Litigation and Management in the UK Fire and Rescue Service - Literature review Example

From the excerpt given, an array of issues arise all of which can be linked to both litigation and management. Considering the legal issues, the situation illustrated in the excerpt can result into litigation from two different angles. Firstly, the managers of the factory that got torched down by the fire may seek legal redress for damages caused citing negligence on the part of the fire and rescue service. Secondly, the dismissed manager may sue the fire and rescue service for unfair dismissal. This may be based on the fact that with the first fire alarm being a false, the manager may have treated the second one in the same perspective and that his dismissal may have been unfair. In the wake such litigation, it becomes necessary to explore the legal system that governs the same. With the fire and rescue service being in the UK jurisdiction, it becomes necessary to examine the nature of the UK Legal System in order to identify the general principles that governs this legal system. Le Sueur, Herbery and English (1999) have pointed out that the legal system in any liberal democracy serves that are threefold. Firstly, the legal system is mandated to set limits on the powers of the various public authorities that operate within the systems jurisdiction. Secondly, a legal system has to provide a framework of procedures and rules for making collective decisions. And finally, legal systems impose legal responsibilities on public authorities to secure citizen’s safety and welfare. Critical to a legal system is the principle of law that governs law and order. The United Kingdom legal system has been grounded in the principle of common law. Under this system, the judge adjudicating over legal proceedings is obligated to scrutinize case law in order to determine and apply the appropriate rule to a legal problem. To achieve this obligation, the judge in essence uses the existing principle rather than making a new law to govern the ruling to be made. The general principle for scrutinizing precedents is the fact that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions. Therefore, when making a ruling, the judge considers the former precedents which in practice bind future decisions (Peele, 2004). When adjudicating on matter of the first instance whereby the current dispute before the court is very different from all the previous cases, the judge is obligated to come up with precedents to determine the case outcome. Once this precedent has been established by the judge, it becomes binding for all similar cases that may be brought before the court in the future. In summary, the common law that is synonymous with the UK legal system is encrypted in the principle of stare decisis. The stare decisis principle states that similar cases are to be decided in accordance with consistent principled rules so that these decisions reach similar results (Peele, 2004). Considering the first case where the affected factory may sue the fire service for negligence, the judge presiding over the case will look at precedents that have been used in determining similar previous cases. From these precedents, the judge will then be guided on the final decision that will be made concerning the case. If such a case is a matter that the court has never ruled on previously, the judge establishes precedents which will then govern future similar cases. In the second case where the dismissed manager may sue the fire service for unfair dismissal, the judge presiding over the case will apply the same principle. A distinctive feature of the United Kingdom legal system is the use of adversarial proceedings in determining a case before the courts rather than using inquisitorial proceedings. In the aforementioned case, both civil and legal procedures entail the contesting parties that put forward a claim and counterclaim to establish the facts that would play a crucial role in determining the outcome of the matter under review. In this case, the judge’s role is to therefore act as a referee and a ringmaster in the case in that s/he does not take part in the determination of the facts (Peele, 2004). Therefore, if the factory and the dismissed manager decide to opt for litigation to resolve their grievances, they will have to furnish the court with sufficient evidence to support their cases. As the plaintiff, they will be allowed to call witnesses to support their evidence as well as cross-examine the witnesses called by the defence. The defence on the other hand will plead their case by calling in their witnesses as well as cross-examining the witnesses presented by the plaintiff. Having exhausted their pleas, it is upon the judge to consider which witnesses and evidence can be admissible in the court to influence the final decisions. Having considered all these, the judge then makes a ruling that decides the cases presented before the court using previous precedents or through the creation of new precedents. In a typical work environment, legal issues are represented by the contract of employment. This contract is equated to any other contract on the basis that it is subject to the general principles of law. This contract usually contains the terms and conditions that govern the employed that may or may not have been negotiated between the employer and the employee (Lewis and Sargeant, 2004). The dismissed manager may use this contract to support unfair dismissal by pointing out the areas that the employer may have contravened. The employer may also use the same