Monday, April 3, 2006

What Is The Table Of Organization? (again...?)

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What is the T.O.?

The Table of Organization is actually a guideline to organize the existing corporate departments in the pursuit of putting CDC into the international economy. Plain and simple. The three volume report of one Dr. Franco entitled Strategic Management Plan is to my opinion emphasizes quality service to our customers and make our marketing strategies and promotion more aggressive.

It was meant to reduce the top-heaviness of the organizational structure, remove the overlapping functions of certain departments and imbue on each and every employee that quality service is everyone’s concerns. To me it was almost a guideline for an ISO 9000 certification. In a nutshell the T.O. asks “Here we are now, where do we want to be?”

My answer to that question is simply – global domination. That is, in terms of economy. CDC becoming a money making machine. Becoming bullish, engaging in hostile corporate takeover if it be allowed. The three volume report gives us pointers in achieving that goal in this “post 911 world”. And if we could dare ourselves to follow them by the book, CDC will go ballistic. “If we built it they will come.” Remember that movie? That my dear ladies and ladies’ men is the T.O.

Today the T.O. is reduced to what could be termed as a flea market for jobs. A huge classified ad with no definite or generic standards of qualifications and requirements. We have some high paying jobs that require only graduation from a four-year course with minimal experience and we have some low paying jobs that require board licensures and years of experience.

If we have to compare our flea market jobs to those of the Sunday Bulletin or to that of an online job market like Monster.com we will find that the only similarity we have to them is the job titles and two or three general qualifications and requirements. After that the makers of the job qualification for some of the positions becomes evident that they somehow point to certain individuals in CDC. An exact fit and an exact match. Such is the T.O.

We have clerical jobs that command job level 10 on this hand and we have highly technical jobs that commands only job level 8 on the other. The measurements as to the jobs functions and pay scale is differentiated from one department to the other. There is no functional leverage as to the delicacy, accountability and ingenuity on the part of an individual in terms of compensation.

Let’s take for example two fictional employees, Mekang and Mokong. Mekang works for the Marketing department as a clerk while Mokong works for the Security department as a fireman. The flea market was opened and as clear as it is a job position custom made for Mekang was posted with JL 10 pay, as for Mokong the JL for firemen is only 6. The point to contemplate is this : Mekang is being “rewarded” the JL 10 position because she comes well in time, does her work with much gusto and perfection and has no qualms to overtime during weekends. She has become a model employee on her department and was highly favored by her manager. Mokong on the other hand could only reach JL 6 by applying on the flea market. Their manager could only “give” him job level 6 because as he says, there is no fire every day and firemen lays dormant for months or years. Emergencies only come intermittently and most are false alarms. Both got their respective JL’s.

Now, it was a Sunday evening, Mekang was in the office encoding an all too important report for his boss that is due early the next day morning. Mokong is at home, sleeping dead drunk. Then, at exactly 9:11 P.M. by reasons beyond reasonable explanation, a 9 planet conjunction came. A planetary eclipse that disrupted electricity. There was a worldwide blackout. The astronomers calculated that this conjunction will last exactly 12 hours and all power will resume at 9:11 the next day. Immediately, there was panic on the street, there was looting. There was an arsonist of a looter that sets fire to a building to cover his steals.

Mekang was upset and stricken that she could not finish her boss’ report so she phoned him telling her problem. The boss said its okay, he could make do with the manuscript and besides the meeting could be postponed in light of the current blackout.

Mokong, deep in toxic sleep was awakened by a backhand slap on his face by one neighbor. With a jolt of a wake he was told that there was a man trapped inside a burning department store and being a fireman he might be able to help the trapped man. With heavy and deliberately slow stride to balance his head, he went to a table and drank a one gallon pitcher of water. Walked staggeringly out towards the department store and could not see any fireman although he’d heard sirens wailing. And there on the second floor window was a man screaming his chest out for help. Mokong went directly below him and reviewed his options, looking here and there to find what he could use.

The man’s face was blackened and his hair was already scorched, but the man looks familiar to Mokong. Very familiar. He noticed that the man has six watches on each forearms. “Great, a looter.” He said. The looter looks very familiar indeed. He tried to review on his mind the mug shot of common criminals but came out empty, can’t place the face. But when the man cried, “Mokong, help me! Please!” He recognized him immediately. It was his boss! “Great, a looter and he is my boss. The man who thinks that firemen are only worth Job Level 6.”

At this point, may I ask, what will Mokong do? Will he jump for joy and imitate the Devil’s Bwahaha! roar and sing The Doors “Light My Fire”? Will he tell his boss “Beh! Buti nga!”? Will he roll on the road and laugh till he cries? Will he go skippity hop hop towards his house and sleep with a smile on his face?

