2005

Happy New Year!

Let's all hope that 2005 proves to be a better year for all of us around the world than 2004 has proven to be.

Tsunami and Relief

I wonder what the government departments in the affected countries know about the extent of the tragedy?

The newspapers of course change their story every few hours. The death toll as at today is being reported in numbers around the 140,000 whereas only a few days ago there were reports of just 14,000 deaths.

That aside, there are questions I have about what is to be done.

The staple food stuff in the area is of course rice. Since rice grows in water filled paddies any that were inundated will not only lose their current crop but with the saturation from the salt water are unlikely to produce a crop any time soon. Then of course the principal source of protein is very likely to be fish. Once again with the fishermen, their boats destroyed and the remainder of the community in shock and in mourning there is likely to be few fish being caught to feed people. The most likely place to have fish processing infrastructure is close to where the fishing takes place. Thus it is also likely that most of the processing plants have taken damage if not been wiped out in the tragedy.

Leave us not forget water for drinking and of course sewerage. We still have places in our so called developed countries where places that are more than twenty kilometres from some major city centre are without sewers and where cess pits are the norm. Is it likely that in some of the countries affected by this tragedy the infrastructure is any better than in our own? Hardly. Thus it is also very likely that there is no adequate way of dealing with the human refuse that is being generated each day.

Water is likely to have been available in tourist resorts from the tap. However in more distant and less developed areas it is also more likely to have come from bores, wells and from rivers.

Each of these are likely to have been polluted and/or rendered useless by the tsunami.

All of this of course spell out the dangers of malnutrition, lack of clean water for drinking, untreated sewerage amidst waters that are still covering the land. A situation ripe for disease to take hold.

The question is not whether or not the death toll will increase or not. The question should be what can be done about it? How badly affected are the roads, the harbours and railway connections? There is simply no way that all of the people remaining on the ground can be supplied by means of air across the affected areas.

Where is the water and the food going to come from and how are they going to cope with the waste?

I would love to see some information about these things coming across the wires

"Caves of Périgord" - Book review

A most interesting book that I found on the chuck out table of the newsagent the other day. Set in the French Périgord area which is famous for its prehistoric sites as well as its fois gras, comfit de canard and of course its truffles.

The story is set in one location but over three time periods, 15,000 BC, 1944 and the present. It concerns a section of a wall cave painting that was taken by an SOE operative during the war and taken home to England. When he dies his son takes the piece to an auction house with a view to selling it. It is then stolen and the search is on. While this is happening there are cut backs to the period in which the cave art was created and the period during which it was rediscovered in the 1940s and eventually taken.

The technique of parallel stories in three time periods is well used to enable the reader to visit all three periods and somehow see life and adventure in related picture stories.

What was most relevant for me was the fact that I have visited the area in which the stories are set and am familiar with the towns, villages in which the stories unfold.

Spent a whole day reading the book and can honestly recommend it as an entertaining way to pass the time.

Women in Business

Have you ever wondered what advice women get about getting into business and management?

Wonder no more - just visit this site. Office of Women's Business Ownership

If you are male - this will get you to an even playing field.

Team Player

There are some interesting sites on the web you can use to test out whether you are a team player or not and make some suggestions about what can be done to improve your skill sets. Try them out for size and then also have a little wander around the sites if you want to know more about team work.

Developing your team leader skills

Are you a team player?

Talent Management

Some interesting advice from Management-Issues.com

An effective solution is the ‘4-Lever Engagement Model’. This is built upon seven core principles of managing talent:

1. Celebrate individuality. Since each employee operates through a unique filter, find out what it is. Ask employees what motivate them, what their goals are, how they like to be managed.

2. Set outcomes not instructions. Give clear objectives and steer employees towards achieving them rather than issuing detailed directives.

3. Celebrate diversity. Accept that one-size-fits-all management never works. Align the unique talents of your employees to organisational objectives then step back and allow those talents to flourish.

4. Know what makes talent tick. Talented employees thrive on personal growth, challenge, stimulation, variety, meaning, purpose, respect, responsibility, autonomy and choice. Find out which drivers matter most to which employees. Ensure their work satisfies their personal career drivers.

5. Focus on your high performers. High performers deliver the most value for the organisation so encourage them to aim higher. Investigate the factors that differentiate them from lower performers and build a star map for their role. Use this star map as a benchmark for recruiting new and developing existing talent.

6. Be a casting director. Have you noticed that executives thrive in some roles yet wither in others? Develop close relationships with your people so you know which roles will play to their strengths and which will strangle them.

7. Be a coach, not a manager. Coaching bridges the gap between organisational goals espoused by leaders and the individual career aspirations of your employees by aligning the two. A coaching manager sees their role as building rapport, trust and common purpose. A coaching manager delegates and stretches, giving employees challenging assignments to build their skills.

The 4-Lever Engagement Model shows managers how to apply those principles.

Lever 1: Discovery – asks line managers to find out what motivates and drives each employee.

Lever 2: Delivery – shows line managers how to act on Discovery by modifying their management style, individual by individual, to ignite maximum performance.

Lever 3: Reward – identifies each employee’s personal hierarchy of reward needs and uses the same amount of compensation spend more effectively.

Finally, Lever 4: Recognition – ensures that praise is given when merited.

This model is simple yet powerful: when implemented by a leading investment management firm, turnover was cut from 32 per cent to 14 per cent within 12 months and the business turned around. It enables line managers to cultivate talent, not crush it.

Pete's Point:

It seems to me that if more and more line managers took up the options in this advice the greater the productivity outcomes and the lower the accusations of bullying at work.

What do you think?

What Do Workers in Australia Think?

"Tomorrow’s workers will be serial job-hoppers, more focused on quality of life than ambition and making career choices on moral and ethical grounds as much as on salary, a survey has predicted.

The research by HR consultancy Hudson has sounded a warning for employers that workers of the future – the so-called “Generation Me” – will be less loyal and more demanding.

Of the 2,500 UK employees surveyed, nearly half (42 per cent) said they were loyal to themselves ahead of their employers, with most expecting to change jobs, and even career, several times throughout their working lives.

One in two felt what they do was more important than who they work for, with 63 per cent liking the idea of being “serial careerists”, in other words gaining experience from a number of different business sectors and disciplines.

While employers valued experience and seniority, three out of four employees said they would rather be respected and rewarded on the basis of their talent.

Employees were also increasingly conscious of the ethical and moral values of prospective employers.

Corporate reputation was becoming a decisive factor when choosing an employer – with half of those polled taking note of company's corporate values when selecting their next role.

Nearly two thirds believed it was important for a company to have strong ethical values and cultivate a diverse work force.

Quality of life outside of work was also paramount, with more than two thirds determined to negotiate their own working patterns, and expecting their employers to be flexible enough to accommodate them.

There was also an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, as only a quarter of employees felt they were currently in control of their own work portfolio.

But on the plus side, employees were keen to play a bigger part in the development of their companies and their own progress within them.

Three quarters of those polled said they would like to be more involved in corporate decision-making, with only a quarter currently feeling able to criticise the way their company was run, and more than half nervous about expressing an opinion that diverged from the corporate viewpoint.

Hudson chief executive John Rose said this meant employers would need to look at their own practices sooner rather than later if they wanted to win the battle to retain their best employees and attract the brightest talent.

“UK employees are putting their own needs and quality of life first and expecting employers to create a new working environment to accommodate them,” he said.

He added: “We are in a candidate-driven recruitment market where talent is at a premium. What candidates are looking for from their working lives and prospective employers is changing radically.”
according to an article on Management Issues.com

What is interesting about this article is whether it is supported by reality or whether it is a wishful fantasy for the people interviewed.

Given the millions of people in China and the Indian subcontinent who are anxious to move up and into the work force that actually remunerates them for the work that they can do and the skills that they have I am of the view that the English people interviewed in this survey are unduly optimistic.

If I was one of their employers I would simply outsource the work to another location around the world and let them learn that to be competitive in the world employment market the bosses will have the upper hand and not the workers.

