so if tweeting and doing selfies takes so little time, what - pray - does this mighty collosus do all day then…?
after all, it can’t be concentrating on getting flying up and running because glying is non-existant, it can’t be shooting because the ACO/TG4 has been properly rodded by random SO1’s with some unexplainable loathing for cadets going shooting, and it can’t be camps because currently only about 4 cadets per year manage to get a tented camp and thats at RAF Dunny-on-the-Wold…
its a pity FTRS AC’s aren’t on performance related pay, George Osbourne could have lobbed the RN another Astute.
I would imagine the commandant is quite busy chairing meeting of her heads of branches, liaising with 22Grp AOC, dealing with naughty officers who have to be sacked because they’ve been very naughty, deal with complaints and service enquiries, handle outcomes from fatal incidents, manage five RCs etc etc. That and travelling a significant amount and trying to appease the unappeasable
If CAC is having to do all of that then there are certainly a few senior pay grades not earning let along worth their salt.
You won’t find chairman / MD dealing with staff issues unless they are board members, they would be dealt with by personnel managers at the appropriate level. Fallout from any sort of incident are also likely to be dealt with by the PR and H&S people. If we have that many fatal incidents in the Corps poor old Don wouldn’t be sat on his backside inventing H&S sillinesses and getting certificates, he would be fully employed on investigations etc. If she is having to manage 5 RCs as closely as suggested then it suggests the wrong people are in the jobs.
Yep travelling I can accept BUT the only thing I ever here from people relating to the current CAC are facebook nonsesne and twits. Social media activity seems to be prevalent among those who like people to think they are busy and or important, which is why ‘celebrities’, politicians, sporty types etc do it. I’m sorry, if you feel you have to inform people that you have; had something, done something, met someone, been somewhere via some social media outlet then you do have far too much time on your hands and are only feeding sort of people of an intellect who think soap operas and reality TV are factual documentaries. The Telegraph publishes twits every weekend and these support what I say.
What is suggested about about people on higher pay grades just shouting people down is even ½ true, then they would be displaying a level of unprofessionalism that in the private sector could be fatal to the success/profitabilty of a business. Probably explains why the armed forces have got into such a state as to have financial ‘black holes’, overspends etc which have led to the level of cuts seen in the last few years. Having said that from what I’ve been told there seems to be a few characters at HQAC who don’t like criticism or suggestions from the CFAV on the basis of what do we know, which has resulted in a number of bloody good staff walking away from the Corps.
in truth, despite having both met, and worked for, some weapons grade c0cks in 12 years in the Army, i personally doubt that anyone would shout down another ‘stakeholder’ who had a firm grip of their brief and who brought legitimate, well argued concerns/issues to a otherwise agreed policy.
they get over-ruled, they might get ignored - especially if their concerns/issues weren’t explained well or possible alternative solutions provided - but to shout down, belittle, bully etc… a very junior officer, particularly one from another service, is to beg for a career-fouling service complaint. everyone knows that, and given the competition to get on the next rung of the greasy pole, something that would be jumped on by ones ‘colleagues’…
personally, my suspicion is that even if the ACO’s concerns were well presented, by repeatedly sending such a junior officer to meetings that got progressively higher up the food chain, the other parties - who may well have had some sypathy with those concerns - took the view that the ACO, not an organisation under-resourced with Group Captains and above, wasn’t really serious about those concerns.
if you don’t pull your big guns out, you obviously don’t want to fight. the ACO has big guns - not least its influence/affection in the most senior echelons of the RAF - it didn’t use them.
Don’t allow cadets to sign up for camps via an internet site and skip their OC completely, who only finds out once they get place. It’s a nightmare to try and work out where people are and undermines staff.
Listen to change requests on Sharepoint - especially for errors in documents.
Integrate Sharepoint more effectively with SMS so that if, as our wing does, you can nominate cadets and staff for courses on sharepoint, you don’t then have to go to SMS to add them.
The over 18 process is too box ticky too. Why someone has to fill in a form to list their greatness and then it needs to be signed by OC, WSO and WgCO makes no sense to me - surely if the OC wants them to stay, that should be the end of it.
