Precious stuff – no touching! ABB’s HR standards
In September of 2014 I went through a training (compulsory at that time) on the subject of recruitment. I was the only one to complete it in 09/2014 and one of five subordinate Regional Managers completed it as well later in December of the same year. We were supposed to complete it in 2013, or at the beginning of 2014.
The training in Polish had a lot of content and logical errors, not to mention language and stylistic mistakes. All of those errors I pointed out later in a direct email to the people leading the training where I suggested possible solutions.
In the next edition only some of my suggestions were taken into account. I tried to investigate why.
February of 2015, during a meeting, participants:
Director HR Jerzy C.
Stanisław – my humble self
HR Director Jerzy C.:… a discussion about BTI will never take place, because I believe in BTI, by the way
Stanisław: Let me just say one word. I do believe in BTI as you do, the point is there are content errors there, Jerzy.
HR Director Jerzy C.: Perhaps there are…
Stanisław: Please do read my email when you have a while.
HR Director Jerzy C.: Oh, I’ve read it.
Stanisław: I say BTI is an important training.
HR Director Jerzy C.: I’ve read that email, I looked at the pics you had taken there. But you know, another thing worries me. I’m worried to see how much time you spend on things that are not even in your job description.
Stanisław: You’re absolutely wrong here, Jerzy… I think about my subordinates, it’s a tool that is crucial to teach proper recruitment and this tool has basic errors. So it’s like you start teaching me about it but before you do, you tell me that polish alphabet has 700 letters, how’s that?
HR Director Jerzy C.: Just leave it… I’m trying to convince you here to focus on your basic duties.
Stanisław: I just think it’s one of my very basic duties to teach my subordinates to recruit, otherwise I’d need to do it myself. But the tool that is supposed to teach them has faults, and after my suggestions, that I think are constructive and to the point, the errors were not fixed. That’s why I’m raising this subject, not because I want to write emails about it in the middle of the night.
Stanisław:… I’m not quite sure if we share the meaning of “solving a problem”. I’m not taking BTI training personally, I’m not trying to be smart here, neither I want to stay up late at night having to write such emails, because I wrote it at night to have time for the work I should be doing instead. I am here to help my staff to develop, not to travel here and there and be a recruitment support, as the efficiency will drop, ’cause I have no.. available, so if I train my people well. It’s all logical and less emotional than it seems. I do the job you ask me to do, but you just simply see it the other way round. If I have 5 people and each of them, as you do… I just work with them more, I know their strenghts and weak points. So either my approval will be needed for each and every person and then the whole process slows down, or I’ll just make good recruiters out of them. One of the trainings, I heard, is the basic one for the recruiters:1 And only one of my subordinates is taking part in it in December, so the whole year, that was crucial, is basically lost, let’s just call it as it is. 2. The materials, I beg you to let me tell you this, as Staszek, I beg you – they’re teaching the wrong things. So I try to fix it.
HR Director Jerzy C.: Staszek, we’ll have to work on it a little. Because it’s not like this, things are not black and white, by the way. This is one thing, but another thing is that, not mentioning the content errors that triggered you so, to the point you took the matter into your own hands. The point is that those materials weren’t perpared here and now. Those materials are part of the program, perhaps some of the stuff has to do with the translation, but most of it is taken from the corporation program, which, how to say it, ‘has the blessing’ WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO TOUCH IT, NO RIGHT TO TOUCH IT
Stanisław: Even if we teach, I’ll try to use a proper word here – not the wisest things, false things, even if we teach them such things?
HR Director Jerzy C.:I don’t want to discuss the bottom of it, because, you know… but the truth is that during all the trainings, MMP that you’ll be attending, during all those trainings you will see things that you don’t like, I promise you.
Stanisław: So what does it mean, what is your suggestion? To just… swim through it?
HR Director Jerzy C: It means that nobody will change a thing just because you wrote something.
Stanisław: Even if I’m right?
HR Director Jerzy C.: From your point of view, you’re right.
Stanisław: That’s not my point of view, it’s an objective point of view. I’m showing how things should work according to the rules.
HR Director Jerzy C.: But you’re not taking into consideration that someone else can also show you an objective point of view.
Stanisław: Go on, let them try.
HR Director Jerzy C.: Yes, but people don’t want to bother with this, It’s a waste of time, waste of time.
11/03/2015 I’ve sent answers and questions regarding this subject to the HR Director Jerzy C.
…
- The recruitment training, compulsory in 2014, was completet only by me (09/2014) and R.Ż. (12/2014) almost at the end of the recruitment process?
- The training in Polish had a lot of content, logical, stylistic and language errors and in spite of the solutions I’ve given, none of my sugesstions was thoroughly implemented.
…
- Differences in perceiving facts
I cannot agree with you that nobody in the HQ cares why the result was as it was. I agree with you that that future is more important, but you can build it only if you learn from the past. I don’t believe in what you say about the materials, that they’re not to be touched because they were approved by the HQ, I am sure they will be more than gratefull for a constructive criticism. I agree that my fault was the fact that the recruitment was not carried out as it should be, but it wasn’t only my fault – hence my actions to get to the bottom, clear things out and fix them.
And responding to your question, which probably was purely rhetoric – Who even asked me to criticise the training? I reply: my sales manager salary – the people will be as effective as I train them.
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