Capabilities of union officials need to be reassessed amidst the trends of de-collectivisation and weakening bargaining power of trade unions in many nations. There is also a gradual but steady professionalisation of the roles played by union officials. Such factors necessitate certain competencies in union officials in order to increase the effectiveness of unions. However, a disciplined approach of assessing and developing competencies of union officials has largely been absent from the existing literature in human resource and industrial relations (IR), especially in the Indian context. Our paper attempts to bridge the gap in the existing IR discourse on the organisational effectiveness of unions. It also seeks to answer which competencies of union officials in India can improve such effectiveness.
Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, we have matched the competencies of student union activists and developed a “mixed model” of managerial competencies for union officials. Behavioural event interviews were conducted for thirty-six union officials across five independent and distinct trade unions in India. As an outcome, a competency dictionary is presented, which can be subjected to further performance-based and causal empirical assessment. The four competencies identified in our model are: result orientation, aligning critical constituencies, networking skills, and effective feedback sharing.
Apart from these four competencies identified, our qualitative investigation enunciates the following performance measures for union officials: frequency of nomination, speed of closure of issues, number of positive changes, extent of consultativeness, and ability to develop a team. Our analysis also demonstrates that union officials who are rated high in the competencies also consistently deliver better performance. Resting on the classical competency theories which have not seen application in the IR scholarship so far, this paper renders an actionable way that could be adopted to enhance union effectiveness. Our model also offers to resolve the apparent conflict between collectivism and individualism in the management of unions.
We foresee an exciting line of future research concentrating on the competencies of networking and orientation towards results in the context of new-age workforce segments like gig and platform workers, and part-time workers. An analytical model of competencies, by proposing, for example, the IR climate and union structure as antecedents, competencies as moderators, and union effectiveness as a consequence could bring forth exciting insights.
