TAPE TRANSCRIPT

The discussion you are about to hear involves four members of the staff of Barker Leroy Ltd.,a major engineering firm with about 40 professionals on its payroll and a secretarial pool of over 30. The groups met to tackle a problem which either directly or indirectly affects many parts of the companies operations.
The voices you will hear in this tape and the follow-up meeting on part B of the tape are those of Lester Gregson, director of the materials testing section; Gladys Cruikshank, supervisor of the secretarial pool; Paul Richards, the personnel officer; and Shelley Thompson, one of the secretaries.

Lester has been with the firm only a couple of years. Before that he was a partner in a consulting company. Gladys, on the other hand, is almost an institution. She's worked her way up through the ranks over the past 20 years and has been in charge of the secretarial pool for the last three. Shelley is a fairly new employee. This is only her second job after leaving school, although she's in quite a senior position in the pool, and Paul, though he hasn't been with Barker Leroy for very long, has 15 years of personnel management behind him.

The meeting is just getting underway and Lester is putting forward his views on the problem.

Key: L - Lester G - Gladys P - Paul S - Shelley

1. L: I just don't see why we have to put up with this. In my book, if you don't do the job, you don't get paid. And not turning up to work sure as heck means you're not doing any kind of a job. But what I can't understand is how you've come to let the girls in your area get off with it for so long, Gladys.

2. G: Well I think you're exaggerating.

3. L: I'm not. Here look. Take a look at this. It's garbage! There's about mistakes on every page. And it's over a week late. When I asked you about it on Monday you said Mary Ellen - or whoever was supposed to be doing it - was out for three days. I'd like to know why, and I'd like to know what you're going about it.

4. P: Okay, I guess that's why we're here. As Lester suggests, there does seem to be a problem.

5. L: (Sighs)

6. P: Looking at the records I see that 10 of the secretaries were away at some time or other in May alone. And it wasn't holiday time either, as far as I can see.

7. G: No, I guess it wasn't, except Shelley here got a couple of days to go to that seminar on word processors, but you okayed that yourself.

8. L: So, let's forget Shelley. She's not the problem. The fact is, though, that service from your area is lousy, Gladys and lately it's been getting lousier, if that's possible. I asked you for this, meeting, Paul, because frankly I'm not prepared to put up with it any longer. If necessary I'll take it to the Vice-President, though it makes me mad to have to go through all this crap just to get a bunch of girls to pound typewriters. That's what they're paid to do. So why don't you get on their backs and make them do it, Gladys?

9. G: I'd like to see you do it. You tell me how to get people to work when they're not even here.

10. L: Okay, okay. So fire the slackers and get some good people. Simple! Problem solved.

11. G: That's not simple. It's just simple-minded.

12. L: Aww!

13. P: Not quite, Lester. I think we've a ways to go before we can feel we are anywhere near coming up with a reasonable answer. Right now about all we can say is there's a lot of absenteeism among the secretaries. The calculations I've got here indicate it's been around 10 per cent over the past six months. Does that seem right to you, Gladys?

14. G: I have no idea. I deal with people, not fancy figures.

15. L:  It might be better if you did.

16. P: So, given Lester's complaint - I have to say it's not the only one, Gladys -- Chisholm, in the modeling section, has got concerns too. Given that, I had hoped we could put our heads together and come up with some kind of solution. Any suggestions, ideas?

17. L: Like I said, fire them. I'm willing to bet after the first couple of heads roll, the rest would get the message and smarten up pretty quick.

18. G: Don't bank on it. It's getting hard to hire good secretaries now that ...

19. L: They're good? I'd like to see what's bad, then.

20. G: A lot of our women have quite a bit of experience. The way business is booming in the state these days it's difficult to attract and keep good secretaries at the best of times.

21. P: Aren't we paying them enough? I thought our wages were pretty competitive.

22. G: Oh they are, but money isn't the only important thing. It's the way some people treat them that makes the difference to whether you keep a trained secretary or not.

23. L:  So, look! Let them know where they stand. Give them a job to do. If they do it give them a pat on the back; if they don't, dump them. Can't say fairer than that.

24. G: And there's something else you haven't thought about. I know a lot of the women are strong on human rights. You try firing any of them and you've a fight on your hands.

25. L: Oh, I can't stand activists.

26. P: Okay, let's put the firing aside for the. moment. ' It's .a possibility, but from what Gladys has said it looks like it ,might create more problems than it would' solve. Any other ideas? Shelley, you're mighty quiet. What do you think we can do?

27. S: Well maybe we can look at things another way. I mean, I don't think you should just assume that because a girl doesn't come into work or phones in sick that she's necessarily not ...

28. L: Hey, hey hey. I just remembered something. Anybody else here read Quest magazine? I get it every month. It's got some really good articles on business sometimes. You know, things like boredom and middle managers and coping with stress, stuff like that. I could send you guys my copies. Well look, I remember a couple months ago they did a piece on just what we're here talking about. It wasn't particularly about secretaries, but it covered a lot of stuff that firms are doing  about absenteeism in general. One idea I really liked was having a nurse go around to visit an employee after he or she phoned in sick. Some outfits in, I think it was Texas, have found it made quite a difference.

29. G: He means like a snoop. That's it, isn't it, Lester?

30. L: Yes, exactly. I reckon it would work real well around here.

31. P: Except we haven't got a nurse. No, I honestly don't think we could justify hiring a nurse just for that, Lester. If we are going to keep tabs on the secretaries I'm sure there are better ways of doing it.

32. L: Like what?

33. P: Maybe we should, ah, see what Gladys can suggest for a change. Gladys, how about it?

34. G: Well, I was thinking we might dock their wages if they didn't turn up and didn't have a good excuse.

35. P: Umm, that's a possibility, but how could you figure out what was a good excuse and what wasn't? It seems to me that's a pretty subjective thing. I mean there's no way to find out for sure whether a reason is legitimate or not.

(transcript continues)