18th April 2006, 02:56 PM
Mr Hosty
This topic comes just too late for your enjoyable jousting with the Framework Archaeology zealots at the IFA conference. A 'productivity' bonus was paid to all members of the T5 team at Framework (fieldwork and post-ex) for bringing the project in on time/budget etc. As I was not one of those involved I cannot shed any light on how the sum was divvied up, except that for field staff it related to the amount of days that they had spent on site.
This may have been a good thing from the clients' perspective in terms of getting an incentivised workforce, but it caused some level of resentment at the two organisations that make up FA (Wessex and Oxford). Other field staff at these two organisations had not worked for FA but had spent the equivalent time slogging their guts out on similar large projects (e.g. CTRL) and numerous smaller ones, bringing in money to add to the companies' overall operating surpluses (profits) and yet did not seen even the glimmer of any sign of any bonus payment. This T5 productivity scheme was therefore seen as divisive.
I suppose that the same might happen in any contracting organisation where workers on one project got a bonus whereas those on another didn't. When I worked as a manager for a large unit I remember being told by a new financial officer that manager's performance would be judged by the total profit generated by the projects that they managed. I pointed out that this would be fine by me as long as I had the right to refuse to manage any project that I thought could not be completed within budget - sometimes we were given projects where the finances were already constrained, amd any action by the manager would not be enough to turn them around (damage limitation projects, loss leaders etc). The point was eventually accepted.
Collectivisation - there is at least one archaeological contractor that operates as a co-operative - Southern Archaeological Services, based in Southampton.
Beamo
This topic comes just too late for your enjoyable jousting with the Framework Archaeology zealots at the IFA conference. A 'productivity' bonus was paid to all members of the T5 team at Framework (fieldwork and post-ex) for bringing the project in on time/budget etc. As I was not one of those involved I cannot shed any light on how the sum was divvied up, except that for field staff it related to the amount of days that they had spent on site.
This may have been a good thing from the clients' perspective in terms of getting an incentivised workforce, but it caused some level of resentment at the two organisations that make up FA (Wessex and Oxford). Other field staff at these two organisations had not worked for FA but had spent the equivalent time slogging their guts out on similar large projects (e.g. CTRL) and numerous smaller ones, bringing in money to add to the companies' overall operating surpluses (profits) and yet did not seen even the glimmer of any sign of any bonus payment. This T5 productivity scheme was therefore seen as divisive.
I suppose that the same might happen in any contracting organisation where workers on one project got a bonus whereas those on another didn't. When I worked as a manager for a large unit I remember being told by a new financial officer that manager's performance would be judged by the total profit generated by the projects that they managed. I pointed out that this would be fine by me as long as I had the right to refuse to manage any project that I thought could not be completed within budget - sometimes we were given projects where the finances were already constrained, amd any action by the manager would not be enough to turn them around (damage limitation projects, loss leaders etc). The point was eventually accepted.
Collectivisation - there is at least one archaeological contractor that operates as a co-operative - Southern Archaeological Services, based in Southampton.
Beamo