Category: Career

From the archives; drafted but never published. The guys did their training in April 2016, so I expect this is from early 2016!

Some will remember the first time I stepped into a management role in February 2014.  I was really struggling with the influx of communication and how the heck to get people to do stuff.  It was a six week stint, and by the end of it, I had a better handle on things, and really did appreciate readers advice.

Two years on, I’m permanently appointed as a manager.  I started the role just after Easter in 2015, with indirect and direct reports in the vicinity of 75!  It’s hard to imagine now, as that number has seen a number of staff have their volunteer for redundancy.  I’d say my ‘count’ is closer to 45.  I appreciate that everyone who is at work now, wants to be at work.  For a long while, we were struggling with demotivated people who just wanted out!

Now, the business is still talking about more cuts, and I can’t see how – not when I look to my team.  We all just hope they’ll find cuts elsewhere.

Despite further staff needing to go, the business has allowed some opportunities for people in the team to develop, train and improve their skills and income. It gives me the greatest pleasure to work one on one with staff and see where they’d like to move long term or how they’d like to develop.  It’s incredibly strategic – working out ‘who goes where’, trying to get people to where they want, but also develop people in time to fill holes in the business.

I’ve shortlisted applications, I’ve interviewed, and I’ve short listed for appointments.  Telling those who haven’t succeeded is hard – and so many people just take it on the chin.  Others, whinge and think it’s unfair.  The best response are those who are mature enough to see there’s somewhere they need to grow.  I’m learning to be better prepared to have and give that feedback.  And with each pass through the system, I learn how to better equip applicants so they can shine in their application as much as they do day to day.  Running a ‘job readiness’ course has made a world of difference to the quality of applications.

Early next week, I’ll announce some of the most long sought promotions.  For SO LONG they’ve wanted to be a live line worker – working at high voltage without turning the power off!  It’s as technically challenging as it can get, and it’s financially rewarding.  It’ll topple the apple cart – as there are some stars that have silently risen.  There are some candidates who have misplaced confidence.  It will be a undertaking to deliver the news with the sensitivity it will require.

This is a lot of words to say – I love the job.  I love developing staff.  I love seeing people grow.  I relish the day they eclipse me!

First – it takes 2 hours to download my past content and the NBN (the government’s National Broadband Network) isn’t stable enough that this hasn’t dropped out on any of my countless attempts. So… yeah, maybe I need Starbucks or similar? A work in progress, this blog revival!

Right, so as to the blog title: after nine years at the same electricity company (where I went as an engineering graduate), I started a new job today. My new job is within the NSW Government, but still related to electrical engineering.

Upsides

• chose my own start and finish times. Today, it was 8:30am to 5:30pm
• setting an alarm to wake me the same time I usually started work
• corporate office style job, so I can wear dresses and skirts and NO ugly hi vis orange!
• their IT support seems to be quick and responsive
• I have a BRAND NEW iPhone which was completely unexpected (I didn’t expect a desk based role would necessitate a phone, nor such an up to date model!)
• I was paid out my long service leave accrued in my past job, so a lump sum of savings onto my mortgage

Downsides

• the way I was hired means I don’t have annual or sick leave
• my previous employment put 14.5% of my salary into retirement savings, this company does the legal requirement of 9.5%
• getting home in the dark, with sore feet (as I now walk 15 mins to the station) and then trying to feed a dog in the dark and hurting my finger on the washing rack…

For consideration

• I no longer have a team. In the past three years, I had a handful of direct reports, and indirect reports from 30 – 75! So you can imagine having no reports is VASTLY different
  day one was all about drafting responses to customers on behalf of a minister or similar, about concerns and issues with their electricity company. Writing doesn’t worry me, but it is a HUGE change
• The ‘workflow’ is all managed through a computer system I used in my last job, but they use it to a far greater sense. The transition has been easy and made me think ‘why didn’t we use it like this, instead of endless emails?’
• Overall, I found my work day fine. I don’t think I’ve made a crazy mistake. I do a little bit begrudge my desk position and fluro lighting, but it’s day one, who knows what will come with time! The office is lovely and close to the train station at the other end. Maybe I’ll try the ugly tread of ‘walking’ shoes for the commute. And work on doing more chores and outside tasks in the morning light, as there’s none in the evening.

There’s definitely scope for me to learn: more about the legislation. More about gas and the pipelines. Get to know people in all the electrical industries that can assist in my response writing. And of course, there’ll be other tasks for my job, it’s just the ones I was involved with today.

Any questions? Any words of wisdom?

It’s been one year since I took a sharp and unexpected career turn, from acting as a manager of a handful of office based workers, to becoming a middle manager, with other managers reporting to me with line staff.  I wrote my ‘first thoughts‘ after the first week on the blog.