No. Mokong went to the 7:00 A.M. mass that day and the gospel preached the love of enemies and neighbors (although not including looting bosses). So he went inside the clothes section and put on 3 layers of cotton pants, 6 layers of cotton long sleeves shirts and 2 layers of cotton t-shirts on his head, donning them like a ninja mask. Went to the bathroom, turned the shower on, too late to realize that the water is on the way to boiling and scalded his epidermis. Went out of the bathroom and spotted this long black leather raincoat and put it on. So Neo, the ninja jumped 3 flights of the stairs at a time towards the looter’s direction. (Special effects: glasses shattering, expensive perfumes exploding, wallpapers smoldering, bystanders eating popcorn).

When he arrived the boss was slumped on one side, there were more popcorn eaters on the road. Behind him everything is tumbling and crumbling. On the boss’ left were three giant trash bags full maybe of loot. The boss was in shock so Mokong could not talk to him. Mokong tied the bags together and tied his boss to the bags. On the neck, on the hips and on the knee. Then hugging his boss from behind like a dog do when dogs go in heat. With a rush of adrenalin he shoved the looter off the window. In slow motion we could see the belly plop dive. The bags landing first, then the looter landing on the bag and Mokong landing on the looter, cracking a clavicle in the process, intentionally. End of story.

My point is this: Mekong was commanding a JL10 salary wherein her job doesn’t entail much accountability. The world will still go on for her and everyone whether or not she could do her job or not. Mokong, who is commanding JL6, whose job just come at least once in a lifetime, entails much accountability and ingenuity on his part to accomplish his job. The world somehow stops when he fails to do his job or stops completely for some one when he fails. A life stop. Conscience is a bitter enemy. Memory haunts the conscience.

Now let us approach the prevailing status quo mathematically. Let us draw two arrowed lines emanating from a single point, one vertical, the other horizontal. The vertical we denote as the Money (pay), the horizontal as Responsibility, like so:




On the vertical, we could only introduce one driving factor, favoritism, since the pay scale is always fixed. On the horizontal we could add several factors like risk, accountability, ingenuity, delicacy of work and on the part of our licensed colleagues – disbarment, excommunication and the like. Now let us introduce another line emanating from the same origin but this time a diagonal, let’s call this “Bang for the Bucks” or BABU like so:




Now, in an ideal condition, if a unit of Money is equal to a unit of Responsibility, we could draw a square from their intersection like so:




Now, this square could be called as YITO, for You in the T.O. This is the ideal Bang for the Bucks since it clearly shows that the right money is being paid for the right services, That is M=R. It simply means you are duly compensated for the services you offer. You may be on the small square or a big square. This is equilibrium. An ideal condition indeed.

What if we don’t have squares? What if what we have are rectangles that are either tall and slim or broad and fat like so:






Do you now see the difference? Which rectangle does Mekang have which one does Mekong got? Which one do you prefer? Which one does the management prefer?

Mekang got the tall rectangle for she is in Job Level 10 courtesy of a boss who favors her and that the requirements were custom made to accommodate her. Mokong got the broad rectangle with JL6, whose boss conjectured that fires just pops up once or twice in a lifetime.

Now, consider me this… Mekang being a clerk could not perform her work when her computer shut down. She could borrow for time with another terminal when this happen. Simple as that. Mokong on the other hand had to adopt to the situation at hand, use his ingenuity and had to make use of the resources available impromptu.

Let us now consider the corporate impact. CDC will pay the services of both employees, that’s given. If the on-going process of the T.O. could be cleaned out and devoid of faces, there will be more people seeking or applying for positions similar to Mekang even those trained firemen or others with specialized and disciplined skills. More pay for less work is catchy. There will be more pencil pusher than there will be trained individuals.

And then we go back to the original purpose of the T.O. – to reduce the top heaviness of the corporation. CDC will have a bloated manpower expense. The original purpose will be defeated. Who’s to blame?

We could not blame Mekang for being his boss’ favorite. We could not blame Mokong for being outside his boss’ circle. Dr. Franco is not even to be blamed for coming out with a report that was left in the sidelines. If there are people to be blamed, it is those who somehow forgot to take into heart the original design of the T.O. It is those who took advantage of their powers and twisted and malleated and deformed the true meaning of those two words.

Less we forgot, there is this thing called horizontal promotion in CDC wherein an individual could be promoted through meritorious acts but maintains his job level to identify him on the payscale. It somehow functions like this:

Laborers are JL1, skilled laborers are JL 2, so on and so forth. The higher the responsibility and its factors the higher the pay. If for some reason you’ve quite gain proficiency on your job, you get JL1 step 1 or 2 or 3. In other words you could well be above the payscale of a JL 2 with regards to your proficiency and meritorious or extraordinary acts. But, there is no way will you become one or two JL higher unless you gain additional skills or talent different from your previous skills. Moreover the acquired skills, should be proven to be of higher worth than that what you already practice. In that case you could be promoted vertically.

Well, in this day and age, I think the term horizontal promotion has lost its meaning. Kangaroo jumping is in vogue. Kangaroo court is now in session. Hey, we all know that as of this time all is still not well with regards to the T.O. The thing is still soft boiled, but if we could put into practice our Ishikawa or Pareto stuff, we could be solving this thing.

Oh, yes, oti’s back














Posted at 12:12 pm June 9, 2003

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