Department One is the single most important department in the Org.
This is true to such an extent that HCO could be otherwise unmanned but if Dept 1 were well manned and did its duty the org would prosper; but if Depts 2 and 3 were manned with Dept 1 empty and its duties undone the org would collapse.
Years ago practically the whole concentration in HCO were Dept 1 duties and orgs were efficient, well staffed and prosperous. To the degree Dept 1 fell out, Ethics crept in and orgs shrank.
I myself have to keep an eye on Dept 1 functions as it tends to slip down the org board.
Dept 1 is the generation point of the org.
A new study 1 did of this, based on two actual situations of org long term upsets led to Dept 1 as a hidden omission. When Dept 1 functions went out, other functions fouled up.
If you are trying to get an org running without a strong, effective, well manned Dept 1 skip the effort—the thing to do is put in a Dept 1 fast and get it working fully.
So what are the principal functions of Dept 1?
Appearances was taken out and put in the Public Divs. Perhaps in some PLs not all the functions were given. But these functions are traditional and were developed and used in the earliest and later Sen orgs.
The functions of Dept 1 are:
Now one can find a frame of mind which says once these 3 are done, that’s it. You got people, got them on a org board and the hats are somewhere in policy. And it requires nothing more. AND THE INSTANT THAT ATTITUDE OCCURS THE ORG PROMPTLY BEGINS TO HAVE TROUBLE AND FAIL.
These three functions are a full day’s work every day.
It’s true that HCO Makes the Org as in HCO PL 7 Feb 1970 Issue II “HCO Makes the Org”.
But Dept 1 of HCO is the key.
If you don’t keep recruiting and pushing Personnel as a function you can’t expand and certainly will contract. New personnel are always being taken on. There is often a ridge that buffers off people who want to come on staff—an old-timer attitude, a clique idea. It recurs often. Then one day you look up and there’s not even a clique left. Old-timers are people who were once brand new! So how do you eventually get any veterans if you don’t recruit.
Orgs do expand. Their expansion chokes for lack of a constant personnel inflow. If an old staff member “graduates” to a higher org where’s the experienced staff member there to take his place if you didn’t constantly recruit?
High calibre people can’t be selected out from a thin recruiting line.
So Dept 1 has to work constantly on recruiting or the eventual state is no org.
There’s no lack of business for an org. Tech Divs in ’69 were BACKLOGGED as much as 70 to 125 pcs. So who’d sign up if he had to wait. 300 signed up for triple Sen grades at one Congress. The org could deliver only 30 and brushed off 270 sign ups!
This all comes down to Dept 1s failing in 1968! Failing to recruit new staff.
So nobody signs up just to wait, Pub Divs go into apathy. Pay gets scarce because the bigger an org is the more per capita it earns.
So personnel affects income.
Lack of recruiting brings about low per capita production as unsuitable or non productive staff has to be held onto when there aren’t any more. Per capita earning for a Sen org fell to £15-10 per staff member in 1969! That’s silly. In a Sea Org org it was $5000 in the spring of ’69! That’s per SO member in that org. Look at your Qual stat of number of staff divided into gross income for the week and you’ll see what I mean.It comes back to Dept l’s personnel recruitment function. It’s life or death for an org.
Putting up an Org Board looks like a one time action to some. Then it goes promptly out of date and as nobody can find anybody in the org (as it’s the routing chart as well) and as functions are left unmanned, there goes the gross income and there goes the org.Key functions MUST be manned.
The Tech-Admin ratio never stays in view unless you have an up to date daily posted Org Board. When in a small org Admin exceeds 2 for every Tech person pay and financial planning go to pieces. When the org is bigger the ratio is 1 to 1 and the income higher, pay and facilities far better.
Yet how do you ever detect this without an Org Board posted every week at the very least and every day at optimum.
The Org Board is the general plan, the function indicator, the routing and the personnel situation for the org. It’s one of our best bits.
It’s Dept 1 that keeps it there and keeps it up to date.
Our best trick is the hat trick.
Hats contain one’s individual duties. They are complete.
In an old prosperous org every staff member had his post hat. HCO PLs and local write ups in a folder were kept for every post and by every post.
They were compiled and issued by Dept 1.
And Dept 1 had a steady stream of staff members coming in and going out getting checked out on their hats.
Not just once. Every time stats sagged in an area, hat checks were done. A log of hat checks was kept.
Somebody in Dept 1 was always making up, issuing, checking out, logging, keeping straight HATS. One couldn’t draw a final pay check in an org unless one turned in the post’s hats and in good order too. The final pay check went to Dept 1 and was handed over in return for the post’s hats.
Nobody went on post until Dept 1 checked him out on his hat.
Posts couldn’t transfer without a hat turn over.
Losing a hat cost a heavy fine.
That’s how important hats were.
Then what about the Staff Training Officer? He has a training function like Staff Status, like the Org Exec Course, like HDC.
Hats were hats. One studied them. One got checked out on them. Nobody got near a post who didn’t know what it was.
And orgs prospered. And were happy.
When Dept 1 goes out Ethics comes in. There was no ethics post in an old org. There were Dept 1 functions.
If staff members are too few, if the Org Board is out of date, if no one has his hat and doesn’t know his job, then Ethics is inevitable.
And Ethics came in about the time when Dept 1 went out.
A review of Sea Org Missions shows they have to do Dept 1 actions in orgs. Because there’s no Dept 1 there even when there’s an HCO.
So absence of Dept 1 in orgs pulled the SO in and gave the SO a function that it didn’t want.
I can hear an org with only 10 people in it, struggling along, being told it has to man up Dept 1 with 1 full time person at once!
What consternation!
“But we don’t have the staff!”
“But that would throw out our Org Board Tech-Admin ratio.”
“But we’re all overworked and confused enough already “We can’t process enough pcs to afford it.”
“Our students are so long on course we can’t get any auditors”
But those are all symptoms of a missing Dept 1. Even slow students. If the Course Super knew his hat he’d be in there amongst the students with 2 way comm and correct routing and slow would become fast.
Trying to run an org with no org must be quite a trick.
Get a Dept 1 in and operating and you’ll see a fast difference!