In a similar fashion, I want to review how the year has gone, what I’ve achieved and what I’d like to achieve in the coming years.

Firstly, I’ve gone from 75 staff that ‘roll up’ to me.  Now I have 52 staff appointed and three apprentices. I did not fire a person (I couldn’t even if I wanted to!).  There’s been a wide spread implementation of a voluntary redundancy program, and many volunteered.  The initial 75 didn’t include about 10 staff I came to inherit after it started to seem apparent I was effectively their manager due to geography! What this says is there’s been about 30 (!) staff leave.  A few have moved roles internally as well.  It’s been really good to clear out those who wanted to go – as they were demoralised and unhappy at times, and it didn’t help productivity. That being said, there’s still a huge amount of business pressure to further reduce headcount overall, but there’s no one who ‘wants’ to go in my groups, so everyone is very nervous that voluntary redundancy will evolve to forced redundancy.  Me?  I would prefer we had a mechanism to remove those staff who are a destructive influence to productivity – who ACTIVELY take the business for a ride.  The staff who take inordinately more time and energy to manage than the majority.

Achievements, of all sizes

• Improved bins for light globe and head recycling: I was having all sorts of grief with what would and wouldn’t be collected, and with much back and forth, managed to get all the right bins to satisfy the environmental group and appease the waste contractors
• Bigger truck parking bays: this was a concern to some of the staff, worried about the tiny gaps between truck and the twisting they needed to get in and out.  It was such a simple change (repainting lines) but with many things, just need endless vigilance to resolve the issue

Developing staff

• Appointed five of my staff to the highest technical training course (and over time, they will get financially rewarded).  Sadly, one of those promoted will move locations to meet business needs, but it’s still a net benefit for him.
• Appointed four staff to the afternoon shift I oversee, which effectively ‘saved’ most of them from their precarious contract conditions
• Names an additional three staff for short course training to take on higher responsibilities (again, a pay bump!)
• Trained two field workers in an office based role – me offering informal training and mentorship for no immediate financial gain for them
• Two field workers ‘acting’ roles in the office with the financial rewards

Cost savings

• Returning a number of fleet which were surplus to requirements, to reduce business costs (and the win was: I offered before I was forced!)
• Rolled out iPads to 90% of my staff, and offered first port of call assistance on every issue <- an epic undertaking!  It’s wonderful to be able to email field staff, and get high resolution photographs in the middle of the work day (not when they get back to the depot)

Overall, I LOVE my job.  To many outsiders, it was a big change.  From the role I was ‘acting’ in for six months to this one, it’s a pay cut, but as I said in my linked post, this role comes with a vehicle which offsets the dollars for me.  What I really enjoy about my job is the people contact, but further than that, the development of these people.  I often feel proud of being able to ‘grow’ the people in a business that is contracting and cost cutting.  I really appreciate a boss who by and large trusts me, and supports me in my crusades and missions.  Occasionally, I’m ‘too passionate’ or ‘too frustrated’!  I feel a sense of autonomy, without having to check in, clock in etc; I feel trusted.

What would I like to achieve in the year ahead?

• Daily iPad usage  for the ‘getting’ and ‘closing’ or ‘reporting back’ on work.  I want to move away from print outs and the time in the depot morning and afternoon to collect and return items. It will be a watershed moment when time sheeting becomes electronic for field staff, though whether that will be within the next year, I have absolutely NO idea.
• Personal responsibility to getting tasks done: currently if it doesn’t get done today, it gets passed back in to be ‘rescheduled’.  Things slip through the cracks.  I’d prefer crews/staff knew it needed to get done and ‘fitted it in’ at the very next opportunity.  With electronic jobs, the idea of “lingering” tasks will be more transparent.
• Productivity increase: simply, not one staff member in the depot after the first half hour (after 7.30am) and before the last half hour of the day (3pm).  There’s a strong lingering attitude, and I want to work to fill 7 hours with meaningful work!
• Field supervisor led team briefs – smaller groups, shorter, more meaningful (hopefully)
• Personalised, serious performance reviews and development plans, rather than repeating the same handful of lines for everyone, every half year
• Focused ‘targets’ to meet for different work programs: there are some standards that are well know (fix street lights in 8 working days), but overall, there’s not a strong focus on meeting this and all the other targets that ‘management’ have.  I’m not sure if it’s lack of visibility and timely feedback loops on target progress, or whether the ‘work tasks’ chop and change every day in the week, so there’s no ownership.

Here’s to a stronger year ahead – lean and efficient, but growing and learning more.