British Columbia Automobile Association:

Post-strike and looking towards the future

Submitted by: Tambay Chaitanya Shreesh, Group C, CCR (A)

The British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) was a service organization operating on
a non-profit basis. The services offered to its various members ranged from insurance and air
booking discounts to emergency services like towing, accident assistance etc. The origin of
BCAA was as the Victoria Automobile Club, a collaborative association of automobile
enthusiasts aimed at mutual benefits amongst the members. This essence remained with the
group as it evolved into its current form. The culture was customer centric with the focus being
on ensuring that the customer got what he asked for. With this approach, the employees as well
as customers looked at BCAA as providing excellent services with no apparent drawbacks in the
operations. However, the competitive landscape was changing as we approached the new
millennium with the new players offering more comprehensive solutions to the consumers. The
effect was that although the customers did not find any flaw in the way BCAA handled their
needs, they got same services through other avenues leading to rising churn rates. Taking
cognizance of these indications, the new CEO, Bill Bullis, began his efforts to bring about a
fundamental change in the BCAA culture. His intent was to transform BCAA from a service
organization to being an aggressive, sales-oriented and customer centric entity. This proposed
change led to discord between the senior management and the employees.

BCAA’s staff did not consider sales as the primary objective. They were averse to pushing
products to the customer which he hadn’t explicitly asked for. This can be construed as a lack of
foresight on the part of the staff as the customer may not always know the various factors he
should consider in different situations. Thus, although the customer was satisfied by getting what
he specifically wanted, he lost out on a chance to consider additional purchases which he may
not have considered at all. Due to the proposed changes in the way BCAA operated, the staff was
now supposed to push the products to the customer. This was a significant strategy shift for the
organization, making the staff members apprehensive about the changes. The effect of the
proposed changes on job security, job descriptions, pay and benefits was unknown to the
employees. At this juncture, the Office and Professional Employees International Union
(OPEIU) started organizing BCAA’s sales centers by leveraging upon the above concerns. The
major points of dissent between BCAA and OPEIU related to contracting out work and
promotion policies. With a year of negotiations failing to coming up with mutually acceptable
solutions, the unionized workers went on a strike in February 1999. Although the strike was later
called off, BCAA still had unresolved issues as well as the changes that it had proposed to make
its business more viable.

The management had realized that in the face of increasing competition, it was imperative for
BCAA to improve its offering in order to even maintain its position. It was time to change the
way that the organization was run. The club culture which neglected the bottom line of the
business would lead to its downfall. They needed to take a more sales-oriented approach and be
proactive in developing and suggesting comprehensive solutions keeping the members in mind.
This would lead to, both, a better service to the members and a better business performance.
Thus, since the very way in which the staff approached their customers was being challenged,
BCAA was looking at a significant cultural change.

Changing the culture in a workplace is a difficult task. But success in this endeavor is not
without precedence. We can look at the case of the GE Navy and Small Engine facility in
Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In 1995, Fitchburg had 88 recordable accidents, an unflattering record.
Two safety committees already existed, one constituted of management representatives and
safety officials, while the other was the union safety committee. However, the safety record of
the establishment did not improve despite their existence. A report by the Culture Change
Consultants (the CCC report) described the situation: “An initial culture perception survey
indicated just how impoverished the safety culture was. There was a huge trust gap between
labor and management. Workers questioned whether management really cared about safety and
management suspected that labor had been sabotaging prior safety efforts. The only bright spot
was that management and labor agreed about the poor safety attitudes and conditions to an
unprecedented degree.” Thus there was a deep rooted mistrust between the workers and the
management. Changing the incumbent culture in order to bring about meaningful changes was
going to be a difficult task. It began with replacing the existing committees with three grassroots
teams. The factory personnel involved with the said teams were given time off to work for the
teams. They were trained in communications, leadership skills and were given knowledge about
the different safety regulations. They were granted access to the firm’s resources in order to
improve the situation. Fellow workers came forth to these teams in sharing their concerns and
proposing solutions instead of just reporting the incidents to their superiors. Thus, the workers
became responsible for the safety themselves while the professionals provided the requisite
technical expertise. Since the workers owned the process of change, the culture percolated into
everyday behavior leading to extremely impressive results. The CCC report quotes some
concerned individuals like one of the team leaders who said “It used to be that an accident was
always the fault of the people on the floor. Then everyone became more interested in finding the
root cause, and fixing it, rather than assigning blame” and a union official saying “Safety is
[now] part of the culture. We are no longer willing to accept any practice or tool that is less
than safe. The culture will simply now allow things to be done wrong”.

Thus, a fundamental change cannot be brought by force. BCAA has to ensure that the workers
are with them at every step of the way. All the concerns that the workers have regarding pay
structure, job security etc should be tackled by taking them into confidence. The CEO should
speak to the union leaders and the workers personally and convey the reasons behind the
proposed change. A high level of trust needs to be garnered between the two sides which can be
brought about in a stepwise manner by making firm reasonable commitments and following
through on those. Pertinent training should be provided to the workers so that they are better able
to handle the new responsibilities that will come their way under the new way of operation. The
above steps will help ensuring that BCAA successfully transforms its business while at the same
time maintaining synergies between the union workers and the management.

References:

Cultural Change Consultants’ report on GE, “At This GE Plant, Culture Change Brings Labor
and Management Together on Safety”,
Retrieved from http://www.culturechange.com/GE_Fitchburg.pdf on August 12, 2010.