Cardiff University’s decision to implement 400 academic job cuts across multiple departments continues to reverberate not only in the university sector but more widely across the Welsh economy.

Having read the university’s consultation document several times, I fully understand its need to address financial challenges resulting from reduced international student numbers and rising operational costs, a situation that most universities in the UK are also currently dealing with.

However, applying Bananarama’s first principle of management - it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it - the process outlined in the document raises significant concerns about whether Cardiff University has followed good business practice in its decision to close or scale back departments.

In most successful organisations, major structural changes, particularly those involving redundancies, are accompanied by a transparent, consultative process that engages staff and stakeholders to explore alternative solutions. In this case, the university appears to have adopted a top-down approach, implementing decisions without fully leveraging the insights, ideas, and potential innovations that individual departments could have offered.

Given many of those staff are amongst the best in their disciplines, you wonder why senior management did not just ask them for their views prior to threatening their careers?

Indeed, the irony is not lost on many that the business school, which sells itself on providing world class management education, was not involved in this exercise and will be losing 40 academic posts. Clearly,........

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