Waterside Moorings

[alan_fincher]

Worth pointing out I guess that on the whole "moorings managers" are not people managers, though.

They are the people actually hands on in managing and selling the moorings, not some kind of middle management layer with a team of people  doing the work.  I don't think they will generally have direct reports.

So I suggest despite "manager" in their name, the usual manager jokes don't really apply.

(And one of my favourites of those from my past working life........ "Him a manager?  He couldn't manage a crap!").

[Mike Todd]

17 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

However this link shows those 7 area sales managers, plus one more and their national manager, but also lists the other 10 people involved (5 maintenance managers & 5 support staff).

So it would seem the total number of 19 quoted in the original pist is correct.

I was not in any way trying to suggest that the original post was incorrect, only to point out one location of data. However, that page does not mention any staff other than the sales team, as far as I can see.

You are also a little out in the numbers as two of the names are linked with one being maternity cover for the other (or more correctly, one is stated as being on maternity leave) Hence, for cost/budget purposes it is the number of operational staff/posts that matters - maternity leave is an overhead cost that all businesses have to deal with. Whether or not the individual intends to return it would be illegal to publish anything that suggests that they will not, at least until the individual has made a statutory decision about it. Equally, it is normal that someone providing maternity cover is in post on a time limited basis, which in the case of maternity is pretty well known.

To be even more correct, readers should adapt the above to take into account current paternity rules as well!

[Mike Todd]

17 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

As I said in post 14, the moorings income from Waterside Moorings is an explicit item in the annual report.

I'm not sure I would expect to be able to see staff costs for the 19 CRT employees listed as a separate item though - they are presumably merged with any other number for overall CRT staff costs.

I very much doubt that individual staff salaries are anything you could get released via an FOIA request, other than for those at the highest levels, maybe.

My use of may  in the bit you highlighted was meant to indicate a permissive rather than mandatory situation. The breakdown of income and expenditure is always a little subjective and depends on the actual business being reported. The aim - which auditors might challenge if anything untoward was done - should be to show all significant items so that the reader can gain a reasonable view of the operation (lots of subjective words there but which could be legally challenged if necessary). Unless there is a view that a particular area is sufficiently separable then it is unlikely that segments of the business would be given with a balanced income and expenditure listing. In this case much will depend on how far the overheads of Waterside Moorings are met within an overall operational set of costs. Of course, internally it may well be that a good cost centre approach to budget control is used which does do this (which would involve estimating how to allocate overheads fairly to each cost centre) but there is no over-riding requirement for such data to be made available to the public. As I understand it.

15 hours ago, mark99 said:

 

What an earth do you do everyday then?

And to repeat, what staffing level do you think is right?

You've not really made a cogent point in the post. Sideswipe at best.

 

 

 

On the web site it does also state the frequency of visits made to each category of mooring. If anyone was that interested they could try to estimate how much time is taken by this item alone. Of course the staff do more besides but just one start point to set things into context. Visiting the mooring is given in the promotional material as a benefit to the moorer (and I suggest that it probably usually is a benefit) and so the moorer should expect to pay for the benefit.

[Mike Todd]

10 hours ago, brassedoff said:

I can't see crt cutting down on any regular income that's been in place and regular for many years  from leisure moorings or offside farm moorings.

That would be income suicide and hit the repairs budget even worse.

As the fast show would of said : SHAMBOLIC....

You may possible be reacting too quickly to post #5 - the poster was talking about an increase in income, albeit using the term cutting in reference to the policy with regard to online moorings when offline moorings are introduced.

1 hour ago, alan_fincher said:

Worth pointing out I guess that on the whole "moorings managers" are not people managers, though.

They are the people actually hands on in managing and selling the moorings, not some kind of middle management layer with a team of people  doing the work.  I don't think they will generally have direct reports.

So I suggest despite "manager" in their name, the usual manager jokes don't really apply.

(And one of my favourites of those from my past working life........ "Him a manager?  He couldn't manage a crap!").

The term 'manager' has increasingly been devalued in organisational structures, rather as the word 'engineer' at least in this country.

[Tanglewood]

22 hours ago, matty40s said:

These moorings cover small and large mooring sites across the network. The managers will not just be dealing with 3600 moorers, but local authorities, maintenance, safety, advertising,dealing with non payers etc etc. I have no doubt that when the regions are reduced, some people will lose their jobs.

