CEO Interview - part 1

Thanks for all the feedback and due to popular demand we will tackle this one now, even though we think it speaks for itself, he doesn't get it.

Well let's summarise the interview:

Greg Russell on ATC reform: “...and frankly there has been some terrific work done.”

Oh come on, you’re smoking something!

Greg Russell on The New Management:   “I do think there is some further work to do in terms of up-skilling some of our managers in that area and getting them to focus on their new accountabilities”

No shit Sherlock; what are the chances of getting them away from the supervisor consoles to up-skill them? To busy chasing their tails?  Maybe the cutting of the numbers half way through wasn't the best move, then again taking more operational staff away from consoles would have crippled the business, no wait, too late.

Greg Russell on the first 18 months: “...making the place more efficient – some of that was cost reduction; there were areas where we were clearly wasting money. But it is not all about cost reduction and I think now the dial has moved.”

It was all about cost cutting, the dial has moved because you can’t maintain your minimum requirements; you’ve got your fingers in the cookie jar.  You clearly cut too far, there were no business cases or justification for doing most of what you did.  You ruled by fear, those who objected got the chop.  Those who didn’t object, believed your rhetoric, now almost to the letter, they don’t.

Greg Russell on the next (the last)18 months: “Having built some good systems, rationalised parts of the organisation and reduced our costs, we turned to fixing issues that had plagued this business for a long time – proper recruitment, proper training of our people and the whole issue of workforce planning and development of our people.”

We repeat, you’re smoking something!  Workforce planning has always been paramount particularly in ATC, the previous managers, George and Andrew had weekly discussions with managers about the numbers, they always argued too high, so did you. You banked on technology, then didn't support it's implementation, typical.

Greg Russell on the changes in the last 12 months: “Undoubtedly our focus on workforce planning.”

Only because of all the TIBAs; you were told (or at least your Level 2’s were told) not to proceed with some or all of SDE but you went ahead anyway.  How are the age profiles looking now?  How are we going to staff new towers?  Avalon, Williamtown on weekends and after RAAF hours, Karratha?   What's next? How are we going to build a 'bow-wave' for the new towers?

Greg Russell on staff planning: “We produced the first workforce plan in the early part of 2006 ... again in 2007 and we’ve just completed it again this year and the further we get into this the more I’ve come to an appreciation of just how critical is it ...”

The first plan in 2006?  BS mate, again in 2007, did it say numbers up or down?  What are the numbers like now, what's with 897?  We don't believe the numbers, if you did, you'd publish them far and wide for comment, SDL by SDL.

Greg Russell on staff shortages and the last 6 months: “the staff shortages based around some of the Melbourne sectors have settled a little, we are still having some difficulties though, particularly in the Sydney/Brisbane sectors. ...our numbers of operational ATCs are 21 below our required number of 897.”

What are the real numbers, we understand one SDL is nearly that short by itself, are you being loose with the truth Greg, what makes the 897, what's the breakdown?  SDL by SDL, project by project?

The majority of these shortages are a direct result of your SDE; in some cases you added 1/3rd extra controller jobs in the name of efficiency?  So how’s that working exactly?  Is there less or more holding into Sydney, into Brisbane or into Melbourne?  Obviously it’s more efficient.

Greg Russell on recruitment: “..we’ve got to recruit now for the future of the organisation and I think we referred to, back in January, the importance of building up enough of our employees particularly in the Air Traffic Control group and also in the fire service, so that we reduce this enormous dependency on institutionalised overtime.”

Institutionalised overtime, you’re not wrong, all those that work overtime in the current climate should be institutionalised.

Greg Russell on increasing staff: “...there has been a lot of pain in this process, there have been a lot of people who have I think put up with continuing levels of overtime but I made a commitment in January to fix this issue, and we have been doing that.”

You've realised you've got to open the purse strings and recruit people, it hurts.  Fixing it how exactly, recruiting abinitios? retaining people? recruiting more global recruits? recruiting more RAAF controllers?  You told us it would be fixed by June, hello, hello, what month is it?  Didn't say which June?

Greg Russell on the Training College: “There has been a significant amount of work for instance going on in the Airservices Learning Academy in Melbourne.  The appointment of a new team is almost complete and we are putting additional resources into bringing people back into the organisation, in some cases to deliver the training we need for accelerated and additional courses for Air Traffic Controllers.”

You’ve spent what nearly $50M on new simulators and technology, with not enough TGOs’ to drive it, with not enough instructors to make exercises, what with all the extra trainees in the system.  Accelerated courses, read shortened, removing basics from the college where economies of scale work, and putting the ‘core skills’ back to field training, yeah smart move, NOT!  

In the past 18 months, did we cut the shit out of the training resources and systems?  Didn't we reward managers for doing that, no wait they were making it more efficient.

Greg Russell on training results: “... I am confident more of our people are going to see more of these resources come out of our training facilities.”

GIGO, Garbage In Garbage Out!  Is it true some recruits are going to be employed to meet the numbers but be put in holding patterns awaiting a "real course start date", as opposed to the official one, field training before sim training, novel, a waste nope? 

Is it true you've lowered the skills bar to ensure we get the numbers in, despite not meeting the required minimum's in previous recruitment efforts?  Sounds like a great way to resolve the crisis, waste resources on training people who will never make it.  Maybe they can get to the field and bang a few together, that will help.