Saturday, March 26, 2011

TTC Incompetence

Because I've held my tongue for a little while.

The reason for the posting is because, hilariously, the TTC has decided to hire what they're calling a "Chief Customer Service Officer." He seems to be touted as The Man With a Plan. A man with years of experience in public transit who will come in and make the reputation that the TTC has worked very hard to earn over the past couple of years go away. Because clearly, since there were over 700 complaints last year the problem is customer service.

Here is why the TTC is bound to go private in the fairly recent future. As always, it is HR which takes a company to the top (when managed well, e.g. Google) or takes it to rock bottom (when abused, e.g. the Enron debacle, or Nike's sweatshop problems in the 90's). The TTC's [solvable] problems are within the HR arena of Labour Relations. Yes, one of main reasons for all these slowdowns and service interruptions are most certainly due to the lack of funding for infrastructure, but this is largely out of the TTC's hands. However, the employee issues are mostly solvable.

(a) Employee morale has most certainly suffered in the past couple of years, leading to the surly service the TTC is now known for.
(b) Under a powerful union, the employees have been given rights that under normal circumstances would be considered anything from inappropriate (e.g. very high pay with very low education or experience requirements) to dangerous (not requiring drug testing for employees with a history of alcohol and drug abuse)
(c) Lack of money due to excessively high operational costs due to HR costs (wages, benefits, vacation pay, mat leaves, detox programs, etc)

And so on. How is that going to be fixed by adding a layer of bureaucracy? What they need to do is take some heat from their people in the short term to create a more efficient system. Firstly, in order to get consumer confidence back, they must institute drug and alcohol testing where relevant (e.g. employees with past problems, since only in the past year two employees have been fired for driving drunk, and those were the ones apprehended by customers, not TTC officials). If our safety is as important to them as they claim on their posters, this is a no-brainer.

Next is compensation. Now it would be illegal to reduce their pay substantially without giving them something in return, but I do not propose their income be reduce, but its contents changed. Rather than a steep base pay, create a base pay plus performance bonuses. The employee ran his bus on time for an entire month (excluding things out of the driver's control)? They receive a bonus. They go above the call of duty? (e.g. the driver who helped a woman who fell near the bus by offering medical aid and dropping her off at her door) Bonus. Perhaps requiring some customer service experience before hiring may prove prudent in providing better service.

Simple(ish) things such as modifying the compensation structure, being more selective during the hiring process, and rewarding good employees will easily alleviate the public pressure on the TTC. Spending more money on something other than service, that will doubtfully help the TTC make the tremendous turnaround it needs to stay a monopoly.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Modern day sweatshops

I recently spoke to an acquaintance of mine who was having trouble at work. Of course, trouble it seems, is not enough to describe it. He is currently attempting to enter a certain field as a professional, and such had a co-op opportunity arranged through his school to provide him with experience. An added bonus was that this job, though co-op, does indeed pay. The good news end there. On his first day he was coerced into signing a document agreeing to work more than 60 hour weeks, and has been working every day for the past month (i.e. not even a single day off) at over 10  hours per day. Even worse, since this is a special kind of illegal, the company is not paying him his full hours worked, presumably since doing so would shed light on their illegal actions. This has excabrated certain medical conditions this person already has, and substantially reduced his quality of life. He fears losing the opportunity altogether if he complains, and thus he tolerates.

Really though, is this such a rare story? In this person's scenario, of course, he has options such as speaking to the co-op facilitator who sent him there in the first place. However, in most instances, people who find themselves in situations like this tend to be desperate, something the employer would know, and unfortunately sometimes exploit. The victims often feel that even such conditions are better than no employment at all, especially in such a weak job market, and tolerate it silently.

It is truly unfortunate that such blatant exploitation still occurs, especially with the vast number of laws and regulatory bodies established with the exclusive intent of preventing employers from acting immorally. At the end of the day this sad story illustrates that until more people utilize the resources available at their disposal to prevent victimization, not all the laws and all the committees and lovely speeches will change the reality that sweatshops exist, and you don't have to be an illegal immigrant with no language skills to end up in one.