Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
I say this as someone who has worked as a labourer in some of the worst grunt labour and semi-skilled labour positions available. I have also been responsible for supervision and productivity of employees on a production line and and as a business owner in the landscaping field. I know what works when dealing with employees and while I do not think my opinions are the only way to do things, I have had enough experience to know that they are valid.
Both build company moral, and help build a sense of connection between members of an organization who might only ever deal with each other on opposite end of an email/phone line/work force crew.
By training an employee in more than just their immediate task you can help them understand the larger picture about what needs to be done, resolve disputes on their own, and just in general being happier more well adjusted part of a work force. This can have a very large impact on productivity and directly impact the workload of a supervisor, a person you have probably put a very large amount of time and money into training and developing. This will allow a single supervisor to be able to handle more employees and more likely to return to their position the following season, assuming they are seasonal as well. If you treat your employees as people who are only valuable in doing the non-skilled work they have been assigned, then they will realize they are worthless to you and not put any effort into their task.
That said, there is definitely a point where you have diminishing returns and this might be one of them. It also depends on when they are scheduled. Often times there are time periods when nothing can get done, due to weather, scheduling or other logistical concerns. If this is the time that is being used for some of these things then there is no possibility of it being a waste of time . However, given the article it does not appear that this is the case.
Room for improvement, absolutely.
A total failure, not a chance.
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To spend 451,200 on a two day orientation seminar for temporary park workers and then adding on the costs of producing shiny booklets, hiring a motivational speaker and the beneftits payments and then showing a 20 minute video on job safety is to me a tremendous failure, and a statement of tremendous arrogance when it comes to dealing with taxpayer dollars. Especially when you consider that most of these workers will not become permanent employees.
I've always worked for private industry and I've never seen full days of PD. Employees are more then welcome to take personal development classes and they get reimbursed when they pass.
This to me when the city is facing a deficit, has a serious procurement problem and have next to no control over contracts is tremendously stupid and wasteful.
I've also never ever worked at a job where you need to sit through two days of PD, I also don't believe that you don't need a silly motivational speaker when the prime motivation for these temp workers is to make a paycheck by . . . working.
The more I read this, the more ridiculous that it seems.