There are simply too many people in the world who are acquiring skills and being in locations where the highly paid jobs are not available. How hard is it to realise that these people are going to go to where the wages are or that the companies are going to go to the places where the skilled labour is.

The "ME" generation is going to have a very rude awakening in the very near future as they come to realise that the days of social welfare are coming to an end, where user pays is the theme of the next decade and where their egocentric attitudes are going to leave them sad and unemployed and that most people who are looking after themselves will simply not care.

We have Freedom, Democracy, Prosperity - then why are we so unhappy?

It now appears that by removing the obvious sources of oppression, the social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s have left us free to be miserable in new and more insidious ways. If all of the barriers to the flourishing of our potential have been removed, and yet we fail to flourish, depression appears to be a natural response. Moreover, the liberation movements have ceded to us a moral confusion unprecedented in history. The ‘ethic of consent’ that replaced the strictures of conservative morality has led to forms of behaviour that raise deeper questions about personal responsibility that we have barely begun to understand."

Feature article from The Australian Financial Review, Friday 15 October, 2004
(Review section, p. 8) by Clive Hamilton

When you look at this analysis of current events then you begin to wonder about the effect that we are having on the rest of the world when we export to them our 'democracy' ; materialism and our well being.

It seems that human beings function best when they are under pressure, when they have something to resist or fight against , when they have a need to thrive and survive. Indeed when the pressures are off, then instead of stimulating artistic endeavour and the flourishing of growth and development, we are left instead in a state of anomie which results in depression, violence and drug induced escapes from reality.

Hamilton refers to these outcomes as the 'diseases of affluence'.

While the western capitalist model is being attacked from an external source - namely Islamic fundamentalism, it is also under attack from within by those who recognise that something is wrong when all of the good things that are supposed to come from the capitalist model are not happening.

Let me state this more clearly. If we have wealth or abundance and we are relatively free to express ourselves and do what we want, then why are we increasingly more miserable?

Hamilton argues that: "We must reconstruct the idea of solidarity not on the basis of economic benefit, but on the basis of our common humanity."

The revolutions in the last few decades have been about enabling individuality. In psychological terms this is giving in to the needs of the ego. What seems to be missing from the lives of many people today is accountability and responsibility and common courtesy - functions that I would associate with the operation of the superego.

Is the turn towards religious fundamentalism in the Christian and the Muslim worlds about bringing back controls and bringing back the codes of behaviour that are the substantive basis for societal coherence?

If it is, and people do not want such fundamentalism to rule their lives, then they had better come up with a different and more useful alternative and quickly or events will simply overtake and overwhelm us!

Season's greetings to all!

A Definition of Ethics

Professor Stephen Cohen of the School of Philosophy at the University of NSW recently proffered an arguably non-contentious, 'minimalist' definition of what must be involved when an opinion on something is of ethical concern. Such an opinion would need to be justifiable, impartial, universally applicable to all, overriding, non-negotiable and closely related to action were it to fit inside any framework of ethical deliberation, argument and decision making.

Pete's Points

I have no problems with the Prof's definition except for the 'universally applicable to all". There is no way that I can see everyone agreeing to anything that is universally applicable to all.

This is not a problem with his definition, but rather, a problem with human beings I think.

Fungal Facts

In an earlier post I mentioned that purchase of a white fungus (truffle) by a New York Restauranteur for what would be a year's wages for other people and I ridiculed him for this extravagance. I now take it back! The prize for gross extravagance and stupidity has been won by the English.

ROME (Reuters) - The world's most expensive truffle returned to Italy to be buried on Saturday.

The warty white fungus, once an aphrodisiac for the ancient Romans and now one of the most costly foods in the world, was bought by a London restaurant at auction last month.

Despite having paid a $52,000 for the precious tuber, the restaurant left the fungus in a safe for too long and it rotted.

Functional or Project Managed Organisations?

I wonder if we could think about what it is like to have an organisation that is run along functional lines? Where people who do the same things are co-located and where the more experienced people can teach the more junior staff the 'tricks of the trade' and in the process of interacting preserve corporate culture.

Then we can think of organisations which have taken on board the strong matrix management model which implies that people work in projects which aggregate into programs and are staffed by a labour force of multi skilled people who get together for a project and then are separated into another amalgam for the next project.

The second type of organisation assumes that the people in the organisation are all highly skilled and enables a growth in the horizontal learning that is across disciplines. The functional organisation on the other hand emphasises the vertical learning that leads to in depth expertise.

Modern organisations of course need both to be flexible and responsive to the frequency and rapidity of change.

The question is how to resolve the dilema.

One answer seems to lie in Communities of Practice in combination with a knowledge data base comprising of tips and tricks.

I wonder when most organisations will learn to mix and match rather than to have one organisational form only?

Fit to be Tied

Have you noticed how many people there are working along side of you who are either stupid, ignorant or just wilfully lazy?

I am afraid that I am one of those people who cannot stand stupidity, incompetence or laziness.

I have no problem accepting that any given point in time someone may not know what to do or how to do it. I am happy to assist that person with training, mentoring, coaching and learning on the job.

I do however have a problem with people who fail to learn and keep making the same mistakes time after time. If the person is in some way intellectually challenged then I will adjust my expectations. However if they are university trained graduates who make claims to being relatively intelligent and continually demonstrate that their lecturers were at fault for ever giving them a passing grade then they make my blood boil.

I am particularly unhappy with people who are lazy.

People who expect to wander into the work place and spend most of their day chatting to other staff, surfing the web, reading and responding to their emails and otherwise enjoying the social activities of the work place. The notion that they have been hired to actually achieve some work outcomes seems only to emerge in discussions about their performance and when they seek promotion.

God help the supervisor who dares to suggest to a staff member that his/her work is unsatisfactory. The staff member immediately goes on stress leave and when sufficiently recovered, heads to the nearest union representative to accuse the manager of being a work place bully.

The world has gone mad. Accountability for one's work used to be a non sequiter. Managing to keep records, adhering to official policies and guidelines, ensuring that risk management protocols were followed, that products were tested before being issued into production, that quality guidelines were being followed were not things that anyone would ever question. The directions of management level staff were obeyed with only two questions being permitted, to ask whether the instruction was ethical or legal. If they were then it used to be "Yes boss" and a sincere attempt to get the work done.

I blame the changes in the education system. With the removal of corporal punishment and accusations being levelled against teachers who forcibly insist on maintaining order in their classrooms the rot set in. Never having been punished by their parents or their teachers, young people seem to have learnt that there are no consequences for doing exactly what they want to do when they want to do it. So when they come into the work place they do not expect it to be different.

By doing what they want when and how they want it they are merely expressing their individuality, their intellectual freedom and their creative side. People like this are a waste of space and my time.

I am fit to be tied.

2005 A Tough Year for Employers? - Hooray!

Next year is likely to be a tough one for employers, who will be under pressure on pay and prices while at the same time finding it harder than ever to recruit the right people into vacant jobs.

The warning from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has followed the publication by the Government of monthly job statistics

The Office for National Statistics figures showed a definite tightening of the jobs’ market, with more people in employment, fewer being made redundant and a reduction in the number of job vacancies.

Compounding this, the growth in average earnings, both including and excluding bonuses, had increased.--http://www.management-issues.com/

Pete's Points

This sort of information, in combination with the information coming from the Treasurer in Australia, that unemployment is likely to be the lowest in years, should make the hearts of dedicated unionists swell with joy.

When negotiating the next round of pay agreements the employees should actually be in the driver's seat for a change.

If government wants to maintain its services and to employ people who are suitable for the jobs which they have available, then it will face demands to reduce the incidence of having to "do more with less" and will finally be confronted with living up to the slogan it has been presenting in public, namely "our staff are our most valuable asset" by remunerating them appropriately!

With the GST generating taxes at an unprecedented rate and with Australians being among the most highly taxed communities in the world, it may be time for the government to spread the largesse a little to those who actually keep the machinery of government going.

The Biter being Bit

Local frogs bite back at toads By Jordan Baker in The Australian December 15, 2004

"A native Australian frog appears to be biting back at the loathed cane toad.

