PMDS

Duke Fame

Was at my PMDS training this week and more than half
of the staff due to attend failed to show up. I believe
its groups of 17 with around eight showing up another
course will have to be arranged. The cost of this
training must be huge and I get a feeling that all sides
are treating it as a paper exercise. I know that it was
agreed as part of toward 2016 but there must be a better
way to spend these funds. Will there be another round of
this guff in two years I dont think so.

Économiste Monétaire

I'm sure people get sick of having to "self evaluate" every year.

Stabshauptmann

While self evaulation might be new to the public sector its a pretty much standard aspect of the private sector, which does have a better track record when it comes to efficiency and performance.

Id never suggest privatising education, but adopting the processes and procedures that make the private sector more productive, where compatible with the aims of the university, are a good thing. Stubborn attitudes to change help no one.

Duke Fame

I agree 100% Kaptain, but is this the best way of
going about it. Having staff review other staff about
thier training needs, thats why we have management
is it not? if they are not reviewing staff performance
and areas of staff training what are they doing?

Rieview staff? yes, but through line managers as in the real
world. I have been reviewed in every job Ive had
but always by my direct boss and he or she would kick my ass
or pat my back.

PMDS is a waste of time and money I havent discused it with
anybody other that the usual yes men who dont agree.

Ernie Ball

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

While self evaulation might be new to the public sector its a pretty much standard aspect of the private sector, which does have a better track record when it comes to efficiency and performance.

Arrant nonsense. Got any evidence of this? You think all those company-provided BMWs betoken efficiency? I don't.

Id never suggest privatising education, but adopting the processes and procedures that make the private sector more productive, where compatible with the aims of the university, are a good thing. Stubborn attitudes to change help no one.

What does 'more productive' in the context of a university mean to you? More articles produced? More students taught? More material covered per course? What?

Ernie Ball

Duke Fame wrote: »

I agree 100% Kaptain, but is this the best way of
going about it. Having staff review other staff about
thier training needs, thats why we have management
is it not? if they are not reviewing staff performance
and areas of staff training what are they doing?

Rieview staff? yes, but through line managers as in the real
world. I have been reviewed in every job Ive had
but always by my direct boss and he or she would kick my ass
or pat my back.

What you're missing is that this sort of hierarchical management is completely inimical to the spirit and ethos of a university which is above all collegial (as in: University College Dublin). Anyone who thinks the imposition of such management by targets and threats is a good thing for a university, really needs an education in what a university is, how it is different from the private sector and why that difference is beneficial for the society as a whole (including business).

Stabshauptmann

Duke Fame wrote: »

I agree 100% Kaptain, but is this the best way of
going about it. Having staff review other staff about
thier training needs, thats why we have management
is it not? if they are not reviewing staff performance
and areas of staff training what are they doing?

Ive never had anything to do with the UCD PMDS so forgive me, I thought the reviewer was somone higher up in the school/college

Duke Fame

Come on Ernie I work with people who do sweet fa all day
and it drives me nuts. Its this type of staff who we carry
and keep us all back. Is it the spirit and ethos of college to
encourage people to take money for little or no return for that
pay?

Our support units and admin should run like a buisness to enable
the teaching staff to carry on the spirit and ethos of college

Ernie Ball

Duke Fame wrote: »

Come on Ernie I work with people who do sweet fa all day
and it drives me nuts. Its this type of staff who we carry
and keep us all back. Is it the spirit and ethos of college to
encourage people to take money for little or no return for that
pay?

Our support units and admin should run like a buisness to enable
the teaching staff to carry on the spirit and ethos of college

None of this makes any sense until you've defined the measurement of productivity. So I ask again: what is 'productivity' when applied to a university and how is it to be measured?

I don't know of anyone at UCD who is doing 'sweet fa.' In fact, I don't see how such a thing would be possible.

Duke Fame

Did I mention productivity? PMDS isn’t about productivity.

But the reason Id be happy to be reviewed is because I do what I’m paid to do and more to cover those who don’t. Why fear it? If you believe what you do is unquantifiable great. But you cant be exempt from answering questions from the tax payer who pay your wages. You might not like or agree with it I dont but spirit and ethos will take a back seat to research and big buisness.

What would you suggest I say to the people I know are doing nothing? It will be hard to understand or believe but somedays people just don’t show up for work and days when they do it’s to use the internet

I don't see how such a thing would be possible

Weak management

Ernie Ball

Duke Fame wrote: »

What would you suggest I say to the people I know are doing nothing?

Who is doing nothing (besides the students, that is)? I'm sure there are some administrators doing nothing but the following is true of virtually every academic at UCD:

1) They are self-motivated people who have sacrificed years (during which they, generally, could have been making more money in the private sector) in order to pursue higher degrees.

2) They teach a full complement of courses.

3) They do research.

So who are these bogeymen who are 'doing nothing' in your eyes?

And what, specifically, is it that you want them to do? Do you want those who have nothing to say to publish more? (that doesn't mean they are not great teachers, by the way). Do you want those already publishing to increase the rate at which they publish? Do you want those who teach to teach more classes with greater numbers of students?

The point here is that any measure of 'productivity' that you put in place in order to then ask people to 'increase' their 'productivity' ends up making UCD a worse university. In the case of research, it results in the production of pointless make-work of no use to anyone. In the case of teaching, it results in larger class sizes and more classes per lecturer. Students should think long and hard before they jump on that bandwagon.

Furthermore, any evidence that UCD staff are underperforming relative to their funding is simply anecdotal. We don't know that they are and so-called 'world rankings' are meaningless in this regard. If you want a good university with staff who are implicated in their jobs and not alienated from them, you'll do everything in your power to fight the sort of pointless managerialism (based on guesswork) that says that UCD must be filled with lazy slobs and therefore the sting of the lash is what's needed. That style of management may be appropriate for a job where the work is onerous and hateful (street sweeping, for example). But it is woefully inappropriate for groups of highly-trained professionals. And where it is implemented, the best staff invariably leave to go to universities where that sort of management is not practised. Not coincidentally, those universities are also the very best in the world (Harvard and Oxford to take only two examples).

In short, if you want UCD to improve, it should be emulating the best in its management practices and treating its staff with respect, not suspicion.