83%

There was a strike ballot in Munich today. Märpel learned that 83% of staff voted in favour of the strike.

Märpel wonders what is next.

Social unrest

SUEPO organized a general assembly yesterday in Munich. Märpel has rarely seen the canteen that full, people were standing for lack of seats. It thus appears that President Campinos plans to pressure staff even more and reduce benefits when the EPO yearly surplus are above 400 millions Euros raise some concerns. An official strike ballot is registered.

Demo on Wednesday

SUEPO is calling for a demonstration next Wednesday during the meeting of the budget and finance committee. This is the letter SUEPO sent:

Dear colleagues,

Last week, EPO staff in Munich gathered in a General Assembly against the 17 financial measures proposed by Mr Campinos and has u nanimously adopted (ca. 700 attendees) a resolution which has now been transmitted to him and to the delegates of the Administrative Council.

SUEPO is convinced that the proposed reforms will be unfavourable for the EPO. They will further demotivate staff that is already suffering from an excessive work pressure combined with a lack of recognition of the efforts made. The punitive measures are likely to lead to an exodus. We have already seen a significant lowering of the average retirement age as older staff heads for the most obvious exit, but also younger staff is likely to leave when faced with considerably reduced benefits and a total lack of career perspectives. At the same time the EPO's ability to hire new employees "of the highest standard of ability" (Art. 5 ServRegs) will suffer. Patent quality will suffer as a consequence. Mr Battistelli did a lot of damage to the EPO. Will Mr Campinos finish the job?

On 23 and 24 October the EPO Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) will meet. During that meeting Mr Campinos will present this new attack on staff as "necessary adjustments".

SUEPO invites staff to show Mr Campinos and the BFC its opinion on the finance report and on the reforms. Next demonstration: Wednesday 23 October 2019

SUEPO Munich

——————————————

Attached to that letter was the following document which explains a bit more:

Mr Battistelli's inheritance

In his final publication "Modernising the EPO for excellence and sustainability (https://www.epo.org/news-issues/news/2018/20180611.html)" Mr Battistelli bragged that: "Thanks to an ambitious series of reforms, the EPO of today is a vastly different organisation ... We are more competitive, more efficient, more financially secure and ready to face the challenges of tomorrow."

According to the above publication, during Mr Battistelli's tenure examiner production increased by 36% and the number of grants increased by 82% (!). In the same period the operating surplus of the EPO increased to about 470 million Euro/year, i.e. almost 25% of the EPO's annual operating budget. These results were obtained thanks to the efforts of staff. For this staff was "rewarded" with reforms that have led to a considerable loss of rights, including the loss of permanent appointment for new staff, and a reduction of various benefits, in particular a significant reduction in career progression. The single-minded focus of Mr Battistelli on efficiency led to a generally recognised loss of quality in the patents granted (https://www.juve-patent.com/news-and-stories/legal-commentary/open-letter-suggests-epo-patent-quality-problem/). His extremely harsh social practices devastated staff morale (http://patentblog.kluweriplaw.com/2018/06/21/tarnished-legacy-epo-president/). When Mr Campinos took over as the next President he announced that quality and dialog with staff were among his priorities.

Déjà vu all over again

The communication style of Mr Campinos is certainly softer than that of Mr Battistelli. He has shown himself ready to talk with and listen to ordinary staff. But he did not distance himself from, or change anything to, Mr Battistelli's reforms. And now staff is again confronted with the message that the EPO is in dire straits, requiring another massive (23-32%) increase in productivity in DG1 and unprecedented financial sacrifices of staff as a whole. How is that possible?

Mr Campinos has tried to explain the need for further increases in productivity and for his punitive reforms with yet another financial study (https://www.epo.org/modules/epoweb/acdocument/epoweb2/377/en/CA-46-19_en.pdf). The financial study is a hoax. As we have pointed out before, it is based on totally unrealistic assumptions, among which a 20-year complete freeze infee income while costs continue to rise. When we pointed at the many inconsistencies the reaction of Mr Campinos was "I don't care, I will go ahead anyway." This is typical for the "social dialog" that we experience at the moment. Mr Campinos is happy to talk with the staff representation, but that will not change anything.

