Conference 7.286::digital

    You're kidding, right? 
    
    Our balance sheet looks like dog vomit, and you want to have another
    JEP�? 
    
    You've gotta be kidding. Who else but EIS!
    
    - Larry.
    
    � JEP - A multi-million dollar, touchy-feely boondoggle; c.f.,
            elsewhere in this conference

    
    You probably mean "JEC", but your sentiments are right on target.
    
    You should also assume that whenever you see an inventive term
    like "career pathing", a large :-) is strongly implied. To do
    otherwise is to invite madness.
    

	There is already something like this being installed in
	the "Customer Services" division:  CDP, Career Development
	Program.

	'Course, it's referred to around here as the "Career Delay
	Program" because if one of the players in your enrollment 
	decides he doesn't want to put forth much effort, your 
	career stops dead.

	We've begun to find that if you change jobs ( say, from
	VMS-related support to Ultrix-stuff support ), your
	career is over.  If you're level III and want to move
	to level IV in your new job, you have to appear before a
	review board or interview and perform as a level IV in
	your new field.  Your knowledge of the other stuff is
	unimportant  to the reviewer(s).

	Steve H

	P.S.  "Path" is a noun, as are "interface" and "network".

RE: .3

>	We've begun to find that if you change jobs ( say, from
>	VMS-related support to Ultrix-stuff support ), your
>	career is over.  If you're level III and want to move
>	to level IV in your new job, you have to appear before a
>	review board or interview and perform as a level IV in
>	your new field.  Your knowledge of the other stuff is
>	unimportant  to the reviewer(s).

Are you saying that it should be otherwise?  If you're bucking for promotion
to level IV in ULTRIX support, it seems only reasonable that you should have
level IV expertise in ULTRIX support.


RE: .0

"Career pathing" my Aunt Nellie's sneakers!  Where did I leave my barf bag??
(departs muttering . . . . .)

--PSW

	... haven't we all been hearing that constant, never-ending CHANGE is 
vital to the corporation of the New Age? Shame on you naysayers!

:>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) 

	Shame the DECwindows users won't get the full benefit of the <FF> at 
the end of that line!  After writing it, I think I appreciate the "dog vomit" 
analogy even more!  :>)

	BTW, Larry, I think if you look at the CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET, at 
least last quarter, we still LOOK good.  It's the income/expense summaries 
where the real story falls out!  The balance sheet is just some numbers
presenting the ancient accounting equation - Assets = Liabilities + Equity.

	Oh well, at least the stock may be priced right for the Tuesday sell!

    re .4
      Wake up and smell the roses....Many of us already perform in the
    higher capacity...but the reviewers don't know the people...or what
    they are doing...
    
      The JEC was just a waste of time...a lot of "reclassification" was
    done...but the jobs stayed the same...and by the way...promotion was
    not part of the plan as far as I could see..
    
    
    
    dlm
    

RE: 6

>    The JEC was just a waste of time...a lot of "reclassification" was
>    done...but the jobs stayed the same...and by the way...promotion was
>    not part of the plan as far as I could see..

	Right on!  As far as I know, the JEC mess was a big waste of time
	and money.  You still have the same people doing the same job,
	in the same way, with the same resources, for the same money. From
	what I could tell, the only tangible result was that a person's
	"penetration level" was artificially moved in such a way to justify
	lower salary increases.  If you ask me, it was just another 
	boondoggle by some management type to justify their existence.

	Dave

	By the way, who ever came up with the term "penetration level"?  
	Something Freudian about that ;-)   Probably thought up by someone
	who likes to get "behind" people.
	
		

    Digital is being ground down by the conflict between "results" people
    (who feel pain from customers and competitors) and "process" people
    (who are the cloud-dwellers).  This is just another example.

    When someone wants to start "US Career Pathing" (Process)  ...

    Why not ask what the sales reps, sales support people, and EIS delivery
    people really want?  You know the answer.

    More training. More (current) equipment for themselves and the third
    parties.

    Without trained and equipped people the question of "US Career Pathing"
    is going to be academic.

    When it's 1987 and we're having caviar on the QE II and on top of the
    world, then this or JEC can be afforded, and it's a joke or a success
    depending on your view.  When it's 1991 and we're wondering about
    profitability and loss of product leadership, it's not funny anymore.

