100th Post!!

This is my 100th post in this blog!!

I hardly remember what had trigger me to start blogging. But somehow.. i managed to have 100 posts in my blog and most importantly.. i think i managed to maintain the spirit of this blog so far (Nothing but craps), though im not sure whether this is something to be proud of.

Anyway, im gonna talk about my work again, for those who are not quite interested in office politics or an engineer's life, well, you guys can go to friendster or youtube now, bye!

By end of this month, there'll be at least 6 engineers from the department im working at, be leaving the company. This is already more than 10% of the total headcount in the department. It does make sense because the department has the lowest score(most negative feedback) in the latest employee survey carried out 2 months ago. All the bosses are pretty concern (upset) about this, everyone of them has been busy trying to understand why the people in this so called "most heavily invested" department are the same group of people who are so pissed off about the company. Well... they should, because in the survey result, the average score for the managers leadership looks a lot uglier than their paychecks.

Well.. what went wrong? I'm not about to comment about the big picture and the company's direction, trust me, most of the engineers doesn't give a damn about this. 90% of the engineers only concern about their own career path and pay rise, perhaps this is big part of the problem. We do not have many "believers" in the office, not everybody is so engaged with the company goal, may be because it doesn't really affect us much in our working life.

I go on and list down what are the things i like about my job, and what are the thing i hate about my job:

Plus+

1. Average pay in my company is quite high compare to it peer from the same region.
2. Learning cycle in my company is very short, I'm able to learn many things in short period of time.
3. I get to interact with some very smart Engineers(on and off site) day in day out.
4. I get to travel once in a while.
5. I have full ownership on my project.
6. I have a group of very friendly peer in the office.

Minus -

1. The management is trying to implement a lot of nonsense rule. eg, no camera phone in office.
2. Travel policy amended to cut cost, no more allowance.
3. There's always insufficient resources for every project... like we have 10 cups but only 8 coaster.
   
4. Office accessories shortage, always need to hunt for A4 papers, pencil, pen..etc. We don't even have hand towel in the washroom, unless we have visitors from HQ.
5. A lot of decision is made without gathering any opinions from the employees, not until they had enforced it. (eg, Christmas Holiday replaced to new year eve, and employee need to sign a form to "agree" to this decision.)
6. Is always not safe to speak up in my company. One very ridiculous example: i remember during a feedback session hosted by HR, the HR manager promised the group that every comment we made would be kept between HR and ppl among the group, our bosses would never have a clue about who back stabbed them in front of HR. So everybody went on and made some very tuff comments. Turns out... those comments not only being consolidated to a power point slide and presented to all the managers... every comment would end with the person name who made.

To be fair to the HR, nothing bad actually happen to the group of people who gave negative feedback. However this betrayal has cost their trust to the management. They'll be no more negative feedback in person from the group of engineers anymore.

oh well... is not too bad isn't need? i managed to think of 6 "plus" in 5 minutes..seems like im still okay with my job... good to know...
however.. I found out... all the negative feedback has nothing much to do with career path.. why people is leaving? With my very shallow mindset, i could only think of one thing...the negetive feedback loop in my company has broke down...

We are too result and goal oriented, until we do not spend much effort(sincere) to listen to the working group. We have a lot of feedback session but most of it started and ended with silence, because every negative feedback would come back with some very defensive statement from the management... The more you complain, you are only making yourself look like a cry baby.

What i think is, we are not a bunch of people who are asking for too much, we just want to be heard. yes, the survey result is pretty ugly but that is because we do not get much chances to really express our thoughts without having to worry about our bosses reaction to it. How does it help if the management always react defensively on every negative feedback we give? Why organize a feedback session at the 1st place? Asa result, we prefer just to keep quiet... and waiting for our time to leave.. and that's doesn't solve the problem.

And Finally, the HR. My understanding of HR people is, they are a group of ppl who listen to the employee's feedback and try to maintain the balance between employee welfare and company insterest. But, what the HR of the company of mine been doing is try to brain wash the employee to accept things that benefits to the company interest. Understand that company interest would eventually link with the employee benefit, again, at the end of the day, not everybody is as committed as the highly paid directors or managers sitting in the room, most of the people doesn't give a damn about the revenue and PBT of the company... all they can see is their payslip and the annual leave balance every month. Is not a good atitude to have in the company but do accept the fact, we do need ppl like this in order to run an organization. So please also take care of their feelings.

Sorry about this long post.. i need to let it out here... because remember?.. is not safe to speak up in my company.. not even to the HR. At least im not the only one who has this impression....