Northern Territory conservationists believe a local amphibian known as Litoria dahlii could be the only native frog able to eat cane toad tadpoles and babies without being harmed by their poison."

Pete's Points

Australia should encourage the breeding of Ibis and of this frog in Queensland and in the north of NSW since they seem to be able to eat the toads without being affected by their poison. I would much rather see Ibis walking around and being fattened on toads than see the toads being fattened on other Australian species.

Let's hear if for "The Ibis and The Frog", a new Aussie TV documentary in the making?

Guide to help new citizens add to 'modern Britain' ?

Sarah Left Wednesday December 15, 2004 The Guardian
"The Home Office today published a 145-page handbook intended to familiarise prospective citizens with British culture, history, traditions and government, which will serve as the core text for new citizenship tests. . . . . "We want to encourage people who are settling here to acquire a basic knowledge of English and of British society. This is fundamental if we are to help them contribute fully to our national way of life," a Home Office spokesman said.

Pete's Points

The British have lost it! This must be an advertisement for a new "Yes Minister" series.

Just one day after I publish my comments about migrants and refugees requiring some special attention to integrate into our society, the British Home Office comes out with this package.

Their response indicates that if they ever had an idea on how to integrate people into their society, the information was lost when records management died with the introduction of computers.

You have to be kidding!

The publication is a book on British values and history from Roman times to the present costing nearly 10 pounds. It aims to show people arriving in Britain what Britain is all about and giving them a hasty tasty tour of British culture so that when they are required to sit for the citizenship examination they will be able to have sufficient English to get by and at least a rough and ready understanding of the British way of life to help them to make their unique contributions to the future of British society.

Who is kidding whom around here?

If I was a cynic, which of course I am not, then I would be suggesting that this new publication and requirement is actually a way of precluding people from gaining British citizenship. If they can't speak English - fail! If they can't answer questions about British history and customs - fail.

By keeping the standards high the British people can once more isolate themselves in their insular mentality and keep Britain for the British. The people they have let into the country as migrants and refugees can stay there and contribute to the economy, but only when they conform to what is expected from people who wish to join British society will they be given the golden handshake of welcome to Britain.

Let's hope that Australia, with a more recent history of integrating refugees and migrants will not lose its collective memory on how such things are done and impose an additional burden on people as the price for escaping from the conditions that made them refugees in the first place.

Some other excertps from the Guardian provide the contextual information to see this cynical exercise in the appropriate light:

Latest Work plan for failed asylum seekers December 13: More than 600 rejected asylum seekers who cannot go home immediately will have to do compulsory unpaid community work in return for accommodation and benefits, the Home Office has admitted.

British attitudes

Asylum operation racist, say law lords December 10: The law lords ruled yesterday that a Home Office operation at Prague airport to prevent Czech Roma people travelling to Britain to claim asylum amounted to 'inherent and systematic' racism.

UK treatment of Roma 'racist' December 9: Immigration controls set up by the government racially discriminate against Roma Gypsies trying to enter Britain, the law lords ruled today.

Opposition to immigrants hardens under Blair December 7: Liberal intelligentsia want more curbs.

"Welcome to Australia Mate!"

In recent times we have been blessed with the advent of reality television. Among some of the more interesting in this genre, are the shows that deal with a modern family leaving behind all of the advantages of the 21st century and moving into a home which represents an earlier part of our history. This could be 18th century England or perhaps an American frontier community.

There are historians of the period who provide the participants with all of the training necessary to ensure that they understand the conditions to which they are going and can assist them with information about how things are done in that time frame prior to their commencement in the setting. After that they are on their own.

The viewers of the series then see the situation unfold as people used to 21st century appliances have to cope without them and adopt the clothing and the customs of a bygone age. There is a sense of seeing another universe, another reality, another time. We feel with the people in the show as they try to cope with all of the strangeness that they encounter and all of the hardships that they have to cope with.

Yet we keep remembering all through the show that at least these people can speak the same language, the customs, while 'quaint' perhaps by modern standards, are understood and the way in which things are done, while certainly more primitive than they are in the 21st century from whence the participants come, they are not so far removed from their own world as to be totally alien.

Amazingly, when we receive refugees or migrants from other countries in which the conditions, customs, language are all radically different to our own we expect them to fit right in.

I sometimes wish there was a reality television show that could demonstrate for us how really difficult this can be.



Imagine a family that comes from an area in which there is only subsistence farming or nomadic herding of livestock. Where the homes are either mobile structures or mud brick dwellings. Where electricity and running water are not available, where gas cooking - if it exists at all is from propane gas cylinders, otherwise it is back to collecting dried dung or branches of trees to supply the fuel for the fires on which to cook. Imagine the lack of transport besides the trusted donkey, the wooden cart or old fashioned "shanks pony".

If you were in that family and were dropped into a modern developed nation and into a large capital city like Sydney or Melbourne how would you feel? How would you cope?

What would you do with all these strange things that exist in your new home?

Things like a bed with a mattress, cupboards, TV, Microwave, Fridge, electric hot plates, a kettle, etc.?

Many families with say three children given a three or four bedroom accommodation have been found filling at least two of the rooms in the place with all of the things they have no idea how to use because they have never had them before. They then exist in the remaining space and have a hard time with showers, sit down toilets, toilet paper, and a whole lot of other things that we take for granted, but which they have never seen much less used.

In addition to all of the above these people do not speak the language, cannot find the foods with which they are familiar and cannot get jobs in our society because all of the skills they have learned are irrelevant in our society. One of the biggest problems is that even their labour is no longer as useful as it once was, because we have moved from an industrial to a post industrial society and so we can no longer put these people to work in unskilled labouring jobs with as much ease as we used to be able to muster.

In short, life for these folks is tough! Indeed, if we had a reality TV show for the people back in their country, this would be their version of "Survivor".

At what point are we going to realise that the refugees that we are now receiving into the country from the 'Horn of Africa" or the Middle or Near East or South East Asia are no longer the Europeans who share so many of our cultural historical and religious values and customs, but may be people for whom what we have in Australia is as alien as their situation would be for us?

Once we realise the difficulties that we are putting them through, we may actually want to do something about it. The question is, are we skilled enough to know how to intervene and how to be good neighbours?

In the past, we had the Department of Immigration employ welfare and social workers in resettlement and migrant services teams to assist the process. Now we don't have these services. In the past, we had organisations like the Good Neighbour Council which provided some of the assistance that is being referred to. Now they have gone.

So while Australia may be a paradise that we can enjoy, we are actually making it difficult for people to integrate into our host society, because we somehow expect them to not only make the huge leap from their undeveloped countries to our way of life, but we also expect them to be grateful for the experience.

I think we may need to reconsider how we say "Welcome to Australia mate!"

What do you think?

Learning Styles

I have always been fascinated by the fact that something that is self evident to me is often an arcane puzzle to someone else or vice versa.

There is obviously something that each one of us has that enables us to see things from different perspectives and so appreciate something in a way that differs from someone else.

The more I read the more convinced I am that this has to do with learning styles. If presented with some material in a given way I am more likely to understand and absorb it than if it is presented in a different way.

The good part of this is over time I learn about how I like to learn and thrive in an environment where the appropriate learning environment is available to me and feel desperate and despondent in an environment where this is unavailable to me.

I have always wondered about my specific learning style and finally found an interesting 'test' available from the University of North Carolina on line that provides immediate feedback.

Called the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire it is a set of 44 questions that when completed and submitted to the organisation (it is anonymous) produces a set of results quickly. These can then be printed out for information.

In combination with the explanation of the scores it can assist the individual with an understanding of his/her learning style and what if anything he/she can do to maximise the benefits of that learning style and minimise the non beneficial aspects.

The site provided for the explanation of the scale and the results can be found at http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ILSdir/styles.htm

Could the Howard Government Please Take Note!