What next?

SUEPO is convinced that, if anything, the proposed reforms will be unfavourable for the EPO. The announced measure will further demotivate staff that is already suffering from an excessive work pressure combined with a lack of recognition of the efforts made. The punitive measures are likely to lead to an exodus. We have already seen a significant lowering of the average retirement age as older staff heads for the most obvious exit, but also younger staff is likely to leave when faced with considerably reduced benefits and a total lack of career perspectives. At the same time the EPO's ability to hire new employees "of the highest standard of ability" (Art. 5 ServRegs) will suffer. Patent quality will suffer as a consequence. Mr Battistelli did a lot of damage to the EPO. Will Mr Campinos finish the job?

The next demonstration

On 23 and 24 October the EPO Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) will meet. During that meeting Mr Campinos will present this new attack on staff as "necessary adjustments".

SUEPO invites staff to show Mr Campinos and the BFC its opinion on the finance report and on the reforms.

Please note the date:

Next demonstration: Wednesday 23 October 2019

Increase compliance!

In a post dated Mai, 15th, Märpel wrote that our internal quality control (DQA) noticed that compliance decreased from 85% to 75% in 2018:

http://rip-kat.blogspot.com/2019/05/survey-2.html

The consequence, apparently, is that DQA will be reorganised. Märpel fears that the re-organisation might break the thermometer instead of breaking the fever. All present DQA auditors will start moving back to DG1 this autumn and it appears to be the intention that the unit will be totally re-staffed in 2020. New auditors will be assigned to DQA for two years, extendable to three at the discretion of the appointing authority.

President Campinos said that the challenge facing the Office is to increase compliance. Mark this words.

What time is it?

There was a communique from President Campinos last Thursday. From the look of it, it seems that a massive reorganisation is planned for September. What Märpel finds particularly bizarre is that the communique says, at the same time, that "staff will be informed well in advance of the new structure" but also that the structure becomes operational in January 2020. Märpel thinks that President Campinos must have some kind of time-distorting machine that will make the 4 months left till 2020 into a much longer period. Märpel also thinks that President Campinos will need that time-distorting machine to extract even more productivity, since that is apparently also planned. The amount of files produced will also be checked quarterly instead of at the end of each year…

Below is the text of the communique:

Update on main topics

 

Dear Colleagues,

Last week, myself and the other members of the MAC held a meeting dedicated to examining the preparation of the budget and to a number of other issues currently on the agenda. Although I had said the previous MAC communication could be the last before September, you may find it useful to be updated on some of the matters discussed.

I do not know if many of you are familiar with the procedure for the preparation of the budget at the EPO so I think it could be interesting to give you a very brief overview without going into too much of the technical jargon.

The cycle starts in March each year with a notice sent by the President to all DGs indicating the timeline of the budget preparation and some indications on the assumptions. This helps PD Finance to build the first main budgetary orientations which are presented for opinion to the May Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) and June Admin Council (CA/25/xx).

At the end of July, a dedicated MAC gathers to review and refine the assumptions. The CA/50/xx document on the draft budget needs to be finalised in September to be ready on time for the publication on Micado around the end of September or beginning of October. It is then presented for opinion to the October BFC and for decision to the December AC.

For the 2020 budget, PD Finance provided an overview of the EPO's financial situation for the first semester 2019 which you can find here [internal link].

Moreover, linked to the discussions on the staffing level and posts requests for each DGs, we addressed the need to better align our structures of the Office with the goals of the strategic plan to ensure they will be in a position to implement and deliver it in an optimal manner.

I want to take this opportunity to underline that this will be a series of gradual changes, of which staff will be informed well in advance of the new structure becoming operational in January 2020. It will be based on the principles of streamlining some functions that are currently spread over different DGs, causing a loss of efficiency. Bringing together those resources on a permanent basis therefore makes sense. In some cases, all staff will already have a good idea of the changes set to take place as outlined in the Strategic Plan: a Project Management Office embedded in a Corporate Governance Service will be established; a concept will be developed for an EPO Observatory; internal and external communications will be brought together; the Council Secretariat should be relocated in DG5 and the status of the Academy should evolve. So it is not at all a big bang but more a case of some readjustments.