to support his decision to dismiss the employee. Having considered the legal issues, it is now necessary to consider the managerial issues that carry more weight in this scenario. The first and obvious managerial issue that arises is that of teamwork. This issue carries much weight given the fact that if the fire and rescue manager had coordinated his activities through an effective and efficient fire extinguishing team, the situation could have been rescued and the immense damages of the factory would have been averted. Given the realization that the affected area had limited water supply that was an impediment to the work of the fire and rescue service, the fire manager would have organized his staff into two distinct teams with well defined roles. For instance, one team would have been dedicated to the supply of water from the station while the other would have been mandated with putting off the fire. How then is teamwork beneficial to any organisation? A case scenario where a manager is working on a given project or task alone at an isolated place or office without anyone to offer support and assistance no longer exists in the 21st century. This century has witnessed immense pressure on providing high quality services and therefore elevating competition to a much higher level. In order for any entity to survive the turbulences of competition and stay afloat, we all need to be part of a team with the sole purpose of accomplishing multiple and complex tasks through teamwork. Teamwork thus refers to the concept of people working together in cooperation as a team in order to attain the same aspirations and objectives. In essence, teamwork aligns attitudes in a cooperative and usually in an altruistic manner towards a specific goal (Sharma, 2008). Teamwork is not only synonymous with the corporate world but rather it has been known to mankind since time immemorial. It is strange to reckon that even in the primitive era of civilization, the so considered uncivilized beings of the time used to hunt and gather in groups as they understood the importance of teamwork in gathering sufficient food. It is this classical example of ancient teamwork that has perhaps developed into the management concept in modern time. On this backdrop, teams and teamwork have become interchangeable jargons in current strategic management. From teamwork, there has been extension of the word team to refer to ‘Together Everyone Achieves More.’ This extension in itself emphasises the importance of teamwork in any given workplace. To this end, the benefits that are derived from teamwork at the workplace forms the basis for conveying the importance of teamwork (Sharma, 2008). According to Stone (2003) a team consists of highly committed individuals who consider themselves as being mutually accountable to achieve the desired results. The rationale behind this assertion is the fact that people in teams each have clearly defined roles with measurable goals and visible purpose around which they unite. Therefore, Stone (2003) continues to argue that teamwork encourages people to work together in an environment of trust and accountability toward a general goal. Given such benefits that can be derived from teamwork, it can be expected that if the fire service had an efficient team, the fire would have been managed and the extensive damage that the factory suffered would have been averted. With a team working under an atmosphere of trust and accountability, it is expected that the team players will put aside all their personal issues and instead focus their energies on the task that needs to be accomplished (Stone, 2003). This cannot be said of the team that responded to the fire call at the factory. It is evident that there was no form of coordination and a sense of direction for this team. Additionally, this team lacked objectives and innovation based on the fact that the team could not come up with a strategy to surmount the water limitation it was facing. This therefore led to the loss of a momentum that would have led to the teamwork benefits of better problem solving, greater productivity and more effective use of resources. However, the benefits of teamwork cannot be achieved by simply forming a team but they rather depend on organizational support that is necessary for maintaining its operations at a high level of effectiveness (Holman, 2003). The failures of this team could be traced to the unavailability of prerequisite material resources, rewards, information and even sufficient training. This therefore calls for human resource management policies and practices within the workplace that can go a long way in supporting these prerequisites. If indeed the fire fighting team had these prerequisites, then it can be expected that its operations would have been explicit and the damages that were witnessed could have been minimised. Holman (2003) has postulated that the external team leaders are fundamental to the operation of teams as they can influence team effectiveness in a number of ways. To begin with, these team leaders act as conduits through which the human resource policies and practices are put into operation at the team level. Secondly, they can act as gatekeepers in the sense that they can control the flow of information and material resources to the teamwork. It is clear that the manager commanding the fire fighting team lacked the ability as a team leader to manage his team effectively. Blaming the fire on insufficient water and previous false alarm was irresponsible on his part. If he was confronted with a huge fire and