It really warms the cockles to think that we have such "professionals" on the job.

I thought OJT was for employees who didn't know what they were doing.

...or am I right?

I don't see why the supervising city commissioner of each bureau shouldn't be doing the "coaching" as part of his job. If it takes more "coaching" than that, you may have the wrong manager.

Ah,now you've put your finger on it, Holmes.

I don't see why the supervising city commissioner of each bureau shouldn't be doing the "coaching" as part of his job.

eh, those electeds. Why not put a professional in charge as in the ballot measure you aren't voting for, Jack?

We really don't elect people who know how to manage people - we elect politicians with big ideas like affordable housing on street car lines (all connected by trams that use SoWa and the Pearl as a hubs) where you can't smoke or spray paint or eat trans fats.

In the City you just can't hire a specialist out of the phone book if you find you need one. You have to have them on a contingent contract. Competitive bidding, low bid and all that stuff you know. Basically this is probably a contract to have "on call" two coaching specialists IF the Bureau needs one. If you need one then you call them up and pay them their bid rate per hour for how many hours you need them. Up to the $10,000 limit.

If you don't need one you don't spend the money. Teaching a supervisor how best to counsel employees is far cheaper than paying the employees $470,000 after a lawsuit. That's the theory anyway.

Greg C

Why is anyone surprised by this? (If indeed any of us are...) It is the same way the school board hires its admin folks, or the police (at least in the past) or dozens of other bureaucratic agencies. And it isn't just local either.
Look at what Washington DC has become. And look who is the "chief chimp" there.
It is the Peter Principle in action; the incopentant rise to the top and then are transfered on to the next level of admistrative incompetancy.

Here's some free advice for the rank and file PDC staff.

Rat out your bosses.

Collect as much dirt on them as possible including the muddied up, cooked up, obscured, covered up budget numbers for things like SoWa. Where's the money been going?

Expose Warner and his underlings for the sham artist, incompetents they are.

To help you endeavor try humming this

You'll Never Walk Alone

When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At he end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone.

While we're talking about the City and the PDC, let's not leave out the folks over at the County. They have several (hard to tell how many) of those "professional coach" types on contract to lead team-building exercises, management retreats and whatever else comes up. It's difficult to tell how much they spend on this kind of thing because it's not specifically listed in the budget.
In addition that, if you take a look at the most recent employment recruitment -- http://www.multcojobs.org -- you can see they're hiring 3 new managers with titles like Organizational Development, Training Development, and HR Evaluation. Salaries running around $70,000 each and these people are in addition to the various Training and Organization Managers inside each department.
If the Board of County Commissioners is actually serious about priorities, they should consider spending some of that "management" money on services such as the school clinics or picking up dead animals or any of the other services they're cutting.