Finally, sharing the very constructive feedback I received during the recent Discovery sessions with Team Managers and Directors, we had an initial discussion on how the appraisal process might be improved to better reflect the efforts of our team, as a whole, in addition to evaluating individual performance. As you know, I believe strongly in a more collaborative style of working, where we can benefit from each other's expertise and input, share our knowledge and increase staff engagement.

Overall, I'm of the opinion that more cohesive teams help to raise the quality of our work - as we saw in the recent CQI pilot - and are also more productive. We therefore held a first exchange on how both the appraisal system and the point allocation system could be adjusted to better reflect the outcome of a team's collaborative efforts. I also think that since the adoption of the New Career System in 2015, we have now the experience to evolve from the yearly formal appraisal report to more regular feedbacks - on a quarterly basis for example - which will give greater support to staff throughout the year. Later this year we will therefore undertake a thorough assessment on how - and if - this could be done with a view to proposing amendments.

I look forward to updating you on these matters in due course. As many of you are heading off to the summer break I wish you some good rest with your family and loved ones. I am very grateful for all the hard work that's been done and I hope you will feel that it has been suitably recognised, not least by the allocation of a collective bonus as a token of recognition for all your efforts.

António Campinos

President

More scandals

Märpel reported about the financial study and how it is based on false assumptions, but in the mean time another document was issued by the Staff Committee and then Märpel found a third document distributed in the canteen. It seems that the financial study is a huge hoax. One might wonder why...

Possibly the Council might not be impressed by the financial study. In any case, the members of the budget and finance committee were not impressed by the pharaonic building refurbishing projects and gave a negative opinion. Will that be enough?

In the mean time http://epostaff4rights.org also published a document, this time about reporting. In a nutshell: staff is working harder than ever and getting the lowest performance ratings ever, with over 500 examiners being targeted for dismissal.

Performance ratings are somewhat linked to salary raises, bonuses and promotions (if your boss likes you) and staff may here as well prepare for a bad surprise. Promotions are normally announced in June. It is only a rumor, but Märpel heard that the rewards exercise may be delayed this year. Directors will not be nominated before the end of this year. Vice-President Steve Rowan apparently said that examiners were paid far too much and that he wanted their career to end before grade G12.

Financial study

The Central Staff Committee has just published a document titled "The Financial Study: Yet another hoax". Here is the summary

 

Dear colleagues,

In the EPO, financial studies tend to be a prelude to cuts in staff benefits. The latest study is no exception. The present publication explains one of the tricks used to make the Office look poor. More publications will follow.

The recently published financial study (CA/46/19) by Mercer and Oliver Wyman seems to indicate that more bad news is to come.

The studies' conclusions ...

The key message of the financial study (p 34) is:

"The EPO faces a structural operational gap, with costs increasing faster than revenues, leading in the future to significantly decreasing cash flows.

The EPO has greater control of cost levers than revenue levers which presents an opportunity to better meet its future obligations through careful cost management."

In other words: the Office must be reducing costs - staff costs.

... and how they came about

The EPO's main income is from fees. The Financial Study includes this 4% fee increase for 2020 but assumes that there will be no further fee increases from then on till 2038. On the other hand Staff salaries and pensions follow the normal increase. For any organisation - as rich as it may be - such an approach will lead in the end to budgetary gaps. According to our first calculations the alleged gaps could be offset by merely continuing the biennial 5% fee adjustments in place.

Märpel is no accountant but checked the study and it seems that the Central Staff Committee is indeed right and that the document was drafted on unreasonable assumptions chosen to make the financial situation appear catastrophic. In contrast, the proven historical records show that the EPO has a yearly surplus of over 350 millions Euros.

