Paul improves efficiency (again)

It was high summer. The heavy, fetid heat seeped into every room except Paul's, where the air conditioning was on maximum. Many of the offices were empty as this was the holiday season and dozens of the drivers had escaped to the beach for a week or two of recuperation from their recent excesses of work. One of the drivers was off sick as the long hours finally took their toll and the skeleton staff that remained could just about cover the work. The languid atmosphere clogged the whole place like syrup.

And so it was with not a little surprise that the remaining drivers read an email inviting them to a consultation and a launch of new initiative to improve customer services. Which was it, they wondered - the start of a consultation or the launch of a new way of working? It couldn't be both, could it?

Paul stood at the lectern, a minion having opened the inevitable PowerPoint presentation for him. "Do you think we'll need more seats?" he queried. "No - four each should be fine," quipped someone from the back.

At five sharp he began.

"We have been conducting a survey of practice to improve the booking process for jobs. Customer feedback shows that this is area where we can improve. It appears that different departments are using varying practices in arranging appointments for their drivers."

"Well obviously, Paul," the drivers chorused. "Booking tasks for a bulldozer is rather different than in the limousine section, isn't it?"

Paul ignored this and continued.

"We have discovered that streamlining the service will lead to better efficiency and cost savings. For example, some of the secretaries will now be known as Pathway Facilitator Operatives and take on more of the role of the booking paperwork. Other staff may also be deployed cross-boundary into these posts. It will aid and enhance career development opportunities. In this fashion we estimate that we can lose 107 posts and still achieve better results."

"You mean that by renaming each job with a fancy title you can fool people into believing that they have had a promotion, all the while filling them largely with people of a lower pay grade - thus saving you more money," shouted one.

"Hang on, Paul. You're going to sack 107 staff at a time when you are rearranging the core administration of the service? That sounds rather risky," queried another.

Paul was livid.

"We aren't sacking anyone," he exploded. "That is inflammatory language which shall not be used. After a period of consultation, natural wastage and relocation as well as some voluntary redundancies there will simply be some compulsory redundancies."

"What's the difference?" they asked.

Paul forebore to answer.

The drivers were very angry. In the first place this wasn't so much a consultation as the presentation of a done deal. And secondly:

"Isn't it true that you just wanted to cut wage costs and thus dreamt up this phoney redesign as a Trojan horse for them, hoping that in the morass of detail about customer service improvement programmes no one would notice that you were planning to reduce the workforce all along?"

Paul forebore to answer.