and it says the employee was ‘let go’ at the end of her contract, as is perfectly normal in Switzerland. What people in the US or UK think of as “firing” doesn’t apply in Switzerland unless there is misconduct by the employee, which in this case there wasn’t.
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Creasy – read it again. Nowhere does Clarke say she was let go “at the end of her contract”. You’ve just made up those words.
Intoning differences between contract law and employment law when “letting people go” may be important to you and Clarke, but for the person who’s been fired (for doing nothing wrong) it’s irrelevant legalese.
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Mr Pride – If the employee had been ‘fired’ before the end of the contract term without justified reasons (“justes motifs” as they are termed there) then Mr Clarke would have been found in breach of contract in the Swiss employment courts. He would scarcely then be writing an article arguing in favour of Swiss employment contracts.
There are plenty of clear explanations about this in English on the web which you can read if you take the trouble.
You might, with some justification, argue that this arrangement favours the employer. However, in practice the contracts are usually very favourable to the employee and when there is a dispute, the employment courts in most cases find for the employee. I have my doubts whether Clarke is right that this would work well in the UK, which has much more of a culture and history of oppression and exploitation by employers. Switzerland has a very different social and community culture; in employment, housing, welfare, government and more.
By the way, my name has two “e”s.
[You really really need to read the article properly. Clarke clearly says there was no justified reason: “There was nothing abysmal about her but in the performance driven culture of that company it was time for her to move on.”
Of course, this is the same man who has since been accused of sexually harassing young women and bullying young men and then getting them sacked. You might like to reappraise the people you choose to spend your time defending.] – TOM
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Mr Pride – You are either not very bright and have completely failed to understand what I said, or you have deliberately and disingenuously misinterpreted it. I have read and understood the article (and much more besides), which you apparently have not.
1) I know there was no justified reason for dismissal and I said so, that’s why it’s clear that the contract must have ended lawfully and normally at its specified term. Therefore the employee was not “fired” or “sacked”.
2) I was not defending Clarke, as is plain from my final paragraph. If I was defending anything it was the Swiss system, which as I said, is in many ways better than the UK’s, but will probably not work here. Amongst other advantages, the Swiss contract system makes it extremely difficult for an employer to bully an employee into leaving.
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Creasey – resorting to calling me names isn’t making your arguments any the more convincing.
“The employee was not fired or sacked.” Yes she was. To “let someone go” (Clarke’s words) means to sack someone. That’s why Clarke had to speak to 3 different lawyers before he did it.
And yes – you are trying (badly) to defend and excuse Clarke. Give it up. He’s a nasty piece of work who doesn’t deserve your time and effort.
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Mr Pride – It’s now clear that you’re still having grave trouble comprehending the different Swiss system. The whole point is that in Switzerland to “let someone go” is very different from sacking or firing them. If you are still unable to grasp that simple concept then I suspect your mind will remain closed, no matter how it is explained to you.
From other reports it seems that Clarke may well be a nasty piece of work who has treated some people very badly, but it also seems quite clear that this Swiss employee wasn’t one of them. Clarke is apparently also rather stupid and insular and (like you) at first had difficulty understanding that people do things differently and maybe better in other countries. He didn’t need to speak to any lawyers, all he had to do is ask any Swiss worker (who would all understand it perfectly well) or Google it. Maybe you should try the latter yourself.
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Mr Pride – Perhaps I will try in another way to explain it to you – In Switzerland when an employee is ‘let go’ it is regarded as a normal end to a contract of employment. There is no blame or fault attached to either the employee or the employer. On the other hand if the employee is ‘sacked’ or ‘fired’ then there is an assumed reason of misconduct which, if found to be justified in the employment court, will affect future employment. If it is found to be unjustified, then it will reflect badly on the employer.
These are the terms used by English-speaking Swiss people themselves in those scenarios. I hope this helps your understanding of the principle.
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