In the case study, The British Airways Swipe Card Debacle, British Airways (BA) introduced ‘a system for electronic clocking in that would record when they [employees] started and finished work for the day… which was a unilateral decision by BA to introduce the swipe card, and a lack of adequate consultation with affected staff” (Palmer, Dunford, Akin, 2009, pp. 239 & 240). As a result, the BA staff held a twenty-four hour wildcat strike which caused BA to cancel its services, leaving over 10,000 passengers stranded. The lack of change management is apparent and ways of avoiding a repeat of this situation are addressed.
British Airways Swipe Card Debacle Swipe cards. WOW! I wonder why when an organization introduces swipe cards the employees go berserk. It happened at my company. If an employee is not doing anything wrong why would they object to the use of swipe cards? In the case of my organization, it was implemented at first as identification cards, the program grew to restrict access to certain areas and then to reduce absenteeism/tardiness. We are a secure campus and the introduction of identification cards was to restrict patients from walking in and not signing in and non-patients from walking in and wandering around the buildings. We experienced some thefts and it was determined that keeping track of who was in the building would reduce the potential. The restricted areas consisted mostly of materials management and the organization wished to restrict the employees who were able to access these areas due to inventory inconsistencies. Actually, these two issues were not a bother to the employees. When the swipe cards became a way of timekeeping tracking, a segment of the employees were up in arms. It was this segment of employees who usually violated coming to work on time. Comments included but were not limited to: “now Big Brother is keeping tabs on us” and “they want an excuse to fire us.” My personal ethics are, you