Yes, I agree that the reduction in areas and therefore the reduction in Area managers may well herald a 'restructuring' within the WM team.  Like I say,  I just don't know how broad their range of functions - at first glance it looks as if they are simply responsible for selling long-term moorings, which essentially sell themselves, or not.  However I suspect there is a great deal of crossover, or even responsibility for short-term, visitor and winter moorings, and strategic issues like the installation of the penalty notices imposing immediate £150 fines for ignoring 'no mooring' notices.  The bottom line is always the bottom line and WM must at least cover their costs.  Some of the 'grey areas' appear to be being scrutinised, for instance increasing the cost of permits at sites that are felt to be being used more frequently than just for 'leisure'  use. 

 

To answer a previous question.  I don't know what the correct staffing level should be - I don't know what is required by the job.  At first glance, 19 personnel to process the clicks on the WM website seemed a lot.  I am grateful to those who have offered information that has increased my awareness of the breadth of the role.  

[alan_fincher]

2 minutes ago, Tanglewood said:

At first glance, 19 personnel to process the clicks on the WM website seemed a lot.  .  

Well of course you do not get any clicks on anything unless someone puts it there in the first place, so there is clearly a bit more to the roles than that.

Certainly when I had BW/CRT LTMs, (two at the same time at one stage, though I have neither now), the moorings manager was the first point of call on matters like maintenance, (e.g. mooring bollards detaching themselves from the paving, with no other way to tie up, or on-site Elsan leaking or overflowing), as well as issues like gate keys not working, and in one case dealing with the consequences of the mooring bank being in a state of collapse.

In my experience they are regularly out at the moorings they administer, not just sat at a computer screen seeing who has put in the highest bid for one.

I also can't comment on whether the staff numbers are too high, too low, or about right - I'm not close enough to it to know.  But they do havea  fairly flat structure in a self contained team, and have not shown the explosion of middle management that has happened elsewhere in CRT.

[pearley]

1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

 

The term 'manager' has increasingly been devalued in organisational structures, rather as the word 'engineer' at least in this country.

For years all the sales representatives that visited us were called Regional Sales Managers, although it was only themselves to manage. 

[cuthound]

3 hours ago, pearley said:

For years all the sales representatives that visited us were called Regional Sales Managers, although it was only themselves to manage. 

This is the reason why the term  "manager" has become devalued, just like "engineer".

I wonder what percentage of those with "manager" in their job title actually manage human or other resources and hold a professional management qualification?

[TheBiscuits]

13 minutes ago, cuthound said:

This is the reason why the term  "manager" has become devalued, just like "engineer".

I wonder what percentage of those with "manager" in their job title actually manage human or other resources and hold a professional management qualification?

So what would you call a person that looks after (manages!) one or more mooring sites?

[cuthound]

4 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

So what would you call a person that looks after (manages!) one or more mooring sites?

A manager, because he manages a resource (the mooring site).

The point I was making was about those who have the word manager in the job title, but don't manage anything such as salespeople.

[Chewbacka]

Salespeople stopped being sales managers a long time ago, now they are sales executives

[Arthur Marshall]

4 hours ago, Chewbacka said:

Salespeople stopped being sales managers a long time ago, now they are sales executives

My ex bass player reckoned he should properly be referred to as a "low note executive".  Said it made him sound more dignified.

[MtB]

10 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

So what would you call a person that looks after (manages!) one or more mooring sites?

 

Moorings warden.

[Tanglewood]

8 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Moorings warden.

Oh, remember those, the boat on a mooring that paid a reduced permit because the owner acted as warden for the site.  That particular volunteer force has been scrapped.  

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Tanglewood said:

Oh, remember those, the boat on a mooring that paid a reduced permit because the owner acted as warden for the site.  That particular volunteer force has been scrapped.  

 

Indeed. 

A big step forward getting rid of them and appointing moorings managers working in offices. Not. 

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Tanglewood said:

Oh, remember those, the boat on a mooring that paid a reduced permit because the owner acted as warden for the site.  That particular volunteer force has been scrapped.  

Word on the street was there was a fair level of corruption in some places with mates rates

[alan_fincher]

2 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Indeed. 

A big step forward getting rid of them and appointing moorings managers working in offices. Not. 

Yes, but the presence of wardens on the sites did not of course mean that there were not also people in offices responsible for the management of the moorings.

The moorings have always been administered and let by people in offices, haven't they?

[Slim]

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 10:03, Mike Todd said:

You may possible be reacting too quickly to post #5 - the poster was talking about an increase in income, albeit using the term cutting in reference to the policy with regard to online moorings when offline moorings are introduced.

The term 'manager' has increasingly been devalued in organisational structures, rather as the word 'engineer' at least in this country.

