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Some lessons in employee appreciation
| Towards the end of June I spent a few days promoting the magazine at Primex, an agricultural and civil contracting show at Casino, on the NSW north coast. As always at such an event, you meet an interesting cross section of readers and potentially new readers and hear their stories. |
David Palmer
On this occasion I was reminded a couple of times that CEOs and senior managers often do not appreciate the effort their subordinates put into their jobs.
At Casino one man I spoke to was a train driver, often responsible for safely steering 5500t loads of steel between the Hunter Valley and Brisbane. He told me that about 18 months ago he was driving such a train about 25km north of Coffs Harbour in pouring rain.
At that point a section of track was under water and he and his assistant applied the brakes, but not before part of the train had run over the submerged culvert.
Once they stopped he sent his assistant back to check on the train. It turned out it was still on the track but in three sections. That was because the wooden sleepered track under the water, was unsupported, because 50cm of soil and ballast had been washed away and as the train dipped, it was enough to disconnect sections.
The driver was able to telephone his boss in Brisbane, to briefly advise him of what happened, promising to call back when details were known. But it was the only call he made, a freak call in fact, because despite using three different telephones a recognised communications black spot made it impossible to connect another call.
Later the driver was carpeted by his boss in Brisbane who accused the driver of being lax in not calling back. The driver explained about the communications black spot and eventually his boss agreed to fix the problem. But 18 months later the black spot is still there.
Another visitor, who worked for a major civil contractor in the northern rivers region of NSW, told me a very competent colleague, a fitter and turner, had recently left the organisation to work on the Queensland coalfields. The lure of $60 an hour to move north was an obvious inducement particularly as he had been on $45 an hour.
But according to my informant, he was a brilliant mechanic and had recently fixed a very tricky modulation valve, which had previously made an excavator perform in a dangerously erratic way. It was something no one else had been able to fix.
Alright there is a fair gap between $45 and $60. But it is not difficult to imagine that the man could have been induced to stay for somewhat less than $60 an hour, rather than be rejected outright.
