April 10, 2008
Writing about http://www.phwa.org/resources/article.php?id=1137
Leaver, C. (2007, May 21). Employee engagement: Linkages with the Sears model. Warwick Blog [online]. Retrieved May 23, 2007, from www.warwick.ac.uk.
On a vanity google trawl the other day I found this…. (It’s important to keep an eye on online reputation management I think!)
I have to say that I was very surprised to have my outpourings referenced in such a meticulous way. Fair play to them.
Although, when I reference, which is not as much as I should, I tend to use the University of Bath Library Citation Guidelines.
April 7, 2008
Writing about http://www.justgiving.com/warwickwombles and http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20425750303
Ok, so I’m not doing the walking - but I am an essential member of the Support Crew. In fact, I think I’m Support Crew Leader - it’s early days give me a break!
How hard can it be I hear you ask, well after Saturday’s gurkha-led briefing I am terrified about letting our walkers down. Because they are the ones walking 100km non stop day and night.
It’s the equivalent of two marathons and a climb up Ben Nevis we were told on Saturday…. and for those of you who know Justine, Claudie, Brian and Simon P they need your sponsorship. Hell, even if you don’t know them they need your sponsorship!
The route follows the South Downs Way, starting in Petersfield and finishing in Brighton – it’s a challenging journey that will change lives – including yours.
Trailwalker is organised by Oxfam and the Queens Gurkha Signals Regiment. It’s a chance to make new friends, to get out, get fit and to raise money for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.
Four people, one goal, 100 kilometres, 30 hours.
Still don’t believe me? Watch the video.
April 4, 2008
The other night on the train a couple of businessmen were talking in the Quiet Carriage. This would normally have
unfortunate consequences, but fortunately for them they were talking about something that interested me. At least for part of the journey.
One was Canadian and the other was Indian and they both clearly worked in the same division of a large Engineering company. And they were talking shop.
But what they were actually talking about was their relationship with their employer.
They started off by discussing who would be filling a vacant management position, the Indian was convinced that the position would naturally be filled through internal promotion whereas the Canadian was sure that the position would be advertised and a new, and more expensive manager brought in from outside. This concept was a mystery to the Indian who explained that culturally in India internal promotions were the normal way forward.
The Canadian then moved on to talking about senior management salaries, the fact that he got paid more than some senior managers because he had come into the company rather than working his way up and a story about one senior manager who could now not afford to retire (despite being above statutory age) as his pension had not worked out as hoped. His view was that people who didn’t ask didn’t get and that the senior managers who had been with the same company their whole lives were fools and had only themselves to blame for their financial situation.
From there they moved onto talking about how it wasn’t all about the cash, how important worklife balance was and the Indian business man even went as far as mentioning bringing family into the workplace for employee events. Very interesting stuff. Most British employees, particularly those in HE, would run a mile from this kind of thing.
Juxtapose this with Linda Evans’s piece in this week’s Times Higher Education: Satisfaction not guaranteed where she argues that there is a difference between job fulfilment and job comfort and investigates the term job satisfaction.
Job fulfillment, she argues, is about your role, your relationship with colleagues and your manager etc. job comfort is about the ease of finding a parking space etc.
This is interesting because in this instance ensuring job fufilment could be seen covering items that are controllable by your boss, or your boss’s boss, whereas job comfort items are things provided by the employer as amenities or dictated by personal circumstances (distance to travel to work)…
I never cease to be amazed how much car parking matters to people and how organisations ignore this fact.
March 28, 2008
Writing about http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7317909.stm
And http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/heathrows-big-day-is-terminal-embarrassment-801743.html
Wow! This is a management, PR & Internal Comms case study in the making. I can see this being on the CIPR course next year…
The thing that stood out most for me though was the amount of coverage pointing to underinformed and poorly trained staff - from issue with the initial check in procedures through to baggage handling staff not knowing their way round the grounds.
And then it gets worse, failure to keep frontline customer-facing staff informed:
“Nobody really seemed to know what was going on. Staff seemed as much in the dark as we were.” (more)
“One baggage worker told the BBC the situation was “mayhem” and that the technical problems had been known about for some time.” (more)
“A BA staff member said they would have liked to be able to phase it in rather than ‘do it all at once’.” (more)
So many senior managers will tell you that staff are their ambassadors - but when you break that down it means that they want their IC Manager to inundate people with positive propaganda or that they expect staff members to magically feel ownership of the brand without working on empolyee engagement or brand values.