    Right on, Pat!!!

    Makes me kinda sick, too. Most of us just want to know if we will have
    jobs a month from now, never mind careers! We've been sitting on pins
    and needs for SIX months not knowing if we would be downsized or
    deleted entirely. I wonder what this "career pathing" exercise would
    cost the company, too.  
    :<
    

    Respondees - As of 6/3,
    
    Given today's environment, down-size  right-size  will I have a job
    tomorrow  etc, I understand and appreciate the frustration.  Lots of
    times you see large, $$$$, programs being driven from the top down to
    the employees who say I didn't ask for or need this program.  The
    purpose of this notes conference is to ask you would it be helpful to you
    to know the profile ( activity/task role/respnsibility,
    knowledge/experience, technical skill, behavior skill) of your job and
    what jobs come closest to matching your profile within and outside your
    function.
    
    Consider the employee who has 30 days to find a job.  They can look for
    a job within their own function or guess as to skills required for
    positions outside their function.  What if the employee had access to
    information that cleary described jobs profiles cross-functionally that 
    most appropriately match their skills, wouldn't it be helpful.
    
    This project is not another JEC.  It will not classify or re-classify
    anyone.  It is intended, based on employee feedback, to focus at the
    jobs the company feels are critical to our future and to help open the
    door for cross-functional mobility and with it have all employees feel
    respected for transferring and growing outside their existing function.
    
    If we, I am an employee too, do nothing, it is business as usually.
    This is an opportunity to help us get beyond today and say we want to
    know what job options are available to us across the US and what skills
    are required for those options.
    
    I appreciate your comments and ask that share this information with
    your colleagues and ask them if cross-functional career options would
    be helpful.
    
    Thanks
    Curtis
    dtn 320-5485
    ALL-IN-1 @RCH
    
    
     
    

    Please Curtis....just forget the whole thing!  With the corporation
    in its present state of panic, there must be something useful you
    can do.  Anyhow, somebody with 30 days to find a job in DEC is dead
    meat.  It takes that long to get an acknowledgement from most
    recruiters.
    
    I also agree that JEC was a monumental, extremely expensive, total
    waste of time and money.  Absolutely nothing changed for me or anyone
    I know.  I just hope that whomever came up with that idea was
    "transitioned" long ago.

    Curtis,
    	Before you or anyone else goes down the path of giving us something
    	many people have tried to indicate is not fruitful at this time. I
    	strongly suggest you look at the VTX Jobs notes file and the
    	companion JIS file which describes the requirements for a position.
    
    	JIS contains the new job descriptions developed for JEC.  Lets not
    	start a new effort to deliver what JEC supposedly has already done
    	for us.  It may not have a nice table that equates jobs, but I know
    	such a table already exists since I have seen it.  That is if you
    	assume equates means has the same salary range indicator!
    
    	The table is available to personnel.  JIS is available to you and
    	with a bit of work you can reproduce which jobs in each category
    	are similar or part of a family.  The effort of drawing a chart
    	which shows where positions line up and which are parallel should
    	take less than a day once you have assimilated all the data in JIS.
    
    	So please don't start a new program...  We don't need it now or in
    	the future...  Career Planning can and should be done by each indi-
    	vidual,  JIS can be a good source of data on what you might like to
    	do and then finding people who have those titles and jobs would be
    	the next step to seeing if this is where you want to move.
    
    	As the previous replies have indicated, there is little sympathy
    	left for human resource activities which do not deliver revenue
    	improvements (cost cutting ideas will not get this corporation
    	back on track)...  This activiy is extremely untimely and very
    	likely to be perceived as an attempt to justify an unnecessary
    	position not related to revenue production.
    

These replies seem unncessarily harsh to me, although i also question
the feasibility of .0.  I guess it's a question of ROI.  A tool for
matching applicant skills to needed job skills could help out revenue
producing groups that are desperately trying to fill critical openings.
But i don't think you can rely on people's self-descriptions of their
skills...their needs to be some objective skill certification process.
Unless that can be developed very cheaply, now is probably not the
best time to gear up such a process.  A couple of years back (when all
our big managers were supposedly being measured againt Human Resource
Management goals) i would've said go for it.  Now i'd say hold off.