[quote=“pEp, post:45, topic:1844, full:true”]
The over 18 process is too box ticky too. Why someone has to fill in a form to list their greatness and then it needs to be signed by OC, WSO and WgCO makes no sense to me - surely if the OC wants them to stay, that should be the end of it.[/quote]
I’ve made this point to Wg Cdrs and WSOs and been told it’s how is it to make sure we only get ‘high calibre’ individuals as over 18s.
All we need is
1 they want to stay in the Corps
2 pass a DBS and
3 be able to sit through a BASIC, if they can do this and not lose the will to live by morning coffee break, we’ve done our job well.
This requirement didn’t arise until after the part of the LASER Review pertaining to cadet service had to be rushed through, as no one on that team had thought about and it developed into this which is purely and simply an administrative faff for the sake of an administrative faff.
This nonsense is one reason why we should stop cadet service at 18 and have children as cadets and adults (ie over 18s) as staff.
I’m waiting for the day when new staff are only taken on because of their ‘worth’ to the organisation and staff only allowed to continue on a similar basis. Which on the basis this is how cadets are allowed to stay on (like WE are doing them a favour) has to come. Think we have a staff shortages now, not enough officers to run squadrons, people generally rushing around like blue bottomed insects et al.
I’m not suggesting that we pay the current incumbents more money. I’m suggesting that a pay band that’s better aligned with the responsibility these posts should hold would attract better and more motivated people to fill them. We might even be able to attract CFAVs into the roles.
But as system developer / support worker you still need a budget that matches the expectations of those above and the end user. Regardless of how motivated or well paid someone is, if they are being asked to do something that isn’t possible with the budget. Our IT bods get paid well but without a realistic budget can only apply the ‘e’ equivalent of gaffer tape.
However wrt to IT the problems are not just with the systems, there is the very palpable problems with the resourcing and kitting of the end users, ie what the volunteers have at their disposal to work on. In the workplace if people don’t have equipment of the right / sufficient spec they don’t work as well. I’ve been in the position at work where doing the day to day is painful as your PC doesn’t work as well / efficiently as it should. How many CFAV don’t really have the kit to use? Which regardless of how well the system performs/operates, they aren’t going to get the best out of it. At work our user support can ‘take over’ your PC remotely and take you through or just whatever is needed. We don’t have that facility and get instructions to resolve things and if you’re not confident you don’t bother.
As suggested above proper training on the Corps IT and the ability to fiddle around without feeling that you could mess things up is, has been required from day one and is still required.
No it’s not. I don’t want anyone at HQAC messing with my pc thanks. If I can use SMS, sharepoint and email on anything from win 10 to win xp and all android and apple mobile devices, I think that’s pretty impressive. If you don’t know how to use a pc, you’ve got issues. Go book on a free community pc course or better still join Barclays and have their digital eagles show you.
In the business world it is fatal to not provide adequate training on computer based systems (or any area of work come to that) and likewise properly supporting them. Maybe if our various HQ staffs were given the right training for Sharepoint it wouldn’t have ended up like it has. Maybe they were / are and still behaved like they have.
How odd it is that the organisation makes such a big thing of how professional it is, staff trained etc etc and yet fails at the basic level of staff training on the sort of thing that backs the professional claims up.
I like every Sqn Cdr who was around at its inception has had to ‘train’ (in the loosest possible sense of the word) staff on using our wonderful systems and this has no deal led to why it’s not used as much as and how it should be by people. Given that the only training we got was a scant document and a few screenshots shown to us at a COs meeting several years ago. Then on the basis of this we were “bullied” by WHQ no doubt on the orders of HQAC to use it, which meant several hours at weekends finding your way through it. Even now doing things on it are the e-equivalent of wading through treacle as it hasn’t been designed with the end user in mind.
If staff were given proper training on it they would be more confident about using it and much of the admin we have to do not just done by the CO or Adj. The other issue around using it is frequency of use. I don’t use SMS every day or even parade night and likewise sharepoint, mainly so that I can treat the ATC like a hobby.
At work I train people on specific parts of different software we use, but to do this I have spent time with either the software companies, experts (in the system I admin) or doing a number of user courses. I’m by no means an expert, but I’m confident enough to show people how and what to do. But at work I can allocate the time and have the proper facilities (a training suite) to do this and then sitting with them to ensure they are confident in doing it. But then again people are using these every day and soon acquire personal confidence.
