CRT finest at work ....

[Annie cariad]

Moored above lock 13  at audlem watching three CRT engineers replace one small anti slip mat on one side of a lock gate . Needed three engineers ,one van,one work boat and a piece of anti slip. Blocked  lock with work boat ,had tea , fitted antislp (badly) at the busiest part of day only kept 5boats waiting. Love to see there utilisation figures . Planning and project management ... What a joke . 4hours plus for a 15minute job .Want to know what our money goes on ...

Look no further 😭

 

 

[dmr]

Its not good and it happens a lot. I expect they were having a nice sociable time and enjoying their job. Trouble is the "operatives" are amongst the lowest paid people in the CRT organisation and making the job enjoyable is the compensation. It would be great to have dynamic people working flat out for their entire shift, but they would need much higher pay. I also suspect that poor management is often a significant factor, they probably turned up expecting to do be a much bigger job but the materials were not available.

[LadyG]

18 minutes ago, dmr said:

Its not good and it happens a lot. I expect they were having a nice sociable time and enjoying their job. Trouble is the "operatives" are amongst the lowest paid people in the CRT organisation and making the job enjoyable is the compensation. It would be great to have dynamic people working flat out for their entire shift, but they would need much higher pay. I also suspect that poor management is often a significant factor, they probably turned up expecting to do be a much bigger job but the materials were not available.

I think one needs to look at the bigger picture, not the only job of the day.

[pearley]

When you've employed a lot of people over the years you realise that they all have different attitudes to work and work at different paces. In some situations it can be difficult for the one who wants to get on with things to make much headway when confronted with indifference.

 

Having said that there have bee n many times where 'state' run organisations send 2 or more workers to do a job that private companies do with one. At least CRT only used one can.

[MtB]

55 minutes ago, Annie cariad said:

Moored above lock 13  at audlem watching three CRT engineers replace one small anti slip mat on one side of a lock gate . Needed three engineers ,one van,one work boat and a piece of anti slip. Blocked  lock with work boat ,had tea , fitted antislp (badly) at the busiest part of day only kept 5boats waiting. Love to see there utilisation figures . Planning and project management ... What a joke . 4hours plus for a 15minute job .Want to know what our money goes on ...

Look no further 😭

 

 

 

 

Presumably this was a safety-critical emergency repair, being done on a Sunday on double time, one would imagine.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob-M]

Were they full time staff or volunteers...?  A lot of tasks now are being performed by volunteers who often have no idea about boating.

[MtB]

But I agree with DMR, getting to mess about in boats is compensation for low wages so work is to be spun out to the maximum possible extent, not done as fast as possible. 

 

It's just like the myriad tales we used to hear back in the 70s of lazy workers in nationalised and state aided industries. ISTR management once finding a bed under a workbench in British Leyland. Sleeping on the job was a literal event back in them days.

 

 

 

[Hudds Lad]

I know locally to me the paid member of staff is often accompanied by one or two volunteers as he does his jobs.

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, Rob-M said:

Were they full time staff or volunteers...?  A lot of tasks now are being performed by volunteers who often have no idea about boating.

If it turned out they were volunteers then they aren't wasting any money by taking their time and enjoying being there.

[Nightwatch]

One of my sons worked for a short time for a garden maintenance company. They get a list of jobs each evening for the next day. As he is of the type, get it done and on to the next. By mid afternoon he would be finished. Tracker in the van indicated he was finished. After a couple of days he found that he was getting more and more jobs on his list. In fact more jobs that the others. Asking why, he was told that because he’s a good worker he could handle more work. He could of course.

 

He left, quite rightly so. There’s far too many people willing to ‘take their time’ and get away with it.

 

In the example in the OP, what is the manager doing? Why isn’t he breathing down the necks of the loafer? If a workforce know that management is weak you can guarantee that they will slack.

[Jon57]

4 hours ago, Annie cariad said:

Moored above lock 13  at audlem watching three CRT engineers replace one small anti slip mat on one side of a lock gate . Needed three engineers ,one van,one work boat and a piece of anti slip. Blocked  lock with work boat ,had tea , fitted antislp (badly) at the busiest part of day only kept 5boats waiting. Love to see there utilisation figures . Planning and project management ... What a joke . 4hours plus for a 15minute job .Want to know what our money goes on ...

