Appraisal Season!
Its Appraisal Season in the office and the excitement started with the request for all staff to complete a form evaluating each of our own performance in the last 12 months and what we hope to see ahead of us. There were the usual complaints of the futility of the task because "no one reads it anyway" and "they do not really listen or give you what you want" but everyone gave the form filling due seriousness.
At the time of writing, I am happy at work and although I do seem to express worry rather more, the issues that I raise are, I believe pertinent and important to address. So far, the issues have been taken up and we have moved along in a direction seemingly more secure than before. Since I raised issues about co-ordination of information with our consultants for our construction information production, about how we reflect the lack of full co-ordination in the package issues, about how their information release is out of phase with our production information and how we are to address it - we have as a team sat down and reorganised the construction master programme and have a much more confident buy-in by everyone. We have reduced our turn-around period from 10 days to 5 days for review of consultants' drawings but it seems like everyone is willing to pitch in to get the project on-site and on time.
We have definitely had the construction programme compressed and my director SC immediately realised this when we had our internal review of the proposed programme before tabling it at the most recent DTM. With this shorter turnaround, I wonder about our ability to co-ordinate properly and to minimise oversights both in our work behind the scenes and then later on site. To this end, I think the procedures that I have introduced and am still in the midst of implementing will be useful. What I need to be extremely clear when I execute it is that the diagram is clear to all and that everyone believes in the process so that the experience of WCS and STC to a lesser extent, become lessons learnt. In any case, I might have to raise the issue of a shortened window for cross-checking soon - not to get my excuses in early but to allow everyone to see the purpose of my idea if not the need for it or an alternative to achieve a similar end.
There have been some undercurrents in the office mood and morale recently. There have been exits aplenty with one moving to F Systems, one to Zaha's and one more to Roger's. In the last week, two more prominent staff have opted to leave and although they might not be considered essential to the director's in their immediate plans, the medium to longer term future of the office is surely at stake. In a way, I do feel that the effects of M Knight's departure a year ago is now beginning to show. There have been complaints of the quality of the new staff hired since then - the bulk of whom have joined us fresh out of school at different levels. There have been a general dissent about the lack of quality of work being produced by the staff having to produce it. Ownership levels are low with a rather large divide between the old staff and the ones wet behind the ears with no signs of improvement on the horizon. There is a general air of mediocrity pervading the air and I don't like the smell of it. Someone said that there are always casualties after the Appraisal season, let's see if any more shock announcements are made in the coming weeks!
At the time of writing, I am happy at work and although I do seem to express worry rather more, the issues that I raise are, I believe pertinent and important to address. So far, the issues have been taken up and we have moved along in a direction seemingly more secure than before. Since I raised issues about co-ordination of information with our consultants for our construction information production, about how we reflect the lack of full co-ordination in the package issues, about how their information release is out of phase with our production information and how we are to address it - we have as a team sat down and reorganised the construction master programme and have a much more confident buy-in by everyone. We have reduced our turn-around period from 10 days to 5 days for review of consultants' drawings but it seems like everyone is willing to pitch in to get the project on-site and on time.
We have definitely had the construction programme compressed and my director SC immediately realised this when we had our internal review of the proposed programme before tabling it at the most recent DTM. With this shorter turnaround, I wonder about our ability to co-ordinate properly and to minimise oversights both in our work behind the scenes and then later on site. To this end, I think the procedures that I have introduced and am still in the midst of implementing will be useful. What I need to be extremely clear when I execute it is that the diagram is clear to all and that everyone believes in the process so that the experience of WCS and STC to a lesser extent, become lessons learnt. In any case, I might have to raise the issue of a shortened window for cross-checking soon - not to get my excuses in early but to allow everyone to see the purpose of my idea if not the need for it or an alternative to achieve a similar end.
There have been some undercurrents in the office mood and morale recently. There have been exits aplenty with one moving to F Systems, one to Zaha's and one more to Roger's. In the last week, two more prominent staff have opted to leave and although they might not be considered essential to the director's in their immediate plans, the medium to longer term future of the office is surely at stake. In a way, I do feel that the effects of M Knight's departure a year ago is now beginning to show. There have been complaints of the quality of the new staff hired since then - the bulk of whom have joined us fresh out of school at different levels. There have been a general dissent about the lack of quality of work being produced by the staff having to produce it. Ownership levels are low with a rather large divide between the old staff and the ones wet behind the ears with no signs of improvement on the horizon. There is a general air of mediocrity pervading the air and I don't like the smell of it. Someone said that there are always casualties after the Appraisal season, let's see if any more shock announcements are made in the coming weeks!
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