Quote of the century from Dave "Nearly Man" Hartnett:
"Morale here is not high and that's because we are in the middle of a huge change programme.
Our customers don't really write to us anymore or come into our offices and we are changing.
It's a difficult world for 83,000 full-time staff to be thrilled with life. But then if you look at our investigators doing offshore work they find it exciting and interesting and they love the thrill of the chase."
Source Accountancy Age.
Would any of the 83,000 HMRC staff care to respond to the above?
The comment about customers not writing anymore particularly surprises me, as I gather that there are mountains of unopened letters at various HMRC centres across the UK.
Tax does have to be taxing.
HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"
"Morale here is not high and that's because we are in the middle of a huge change programme."
ReplyDeleteEr, no. Morale is 'not high' (or as we like to refer to it in plain English - low) because the whole merger has been quite astoundingly mishandled. Yes, it was a bad idea from the very beginning (thanks for that, Gordon), but the way that senior management have run this is staggeringly bad. If you could only see some of the details of the Departmental 'hotseat' where us plebs can put our questions to senior management. It's a fascinating exercise in bullet-dodging, fact-dodging and, indeed, answer-dodging. We've watched these two once-proud departments get pissed away all in the name of saving a few shekels. So, yes, you could say that morale is pretty bloody low.
"Our customers don't really write to us anymore or come into our offices and we are changing."
There are thousands upon thousands of unopened letters piling up in a variety of offices all over the country. Hartnett is clearly a buffoon to suggest that people don't write to us. Oh, and the reason that nobody comes into our offices is because most of them are being closed down! Try finding your local Enquiry Centre - it probably isn't there anymore. Instead, it's been centralised miles away from where you can reasonably visit it. If you do manage to make the journey there, they'll just point you in the direction of a telephone on the wall so you can speak to somebody with unsatisfactory training, an unwieldy, usually broken, computer system, and a sheet of obsolete phone numbers.
"It's a difficult world for 83,000 full-time staff to be thrilled with life."
I find that last part to be, frankly, insulting. Few people in this world are 'thrilled' to go into work, you patronising bastard. I don't expect to wake up in the morning and leap out of bed, clapping my hands in anticipation of another glorious day at HMRC. I would, however, like to wake up and not immediately be hit by the sapping realisation that when I get into the office I'm going to have to deal with piss-poor management and inept decision-making as someone in a shiny office in London, trousering a nice fat performance-bonus, tells me that I'm going to have to wait six months for my below-inflation pay rise simply because the Treasury can't get its arse in gear.
So, yes, Mr Hartnett, we're not exactly happy at the moment, and the reason for that is we've seen a succession of useless Chairmen wander through HMRC, each less capable than the last, picking up gongs and cash payouts, and not making a scrap of difference to the festering pile of shite that is HMRC.
... well said Mr/Ms Anonymous!!! How true your comments are. Perhaps if some of the senior management were to read this site and see for themselves the comments contributed by some very disgruntled employees of HMRC it might give them a better insight into what is really going on under their noses. Incidentally, for a number of reasons I am considering submitting a formal grievance using the grievance form downloadable from the Intranet. Surprise surprise, but it seems that a number of staff have obviously visited the staff grievance pages given that all the hyperlinks are showing as purple instead of blue. Of course we are all sworn to secrecy about grievances once submitted, supposedly so as not to prejudice a fair review and outcome, but more likely it is because the management don't want people to know they have messed up.
ReplyDeleteMorale here is none existant. Management, ask your selves, are a large number of my staff resigning, resigning and submitting positive dismissal cases, bringing greivance cases, going off sick with stress related illnesses? If the answer is yes, you're doing it wrong. How long will it be before there is yet another suecide for HMRC to hush up? No amount of hammering will force a square peg into a round hole, and the objects getting the hammering? Your staff. Does anyone else find it strange that, where posible, team leaders are Inland revenue. Whith their nit-picking, micro management? They have little or no knowledge of the Excise side of the 'Business,'so can't advise, mentor or, apparently, give a damn about the problems that are arising. If you go to them, they glaze over till you have finished talking then demand you fill in yet another spread sheet. The last time my husband (an employee of this Mickey Mouse outfit) was managed by these OCD morons, he was so ill he nearly quit. Now they're back. About as welcome as Jack Nicholson coming through the door with an axe. And BOY are they doing an axe job on the staff. Take a look round the offices Gordon Brown. If your HMRC staff have their CVs on a disc in their top pocket, you are about to witness the mass exodus of the down trodden. The tradgedy is, these are hard working, consiencious people, who are passionate about the work that they do, they deserve better than this. Yet they are never encouraged, praised, or thanked for what they do. Your manegement teams couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I nearly forgot. How much will it cost the cost cutters, to recruit and train the replacements, for all the staff that leave or go on long term sick leave? Have you thought of the skills that are being pissed away?
ReplyDelete"Morale in HMRC", the greatest oxymoron in the known universe.
ReplyDeleteAsk yourself, why so many anonymous posts?