watching the company rules 8

[2dye4]

I have a person who works in my group that has become a master
at obeying the companies rules.
When given an assignment he will go far enough to find a
conflict with the company rules, like an obscure purchasing
procedure that requires a VP signature or a procedure
that requires many approvals but which has not in recent
history been observed as required. In short he looks for the
loopholes in the company procedures and uses them to
be a pain in the rear.
On the other hand the guy is obeying the rules. But only for
his benefit.

It is of course difficult to discipline this guy for this
kind of behavior since he has does nothing wrong.

My point is that every company has conflicting rules and
an understood way to do things and this guy is not playing
along.

How can we force the issue that he must be a team player???

 

[BigH]

I once tried to follow company "policy" for installing piezometers (tubes put into the ground to measure the depth to the water table - in simplistic terms). I followed it to the letter and it took us 17 hours to put in a 40 metre piezometer. The next day, we jerry-rigged up a pre-made installation serving the same purpose and were able to install the 40m piezometers in 45 to 60 minutes. Same results but a whole lot less boring.

 

[MikeHalloran]

An airliner crashed in Chicago after losing an engine in flight. The engine pylon was cracked as a direct result of using a speedy simplified procedure to r&r the engines.

The simplified procedure actually was documented. It wasn't approved by the manufacturer or the FAA. It wasn't submitted for approval. Using a forklift to raise the engine and pylon together >>> "served the same purpose" <<< as the official procedure that used special fixtures and removed the engine load from the pylon before removing the pylon (to replace a spherical bearing with limited life). What wasn't documented was that extreme care was required in positioning and operating the forklft, to avoid structural damage.

May 25, 1979 American Airlines Flight 191 DC-10

273 dead.

One might argue that the death toll also includes the DC-10, McDonnell Douglas, and maybe soon American Airlines.

Now, maybe the procedure for placing a piezometer is not really all that critical to the job at hand. The guys who simplified the engine maintenance procedure no doubt figured that how you lift the engine is not really all that critical to the job at hand.

My point is, if a procedure exists and you choose to ignore or modify it, you may be risking global consequences.

Okay, that was a really extreme example, but ... absent complete information about the origin of a procedure, how can you accurately evaluate its importance?



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[myhonda]

1) Procedures are meant to keep consistancy. If a procedure is outdated or not appropriate, get it changed or refreshed to be pertinent. Any VP worth their salt will agree and support that... especially if the current procedure takes up their valuable time unnecessarily.

2) I would strongly suggest you do not promote them out of the way. Your company should have performance reviews on a regular basis. Team work, productivity, and quality should all be metrics that all employees are measured by. These metrics should also be used to encourage desired behavior. Promoting him just continues the drag on the company's bottom line (and morale if others see him getting away with less work) if they are being obstructionists or minimizing their work. It also reinforces in their mind, and perhaps others, that what they are doing is acceptable and even favored behavior by the promotion. You do not do anyone any favors by promoting him.

3) Understand the employee's motivation. I know how difficult some of these conversations can be... seek out advice from other successful managers in your company that have had to deal with this in the past. You will do yourself the most favor by being honest and upfront. At least you will have a clean conscience and your integrity.

4) If it becomes too much of an issue, you may want to talk with your HR manager to discuss how you can encourage more favorable behavior or what other options you have.

Hope that helps.

-myhonda

 

[rerig]

MikeHalloran,

To clarify a little. They used the Forklift to mount the Pylon/Eng Combination, which is probably not a good idea, but the reason the Pylon/Eng separated from the wing was: As they were using the forklift for installation they installed the Aft Mounting Bolt and then took a lunch break. During lunch, with the forklift shut off, the hydraulics bled off on the lift actuators which left the Pylon/Eng hanging on the Aft Mount Bolt. After lunch they finished installation of the Pylon/Eng and never thought anything else about it.

When I worked on DC-9s, we used an Engine Lift to mount the Engine. BUT there was a "Caution" in the procedure, that once the Eng installation started, the lift was required to maintain verticle position until the installation was complete. If you couldn't finish without taking a break, you didn't start.

Rerig

 

[MikeHalloran]

Thanks, rerig. To my mind, anticipating and offsetting or preventing leakdown would fall under operating the lift with extreme care.

After AA191, inspection of the global fleet revealed something like nine more similar cracks. Perhaps the caution was not worded strongly enough, and the unapproved unofficial procedure was in turn widely modified or ignored or interpreted liberally on an unofficial unofficial basis. So, there wasn't just the one instance of the crew taking a lunch break.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[mkinnes]

"Many of these revolve around the internet. We should not
download anything from the internet. But every day our
people need to get things from cyberspace to help them
do their work. If you ask a peer they just say go ahead
just don't tell anyone."

Just a thought that you have a security issue here if your'e supplying parts for the military. Is it accurate that a hacker could get into some sensitive information on your companies systems?

If it has to be a "just don't tell anyone" policy to get your work done you need to get off this guys back and fix the policy not him.

 

[mkinnes]

"I have a person who works in my group that has become a master
at obeying the companies rules. "


Are you sure he is the one with the problem?

 

[HgTX]

Kinnes--
If they are physically able to download stuff from the Net, just "not supposed to", then it's not a matter of protection from hackers getting into the system but more of things like malware or just badly designed software than can create problems for the individual's computer or the network. We're not supposed to download anything here either--basically because one never knows whether the new software will work and play well with whatever we already have in place (and because people will download stupid non-work-related toys that might be carrying god-knows-what). We do have a legal way around it though--if I find something I want, I ask the IT people and they play with it to see if it hurts anything, and then they let me download it.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[EngJW]

Companies also control what is on a persons computer because they are afraid of pirated software and copyright violations. Not that anybody is watching, but if someone has an illegal copy of a cad program and someone is pissed at him, it just takes a tip to the FBI for the company to end up in court. Besides, there are some flakes out there who will download porno at work. It's in the papers all the time.

It is very easy to work around as Hg points out, if there are reasonable people in IT.

 

[mkinnes]

Good point HG . If the purpose is indeed to prevent attacks on the system it seems reasonable to have downloads checked through IT guys.

I'm curious if this guy would get backed up by 2dye4 if he did "play along" and got heat for it.

Most company rules are put in place to prevent bad things from happening not to prevent good things from getting done.