"One of the cornerstones of the neo-liberal policies adopted by most Latin American governments in the 1990s was the privatization of state-owned enterprises. This process of passing national wealth on to the private sector has been so injurious that it could soon render entire countries unviable. On occasion, citizen organization has succeeded in halting privatizations through public demonstrations that at times have turned into outright insurrections. "

"Privatizations: The End of a Cycle of Plundering" by Raúl Zibechi

When is the Australian government ever going to learn?

Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

In this case you and I, as taxpayers who have invested heavily in the infrastructure of state owned enterprises over the years, only to see them frittered away by various Australian governments of many political hues, are once again facing the removal of one of the cash cows of the Australian government - namely TELSTRA, just when the government stipulates that the ageing work force is likely to require more income with fewer tax contributors.

Not only is this DUMB economics, but the history of this form of dumb economics in other countries who jumped the gun should have us fleeing in panic from any suggestion that we continue with the policy of privatising state owned enterprises.

When will we ever learn!

I guess we won't learn until it is too late. Start the protests NOW and make them count - our future is at stake!

Work Until You Drop!

The Times recently reported:

The British government is preparing to open the Pandora's box of public sector pensions by forcing five million teachers, police, fire-fighters and town hall staff to contribute up to two thirds more to fund their final-salary pensions.

According to a story in The Times, public sector staff will also lose generous benefits for early retirement due to ill health which are intended to stop staff retiring early if they are still fit to work in some capacity

The changes, which vary between departments and will be introduced between 2008 and 2013, are based on government plans to raise the public sector retirement age from 60 to 65. They are aimed at reducing the rising costs of pensions as workers live longer and at ensuring that people do not abuse sickness benefits.

Pete's Points

Let's hope that the Australian Government will NOT take a lesson from the books of a Labour government.

If there is anything to the oft repeated exhortation to workers about balancing work and family responsibilities, then there should also be something about being able to enjoy retirement while you are physically capable of doing so, rather than being worked into the ground.

I think the sign on a motor home seen recently on trip to Queensland says it more eloquently than I ever could.

BUGGA WORK!

Educated Australians for Sale!

The Age recently reported:

A survey of Australian bosses has found that having an MBA means little when it comes to getting a job.

According to the survey by The Executive Connection, a mere five per cent of employers placed any value on the degree when recruiting and fewer than a quarter even felt that an MBA was "advantageous".

More than half (54 per cent) said candidates with an MBA did not stand out from the rest of the pack, and 18 per cent said it was not valued at all.

No wonder our graduates get jobs in the rest of the world. They have to leave Australia to find one that is commensurate with their education.

Employers and the government then have the gall to complain that we are suffering a brain drain!

When will employers and the government realise that social policy which suggests that it is a good thing to obtain education as it is the means to having job opportunities needs to be reinforced with some education of Human Resource Management companies and teams so that they will start to value the education that people spend years of their life and a considerable amount of their own money acquiring.

A smarter Australia? Learning organisations?

Not according to this information.

Moving the Finnish Line at Work

The BBC recently reported on a story from Finland:

Finland was heading for a severe labour shortage until the advent of a new concept called "work ability", a complex holistic concept that the Finnish government has been promoting since 1998 to keep older people in the workplace and capture their knowledge and experience.

Since it was introduced, the employment rate of Finns aged 55-64 has jumped more than 13 per cent compared to the EU average rise of 5.1 per cent.

And as BBC's online explains, the scheme is based around an evidence-based approach that aims to convince employers to tailor their work to individuals as they age - and also to improve those individuals' health and skills or knowledge needed for the job.

Pete's Points

Since the Australian government has insisted that it too is interested in keeping older people at work - perhaps it is time for the bureaucrats who are supposed to make this happen to take a look at examples of where it is being done successfully and then consider how to make it happen here.

My current experience is still one which sees most employers giving opportunities to younger people, while older workers are left to languish, told they have no future in the organisation and often prevented from directly competing with younger staff.

This is age discrimination at it's worst.

Warmer Workers lower costs

"Chilly workers not only make more errors than warmer ones, but cooler temperatures could increase a worker's hourly labor cost by 10 percent, according to ergonomics researchers at Cornell University in New York. . . . .

When office temperatures were raised from 68 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit, typing errors fell by 44 percent, while typing output jumped 150 percent.

"The results of our study also suggest raising the temperature to a more comfortable thermal zone saves employers about $2 per worker, per hour," says Alan Hedge, professor of design and environmental analysis and director of Cornell's Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory."

according to an HR.BLR.com article.

Pete's Points

Then again I wonder if they have tested the impact of excessive heat on the work performance of people? I know that I certainly don't work well when the temperature and the humidity is excessive.

I guess the researchers at Cornell should just read their kiddie stories especially the one about Goldilocks and the three bears. Eventually they will find that each person has a 'just right' temperature and working conditions situation which will facilitate that worker's maximum production effort.

Once we know what that is, then all we need is a management that cares enough about its profits to ensure that the workers are best able to contribute to it!

Health USA

In a study that compared patients' ratings of health care in five English-speaking countries, the United States ranked last or second-to-last in patient safety, patient-centeredness, efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. Patients say doctors don't listen, aren't accessible, and don't give enough time. From fastcompany.com

It seems difficult to understand why a country that has trillions of dollars to spend on armaments, and fighting and killing others has so little to spend on the health and welfare of the very people who make up its citizenry.

In spite of the really awful way in which they are treated, the citizens of America, imbued as they are with patriotic fervour and with the almost messianic zeal to spread their democracy far and wide, still seem to find it difficult to understand why people in other countries not only don't want any part of their democracy, but actively oppose any attempt to impose such a democracy upon them.

The reality is that we don't want your health system, among other things.

Why Stress Management Programs Don't Work

"People are our most valuable resource" - how often have you heard this corporate chant?

Are you a believer? Are you a sceptic? Do you just get on with your job and simply not care?

Regardless of your current position the fact of the matter is that stress exists in our daily lives and perhaps even more so in our working lives. Stress can produce one of the greatest expenses to be faced by organisations, primarily because staff who are absent from the work place cannot do any work and staff who are stressed and still in the work place are likely to make mistakes and not really produce their best work.

So what is the corporate response to this costly reality? Slogans? Of course.

Some organisations actually do try and give their employees opportunities to attend stress management programs. The question is, whether this is a good idea or simply one that throws more money at the problem, without any positive outcomes for either the organisation or the worker.

The answer seems to be that Stress Management programs are excellent for those who run the programs, but are markedly less useful for those who attend them.

Indeed it can be suggested that in some cases, attendance at a stress management program actually makes things worse.

A staff member who knows what to do about his/her stress and who continues to experience and suffer from stress, is likely to be even more stressed than when he/she did not have the skills or the knowledge about what to do.

In reality, stress management programs would be excellent value if they were only accompanied by two small additional things:

1. actual work by the stressed individual to use what has been learned; and
2. acceptance by the management of the organisation that no stress management program can work, unless the level of stressors in the work environment are reduced

It is in this area of responsibility that managers need to consider the consequences of their 'downsizing'; 'right sizing'; 'restructure'; 'productivity improvements' and the like.

Most often what this means, is that to get a positive impact for the "bottom line" and to impress shareholders and/or government ministers, senior executive staff make decisions that have a stressful impact at all other levels within the organisation by reducing the number of people who are available to undertake an increasing work load.

The executive is not stressed. He/she goes on to the next position with a pocket full of rewards for reducing the cost of the bottom line and increasing the profit of the shareholders.

It is the staff who are left behind who have to suffer the consequences.

Let's not kid ourselves. Stress Management programs do not work. They could - if managers only reduced the stressors in the work place and staff were given the time, opportunity and encouragement to actively do the things they learn at stress management programs.

Bosses and Health

Found on Management Issues.com

"It's official. Britain's bosses really are fat cats. According to a new report, boardrooms are groaning under the weight of overweight, under-exercised and decidedly unhealthy executives.

A survey of 500 business leaders by catering firm Avenance has found that almost half – 47 per cent – are overweight.

More than half (55 per cent) admit that they do not take enough exercise and one in five say that they take no exercise at all."

This information is neatly aligned with research in the USA which shows that there is a stong correlation between lack of adequate sleep and being overweight as the article continues:

"More than a third (37 per cent) of those surveyed get less than six hours sleep a night while one in five work more than 55 hours a week."