Look no further 😭

 

 

Yes I know what you mean . I’ve worked for myself for over 40 yrs. I’ve seen more work in a sick note.😜no drive no work, put them on bonus to get a job done you can bet it would be done in no time. By the way did they move the work boat from one side to the other. Hope they didn’t mind us having the bbq on the deck 🤣🤣

[Mike Todd]

3 hours ago, MtB said:

But I agree with DMR, getting to mess about in boats is compensation for low wages so work is to be spun out to the maximum possible extent, not done as fast as possible. 

 

It's just like the myriad tales we used to hear back in the 70s of lazy workers in nationalised and state aided industries. ISTR management once finding a bed under a workbench in British Leyland. Sleeping on the job was a literal event back in them days.

 

 

 

It still happens today, according to one report this morning, as a few workers cannot afford a home to go to.

[Arthur Marshall]

9 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

One of my sons worked for a short time for a garden maintenance company. They get a list of jobs each evening for the next day. As he is of the type, get it done and on to the next. By mid afternoon he would be finished. Tracker in the van indicated he was finished. After a couple of days he found that he was getting more and more jobs on his list. In fact more jobs that the others. Asking why, he was told that because he’s a good worker he could handle more work. He could of course.

 

He left, quite rightly so. There’s far too many people willing to ‘take their time’ and get away with it.

 

In the example in the OP, what is the manager doing? Why isn’t he breathing down the necks of the loafer? If a workforce know that management is weak you can guarantee that they will slack.

Time and motion people will have decided the average time for a job and scheduled it. It's called planning, or management. And then they work out how much to pay the worker. That's how wages work. Piece rates are different, the problem being that your son would have cost the company more than they had budgeted for, so they would either lay off other staff or go broke.

It's not getting away with it, it's doing what you're being paid to do. And, depending on the nature of the work, taking your time and doing the job properly.

[tree monkey]

2 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

One of my sons worked for a short time for a garden maintenance company. They get a list of jobs each evening for the next day. As he is of the type, get it done and on to the next. By mid afternoon he would be finished. Tracker in the van indicated he was finished. After a couple of days he found that he was getting more and more jobs on his list. In fact more jobs that the others. Asking why, he was told that because he’s a good worker he could handle more work. He could of course.

 

He left, quite rightly so. There’s far too many people willing to ‘take their time’ and get away with it.

 

In the example in the OP, what is the manager doing? Why isn’t he breathing down the necks of the loafer? If a workforce know that management is weak you can guarantee that they will slack.

The issue with the tracker is an interesting one and certainly is the biggest demotivating policy I have ever worked with.

 

To explain, I have always worked in a way that meant, unforseen problems aside, I got the work done to a standard I was happy with and because of how I work best I genuinely work through until the task is complete, brew and snap would be grabbed as required whilst working.

 

The bonus to this would often mean I was finished early, sometimes I would have a kip, sometimes have a wander around the local area or sometimes start tomorrow's job to get a head start, work load dependent. 

 

Everyone was happy, I was motivated, the work was done, on time and to a good standard, cracking, I even had a boss who knew exactly how I worked and would rock up on a Friday afternoon and meet us in a pub for a pint.

 

Now I am tracked to within an inch of my life, my driving is monitored, my output is monitored, I even get snarky emails if I speed (fair enough to a point) or my daily vehicle check is completed to quickly and so on

 

I still do my job as well as I can but I am less likely to go out of my way to help or work beyond my normal hours and I am definitely here because overall the advantages out weigh the disadvantages and that's mostly because my direct line manager is a decent bloke who understands and trusts us, as opposed to how the company would have it operate

 

 

 

[Jon57]

They need to do what the Chinese did on the Great Wall. Have someone responsible for the upkeep of there section of wall. My be something like this would work. We could call them custodians or possible lenghtsmens .👍🤣

[tree monkey]

8 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Time and motion people will have decided the average time for a job and scheduled it. It's called planning, or management. And then they work out how much to pay the worker. That's how wages work. Piece rates are different, the problem being that your son would have cost the company more than they had budgeted for, so they would either lay off other staff or go broke.

It's not getting away with it, it's doing what you're being paid to do. And, depending on the nature of the work, taking your time and doing the job properly.