It seems that President Campinos has decided to prepare for a new conflict. What other reasons could there be to publish such a blatant lie? A staff strike is planned for the next meeting of the Council.

A picture is worth 1000 words

A single picture from the survey summarizes the present situation at the EPO. In red, people are unhappy about the situation, in green people find the situation to their advantage. G13 is the highest grade an examiner can have, the people in G14, G15 and G16 are managers. They are also the people whose remuneration was considerably increased under Battistelli leadership.

Survey

The Office wide survey "your voice, our future" was just reviewed by the central staff committee, this is the text of their article.

The results of the Office wide staff survey "Your voice, our future" are out and they are nothing short of a disaster. We share the analysis in the article published on KluwerPatent blog: many expected the results to be bad, but few expected them to be so abysmal. The EPO scores far below the expected level of an international organisation.

Introduction

Earlier this year, Mr Campinos conducted the first Office-wide staff survey since 2016. Following the extremely negative feedback his predecessor, Mr Battistelli, had received on his leadership in a 2011 survey, EPO staff were only surveyed once more during his presidency, and then only within the context of his "2016 Social Study". However, just three years later and with a new President, staff were apparently eager to be heard: the participation rate was at a record-breaking 85% (2011: 72%). Nevertheless, the results of the present survey remain a great concern. Moreover, the same problems that have plagued the Office for many years are still very evident and unresolved.

We encourage all colleagues to review the results for themselves and draw their own conclusions. This paper simply presents and comments upon what we consider to be the main findings from an analysis of the results.

43 shades of red

Willis Towers Watson (WTW) goes to great lengths to make sure there is at least some green to be seen on every slide, but the predominant colour is red. In the slides comparing responses between different DG's or between Job Groups, it might appear that only DG1 & Job Group 4 (read: examiners) score red. But that's not the case: all DG's, all Job Groups score often well below any external benchmark on almost all categories, as acknowledged by the consultants during their presentation.

Also, WTW aggregated the 'agree' and 'tend to agree' into one green block, and the 'tend to disagree' and 'disagree' into one red block for the presentation of the results. When asked "Why?" by the Staff Representation during their presentation, WTW claimed that splitting the graphs would have complicated the overview. We disagree. A simple shade between solid and light green, solid and light red would have done the trick. WTW admitted that the information was available (how could it not be?). However, as far as we know, it will not be shared with staff, but visible just to management. So much for transparency...

The overall picture

The most strikingly negative results are those that relate to senior management. Only 16% of staff has confidence in the decisions made by senior management. That score is 56 points below the "Europe norm" benchmark. Low scores for senior management have been a consistent feature of EPO staff surveys since records began. In our opinion, the present survey's questions were not really designed to reveal the underlying causes. Maybe significantly, there were no questions directly addressing the quality of the EPO's "products" to the outside world. Nevertheless, the participants in the Boards of Appeal (BoA) Unit judged the quality of the "services" provided (to them) by their colleagues in the Office, i.e. DG1, as 37 points below norm. The consultants could do little else than identify the quality of the EPO's "services" as a cause for concern, noting "the Office scored 43 points below norm on "commitment to quality is apparent in what we do on a day- to-day basis".

Relying on questions about how well senior management communicates and whether they provide a clear sense of direction, the only reaction of management to poor results has always been "we need to communicate better". Coming today to exactly the same conclusion without even trying to tackle the root causes just adds insult to injury. Staff appear to understand where management is trying to go (Basically: higher productivity, lower quality, less pay for staff and more pay for the top brass), they just don't agree on either the final destination or the route to be taken. Some 68% strongly believe in the mission of the Office, but most are unconvinced about where senior management is taking it. More significantly, only 20% consider that "the Office" is effective at identifying the changes that are necessary to ensure our long-term success.

The low score on "effort made to get the opinions of staff" must be particularly frustrating for Mr Campinos, who has personally spent quite a lot of time engaging with staff in individual meetings. This communication exercise has apparently not convinced staff that it might influence his decision making.

