coin of the realm 2

[Troll]

Whilst I accept that those working in a position of employment with identical levels of responsibility should be on an equal pay footing, where are the incentives that will allow units to retain experienced and skilled staff in the long term? We all know the story, brand new wet degree working alongside archaeologist with 20 years experience-same value,same wage. It seems to me that the more experience a staff member brings to a unit, the rewards for such seem to move that valuable experience further and further away from where it`s needed most. It has been said elsewhere that one of the main problems here, is that not many highly experienced and multi-skilled archaeologists stay around for long and through sheer disgust, hunt grown-up jobs. This does`nt really do new archaeologists any good at all-after all, we all learnt our skills from an older hack. There are far too many reports of sites being run with the vast majority of staff holding less than a few months experience. A good number of sites are being run by staff with similar levels of experience. Here`s the question-how do we structure pay levels that reflect skills and experience in field archaeology as a specialism in its own right? How do we retain valuable staff within the specialism?

[1man1desk]

Troll,

I think I've said before that I'd value an unqualified but experienced digger more than a new graduate with no experience, so I'd pay them more.

On the other hand, I'd expect anyone with 20 years experience (if they were any good) to be working at a higher level of responsibility than I would give to a new graduate.

Career structure is a difficult one. The short-term, labour-intensive nature of field projects lends itself to short-term casual (and therefore low-paid, insecure) employment. Post-ex requires much less labour, so no security there.

Cut-throat competitition in tendering doesn't make it any easier to solve the problem - but then, it was even worse before competitive tendering, when local units had a monopoly and funding was much tighter than under PPG16.

Not sure if I can think of any viable solutions at present, but I am bending my mighty brain in that direction and I'll get back to you.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[troll]

Thankyou-I look forward to any ideas. I do hope that you don`t feel that I have declared open season on your goodly self here but, I must disagree on a fundamental point made in your last post. I still don`t understand why an experienced archaeologist is expected to take on formal responsibility. We take responsibility for what we do the moment we set foot on site. I am arguing that an experienced archaeologist (qualified or not) should be rewarded for their value to the team without being expected to move away from what they do best. By all means, those that choose to do so and, are encouraged by their peers to become supervisors etc should go ahead.Those that choose to remain at the coal face should be able to do so too. Given the choice, I too would happily choose an unqualified but experienced and skilled archaeologist over and above a green graduate. Here lies the conundrum-what do we want at the coal face? Lots of green types or, skilled professionals? All I am asking is that professional field archaeologists who choose the specialism as a career should be valued and paid as such-rather than the current system that really only recognises one as a "proper/better" archaeologist when they climb the dizzy heights away from the coal face. There are plenty of us out there who are perfectly capable of functioning in roles that some would see as "above our station" and indeed, have done so plenty of times. An archaeologist who has worked as a supervisor/PO/principal but, chooses to stay at the coal face would in my opinion, make for an extremely valuable field specialist....

[1man1desk]

Well, 'responsibility' on site doesn't necessarily mean taking supervisory roles.

If someone is experienced and competent enough to be left to work with minimal supervision/instruction, doing their own digging and recording, and possibly showing the ropes to someone less experienced, then I would say they are operating at a higher level of responsibility that I would give an inexperienced new graduate and should be paid more. It is an invaluable asset to have a few people like that on your site.

If I was a unit manager, I would also do my damndest to keep hold of such people, which may be the nearest thing to job security currently available.

Having said that, there is a limit to how far it can go. In all professions, more pay/security usually goes with more responsibility, so if you don't want the formal responsibility then you are not likely to get more than one or two rungs above the newbies on the pay-scales.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[troll]

This may come as a bit of a shock but here goes...everyone I have and, do work with does just that as a minimum....tiz our job....

[1man1desk]

So - a new digger arrives on site. It's his first dig, or he's maybe got around 6 weeks on student digs.

Can you point him at part of the site and say something like "got a puzzling little area here, quite a few inter-cutting features that we don't understand yet, please clean it up, sort out the relationships, plan it, excavate it and record it, tell me if you have any problems, keep me informed as you go along"?

Over-simplifying maybe, but many supervisors or POs would expect to say something like that to a really experienced digger. Similar things were said to me when I was in that position. They shouldn't say it to a newby - they'd be lost, and you'd get cock-ups of the 'mortar pillar' type described recently on another thread.

That's the kind of extra responsibility that I meant in my previous post.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[troll]

By and large, newbies are indeed placed alongside us old scrotes in the field but, are expected to get on board very quickly under the same pressures as everyone else. Unless we are talking about some of the more sh*t units out there who actively recruit the clueless en masse, generally speaking, sites are dealt with by extremely competent and multi-skilled people. The activities you referred to are minimum requirements nowadays-gone are the days when idiots with marigolds and knee-pads look to deified supervisory staff with admiring/pleading/labrador eyes when their neurons cease to fire. Joint management of fieldwork is very much "in". By that, I mean that the more dialogue and involvement of all staff on site makes for not only an environment where the finite resource gets a better deal with the time allowed but, provides for an ideal learning arena for newbies. The specialism of field archaeology really has moved on from the circus it used to be.

[mercenary]

Exactly right Troll. Which is why newbies find it difficult to get hired by my employer, and many others I suspect. The bar has well and truly been raised since the bad old days.

Back to the original thread, I'd really like to see consultants give preference to commercial units that have a high average skill/experience level for excavation staff. On a recent large job we did, the consultants tried to have a go about experience levels thinking we were all students and the unit was doing it on the cheap. They shut up very quickly when it was demonstrated that the average education level was Masters level, and average commercial digging experience was about 7 or 8 years.

Do consultants factor this in? I have absolutely no doubt that an integrated, experienced field team is better value for money than a newly recruited, inexperienced team, but do consultants see it this way?

[troll]

Mercenary-greetings and salutations. As an aside, consultants who recommend field units who are simply not up to the job are breaking one of the fundamental guidelines of the IFA (bless em`)in that, an archaeologist(s) should not take on work that they are not competent or experienced enough to do so. Some consultants do recommend units to their clients and on occasion, the units are less than competant and more importantly-cheap. Some consultancies recommend the same units over and over again.

[1man1desk]

Well, in the specs we put out to tender, we usually specify minimum levels of experience and qualification for every role on site, including diggers, and for key roles we require documentary evidence in the form of CVs.

We have for some years used quality-based criteria before we will include any unit on a tender list. Nowadays we give preference to IFA RAOs. We do tend to stick with a limited number of units in any given region, on the basis that we have experience of them and know they do a good job. We have stopped including some units in the tender list on the basis of poor archaeological quality, but never for price reasons.



1man1desk

to let, fully furnished