The Big Whinge

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Recently I put aside my cynicism and participated in a focus group at work whose intention was to "understand the drivers of (excessive) workload".

There is currently a company re-structure in progress so the Committee of Pretending We Care thought it would look better to consult existing employees about potential areas of improvement. (OK, I lied about the putting aside my cynicism part.) Cleverly, they appointed an internal manager to facilitate the meeting and steer the conversation, thereby removing the chance of ugly truths emerging - be more likely if the facilitator were an external party we pay a million dollars and never see again.

I could have saved them the time and summed it up in three reasons:
(1) misallocation of resources
(2) poor planning and
(3) excessive reporting that disappears into an abyss.

The irony of the link between reason no 2 (poor planning) and giving fewer than 24 hours notice for a 90 minute meeting involving 20 people was lost on those trying to determine the Drivers of Workload. Or it was very clever. Scheduling a meeting at this short notice should knock out at least half of the participants - you can imagine the post-review excuses: "...But we gave EVERYONE the opportunity to give feedback."

Right now I am making an effort to play The Diligent and Passionate Employee role in a show with falling ratings so I went along to the meeting with my Serious Face. I have been to many of these bloodletting episodes before in this company and others, all with predictable results - soothing words of nothingness promising change that never happens. Whatever.

The facilitator of the meeting was someone who has been with the company for years and is hanging on until retirement and a gold plated watch. Not a bad guy but someone with enough nous to realise it's in his best interests not to rock any political boats. He appeared disappointed at the relatively high turnout of 9/20 people. Damn it, it wasn't going to be too large a number to make the forum unsuitable for feedback.

Once the floodgate of complaints about how the company conducted business and didn't reward its serfs began, the facilitator could only stand back and hope the stampede of disgruntlement didn't mess up his shiny shoes too much.

This led to some transparent attempts to cut off uncomfortable conversations by limiting the amount of paper available (only six sheets of paper for 90 minutes of whingeing...!) and deftly inserting comments such as "Well we really need to wrap it up now....(conspicuous glancing at the watch)...only 25 more minutes to go".

The question was posed at the end of the session as to where this feedback was going. Or had this been an exercise to take down names of people who complained too much and exuded a negative attitude?

The long-winded and unintelligible answer was two fold:
(1) The feedback would undergo a treatment similar to sewerage - filtered, treated and then being forwarded to the Big Rubbish Bin in the Sky - Human Resources. (Read: the comments are going straight to the recycling bin.)
(2) There is already another (shadowy) committee reviewing this and if any of the comments fit in with their worldview and budget of what needs to change, then the comments will be used. (Read: we already have one we baked earlier, thanks.)

Well, that's 90 minutes of my life I will never get back.

posted by Yarravillean @ 6:26 pm