Paul's newest initiative

The Compulsory Training programme was progressing apace but Paul was a little sad to see that it contained only 23 items. Two more would make for a much nicer number and look better on his spreadsheet. He pondered his predicament.

Although his 'Clean Below the Ankle' policy regarding clean footwear in the cars, reinforced by rigorous annual updates, wasn't having quite the effect he had hoped he could not deny that his drivers weren't at least fully briefed on the issue. Nevertheless, he felt the subject could do with a bit more publicity.

And thus he created and sent out many emails commending the Brighter Efficient Engines scheme. This, he thought, would supplement the invaluable knowledge that the training modules behind the Clean Below the Ankle policy and had many potential spin-offs. Not least, he could create trainers of this scheme thereby creating more roles for the myriad of mini-Pauls within the organisation. BEE-trainers would have an exalted status. It was even possible that they would themselves spawn multiple reports on driver compliance. Paul envisaged a future where these Hostile Opposition to Nurturing Efficiency Yardstick summaries would be used as a 'name and shame' tool to drive greater uptake.

First of all the drivers were all sent an A3 poster to read as Stage 1 of their BEE training. There were lots of coloured charts and boxes of text explaining why BEE was such a good idea. In fact, some of the drivers wondered quite why so much justification was necessary if the process was indeed quite as useful as advertised. In one box there was a graph showing the impact of the introduction of BEE in a neighbouring organisation compared with one that had resisted its arrival. Strangely, it appeared that both lines showed a similar improvement in engine efficiency in the time that one of the two centres had used the technique. Paul however did not see this but saw only the fact that one line was lower than the other. That was evidence enough for him. He wasn't about to let rigorous scientific analysis get in the way of a good addition to his training spreadsheet.

The drivers were nonplussed. "We look after our vehicles already, Paul," they said. "How does this programme - teaching us what we already know - help in any way other than making us give up time to go on your courses when we could be doing core work?"

"I'm surprised and disappointed that you find the need to query an innovation that is designed to improve the lifespan of your engines," he countered, not really answering the question.

"But is there really much evidence that wearing gloves to check the oil level makes any difference to the lifespan of the car?" they asked.

In reply Paul pointed at the two lines on his graph.

The drivers shook their heads, realizing that they were getting nowhere, and forbore to comment further.

"Now - which of you would like to be a BEE-trainer?" asked Paul.