The second paragraph above is exactly the point I was going to make before I came across it. The word 'managers' bastardisation over the years has been the basis for many tabloid headlines eg 'Thousands more managers in NHS, Fewer nurses' (note , made up headline} when in fact many were doing their same old job but with different title.

When I started in the public sector (not NHS) the office I was in had about 140 staff. There was one manager and one deputy manager. When I left some 40 years later a similar setup would have had upwards of 25

 

Frank

[Mike Todd]

17 hours ago, Slim said:

The second paragraph above is exactly the point I was going to make before I came across it. The word 'managers' bastardisation over the years has been the basis for many tabloid headlines eg 'Thousands more managers in NHS, Fewer nurses' (note , made up headline} when in fact many were doing their same old job but with different title.

When I started in the public sector (not NHS) the office I was in had about 140 staff. There was one manager and one deputy manager. When I left some 40 years later a similar setup would have had upwards of 25

 

Frank

Not wanting to dismiss the devaulation of 'manager', it is however important to recognise that many organisations oscillate between flat and tall structures. It happens like this:

A new overall director (or whatever) decides it is time to stamp his/her mark of the organisation and spots that it has a very tall organisation with many layers lots of so-called managers. The answer is posited that we need to get rid of all those managers and move to a flat structure. "We can save a shed load of money by getting rid of all these unnecessary managers" Of course this means that most people still stay in some post, just the name changes - or even that they can go back to doing what they really signed up for in the first place!

A few years (hopefully years rather than months) later an new supremo comes in and spots that the organisation is very flat and with so many people reporting to one person there is no personal contact, little sense of initiative and decisions never get taken. "What we need is to delegate downwards so the more people can own the business and have opportunities for expressing their initiative, creativity or whatever. It won't cost us very much because we can just promote all those really good people in our organisation that do not have their potential fully recognised"

A few years later . . . . 

Whilst this process is well known and identified, no-one seems to have come up with a good way of stopping it!

[Phoenix_V]

On 2/14/2018 at 13:00, Alan de Enfield said:

I posted this a couple of weeks ago under the 'will the canals last' thread - I reckon the same rationale could apply to the moorings management.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, last Friday, Winston (or Win to all those knew him) was proud to be a British Waterways lengthsman. He was responsible for a length of canal and had a short dumb workboat which he moved along the canal to wherever he thought a job needed doing. The boat had a small wood burning stove and Win, using his boat as a work platform, would saw down overhanging branches from the offside, break them into short lengths, stow them in the hold and use them to warm himself on a freezing cold day and brew a mashing of tea for his lunch. Any trees or other problems which were a hazard to navigation would be reported by Win and dealt with by the maintenance gang. Win would walk a different length of towpath of his section everyday, carrying a long handled blade to clear away any small shrubs growing out of the towpath wall and trim long grass and towpath hedges as he went.

Win was responsible for several locks along his length. Every morning he would clear away accumulated rubbish from the by-wash, occasionally oil and grease the paddle gear, paint the balance beams and keep the lock surroundings clean and tidy. He knew the location of the culverts and the best way to keep them clear. Win would inform the local Licence Enforcement Officer of any boat navigating his section without a licence. Win would instruct novice boaters in the workings of a lock and show them the safe way to work the lock and how to wind paddles up and down. Boaters would wave and smile at Win. He would smile and wave back and tell them of any problems or stoppages to the best of his knowledge. Walkers would enquire of Win how the locks work and he found the time to tell them. Win was everybody’s ray of sunshine and instant point of contact and the fount of all knowledge on his length of canal.

 

 

Strangely enough that is exactly what they do on the River Wey which has no subsidy whatsoever unlike CRT

[Mike Todd]

14 hours ago, Phoenix_V said:

Strangely enough that is exactly what they do on the River Wey which has no subsidy whatsoever unlike CRT

Ever since volunteers were sought at the inception of CaRT I have thought that getting volunteer lengthspeople would be a better idea (although not incompatible with) lock keeping, which has ongoing issues over what they are responsible for.

If people, or organisations, could have such a responsibility for a given length that was a place with which they had a connection, then we could reclaim some of what happened in the past but is no longer viable, cost-wise. I know that there is some kind of length sponsoring scheme, although it does not seem to have the same publicity, but I don't think it extends to actually looking after the length. Of course, these days, there are significant training and supervision issues. My guess would be that most people like Win learnt the job sidelong an experienced predecessor. However, that 'apprenticeship' probably took  longer than most people are prepared to commit to volunteering . . .