It's not exactly doing what you're paid for it can be taking advantage, it's a fine line

[robtheplod]

This is the main thing I found when i went self-employed. I suddenly saw that if someone gets paid X to do a job in 2 or 5 days, then why do a job in 2 days - no incentive other than having a good work ethic, but people who have that get put upon supporting those that don't.

Edited August 14, 2022 by robtheplod

[PD1964]

4 hours ago, Rob-M said:

Were they full time staff or volunteers...?  A lot of tasks now are being performed by volunteers who often have no idea about boating.

Most of the full time staff have no idea about boating also.

Edited August 14, 2022 by PD1964

[tree monkey]

Just now, robtheplod said:

This is the main thing I found when i went self-employed. I suddenly saw that if someone gets paid X to do a job in 2 or 5 days, then why do a job in 2 days?

I think thats down to how people are managed, don't get me wrong in all aspects of life there will be time wasting arses but, at least for me, give me the jobs, spec it properly, leave me alone and the job will be done well and on time

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, tree monkey said:

It's not exactly doing what you're paid for it can be taking advantage, it's a fine line

Many years ago I worked for a council clearing oil spills of a beach. We were paid for an eight hour day, but in four hours  if we worked hard, we'd cleared enough stuff to load the lorry. The rest of the day we sunbathed or swam. They sent a new foreman down who wouldn't let us swim, so we just dawdled our way through the day - there was still only one lorry to load. Our suggestion that they send another lorry was laughed off.

Mostly, as with almost every job in this odd little country, it's down to rubbish management, managers who have studied "managing" but have no idea what a job entails. Self employed, of course, you're always on piece rates! Contractors used by CRT would be such.

In the case of CRT, as Lady G has said, the van may well have been heading on to a job that took three people to do. Or,  of course,  not.

[tree monkey]

9 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Many years ago I worked for a council clearing oil spills of a beach. We were paid for an eight hour day, but in four hours  if we worked hard, we'd cleared enough stuff to load the lorry. The rest of the day we sunbathed or swam. They sent a new foreman down who wouldn't let us swim, so we just dawdled our way through the day - there was still only one lorry to load. Our suggestion that they send another lorry was laughed off.

Mostly, as with almost every job in this odd little country, it's down to rubbish management, managers who have studied "managing" but have no idea what a job entails. Self employed, of course, you're always on piece rates! Contractors used by CRT would be such.

In the case of CRT, as Lady G has said, the van may well have been heading on to a job that took three people to do. Or,  of course,  not.

Yeah, I'm not saying people don't take the piss, I did a summer for a London council and the lads basically did just enough to leave some for the overtime on the weekend (obviously the easy sites) and they got away with it.

 

Over the years though with good managers it was strikingly obvious how much the teams attitude improved

 

It's worth mentioning with the Friday pub visit manager I mentioned on my previous post out production was very very good

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by tree monkey

[Nightwatch]

My lad was on a day rate. Doing more calls didn’t enhance his income.

[tree monkey]

9 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

My lad was on a day rate. Doing more calls didn’t enhance his income.

Funnily enough so was I most of the time, which is, I think, why I respond to the flexibility I talk about, I know the hours, I know timescale so if I complete a weeks work with a few hours spare taking the team to the beach for an ice cream just helps motivation.

 

Imagine the beach trip with a tracker on the van, it isn't happening 

Edited August 14, 2022 by tree monkey

[Peugeot 106]

I tend to agree that CRT employees generally could work probably slightly harder but there are exceptions. Steve on the Ribble Link recently helped us all across the Link in his usual helpful manner then turned up on the Lancaster to supervise a contractor get rid of a tree that had fallen across the canal and was holding boats up. He came with his partner Alyson also a CRT employee. They went home after midnight to Chorley when the job had been completed, flooded farmers placated etc and was back on the Link to help one boat whose engine had overheated and diverted to Preston the following morning. He always seems to me to be cheerful, helpful with a can do attitude

Let’s not tar all the CRT employees with the same brush

Thank you Steve and Alyson I got home on time with my boat to an important (to me) meeting

[Tracy D'arth]

My engineers were paid a fair salary plus commission on every  job and sale. Work was arranged in reasonable time slots, all jobs finished, go home. They were always willing to put another job in if it was an emergency or close to another booked job.

 

Never had any moans or disputes, they enjoyed their working day. Motivating staff is essential for a successful business.