On the other hand, i disagree with whoever said that in more prosperous
times something like JEC could be afforded.  A boondoggle like that can
NEVER be afforded by any corporation, no matter how flush they are.  I
spent an inordinate amount of time as a manager fighting the wrongful
reclassifications of my people that JEC produced.  JEC was a totally
hypocritical exercise that betrayed all its stated goals.  That sort of
shameless fraud should NEVER be tolerated by any corporation.  The
negative effects on employee morale more than counteract any alleged
cost savings that were achieved by pushing do-ers down to lower rungs
while encouraging the careers of professional meeting go-ers.

								paul

re: .0

We had a software product (DECmatch?) to help match candidates and jobs.

It has been retired.  Apparently, nobody bought it or used it.

I'm not sure how your effort will help anyone outside of the GMA, since most
people in the field are very limited in their options, due to the lack of
Digital offices.

Bob

    I'm sorry that these notes do appear harsh, but I think they are
    honest.  I whinced when I saw the title.  To me, "Career Pathing"
    sounds a lot like "Career Nitching".  In other words, once "classified"
    as one type of worker it would probably be career limiting since if you
    wanted to use what you've learned as opposed to what you currently do
    to get a new position the classification would stand in the way.  This
    is assuming that a hiring manager would take the classification
    seriously.  I know that in my department the JEC classifications and
    job descriptions did not fit.  I think we pretty much figured that JEC
    was something that everybody else would find useful, but not us.  Turns
    out most everybody else apparently had the same attitude.
    
    Steve

  I agree that this is not a good time to set up a U.S.-wide "career pathing"
system. However, if EIS wants to do it and can get funding for it, it's OK
with me.
  About 7 years ago we tried to automate the job matching process with a tool
called DECStars. Before long the database got cluttered up with obsolete job
postings and it was abandoned. We then set up a system called TESS which did
more or less the same thing. I don't know if TESS is still operating. DEC-
stars enabled job seekers to go to job resource centers and do searches based
on "skill codes". It was far more efficient for job seekers than the presently
available databases (VTX Jobs and OASS::JOBS). However, people didn't have the
capability to use DECstars or TESS from their own terminals. Not everyone had
access to a job resource center where they could access DECstars or TESS.
  An electronic job matching system could be of great value to both job seekers
and hiring managers if we ever go back to transitioning excess people to trans-
ition centers instead of laying them off. However, DEC U.S. is far too large to
set up such a system directly. It would be better to start with a group such as
EIS on a pilot basis and then expand if it's successful.

    
    
    TESS is alive and well and in the Employee Resource Center at MLO.
    The advantage to TESS (in comparison to VTX JOBS) is that it does
    allow you to take skills and match them with apropos jobs much like
    noter .0 mentioned.  Sally Ann Duffy is the adminstrator of this
    system.  

    .0 asked if we would find such information useful, not whether we
    thought it was worth doing. He didn't even give us enough information
    to answer "Is it worth it," since he didn't say what it would cost. The
    previous replies discouraged him from collecting the information
    because we couldn't afford it in these times.
    
    I have no idea whether it's worth collecting this information, but if
    it were done "right" the information would be helpful to me, as well as
    to the other people I work with. ("Right" to me means with a level of
    detail that provides me some information -- the descriptions in VTX or
    other official sources are so general as to be meaningless. I could fit
    into any of a dozen classifications.) 
    
    I spent four years in the Hudson/Marlboro area doing what I guess would
    be called advanced development (AI software applications for internal
    use). Then I took an EIS position and I've been working on site at a
    customer location for the past year and a half. This project is going
    to be ending soon. All of the EIS folks out here will have to find a
    new job, hopefully within DEC. The EIS job titles are new to me; I'm
    used to the Senior/Principal/... path. Most of the people I work with
    have always been in the field, and several are new to DEC. These people
    don't know any more about the career paths from our current EIS
    position than I do. VTX JIS has information that's way too general for
    our use. Personnel's willing to help, but rarely around, and besides,
    we shouldn't be thinking about a career path until this current project
    ends. If this "career pathing" effort could provide me with more
    information about possible next steps from my current job, I'd love it! 
    With better information about career paths, the EIS folks -- who seem
    to go through on-a-project, looking-for-a-project phases -- would have
    a better chance of having a new project lined up before leaving a
    ramping down project. More billable (or at least productive) time is
    good. 
    