The potential costs of keeping these people healthy and the potential cost to companies of their demise is huge! The risk to their own lives is exponentially greater than it would otherwise be.

So why is there no outcry about this?

The senior management can't complain - they are the victims. The unions don't complain, because these people are usually not among their members. Their partners usually DO complain, but are generally ignored.

Maybe it's all down to Will Shakespeare! After all, was he not the one who said, "Let me have men about me who are fat!."

Of course if these bosses really are unhealthy and suffering from sleep deprivation then one other thing becomes a lot clearer.

The decisions that they make now have an explanation.

Do you understand America today?

For those of us who have been friendly to the USA over the years some of the more recent behaviour of the government of the USA may seem inexplicable.

No longer can I say that.

I am amazed to have found documentation which sets out exactly what the power brokers of the hierarchy in the USA see as the future domination of the world by the United States.

This documentation is from PNAC or the Project for the New American Century. Among its advocates are:

Vice President Dick Cheney
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Paul Wolfowitz
Jeb Bush
Dan Quayle

I am not going to try and influence people by simply stating what it is that these people are saying and wanting to achieve. I would like the readers of this BLOG to find out for themselves.

When you read the Statement of Principles you should feel a chill all the way down your spine as you recollect that Adolf Hitler produced a document entitled "Mein Kampf" which set out his future intentions which no one believed.

This is another example of a document which sets out intentions that indicate that the the USA should create a new empire in the world dominated by American views and ideas simply because it can.

Please have a look at the site which lays it all out for you and then, let's discuss!

http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm

Three Little Words

If you have ever managed a team of people then you know what can happen. You have an "in tray' that groans from the weight of paper or emails or "to dos" that flow from the staff or from your bosses or from both.

Indeed you can end up feeling stressed and vulnerable just trying to respond to all of the traffic that comes your way and often this can end up with you actually doing very little of the work that you want to accomplish.

What's the answer? Three little words!

I can't actually write them down for you and I can't actually tell you what they should be. All I can tell you is that there should be no more than three little words that you use in response to any piece of information that you receive.

The beauty of this technique is that when someone hands you a tome of their work you can turn it around in virtually the time it takes to scan the contents.

There is no attempt at providing long winded analysis and commentary. Your response as a supervisor is merely to give brief feedback and where appropriate directions on what to do or what not to do.

That, is the essence of good management.

Let me give you some examples of what might be suitable, one positive and then one negative response at a time:

"Yes"
"No"
"Let's discuss"
"Do it again"
"Excellent!"
"Wrong"
"Thank you"
"What is this?"
"Well done!"
"Are you serious?"
"Go ahead"
"Stop this now!"
"Please progress"
"Think of consequences"

I am certain that the fertile imagination of each individual supervisor will be able to add to this theme of commentary and the situations which are going to be faced will help to shape the responses that are made.

Your in-tray will shrink, your health will benefit and your stress levels will decline markedly.

"What about the staff member?" you ask.

Very well, what about the staff member?

He/she will learn (some more slowly than others) to want to obtain from you the positive comments and not the negative ones. He/she will learn that negative comments usually mean that you are not happy with the outcome of the work and will not permit it to be implemented or will not take the matter to the next level of management because in your opinion it is not yet ready to be progressed.

Given very little direction on what to fix or how to do something differently the staff member will have the motivation to learn quickly or face a massive increase in his/her frustration levels.

As the quality of the work improves and as the staff member starts to receive more and more positive comments and encouragement to take further responsibility, he/she will be ready for the next move up the corporate ladder and will in fact have learned how to make more useful decisions in the corporate world.

I commend the 'three little words' technique to one and all.

Social Work - Field Education

It seems to me that social workers who take on the responsibility for the supervision of students(i.e. Field Education) ought to ask the universities whose students they take on, "What's in it for me?" before doing so.

There is no way that in this country that we will ever get to the stage where the professional practice of providing professional supervision for students on a practicum will ever be anything other than a voluntary task.

Expecting the already financially pressed universities to come forward with an offer of remuneration for the work involved in providing this professional supervision and assessment of a student's practice skills is a hopeless notion.

Asking the universities to provide some professional courtesy however, may not be as far fetched.

If a student supervisor provides both a teaching program and an assessment program that is a necessary part of the student's course work then why is the supervisor not considered part of the academic staff for the duration of their service to the student?

Were the supervisor to become a member of the academic staff a number of privileges would follow.

For example:

. a staff member can access the university library and its Internet holdings;

. a staff member can obtain academic versions of software at a much lower rate than the regular retail price;

. a staff member can add his/her status as such to their CV and so increase their attractiveness to new employers;

. a staff member could have a say in the curriculum of the university;

. a staff member could seek discounted continuing professional development;

In other words, without the university actually expending any money it could confer on the supervisor considerable benefits that would make student supervision more attractive and so increase the pool of people who might be willing to take on the job of providing supervision to students.

As field educators and universities throughout the country are bitterly complaining about the lack of supervisors for their students it would be in their interest to consider that they have some level of 'mutual obligation' towards colleagues who provide services to them.

Let's hear from the Universities and the heads of schools of social work about this!

Book Review - "In the Blood" - Steve Jones

In the Blood by Steve Jones is the transcript of the BBC television series of the same name. The author provides interesting information about genetics and exposes some of the myths and some of the conclusions which are emerging from genetic studies around the world.

While this is a fascinating hotch potch of information with some really memorable and quotable bits, it is nevertheless a book which seeks to document what was after all a television series. Each chapter may well have been a half and hour show and together with the pictures that no doubt accompanied the text would have been pleasant viewing. As a book however it ranges from interesting items that leave the reader highly anxious to read on to other items that are, at least from this reader's perspective more 'ho hum".

All in all, worth picking up and storing on your bookshelf as both a curiosity and as the source of some useful information. It has a wonderful section at the end called Further Reading which should enable people to follow up on some of the information provided and get some more in depth and presumably well researched information that corroberates some of the grander conclusions that this book reaches. Published by Harper Collins in 1996 it is probably only available in second hand bookshops and as long as you get it for a substantial reduction on its original sale price of $19.95 it is probably a good buy.

Have fun with it - but do not believe everything you read. Consider it as something that raises interesting questions rather than as a definitive answer to questions about genetics.

Book Review - "Devices and Desires" - P. D. James

Yet another in the popular series of books which have been featured in a TV series involving Commander Adam Dalgleish of New Scotland Yard. Set on an imaginary headland of the north east coast of Norfolk it is as one would expect a story about murder most foul and involves a nuclear power station, and terrorists. It is a book of our time although written in 1989.

I must confess that I find the pace of the book somewhat slower than I am comfortable with and so this is, at least for me, not the "page turner" that I have discovered with other authors. Nevertheless it is well written and even if it does not keep you on the edge of your seat at all times it does manage to suck you into the plot and keep you guessing from one chapter to the next about who is doing what to whom and why.

This is the sort of book I like to have with me on holidays. It is something I can read when the time is right and that I can leave on the bedside table when I have more interesting things to do. Published by the Penguin group it is of course available in any good second hand book shop.

Land Tax

Generally I have no problem with understanding that a government needs to find sources of revenue. To do this it requires people to pay one form of taxation or another. I do however have a problem with LAND TAX in the Australian Capital Territory.

In South Australia: "Land Tax is an annual tax based on land ownership", in NSW: "Land tax is a tax levied on the owners of land in NSW as at midnight on 31 December of each year." in Victoria: "The Land Tax Act 1958 imposes an annual tax on the total unimproved value of all land owned in Victoria at midnight on 31 December of the year preceding the year of assessment." In Western Australia: "Land Tax is an annual tax based on the ownership and usage of land owned at midnight on 30 June."

It is not the notion of taxing income producing landholdings that is abhorrent to me. It is not that I am opposed to such a tax on any principle that I can think of.

I have a problem with this tax simply because it is not possible for an individual to own land in this Territory.