The consultants (Willis Tower Watson) summarise the results as follows: "Views on remuneration and well-being are positive compared to external benchmarks. Results are below external benchmarks on all other categories." However, these derived results from the survey responses particularly for remuneration and well-being are questionable. For example, no clear questions on career prospects or general health have been asked.

For both remuneration and well-being we want to add some further caveats.

Remuneration

The more detailed results show that our recent recruits (staff with less than 5 years experience in the Office – see e.g. page 35 of the annex to the overall results presentation) are significantly less satisfied with their pay than their older colleagues. This should be a warning for management because these new recruits are the staff who have only experience of the new career system and yet they will have to remain engaged to carry the Office through in the future. We think that the EPO would also be well advised to try and identify the reasons why some 30% of staff think they are not paid fairly compared to others working in the Office, and why 35% think their personal performance on the job is not rewarded fairly.

Well-being and lack of respect

Concerning the relatively favourable scores for well-being, these seem mainly driven by work- schedule flexibility and the positive answers to questions such as: "My immediate manager cares about my well-being" and "People in my unit care about each other's well-being". But other questions that apparently do not enter into the well-being score - but are clearly related to staff well-being - show a very different picture: 63% of the respondents consider that insufficient effort is made to get the opinions of staff and 58% do not feel free to speak their mind. Even more worryingly, only 20% state that they do feel free to speak up. Nearly half (49%) responded negatively to the statement that "all staff are treated with respect here" and 44% of staff feel that they lack any opportunity for personal development. This is not a picture of staff feeling well in their work environment.

It is also striking that not a single question in the survey was directed at the perceived health of staff, yet the number of stress related diseases and burn-outs has increased by 25% between 2017 and 2018 and sick leave in DG1 (some 77% of staff) increased by 20% over the same period. In our view this should have prompted management and the consultants to enquire more about staff health.

In view of the above, not only is the internal benchmarking with respect to well-being inadequate, but also a meaningful comparison with an external genuine benchmark on well-being appears entirely questionable.

What next?

Mr Campinos comments on the survey results in a communiqué to staff entitled "Your voice, our future results". The addition to the survey title of the word "results" is small but significant in that it indicates to us what really matters to our President. Further indications can be found in the text that follows: "the responsibility to rectify any shortcomings falls to us all and everyone will now play their part in improving staff engagement – on the basis of shared responsibility. As one organization, we will take shared ownership of this report, assess the findings with our colleagues and work together to collectively address the issues that have been identified." This sounds very much like "you will solve my problems". Pushing responsibility for the bad survey results back to staff is unlikely to build greater confidence in senior management, the number one focus area for attention identified by the consultants.

We can only hope that Mr Campinos will realize that good "results" can only be achieved by a motivated staff and that he will find better ways to motivate staff.

Our provisional conclusion

Anyone going through the 2011 WTW survey, or browsing through the 2016 PWC Social Study, the 2016 Technologia Staff Survey, and the recent IT Audit will see that today's survey results are neither a surprise nor a statistical anomaly. Instead, they are a dangerous continuation of a long- standing trend, that of a sinking ship. We are concerned that the apparent reaction of the President in his communiqué "Your voice, our future results" is not proportionate to the seriousness of the situation. Simply rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic won't do.

The survey "Your voice, our future" is also, in our opinion, incomplete. For instance, there are no questions asked that allow to assess the current level of psychosocial risk in the Office, yet this has been raised as a concern in previous surveys. This calls for a remedy: the 4th edition of the 3- yearly Technologia Staff Survey (already ran in 2010, 2013, 2016) should normally be launched after the summer break.

In the meantime, those senior managers whose policies have led to the disastrous results of the survey, and in particular those who have simply stood by and watched it happen, are invited to reflect on their position and consider stepping down.

The Central Staff Committee

Zero-sum game

Exactly one year ago, Märpel warned you that President Battistelli has decided he needed a blank check to play with the EPO cash reserves (2.3 BILLIONS Euros) on the stock and derivatives market. Here is the article:

http://rip-kat.blogspot.com/2018/05/nothing-can-be-said-to-be-certain.html

The resulting fund is called "EPO Treasury Investment Fund" or EPOTIF.