I would like to see an xp machine running now given MS don’t support xp, we’ve got a mix of Vista and 7 at the sqn and it’s only a couple of years before MS stop supporting Vista.
I thought that my company website was the clunkiest in the world, with the worst ever search facility, strangest security protocol, most illogical layout/file structure… & then I was introduced to Sharepoint/SMS.
It is a morass of ever-changing treacle. In a commercial world, it would have been scrapped or been significantly updated years ago. CFAVs have to plough through a junkyard of cr@p in order to action things effectively; this takes an inordinate amount of time & detracts from resources – volunteers’ time being a resource!
The ACO by its very nature is a large organization that has everyone acting as a “remote” unit. To me, currently the IT doesn’t support this adequately.
Don’t even get me started on the sub-optimal communication “structure.”
In the modern age: if you need training on web-based software, it’s been poorly designed and built.
There are exceptions, of course. Complex systems (think Bloomberg or Air Traffic type stuff) can be optimised for efficiency of use by skilled users rather than for ease of use.
That should never be the case for simple systems. From a user’s perspective, the four systems we use are simple, or at least ought to be!
When’s the last time you were trained to use an app on your phone?
You still need to properly familiarise people with software they are going to use or people will shy away from using it. I wouldn’t have used Bader if I hadn’t been bullied into it (with snotty emails saying if you don’t we’ll stop you doing this/that) as I didn’t need to use it. I only use it now because it has been decreed by the Ivory Towers making it so we can’t doing anything without using it, just to make their lives easier.
After the supposed ‘upgrade’ of ‘Office’ from 2003 to 2010 we had 2012 (they skipped 2007) as someone who had been using Office for the best part of 20 years, it was a shock and it wasn’t until I sussed out setting up my own ‘toolbars’, as I had set for the old version and lose the crap that some bright spark at MS thought we ‘wanted’ grouped together, was I able to get to use it with any sort of efficiency. Which when you consider most of my day to day work revolves around using Office was pita.
I don’t think you can liken software, web-based or not, to an app. Apps are designed to be used by the lowest common denominators, which means the majority don’t have too many problems. But commercial / bespoke workplace software is a different story and even then it comes down to how often they use it. I work with and know people who struggle to use day to day software with any sort of competence who ask the same things (despite being shown umpteen times), but are able to top up the RSA for their thumbs and occasionally other digits at every opportunity with no problems.
I took some TOIL this afternoon and bumped into my Legion branch secretary. He mentioned at a meeting sometime ago that the RBL was going over to an online administration system which branch execs can access. I said I’d be interested in seeing it and he showed me it this afternoon.
It’s based on Sharepoint and from what I could see gives each branch exec an email (but the address isn’t friendly), updating branch membership details and an online Office 365, so that people can use it for branch documents. He’s said he’s gong to keep using the email he’s had for several years and sees no need for him to personally use the online Office. He just likes the updating membership list and will probably only use it for that.
But it just seems so quiet (OK it’s early days and from what gets said at meetings there isn’t a lot coming out of county) and user friendly compared to what we have. There were individual specfic folders for areas including meetings, events and finace, which he’s not sure if they are for branch only or things will be put in them by county and others.
What it did show is what could be achieved with a bit of prior thought to structure and content and not the haphazard everyone jumping in randomness we descended into and keep getting further and further into.
Our sharepoint can have that. Just needs someone to get the tidy broom out and sweep up. Given that the version we use is 7 years old now, and a new one is coming soon, it’s little wonder no one wants to waste time.
This is a stupid process. Why do we have to confirm receipt before payment is issued, causing hold ups (and to whoever wants to name and shame people who forget, what an idiot). There are more important things to be doing than managing an archaic system. Surely the solution is for the OC to request via WHQ the badges and then WHQ to send off the confirmation of receipt form?
Unless they’ve changed it, which it seems it hasn’t the last time I ordered any numbers you had to post the form, it would have been much easier and quicker to send an email from the adj or OC. But some admin wallah wanted a bit of paper.
I doubt that. I would suggest that if that is indeed the case, the system is ridiculous. What company waits for things to be delivered before taking payment? Are they insane?