The Commonwealth government (or more to the point the Crown) owns the land and the ACT Government manages it. The absolute maximum that can be obtained in the ACT is a 99 year lease.

Given that one cannot own the land why is it possible for the government to charge Land Tax?

Contingency Planning - for when Plans go Awry!

What do you DO when your car runs out of gas? What do you DO when you have bought out the store and suddenly realise you left your wallet at home? What do you do before you cross the street? What do you do before leaving home when the weather forecast is heavy showers?

On automatic pilot you have solutions to these situations, because you encounter them every day. However if you analyse what you really do it becomes interesting as you are actually using "contingency planning".

This is where you take as many of the possible things that go wrong or have a negative impact on you and then assess the risk of those things happening. Risk being the likelihood of the event happening and the level of the likely impact from none to major damage being caused.

Since almost everyone can handle contingency planning almost like breathing in their everyday life it comes as a rude shock to find how few people transplant this everyday management technique into their working lives. It is almost as if the moment they step through the front door of their work places all of the common sense things that they do outside the work place are carefully left outside the door only to be picked up again when they step out of the work place.

Contingency planning is part of the part of the formal planning process and it is as applicable to tactical as to strategic planning.

Since crises are bound to occur in any organisation whether it is well run or not it is just as well to be prepared for the worst and then breathe a sigh of relief if the worst does not happen!

Developing a plan for dealing with something that can go wrong BEFORE it happens is thus an excellent idea. The very worst things you can do in a crisis is have a panic attack because you have NO idea what to do when the dreaded thing happens.

Training people in procedures to be followed and then actually pretending that a crisis is happening and then putting the plan into operation to see how people would cope with it as a practice run is also a sound idea - after all practice does tend to make you perfect.

With frequent repetition you tend to get a better outcome if and when the feared event happens.

Do not expect your plan to match the crisis exactly. It never will. Allow yourself to be flexible in your responses but within some known parameters. The KISS (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!) principle usually applies here. The more complex and detailed you make some contingency plans the greater the risk that your people will follow it to the letter and so miss some opportunities to be creative and flexible.

Above all else involve people in commenting on the dry runs by asking them what they thought of the experience and whether they could see something they would do differently to get a better or more useful outcome. Their creativity in response to situations can be the most successful way of improving your planning and future responses to any crisis.

Staff do not trust their senior managers

"The vast majority of HR professionals believe that their staff do not trust senior managers, according to a new poll that is only the latest to highlight the poor opinion most people have of the leadership of UK firms.

A poll on the HR Gateway website found that an overwhelming eight out of ten feel that employees do not believe what top management tells them about the future plans and direction of their firm.

Only 15 per cent of the poll of 270 respondents thought that that staff trusted their senior management." says Management Issues.com

Pete's Points

What a surprise and why stop at the UK?

The person who suggested this poll must have been a consultant wanting a fat fee for a friend or for his own company. The person agreeing to provide the money must have been a senior manager desperate to prove that the 360 degree feedback process he/she had just engaged in was WRONG!

When we lose sight of the fact that middle managers' jobs should be in MANAGING others and not being too busy to do their own jobs because they are doing work which used to be DONE by others, before there was some 'right sizing' or having to "do more with less", then we may have a chance of finding staff who trust their senior managers again.

It is all too often that we find that some people, at or near the top of the pecking order, preach one thing then do exactly the opposite. Leading by example? You bet and people are following in droves!

When there is congruence between what is said and what is done many people may start to believe and trust again.

Until then there is simply no hope of that happening!

Elections in the Ukraine

I wonder if there have been secret communications between President Putin of Russia and President Bush about elections in general.

If I were Putin I would tell Mr Bush not to make too many inquiries about the elections in the Ukraine where exit polls suggested that the opposition leader would be elected and instead the one supported by Russia somehow wangled a win. After all a similar story has been going around about the recent American elections, hasn't it?

Audit of Regional Grants

Wednesday November 24, 08:41 AM

"The Federal Opposition has called for the auditor-general to probe funding decisions made by the government under its Regional Partnerships program.

Concerns have been raised that much of the $100 million program was earmarked during the election to be spent in seats held by the Nationals or in former Nationals seats held by independents."

Pete's Points

It is amazing that voters have not yet managed to get the 'right idea' from the certainty that anyone in government is more likely to spend money on those electorates that are either marginal or in the hands of their opposition.

What is the right idea?

Make more electorates marginal!

If you watched the last elections - whether they were here in Australia or in the USA no one really gave a damn about those places that were known as a 'sure thing'. They were allocated to the party that traditionally wins them and the focus of all attention was on those electorates that were uncertain, where voters do NOT vote blindly for one party or another but actually make a choice based on what the parties or the candidates from those parties are actually going to do for them.

In line with the notion that is being used here in Australia by the government in respect of people in the community in receipt of welfare payments, called Mutual Obligations, maybe this is the only way we can get governments to undertake their obligation to us as citizens and taxpayers, by forcing them to take an interest in us, rather than always someone else who has been smart enough to keep them guessing about who they vote for.

Disability Pensioners to go back to work

Wednesday November 24, 10:10 AM – from Yahoo News

“Govt 'determined' to move disability pensioners into work

The Federal Government is considering a system of coercion and incentive to get disability pensioners off welfare and into the workforce. The Government says a six-month pilot program to encourage disabled Australians back into the workforce or training was a success. Workforce Participation Minister Peter Dutton says the pilot showed that a combination of coercion and incentive can help get disability pensioners back to work. "What we've shown is that for the majority of people there is a willingness to participate, to look for work," Mr Dutton said. "For those people we think aren't there legitimately then we've got to try and adopt some coercion and that's unfortunate in the minority of cases."

Pete's Points

Why does this direction of the newly elected government surprise anyone? What does being a Disability Support Pensioner mean?

In the past, when it was called the "Invalid Pension", we knew with considerable certainty that the recipient was at least 85% permanently incapacitated. Following a review, there was a decision made to move to a more medical model which emphasised the level of residual capacity for employment which remained for people.

From that moment on, it was a foregone conclusion that at some point there would be a decision made, when the political situation was right, to require people to exercise their residual capacity. This trend, to assist people from receiving welfare payments into employment began some years ago with the introduction of similar assistance for Sole Parents and then of course the introduction of Mutual Obligations as a mainstay of government policy.

What is a little puzzling is that many people in the community have always thought that with the tightening of the model, the people who were eligible for the Disability Support Pension were those who did not have a capacity for work remaining after their accident or illness.

As the number of people leaving the work force grows into the expected flood arising from Baby Boomers going into retirement and/or falling ill as they age, there is a pressing need to reduce the amount of money being sucked out of the welfare system into pensions of one kind or another and there is certainly a need to bring expertise and experience back into the work force generally. Hence the emphasis on superannuation leading to self funded retirees, the encouragement of older workers to stay in the work force and of course the encouragement of as many people on welfare payments as possible to return to the work force.

Palestinians Say They Want Democracy

By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer Nov 20 2004

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Freed from Yasser Arafat's one-man rule, Palestinians say they are eager and able to build the first real democracy in the Arab world, despite the dangers lurking on the road to Jan. 9 elections.

"Now it's real competition, the possibility of winning is there," said pro-democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti, a physician considering a presidential bid.

Pete's Points

"Pro democracy activist"? You have to be kidding!

Barghouti is currently serving a jail sentence in Israel for terrorism.

Poppyseeds cost man his license

From Ananova

"An Austrian driver has lost his license because he failed a drug test after eating a dish containing poppyseeds.

Wolfgang L, 39, had his license withdrawn when a test showed traces of morphine in his urine.

But he denies drug abuse, saying he had recently eaten mohnnudeln, an Austrian speciality consisting of noodles, poppyseeds and fruit."

Pete's Points

There is only one question I have to ask, did he feel any pain when his licence was revoked?

Here is an item for people in the Northern Territory

"Beer can insulation

A Russian man who collects beer cans has turned his collection to practical use.

He is using them as insulation after his wife told him: "Either the cans go or I do", reports Pravda."

