One of our customers had multiple, pointless management levels that did nothing but slow things down. When they had a massive redundancy round, one middle manager was left. It was very quickly blatantly obvious that without people above him telling him what to do, and people below him actually doing the doing, he didn't have any clue about how things worked whatsoever. The mystery was why he was still there instead of the people that could do the job.
And no, I have nothing against managers, being a manager in a small company myself until it went bust a few weeks ago.
At university we had a breakdown in relations with one lecturer. The mechanism for dealing with this was for us to raise our concerns with - yes, you guessed it...
If you don't follow procedure you can risk getting your backside firmly bitten. "We've never had anyone go on maternity leave before, so let's just sack her, it'll be easiest". "Fred says he doesn't want to work with any darkies, so best bin that job application straight away..."
Some employers can have some funny ideas about what staff do outside work, which needs to be carefully watched ("you live near the office, you can just call in to do something quick on Sunday morning *can't you*? You can get back to the hospital where your sick child is afterwards").
Once someone starts behaving like that, it isn't reasonable to expect other people to have to work with him, but the manager might feel too intimidated to act. Proper advice might make sure that such a contractor could be disposed of without legal complications and without anyone's safety being put at risk.
At companies I've worked for it has been taken as read that managers can't do the job. If they could, they wouldn't need to employ me to do it!
That was not true when you promoted from within the ranks. Now companies believe it is always better to bring in graduates, with no practical experience, of course incompetence is a by-product. On the other hand, "the experienced" do need to be introduced to new methods, because it's all too easy to get stuck in a familiar rut, so as with all things, it's about getting the balance right.
While I realise that hatred of formal education is firmly entrenched in England - the 'cult of the amateur' and all that - if you don't recruit graduates who are you going to recruit these days?
I'm always reminded of a Finnish firm where a manager actually boasted about how many of his staff had what kind of paper qualifications, with just the same pride with which an Englishman talks about "university of life, me, school of hard knocks, ha ha ha".
We buy the stuff they make, and they don't buy the stuff we make...
I wouldn't expect a TOC MD to be able to drive a train, or someone who writes software for train toilet doors to be able to assist with confused old biddies on the platforms, or ticket sellers to be able to operate the signals. I wouldn't expect a CEO to have a full understanding of recruitment law small print.
On Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:15:01 +0100, Arthur Figgis said in :
Exactly. It applies very widely: I am a storage and virtualisation specialist, I manage a multi-million-dollar virtual infrastructure with multiple SANs, the user community is made up of developers and database specialists. I am not a DBA and I am not a developer (any more). There is no need for me to have these skills in order to provide an infrastructure for them to run on.
I don't believe there is a hatred of formal education, only innappropriate education. Having a degree in one thing, does not qualify you for any management job. Appropriate in-house training can achieve much, though as I said, you definitely need to maintain an external influence.
One problem has been, the belief among higher management that they can run anything and we end up, as in the banking sector, with not one CEO with a banking qualification. Big is not always beautiful. I also happen to believe in Trades Unions. Now that should *really* get you going ! ;-)
He received a written apology from the head of the DWP and £80 compensation for that on the same day they wrote to his MP falsely claiming he had not informed them of his change in circumstances.
That's what the on-hand consultant(cy) is for. Manager has a query about, say, maternity leave - ask consultant, get answer, act on it. No offices to maintain, no staff overhead (twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to happen), much lower cost and the person with the problem only deals with a well known face who should know a lot about them as individuals and their job = happier staff. Plus the consultancy is very likely to have a relationship with those on the other side of the fence, and therefore be aware of what *actually* happens, rather than should theoretically happen, in the event of a dispute - time and money saved again.
It isn't the same as the IT department argument since IT has physical equipment to deal with rather than people - though the difference seems to be lost on many managers ;-)
If only all mangers could somehow run a small business for a year, the knowledge gained would show MBA's etc to be what they are - a piece of paper. The best managers I worked for (3 of them) could get staff to jump into flaming ponds by asking, the rest couldn't get staff to follow them to the pub for a free drink (literally in one case).
But the whole point of a degree is to elevate the students ability to think at a given level. Once graduated, the student should then be
*trained* by the employer to do a given job. A degree does not indicate the graduates ability to do a job, but indicates the graduates ability to be trained to do a job (or more accurately, function at that level). Typically, in engineering, the graduate training programme was 3 years (when I graduated in 1992). Forgetting this is why so many graduates a seen as useless - they aren't - but they are untrained, just the same as any other employee on their first day.
To think, to assess, to evaluate, to question, to co-ordinate, etc.
Very true.
Plus one year in relevant work experience IIRC
Most training... High School, Apprenticeship, College, University, etc does not teach you ALL you need to know. Instead, it gives you a grounding in the basics, the underpinning knowledge and skills, that you will need to go on and continue your learning to whatever level or degree of specialisation is required. Lifelong Learning is the current buzzword but it is quite an accurate concept. I have never stopped learning since the day I was born. A man cannot know everything and a great fool is the man who says he does.
I know of companies which employ university graduates purely because their degree is proof that they can think and continue to learn what is needed within the company..
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