insufficient water at the fire scene, the manager would have called for back-up from either the station or from another authority. After all teamwork does not end in the organisation but rather cooperation with other partners is needed to fill capacity and resource gaps. Ideally, a team consists of individuals who behave differently in different situations. Understanding employee behaviour becomes very critical in the management of a team as it aids the manager encourage good behaviour and check that which is undesirable. Indeed employee behaviour is at the heart of human resource management and human resource managers can be effective at checking undesirable behaviour amongst their employees. This is because undesirable behaviour among employees in the workplace can be easily spotted and corrected to cultivate desirable behaviours. However, it is no easy task correcting this undesirable behaviour and the management of employee behaviour can only succeed if managers understand why employees behave the way they do (Werner and Desimones, 2009). From this scenario, it can be argued that the fire fighters who responded to the fire behaved in a certain way and their behaviour was influenced by some factors that are innumerable, complex and difficult to make certain. However, the Model of Employee Behaviour has been developed to simplify this equally important task. This Model proposes key factors that affect employee behaviour and their corresponding relationships. This Model includes two main categories namely external forces and internal forces (Werner and Desmones, 2009). According to these authors, external forces include those forces that are found outside the organization as well as those found inside the organization’s work environment. Internal forces on the other hand encompass those forces within the employee and they include motivation, attitudes and knowledge, skills and abilities. This Model therefore assumes that both these external and internal forces interact to produce a given behaviour. Considering the external forces and relating them to the situation at hand, the first issue that comes into play is management. As stated earlier on, an efficient team requires an efficient manager to provide the sense of direction. Given that the manager failed to provide this direction, the fire fighters had no clear purpose and this resulted into confusion. Secondly, the fire magnitude and lack of sufficient water may have led to panic and dejection on the part of the fire fighters and with no clear direction, it is expected that the fire fighters lacked the momentum to fight on. Considering the internal forces, it can be argued that the fire fighters lacked sufficient motivation and skills to address the situation they were faced with. Managing human behaviour becomes another critical aspect of human resource development. To this respect, motivation forms one of the most elementary facets of human behaviour and therefore an understanding of motivation at work becomes critical to human resource development. The basic idea behind this is that many human resource development programmes and processes are in part proportionate to whether an employee is motivated to participate, learn and use what has been learned with the purpose of improving performance (Werner and Desmones, 2009). If at all the fire fighters were a dejected and frustrated lot, it can be argued that they lacked the motivation to fight a fire that had already surpassed their ability. To this end, the scenario in the excerpt presents pertinent legal issues that may arise from two different angles. These angles may be court redress by both the management of the factory and the dismissed manager. Since these issues are governed by law provisions to determine their strength, it became necessary to illuminate on the principles of the UK Legal System in addressing the cases that are brought before the courts. On a separate trajectory, key management issues also came into play during the evaluation of the scenario illustrated in the excerpt. The major management issue was teamwork at the work place whereby the performance and benefits of teamwork were explored. This was supported by the fact that the fire service does not operate in isolation but it is a system consisting of diverse individuals that work together to achieve a common goal. Critical to the operation of teams was employee behaviour and understanding of this behaviour was fundamental in identifying undesirable behaviour and correcting the same. In this respect, internal and external factors that influence behaviour have been discussed. The issue of employee behaviour has been linked to motivation on the basis motivation influences how people behave. REFERENCES Holman, D., 2003. The new workplace: a guide to the human impact of modern working practices. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley and Sons Le Sueur, A., Herbery, J. and English, R., 1999. Principles of public law. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Cavendish Publishing Limited Lewis, D. and Sargeant, M., 2004. Essentials of employment law. 8th ed. Great Britain: Cromwell Press Peele, G., 2004. Governing the UK: British politics in the 21st century. 4th ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Sharma, C., 2008. Communication skills and personality development. India: Nirali Prakashan Stone, F., 2003. The manager’s question and answer book. New York: AMACOM Werner, J. and Desmones, R., 2009. Human resource development. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning Read More