The simple things like making sure that staff are adequately trained, listened to (because they know more about the practicalities of their day job than you do), consulted about big decisions which affect them and constantly kept informed in emergency situations often go by-the-by.
As Himself said, he would rather have been a passenger in a three-hour queue at Heathrow yesterday than a member of BA staff at Terminal 5!
March 27, 2008
I love The Poppletonian, Laurie Taylor’s mock university corporate news colum in the Times Higher Education (yes, we’ve lost the Supplement bit). I also love his cast of character including the desperate Jamie Targett, Director of Corporate Affairs, and the hippy-dippy useless Jennifer Doubleday, Head of Personal Development.
I was thrilled when the VC welcomed the new look on 10 January this year as I was just broaching the topic of a refurb of Open House.
Speaking shortly after his return from an exhausting nine-day conference in the Maldives on the future of higher education, our Vice-Chancellor declared that he was “really on the whole fairly excited” by the new look of The Poppletonian.
He told our reporter, Keith Ponting (29), that in his opinion, the previous newsletter had often spent too long concentrating on “the many negative aspects of the university” and on reporting “lots of minority views that failed to represent the true nature of the institution going forward”.
It is so clever in so many ways, so many in-sector jokes perfectly judged and aimed in all directions!
In today’s edition the dogged Jamie Targett makes an urgent appeal:
In a shock statement this week, Jamie Targett, our Director of Corporate Affairs, announced that he was introducing an “urgent” quota system in response to the dramatic increase in campus e-mails bearing the word “urgent”.
While administrative staff would retain the right to use “urgent” at all times, academics would be restricted to 12 “urgent” e-mails per term. He believed this was the only way in which “urgent” could regain the original meaning of “urgent”.
The cleverest, cleverest thing is that it is all so on the button. As perfect satire must be.
March 19, 2008
Thinking about writing about How very dare you????
This is really just a place holder. It’s to remind me to carry on thinking about Liam’s question.
Should you throw your hands up in horror and stalk out of the building crying “I can’t help you - you’re all doomed!”?
The answer to this, as Liam quite rightly points out, is very rarely going to be yes. But - what are the circumstances in which it might be yes?
March 15, 2008
I have always loved Westerns. And I have always loved Clint Eastwood: particularly in Westerns and in Dirty Harry; but I will make no excuses for Play Misty for Me.
But his best role for me, and one that he has played variations of throughout his career, is The Man With No Name.
The Man With No Name has many qualities that I admire.
March 13, 2008
Note: the Accountant referred to is not Himself!
The difference is in the understanding of the word Clarity.
| 1. |
clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity. |
| 2. |
the state or quality of being clear or transparent to the eye; pellucidity: the clarity of pure water. |
Clarity to a communicator means simplicity and ease of understanding. Clarity to an accountant means freedom from ambiguity of indistinctinctness.
I would argue that the more clauses that are inserted into a sentence with the aim of avoiding ambiguity or indistinctness the less easy to understand it is.
March 12, 2008
Writing about He Knew He Was Right
I am making my first venture into Trollope having been inspired by A Round-Heeled Woman.
And it reminded me of how intransigent people can be in their relationships with other people - and why.
A brief plot synopsis can be seen on Wikipedia - but what it doesn’t cover is the clever way in which Trollope depicts, through interior monologue, how people come to reason themselves into being so steadfast in their beliefs.
In essence, the plot is a big row about nothing with a lack of reconciliation because each party rationalises its own position and builds themselves a narrative of how they are the injured party and therefore cannot make the first move…
But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife’s master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt, at least he thought so, keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would, doubtless, obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife!
In fact, so far, the book is entirely about miscommunication. A cautionary tale for all of us involved in the industry!
March 12, 2008
Adapted from Well, Everything has to Start Somewhere on our work blog.
And more than that, to quote Jane Magé (a former boss):
We are where we are, let’s see where we can go from here.
A quote which I find useful for a variety of occasions…
So, we’ve got this Facebook presence - what are we doing with it? (See other entries for for wailing and gnashing of teeth in this vein.)
A week or so ago we got together to have an open-ended discussion - here are some of the points that arose: Keep reading →