Pete's Points

I guess the only down side to this information is that you can't use NT Stubbies, but then again, glass can be a good insulator too, can't it?

Entrepreneurs and Dyslexia

The Management Issues Blog on 18 November 2004 reported the following:

"Virgin's Sir Richard Branson, Amstrad's Sir Alan Sugar, Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers and media magnate Ted Turner are all highly successful business people. And they are all dyslexic.

But now research has found that far from being a hindrance in the business world, having difficulty with words can be a positive advantage.

A study carried out at Simfonec, the Science Enterprise Centre based at the Cass Business School in London, has found that entrepreneurs are five times more likely to have dyslexia than people at managerial level."

Pete's Points

What an interesting finding!

I wonder what the results would be if we tested a much larger group of entrepreneurs? Would we find that success in schooling had very little to do with success in business? If so, then how would this impact on the current mind set that it is only by improving our education that we can find gainful employment and enjoy a satisfying life style?

Has the current method of schooling got it wrong?

Should we be seeking to retain and embellish "childlike" as distinct from "childish" behaviours?

Bullies in the work place or Victims of 'doing more with less'?

In recent years there have been more and more organisations in both the public and private sectors that have had to 'do more with less'. Within the private sector, this appears to be the direct result of the expectations of shareholders wanting greater profits and Boards and CEOs, if for no other reason than the maintenance of their remuneration packages, working hard to cut expenditure, improve productivity and hence profitability. In the public sector, there is a form of madness that has imbued various governments around the world, that requires the privatisation of public institutions and bringing them within the ambit of private enterprise management. In parallel with this thinking, there has been a bold attempt to introduce private enterprise management techniques to public service agencies, without the realisation taking place that they are NOT working on a 'for profit' basis and have functions in the delivery of services which bear no resemblance to the private enterprise model. It is simply amazing what ideology will do to common sense.

However I digress.

The results of this massive attempt to improve the bottom line by means of improved productivity has had a number of positive and negative effects.

Among the positive effects have been increasing company profits and hence dividends to shareholders or in the case of the public services that do remain, a lowering of the overall costs in the expanded services. Indeed in the Australian Commonwealth Public Service, agencies have for years had to endure an annual saving of 1% of their operational costs by improving productivity. In 2005 this will go up to 1.25%.

The reality for managers on the ground is that the Government expects the agencies and departments to undertake new business each year which is added to their existing work loads and sometimes actually gives them money for the additional services they are required to provide. They also take back 1 to now 1.25% of the total allocation, in the expectation that these organisations will be able to continually improve their productivity and so off set the imposed burden.

To some extent the governments have been wise to go down this track. It has meant that the use of technology to automate what were essentially expensive manual processes has taken place. It has enabled the wholesale removal of one of the more expensive items in the budget, for example, people, from remaining on staff. It has also increased the stress levels on the staff who remain. This outcome is a direct result of the 'doing more with less' philosophy and the introduction of technology.

Prior to the introduction of electronic messaging, for example, a letter could take about a week to produce and to send to another organisation or part of the same organisation. This was not inefficiency, but merely the technology available at the time. Someone had to hand write the letter, then it had to be sent to a typing pool, then it had to be returned for vetting and if any errors were found returned to the pool for correction and then the mail took at least a day or so to get from one part of the organisation to another and if the Postmaster General (now Australia Post) was used it took longer to get messages to other parts of Australia much less other parts of the world.

Today with email, a message can be composed as quickly as the author can type it and be in the recipient's hands within minutes of its completion. There is then the expectation that a return message will wing its way back to the original sender within a similar time frame. The volume of such interactions and the speed with which they take place can improve productivity but it also places greater stress on the individuals involved.

The stress for staff within organisations has been demonstrated in a variety of studies, it is also exemplified in recent revelations that Australians are working harder than many of their counterparts in other parts of the world some working 70 - 80 hours a week.

Combine this known stress with the fact that while wages are going up prices are outstripping the wage growth, a taxation system that leaves Australians as one of the highest taxed people in the world and a consequent need to have both of the adult members of a nuclear family working just to be able to pay the bills. Housing is said to be less and less affordable for many people, personal indebtedness has increased alarmingly enough for the Governor of the Reserve Bank to alert the government to its possible consequences and research on the levels of illness as reported to Comcare and other agencies is on the rise.

If we can accept that there are three main stressors in life, workplace stress, occupational stress and personal stress, then we see that we have been creating a society in which all three levels of such stressors have been increasing over time.

Studies in the 1970s and 1980s focused on the stress that was being experienced by personnel involved in emergency response areas, firemen, ambulance officers, policemen and so on. These studies also indicated what might have to be done to assist these people to remain in the work place and to continue to function in an adequate way. As the stress levels in the work places other than those being occupied by emergency workers have increased, I wonder if the findings of those earlier studies would now apply to other workers whose stress levels have increased to levels that are similar to what those workers were experiencing?

The level of attributed bullying in work places has, I would suggest a direct correlation with the increasing levels of stress that have become common place in many work areas and also with the lack of funding and time which is available to provide staff with the necessary training and/or supervision that they require so that they can perform their tasks at a competent and less stressed level.

As early as 1998, Rowe Trapp, writing in "The Independent", discussed bullying in the work place. He mentioned research in the USA that showed that lesser actions than shouting , threats and/or physical abuse can prove to be quite devastating and costly to the enterprise. A University of North Carolina study for example, described the following behaviours:

• accusations of lack of knowledge
• undermining credibility in front of others
• demeaning notes

The research found that:

• 53% of staff lost time at work worrying about the incident;
• 43% contemplated changing jobs (with 12% actually doing so);
• 37% believed that their commitment to the organisation had declined as a result of the incident;
• 28% lost time at work avoiding the instigator;
• 23% reduced their work effort;
• 10% reduced the amount of time that they spent at work

While there is no doubt that there are some managers and supervisors in the work place who really are bullies, it would be illogical to assume that the majority of people who come into the supervisory or managerial roles suddenly become bullies.

If we look to some alternate explanation then we are likely to find it in the increasingly stressful work place and the expectations that are placed on people especially through unrealistic performance appraisal contracts. Unrealistic because there are many employees who come to their new positions unprepared by either training or experience or learning on the job and so are unable to perform to the levels which have been set. Their situation is of course not improved by the fact that the requirements for ever increasing productivity gains mean that there is neither the time nor the resources available to enable them to acquire and practise the skills that they require nor is there time for adequate mentoring and/or supervision. In combination with financial and other stresses at home the situation where what appears to be bullying happens. This may, on further examination and exploration of the circumstances turn out to be nothing more than an inappropriate response to the high levels of stressors present in the work environment.

Professor Christine Pearson has suggested that there are five key response that can be used in such cases:

1. clarify expectations in regard to interpersonal dealings and establish explicit codes of conduct;
2. watch closely for patterns of inappropriate behaviour;
3. document deviant incidents and take account of inappropriate behaviour in evaluations;
4. deny instigators further influence over people;
5. mandate counselling if deemed necessary.

The solutions suggested may work well in a number of instances. In others though, I am afraid that they may well be labelling victims of stress as perpetrators.

It would be my view that until there is greater recognition that the overall stressors in and outside the workplace have risen to such an extent that it is likely that previously well balanced and moderate individuals can fall victim to the stress and experience behaviours that are less than desirable as coping mechanisms. Inappropriate coping mechanisms of course.

Once we recognise the underlying cause and factor in the overall cost of dealing with such consequences of stress, I believe that simple "protection of the bottom line" will force senior managements in organisations to seek ways of reducing the stressors for their employees.

Google Introduces New Research Tool

Thu Nov 18,12:35 AM ET as reported by AP

"MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Online search engine leader Google Inc. is setting out make better sense of all the scholarly work stored on the Web.

The company's new service, unveiled late Wednesday at http://scholar.google.com, draws upon newly developed algorithms to list the academic research that appears to be most relevant to a search request."

Pete's Points

This is a service worth trying it eliminates most of the spam among hits and gets you some really reputable information when you need it quickly.

Are we a schizophrenic society?

