...it has tried to make managers out of ATCOs. Some of the ATCOs were totally inept due to personality (but their face fits)...
Whilst not strictly HR, the recent appointment of the Luton GM has proved that! Slippery Slope!!
Personally, I would rather work for/with a manager who is a good manager, but not an ATCO, than with someone who is/was an ATCO (even if a good one) but who is a lousy manager.
NATS is not the only company where this ATCO-to-Manager process has sometimes proved unsatisfactory; SERCo (and its predecessor IAL) is just the same, so was was Airwork (RIP), and so too are many non-NATS (i.e. independant) ATC units in the UK.
...something NATS could learn from others including the Military.
Perhaps so - but the skills required to be an effective manager in a civilian commercialised and unionised workplace are not entirely the same as are required for an Officer or SNCO in a necessarily prescriptive military working environment which is underpinned by QRs. This is why many ex-military types also make lousy (civilian) managers.
The debate can be summed up in one sentence:
'horses for courses' - and that doesn't necessarily mean having ATCOs as managers!
