I know I don’t have much real world experience when it comes to managing people with the majority of my experience being focused in 3 short stints of project management. Still when I coupled that with my 2 years of formal management training I feel I’ve got a good idea about how to organise a team of people to achieve a certain goal. Additionally I’ve had a fair bit of experience working under many different kinds of people all with their own distinct management styles so I know what works practically and what doesn’t. So when I say that one of the most common problems in management (apart from not knowing your own weaknesses) is a clear lack of strategic direction and planning¹. Whilst I’d love to say that this is distinctly a public sector problem, thanks wholly to our 3 year parliamentary terms, it is also rife in the private industry.
At its heart the issue stems from immediate needs of the organisation being given a much higher priority than long term goals. Logically this is understandable as the immediate issues generally have real impacts that can be measured and the benefits can be realised in short time frames. However this also means that, unless you’re extremely lucky, you’ll be sacrificing your long term sustainability for those short term gains. For the public sector this kind of behaviour is almost ingrained as goals that stretch beyond the current incumbents term don’t usually get a whole lot of traction. For the private sector however it’s usually comes down to maximising their quarterly/annual figures which usually makes the decisions even worse than those in the public sector.
A brilliant example of this fell in lap my lap yesterday when the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) decided that it no longer required the services of 17% of its contractor workforce and promptly told them that they didn’t have a job anymore:
The federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations ended the contracts of 51 of its 300 IT contractors, some of whom had worked at its head office for years.
Staff in other workplaces across Canberra are anticipating similar news this month as the bureaucracy seeks to cut its technology budget by $400 million this financial year.
Stunned Education Department contractors told The Canberra Times that several staff were still unaware they had no job to return to today.
Now I haven’t been able to source any of the reasoning behind the decision² despite having 2 family members working in the department but even without that I can tell you that the decision was made with no regards to the strategic direction of the department (although I’ll also tell you how they’d argue the opposite). It all comes down to a game of numbers that went horribly wrong coupled with a distinct disconnect in the communication lines between the direct managers of the contractors and those who made the decision to let them go.
Taking a long term view of this situation would have you plan this kind of move out for at least a couple months before hand. The argument could be made that they didn’t have the work for them anymore however my people on the inside tell me that’s not the case as they’re still understaffed for the workload they have. The flip side of this could be traced back to the Gershon Report which advocated slashing contractor numbers and replacing them with permanent staff members. That move however would have required them advertising those positions months ahead of pulling such a stunt which, if you checked the agency’s job listings, you’d know hasn’t happened. The only remaining reasons are either a huge management stuff up or an attempt to slim down their budget.
Both trains of thought completely disregard the long term goals that the department has. Dropping that many staff with such little notice means that the work that they were currently responsible for is no longer being taken care of. Additionally the short notice of termination means that there could not have been a handover to other staff leaving quite a lot of work in a state of limbo, either having to be redone completely or shoe horned in to meet their milestones. The quick termination would not endear the organisation to those contractors it gave the shaft to either and DEEWR already had a somewhat shaky reputation when it came to its contracted staff.
As it turns out though it was probably a massive management stuff up, since they’ve publicly apoligised for what they did and appear to be working to get them all back on board.
What is there to be learnt from all this? Well the over arching point is that major decisions should be made with a vision that stretches beyond any immediate time frames. In my example a misinterpreted directive was applied without regards to both its short and long term consequences. Had they stuck to their guns though the decision would have long lasting effects on the department’s ability to meet their goals. As it stands they’ve already managed to make 51 contractors uncomfortable with their working situation there and the buzz has already had others question their positions there. Realistically no contractor that’s aware of this news will look at DEEWR seriously from now on.
Snap decisions should never be made when there’s the potential to have consequences that will stretch beyond the immediate time frame. The most common types of managers, those who rose from the ranks of their fellow employees, are unfortunately the most prone to lacking strategic vision for their team. There is unfortunately little that us underlings can do to steer our managers clear of these kinds of mistakes however you can minimize their impact by providing sound, timely advice to influence their decisions in the right way. Hopefully if you’re in a position to make such decisions you’ve either already identified this problem or taken my advice on board, but I’m happy to discuss your points here should you disagree with me 😉
¹Strategic in this sense relates to long term ideas, on the order of 3~5 years. Ask your current boss to see if they have a strategic plan for your area/section/division, you might be surprised at what they give you back.
²As it turns out they pointedto the Gershon Report as the source for firing the contractors. Considering that the report specifically mentioned replacing contractors with permanent staff not firing them. So as it turns out the real reason was a little from both my trains of thought: a huge management stuff up done with the hopes of slashing their budget. Words fail me to describe how idiotic this is.
I tend to think that this happens more often in the private sector than public. I can certainly name at least 6 occasions in the 4 year stint I did at a large outsourcer, where the local management were told to make redundant “X” amount of people (varied on each occasion) for essentially no reason. And on at least one occasion, 3 women on maternity leave were made redundant.
Sometimes people in the public service are promoted up through the ranks because they are poor managers and/or generally bad at what they do. This phenomenon stems from the fact that it is very difficult to get rid of poorly performing people out of specific positions and sometimes the easiest method of getting rid of them is facilitating their promotion to another part of the public service.
It has been suggested that DEEWR assures their contractors right up until the last minute that they still have a job … to give them little opportunity to apply outside and then their contract is renegotiated at a lower rate.