The Australian government has a recent history of managing the finances of the country into surplus and maintaining its reputation as the highest taxing government in the history of this country.

While they practice a form of fiscal responsibility, their constituents are a living a very different lifestyle from the government that they elected.

Australians, by and large appear to be living well beyond their means, with the statistics indicating a debt of considerable proportions for every man, woman and child in the country.

I wonder how this works. As a community we live on borrowings and increase our debts while electing a government that reduces its debts and preaches and practices fiscal responsibility?

Could it be that there is a desire to have in place a well healed government that can bail out the unwise investor if all of his/her investments come crashing down?

Sounds plausible, until you realise that it is the same group of people who want the government to temper the amount and extent of its welfare commitment.

So maybe they are just gamblers - albeit in stocks, shares and property no to mention horse racing, football and of course lotteries.

Sounds plausible until you realise that the same group wants the government to ban gambling on the Internet and want to see a reduction in the number of slot machines in clubs.

I can't see the sense really.

The Garden

While in the garden the other day, I noted that the intense period of the drought that we have experienced in Australia over the last few years, has led to my lawn becoming a dust bowl with individual tufts of grass. In addition, some trees and shrubs have also turned up their toes due to the lack of moisture.

As the grass turned brown and then disappeared, so did my interest in taking preventative action against weeds and other garden pests.

Suddenly we had a little rain. There was a burst of green growth. What grew? Weeds and more weeds! I had no idea that they could spring up from nowhere, so quickly.

Today, just a few days later, they seem to represent the dominant life form in my garden. I suspect that there will be only one way to deal with them - merciless extermination. Then my garden will once again take on the look and feel that I have designed.

I wonder if my thinking about my garden applies to the macro world that I live in?

Under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein the level of crime, the potential for insurrection, was kept under control. Saddam was merciless with the "weeds" in his garden. He would poison them, gas them, cut them down in their prime and even practice some forms of genocide to try and prevent them from gaining even a foothold.

Those that responded to the efforts of this 'gardener', those that pleased his aesthetic senses were rewarded and nurtured.

As the USA invaded the country, ostensibly to remove what we now know were the non existent weapons of mass destruction, they removed the "gardener". The groups that have been repressed for ages have suddenly grown quickly and flourished and want to throw out the invader and take power.

As we watch the destruction of Fallujah, it is interesting to speculate whether the behaviour that accompanied the tyranny of Saddam, will become the behaviour of the USA? Will they also treat the people of Iraq as 'weeds' and mercilessly eliminate any opposition to their view of how the 'garden' should look?

No doubt, as in the USA, there will be bushes (pardon the pun) that not only survive, but thrive. Alas all those who do not fit into the new vision are likely to be considered as "weeds" in this American garden and will need to be eliminated to promote the growth and well being of more useful 'plants'.

After all, the well being of the average American, his/her requirements for health care, education, housing and an adequate income does not appear to be high on the agenda of the current administration.

The Staple of Life

When visiting the USA some years ago my partner and I arrived in Washington DC at the Dulles International Airport, obtained our hire car and then headed off for Chesapeake Bay via the "beltway' or the ringroad that circles that town. As we were ambling along we both realised that the wonderful airline food had vanished, we were hungry. Being used to travelling we decided to call in to the first shopping opportunity and purchase some bread, a tomato or two perhaps some ham or other smallgoods which might be available and make a sandwich which we could have on the way.

Fortuitously, or so we thought at the time, we went past a convenience store and purchased the items we wanted. We then continued our drive to a lovely spot overlooking a wonderful water view and proceeded to make a sandwich. Imagine our surprise, or perhaps I should say horror, when in biting into what looked like a most inviting meal we bit into the equivalent of sweet, fair floss textured bread. Our immediate response was to stop and examine the pack containing the bread. I mean it looked for all the world like regular white sliced bread, nothing special mind, nothing to really get those juices flowing, nothing that would remind you of the smell of freshly baked bread straight from the baker's oven, but just ordinary bread of the sort you usually buy in a supermarket. The label did not suggest anything out of the ordinary, but the nutrition information on the back of the packet sure did. The contents contained 4 different starches, quite a few preservatives, sugars of two kinds and above all else, and this was the proud boast on the packet, "NO NUTRITIONAL FIBRE".

We just looked at each other and then back at the label and then back at each other again with disbelief growing with every instant. The staff of life had not only been tampered with but had had all of the goodness taken out of it to be replaced by chemicals, starches and sugars. Only in America, the bastion of capitalism and of democracy and of freedom of choice, could you find on sale the rubbish we had just purchased. It had never occurred to us that something as simple and basic as bread could be tampered with to such an extent.

In thinking about it, we began to ask questions and to compare and contrast our experiences in Europe, from which we had just come and of course with Australia, our home.In many European countries, as well as Australia of course, the phenomenon which began in the USA, namely supermarkets and malls is becoming endemic. As these large chains use their superior purchasing power they can dictate the nature of the products which they are prepared to take on their shelves, in much the same way as McDonald's purchasing power has dictated the planting of the long large potatoes that make such wonderful fried potato straws that are served when you in fact DO 'want fries with that.' The buying power of McDonald's is so large that potato farmers are forced to either not do business with this group, and so lose money, or grow the sort of potatoes that they want. In the end it is the consumer, who used to be able to have a choice of many varieties, before the advent of this chain, who suffers. Still this is what capitalism is all about - market forces.

It is the same with bread. The types of grain which are planted, in the USA in particular, are now coming more and more to be part of the genetically modified varieties which provide the farmer with a more bountiful harvest and/or greater resistance to pests and/or some other desirable (read economically beneficial) properties. Species which do not have the same level of output or resistance are abandoned. Biological diversity suffers as do the consumers who now generally are able to buy only bread from a lesser number of wheat or other grain species. Mind you I use the word 'suffer' lightly as many would suggest that they have never had it so good.

In a conversation with my father in law the other day, a man who is retired on a fixed income, it emerged that his view of one chain of supermarkets which has produce at considerably lower cost than any competitive supermarket chain is the only place where he now goes to shop. "Anyone who shops elsewhere has more money than sense.' is his view of things. Of course in his situation he is absolutely correct. If you can buy a loaf of bread for a dollar why on earth would you pay four times that price in a bakery for a different kind of bread? I mean it's just bread - right? Wrong!

In our travels around Europe we noticed a fightback against the ubiquitous pap that is being served up in the supermarkets. In France, in Germany, in Austria, in Belgium, in Italy there are small local bakeries who make their living producing items that bring back the smell and taste of the 'good old days'. Their bread does not disintegrate into dry breadcrumb material in the first few hours after baking. Nor is it anything like the cotton candy that was served in America. It is bread that can still be called the staff of life. It is crusty on the outside and the texture of the inside will be firm, moist, tasty and filling.

We have found that bread is not the only produce that regularly fails the taste test. A tomato grown ripe on the vine simply exudes a smell and a taste that is incomparable. It is sweet and tempting and not tasteless and odourless as are the products sold in most supermarkets. These are ripped from the vine when they are still semi green and 'ripened' on their journeys from wherever they were picked to the markets where they are sold. Anyone who has purchased tomatoes, apricots, peaches, plums indeed virtually any fruit directly at the place where they are grown and managed to get them when they are ripe will know instantly what I am talking about. These fruits and vegetables are simply so delicious that after them the supermarket offerings are almost offensive.

Yet more and more people are falling into an economic trap which forces them to buy their supplies in supermarkets. As the number of people who can still afford to buy the better quality products decreases so too does the opportunity to have really fabulous food unless you can pay astronomical prices for it.

Is this progress? Is this what being part of a developed country has led us to? Working 70-80 hour weeks just to be able to survive?

If our American experience with the staple of life is any indication, then sadly, we are heading into a future where having taste buds will be irrelevant and where the joys of cooking 'from scratch' will be relegated to museums. Instead we will see either "out of the box" cuisine or like some properties in the city these days, apartments without kitchens, proudly advertising the fact that the owners of those properties would not be seen dead having to undertake domestic duties when there was so much to eat out or to take away.