FT.com / Companies / Oil & Gas - Shell sheds 150 senior managers in shake-up.
All the senior managers at Royal Dutch Shell have been made to re-apply for their positions and 150 of them have lost their jobs, the company revealed on Friday as it warned of substantial further job cuts spreading across the group.
The 750 executives in what is called the EC-2 level, two steps down from the top executive committee, have been cut to 600 in the shake-uplaunched by Peter Voser (pictured right), the new chief executive who took over at the beginning of the month.
That's 20% of managers doing non-jobs that can be dispensed with.
Useless, wasted bureaucracy.
And then they say the public sector is inefficient.
Now, why is that? Is it becasue they've got time on their hands?
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Great. Will the public sector now follow Shell’s lead? Here’s hoping.
Peter
The difference is simply stated
No doubt there are some excess staff in the public sector
But 20% – no way
Get real
The slack is not present in the system – unlike the private sector
Richard
At least the private sector can see the inefficiencies and deal with them by sacking people. I assume you thus applaud the rising unemployment figures as these must be evidence of companies improving efficiency by alleviating unnecessary costs.
Trust me, there are at least 20% of the public sector staff who could go, such as those working in unaccountable, undemocratic quangos. I don’t know if you read the Guardian’s public sector job pages, some of the titles and the salaries these posts command are frankly a joke.
Before I resumed my studies I actually worked in the IT department of Cambridge council’s pensions. I had first hand experience of the sleepy culture that pervades the public sector. To be honest, 25% of the staff there could work anywhere and were exceptional. The rest were a joke and added no value and certainly consumed it. The culture there was frankly embarrassing. The clockwatching (believe me this goes on far more in the public than private sector; as soon as the clock hits five they shoot), the working practices, the petty rules, endless “diversity meetings”, targets…it was pathetic. I would never go back and work there, or for any public sector organisation like that.
Good for them.
I would have thought 20% was a fairly conservative figure for some sections of whitehall. It sounds about right for the department I have experience of (DCFS). More to the point, no matter what the likely figure is for other parts of the public sector (whether it be 5% or 30%), there’s not much evidence at the moment that anyone is actually trying to find it and act accordingly.
Richard, you really need to loose those blinkers!
Alastair
Oh really
Which ones?
I can’t see them 🙂
——
And seriously, I don’t doubt that there is public sector waste
There is also enormous public sector productivity too
Exactly like the private sector
My point is not blinkered, but serious: every organisation needs to be aware of waste and the risk that without review it can spread. But this is not a public sector issue alone: it is true of all human organisations
I see no evidence it is more rampant in the public sector
That’s why I very much doubt serious cuts are possible without massive harm as is happening in HM Revenue & Customs for example – as any tax practitionmer and the data tells you
When was the last time the Government (US and UK) went and fired people? Not just due to overstaffing and efficiencies gained through modernization, but also the firing bad employees.
Visit a ‘social Security’ office in the US and see the lack of productivity. And don’t think of looking through the window installed to see into the back office, the staff will complain to the security guard that your being a trouble-maker. (Oddly enough, the security guard was needed to control all the people waiting, wondering why out of 30+ staff, there was only one person helping people)
I am guessing that the US Government can fire at least 10%of it’s workforce probably resulting in a better functioning Government. Why? because they can get rid of the ‘dead wood’ and in doing so, people might be more encouraged to work instead of getting the attitude of why should I work when the other guy does nothing and nobody cares…
Richard. I have worked in both sectors. There are significant cultural differences between the two. You are blinkered if you can’t see that.
HMRC would make an interesting case study in organisational ineffectiveness. I’m sure there is no settled answer to this, but to my mind the botched merger of HMIT and Customs & Excise was the big strataegic mistake, made probably for political ends. The problems caused by the staff cuts was undoubtedly made worse by the introduction of the tax credit system – something which would have been problematic to implement even in a stable organisation.
Peter
25% stunning staff
Tell me a private sector organisation that can boast of that
Richard
Alastair
HMRC have botched big time:
a) merging
b) call centres
c) local office closing
and on, and on
But that’s the power of private sector practices and advice for you
Richard
Fred
We don’t treat people like cattle here
With good reason – they aren’t
Richard
Richard,
Read my comment carefully. The people being treated like ‘cattle’ are the customers.