    Cathy

    What I find somewhat interesting is that developing a career path
    framework is a LONG term outlook IMHO. I wonder if the folks who
    say that now, in this time of "rightsizing", is not the time to do
    this are the same ones complaining about Digital's short term
    vs. long term results strategy. I believe a constructive cost
    effective mechanism to provide employees long term career growth
    information to assist them in managing their own careers is a
    worthwhile endeavor, assuming it doesn't become a multi-year 100
    person project that consumes dollars and returns nothing.
    
    
    -Terry

re: .-1

I think that a career pathing program has to be equally of use to both
job seekers and hiring managers.  Based on that assumption, something
that lets employees subjectively proclaim their own skills is just about
useless.  You need to have some objective measure of skills...almost
like the certification you would get with a professional association of
workers.  That is not at all trivial.  I'd rather see us hold off on the
whole idea than do it in a half-assed way for short term PR gain.

								paul

    Respondees as of 6-6-91 thru 6-7-91
    
    Thank you for your comments.  
    
    Even though I work for US Digital Services/EIS headquarters, my office
    is located in the Field and so I get to speak with co-workers from in
    and around various functions in the company.  Prior to taking position
    at headquarters, I spent 11 years as an EIS line manager in the Field.
    When I read comments about employees needing more training and
    equipment, the message comes across loud and clear.  When I read
    comments about the amount of pain in the system,  I can totally agree
    because I know it is real.  It is hoped you understand the concept of
    a project of this nature was not dreamed up in a vacuum by someone who
    sits on top and rolls the work down hill.
    
    One of the many strategies of this program is to provide a clear 
    description of various skill levels which can be used by managers
    and individual contributors to help determine what training is necessary.
    
    A Career Path Framework would help the manager during Career and
    development planning discussions with their direct reports.  The direct
    reports would use a Career Path Framework to establish career options
    independent of discussions with their managers and then look to their
    manager to support their decisions about career.
    
    Our Careers are our greatest investment. It is the intent of a Career
    Path Framework to help us make objective decisions about that
    investment.  Some of us do not require help in the area of Career
    decisions while others are asking for more help.  A Career Path
    Framework  would provide help in making career decisions.  It
    would also support the goal of cross-functional depth and breath of
    skills.
    
    Curtis
    
    
    
    

RE: .22

The last thing this company needs at this time is yet another overhead
function.  A "career pathing" program generates neither revenue nor profit.
It merely consumes personnel and resources that would be better either
applied elsewhere or jettisoned from the company entirely.

This may sound harsh, but it seems that some people can't get it into their
heads that this company is in profit margin trouble.  You don't cure profit
margin troubles by creating new overhead programs.

--PSW

I am inclined to disagree slightly: some programs that do not generate revenue
or increase profit serve to increase staff morale.

And happy employees work more productively and thus create more corporate
income at lower cost than before.

It is, I guess, the difference between the stick ("shape up or ship out"), and 
the carrot ("do the right thing and the company will look after you")

/. Ian .\

    The Career Path Survey is now closed.  Please read note below;
    
    
    TO: Career Path Framework Respondees
    
    I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of
    you who took the time to think over and respond to my request for input 
    on whether You perceive a need for Career Path information.
    
    Many people responded; the bulk of which where sent to me independent
    of Notes and the overwhelming majority of those people indicated Career
    Path information is highly need and expressed how the information would
    help them support customers, the organization and their careers.  
    
    There was also other people who indicated they did not perceive a high
    need for the information.  There was no indications as to why it would
    not help them support our customer, the organization or their careers.
    
    The results, whether good or bad, are being shared with senior
    management.  Based on your feedback, the project will move in a
    direction that is consistent with other development projects, yet serve
    the needs of the Digital Services community.
    
    If you have more information to share with me, I can be reached at DTN
    320-5485
    
    I appreciate your honest input.
    
    Curtis