evaluation and restructuring report

The last couple of weeks have been pretty manic at work. The Job evaluation scores came out on 17th October and people now know what the scores they got back in March mean in the pay packet. Those who have lost form a significant minority (that includes me) of just under 20% while 75% will gain and about 5% stay the same. Some of the losers have been very vocal in the anguish with personal attacks on the negotiators on the webpage of the local paper and setting up an e-petition.

I've not been complaining much as we remembered to lodge an appeal back in March about how the evaluation of our job was wrong on 10 out of the 13 factors, plus the job has changed since 2002 (the date for the scores) and we have registered the changes for re-evaluation, plus it is about to change again after a recent restructuring. On top of this, I have up to five years of pay protection to sort things out and the employer has agreed to a thorough review of all jobs to see if responsibilities etc can be increased legitimately to maximise JE scores.

What has been interesting to see is stewards who argued in the past so strongly that we must do something for the low paid front-line workers being unhappy with a set of proposals that do just that. The advice you are usually given is that JE schemes traditionally result in 1/3 going up, 1/3 going down and 1/3 staying the same. One of the complaints on a message board was that the person had been to a meeting where he was told that 40% would go up, 40% would go down and 20% stay the same, and he was unhappy that the proposals were for 75/20/5! I'm not sure how having more winners and less losers is a cause for complaint...

It was also interesting to see the number of managers who spent the day the results came out posting messages on the local paper's website about how badly their team had been treated in all this. My personal view is that their time would have been better spent supporting their staff rather than hiding in their office typing messages about how bad it all was.

A bit more talking and a bit less typing would have suited me if they were my manager.

I'd want them to reassure me that the changes to the job since 2002 have all been recorded and sent for evaluation, that the appeal that the manager had helped with back in March (they did help their team lodge an appeal, didn't they?) would go some way to sorting out the problem, and that as a manager they hadn't spent their time in the original interviewing saying that "the team doesn't do that, I do it as the manager".

And just to make life interesting, the second interview for the promotion has come round. The two candidates have been given a task to carry out on Tuesday afternoon that involves rewriting a job description and producing a report on how to restructure the team to include the posts covered by that job description. We interviewed the people who do the job on Wednesday
morning, drafted the jd that afternoon, got it checked by the people in the post, and I am typing this after spending the second day working at home on the restructuring report that has to be handed in on 1st November. I then have to produce a risk assessment of not carrying out the change and of carrying out the change that has to be in on 8th November for an interview on 9th.

Better finish now so I can get things ready for Sonia to come home with the shopping.

Goose Fair 2007

We went along on Thursday night to meet up with Bill, and Chris & his kids. Took a load of photos, which got edited down to these on Flickr.com.

Got another load to sort out from the Saturday visit with Stephen and Molly, and some more photos from the Sunday day out at the Leicester Space Centre and the Melton food show.

long time no blogging

Well it's been a while since I last posted anything here. I was drafting a write up of our holiday in Malta (for Flickr pictures: click here) back in March but have been busy on so many other things at work and home that I've failed to keep this up to date.

Since then I've been taken away to Bowness near Windermere for my birthday in May (photos here), had my uncle Michael visit from Australia (introduced him to British real ale pub culture of sitting around, talking and taking the mickey out of the gang while getting sozzled before stumbling into a cab to get home), and been over to Londonderry and the Inishowen peninsula of Donegal to visit most of Sonia's relatives (photos).

In between these holidays, we've continued to try to do something different on the first weekend of each month: visiting Lincoln (photos), the Riverside festival (photos), and Cropredy festival (photos). The latter weekend was spent with Sonia's aunty Julia and her husband Joe, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

I've also been round Nottingham quite a bit taking photos. The Heritage Open day meant I was able to get into the Bromley House private subscription library (photos) and the Adams Building (photos), while the Big Wheel day out at Nottingham castle meant we were able to get into a luminarium, Levity II (photos). The latest jaunt out was an early walk into Dovedale, up and over the hill to Stanhope before trekking back down to the car park for a picnic (photos).

I hope to keep this blog updated a bit more often, but must go now to make Sonia's tea as she's due in from her new job soon.