In any other industry, poor-performing staff are fired. Governments for some reason do not do this. There is no pressure for them to cut costs and no need to be concerned about making a profit.
However, in the case of Government offices the customers are also indirectly the employers, given that they are tax-payers. It is fair to demand good service. In the private sector they can take their business elsewhere. Not so easy however when the Government has a monopoly on the service being provided.
Another organization that can get a good cleaning out of staff is US Immigration and Citizenship. Many of the staff treat Residency and Citizenship applicants like crap. they can get away with it because mostly the only people dealing with them are foreigners. Even the US Congress cannot get answers out of them. This is a shame given the illegal immigration problem in the US. The situation would be a little easier to deal with if the Government would issue document to those legally here!
Note: I had one case dealing with an officer who actually told an obvious lie and saw in the expression in my face that I knew she lied immediately. She then saw me look at he name tag and instinctively hid her name badge with her hand. Repercussion for her. None. the office manager was not interested in hearing any complaints. The file for complaint forms was empty. Why? Because too many were being filled out was the response I was told by a helpful employee who advised my of other ways to complain. (This was driven by their frustration at having to deal with poor-performing co-workers.)
Fred
I was referring to the private sector here
Richard
Thanks for the clarification.
In the US, each company is different. At least the company I work for has decided that staff will be retained in recognition of the time and money invested in developing a well-trained staff as well as making decisions on a long-term outlook.
That said, I had one member of staff leave and her position has not been filled, but will once the workload increases.
I work in the private sector. I clock watch. I juggle with paper. I read Richard Murphy and laugh at the libertarians.
I get my job done.
I get paid more than most.
The private sector does not have all the answers. The MD of my company is a golf playing racist bigot that only talks about sex and money. He got a six figure bonus last year.
I am willing a move into the public sector to be able to use my intelligence for the good of society, not to create a bonus for a sociopathic ignoramus. I’ll happily take a large wage cut to do it.
I’m in Guernsey where even the (non unionised) poorly paid think the public sector is evil. That’s how engrained the facetious right wing press opinion writers have spoiled a perfectly decent bunch of people.
Chasing what? Junk.
These standard arguments for ‘efficiency’ in the private sector which get wheeled out by the right wing crack me up every time. Let’s take a quick look at banking – formerly in the private sector until the poor dears made some mistakes and had to be bailed out by those pesky taxpayers.
Huge bonuses paid to management and traders whose main achievement has been to wreck the economy and precipitate the worst recession since the 1930s. Payment by results? Ha ha. People like Fred Goodwin should be paying us. *A lot.*
What else? Oh yes… one of the most unresponsive and low-quality customer service records in the whole economy, complete with a range of vindictive and punitive charges for anybody who accidentally slips into an unauthorised overdraft, or does anything else which the bank deems to be wrong.
Of course, as Fred says, in the private sector you’re free to take your account elsewhere… to another bank. Which in general you’ll find is just as bad, if not worse, than the one you’ve just left. So much for consumer power. If private industry’s so great then how the banks are such a miserable shower in general?
“The people being treated like cattle are the customers” – Fred, you’ve just described UK banking to a T.
Oh dear Arnald.
I know your boss and play golf with him. I suspect you may be out of a job by 9.15 on Monday morning.
Without wishing to be controversial, my view is that most people hate their jobs and their bosses and are inefficient, no matter what area they are working in. People that own their own businesses tend to be focussed, similarly those on big bonuses. But everyone else – we all clockwatch and are in it for the money. And I’ve worked in both the public and private sector and it’s all the same.
The only real difference is that the private sector is motivated by profitability, and as profits increase, so the size of the organisation increases and the management feel more powerful. In the private sector, the emphasis is on spending all of your budget, no matter how, so you can claim to be desperately in need of more funding next year. So the private sector has to face some sort of objective reality (i.e. profits) occasionally. The public sector, on the other hand, is subject to arbitary increases and decreases in its resources. And the workers are always bored witless.
Just my view.