A survey of personnel on posts who would ordinarily be considered for transfer brings to light certain factors which underlie WHY they are failing on post even while seeming to work at it.
People on personnel posts in companies have followed a 19th century psychological approach that if a person can’t do one post he can be transferred to another post to which he is better “adapted.” “Talent,” “native skill,” all sorts of factors are given. But if a person with all things considered in the first place is then found to do badly on that post, the second think of 19th century personnel was to transfer him to another post and yet another and another. The third think when again he fails is then to fire him.
Transferring under these circumstances is usually not only wrong for the person but strews the error all through the org.
The HCO PL 24 June 70, “Management Cycle,” gives an answer to “has to be transferred.”
A “camouflaged hole” means a hole in the org line-up that appears to be a post. Yet it isn’t a held post because its duties are not being done. It is therefore a hole people and actions fall into without knowing it is there. It can literally drive an org mad to have a few of these around. Camouflaged means “disguised” or made to appear something else. In this case a hole in the line-up is camouflaged by the fact that somebody appears to be holding it who isn’t.
Let’s take a Receptionist who doesn’t receive and route people. You will find the people in the org being fouled up by this. They all have to act after the fact of no Reception. This makes them handle Reception in the midst of a mess of Reception goofs. But there appears to be a Receptionist. If there were NO pretended Receptionist, people would at least know this and keep an eye out. But as there “is a Receptionist” who isn’t a Receptionist, all Reception actions have to be handled by others each time after there has been a goof! Guaranteed to mess up the environment and strain tempers more than somewhat.
An executive post is much harder to detect. Those below it are not aware of the skills the post needs and are only aware of trouble. Yet it easily can be just a camouflaged hole.
Given the fact that one is not dealing with a sick person or a scoundrel (any post requires that a person be fairly healthy and with a clean ethics record), for a person to be on a post and not doing it, he or she must be suffering from one or more of the following conditions:
1. Never trained up for the post in the first place (per Management Chart)
2. Never grooved in on the post purpose
3. Unreality or unfamiliarity with the ideal scene in its practical aspects, resulting in omitted data or a missing scene.
Furthermore, for a person to remain on a post under these conditions he/she must
a. Be unaware of their lack of knowledge
b. Blame it on another or
c. Have considerations about status (i.e., it would be damaging to their reputation for it to be found out that they didn’t know).
This last point, status, puts any post flub onto a WITHHOLD basis resulting in continuously deteriorating performance each time it occurs.
In actual fact in each one of the cases examined, one or more of the above points were evident in greater or lesser degree. My suggested remedy would be
1. Thorough training as deputy before putting any person on a major post. The purpose being to familiarize the person with actual working conditions.
2. A clear, approved statement of post purpose must be written in the front of the post hat write-up, which is easily comprehensible and simple. This post purpose is then cleared to F/N in Qual before the person can be considered fully on post.
3. Once on post the person must constantly maintain and increase their working knowledge of their appointed areas of responsibility and study and familiarize themselves with old and new HCOBs and P/Ls as they apply.
That they undergo a competent examination from time to time on the duties and actions of their post as they exist or are extended.
4. That to this end any poor performance on post be reported to Div V, Dept 13 for investigation and correction by examining the above points and putting in those found out.
5. That within the framework of Cases and Morale Policy Letter, priority be given to those posts in the org that most likely could be expected to collect a “status value” so that the integrity of those holding such posts be maintained.
6. That in any case, notwithstanding the above paragraph, persons on such posts should make every attempt to keep themselves clean of O /Ws, including making it known to the proper terminals when they find they have misunderstoods or missing data on post.If there is any trouble in training a person up for a post, it will be traced ordinarily to LACK OF ADEQUATE MATERIAL about that post and no checksheet to be thoroughly checked out on.
This should be checked as a point.
It is common not to have a pack of data or checksheet for a post and, if so, one must be made.
Given a person on post not producing, TRANSFER is almost never the right answer. Yet it is the one most frequently done.
If a person is morally unfit, a criminal or mad, it is obvious that “transfer” is the wrong answer.
So this leaves us with these actions to do:
As given in the Management Cycle, HCO PL 24 June 70.