A few days ago, the financial status report was published. Within that report, the following gem was found:

In 2018 the Office transferred its legacy bonds portfolio to the EPO Treasury Investment Fund (EPOTIF) which holds the funds in line with the Strategic Asset Allocation approved by the BFC. As at the end of 2018 the total value of EPOTIF units was € 2 460m, which includes a revaluation loss for the year of € 97m.

Just after two days that sentence was redacted, it now reads:

In 2018 the Office transferred its legacy bonds portfolio to the EPO Treasury Investment Fund (EPOTIF) which holds the funds in line with the Strategic Asset Allocation approved by the BFC. As at the end of 2018 the total value of EPOTIF units was € 2 460m.

Märpel is confident that the readers will spot the difference. Hint: it involves 97 millions Euros.

That amount of money was lost between mai and December 2018. Or, more precisely, it was lost for the EPO. Short term speculation is usually a zero-sum game: when somebody loses, somebody else wins. Why do you think that President Battistelli absolutely had to get EPOTIF approved just one month before he left the Office?

Survey - 2

In the previous article, Märpel presented the results of the staff survey. One of the concerns of the staff is that with production increases, quality has decreased.

Apparently, our internal quality control (DQA) also noticed. Compliance decreased from 85% to 75% last year. Märpel is not so good at maths, but understands that a quarter of the searches and granted patents do not respect the EPC. Märpel is also not so sure, but believes that this figure puts the EPO behind all other major patent offices.

Management also noticed. They had to.

Common sense would have that management would lower production pressure, maybe set time aside for retraining, etc… This is pretty standard. But not, Stephen Rowan, Vice-President DG1 had a better idea: Collaborative Quality Improvements (CQI). In his own words:

Examiners in the pilot have been asked to initiate consultations within the Division for at least the following:

- One search report and written opinion per examiner per month

- One communication per examiner per month

- All files where the first examiner would envisage to summon to oral proceedings

- All final actions (both grants and refusals).

For each consultation, the first examiner fills out a logbook for recording the most relevant information such as

- stage of the procedure

- duration of the consultation

- topics discussed

- role of the colleague(s) consulted (e.g. chairperson, formality officers)

- insights gained

The first examiner also indicates which improvements were identified and to what extent the consultation was considered useful, as well as if it is likely that the consultation would have taken place if they were not involved in the pilot. For future training planning and other Quality Initiatives, every time a quality improvement is identified the type of improvement is indicated in a detailed list of improvements provided in a catalogue.

All team managers of the pilot organize regular team meetings dedicated to quality only. Outcomes of the meeting are recorded in a separate logbook.

In summary, Examiners are supposed to spend more time discussing the files together. They are also supposed to write everything down in a logbook.

There is nothing really wrong with that, except that it is not really related to compliance with the EPC and that the whole exercise costs time. But what time budget do the examiners get? Exactly zero. What was Vice-President Stephen Rowan thinking?

Survey results.

As the readers of this blog already know, the results of the staff survey were published earlier this month and are far below average when compared to reference surveys.

Märpel would like to publish selected comments from staff as published in the review findings (page 29). To the question "What one change would make the biggest difference?", staff answered:

"Honesty and transparency from higher management concerning planning, goals and rewards, including admitting errors.."

"Echte Kommunikation zwischen dem Präsidenten und der Personalvertretung, und dass die Anliegen des Personals auch Ernst genommen werden. Keine Beteiligung an Entscheidungen nach dem Motto : ihr hattet die Möglichkeit euch zu äussern, aber ich mache dennoch was ich will."

"Reconnaître la fonction d'Examinateur comme véritable moteur de l'Office, en arrêtant de
nous imposer une pression / temps toujours plus grande, en ayant en même temps un discours de plus grande qualité."

"Reform the new career system to make the achievement of a pensionable reward fair - transparent - deterministic."

"Reduce targets pressure and clearly define minimum targets for getting a reward / step."

Apparently, President Campinos could not understand why the results of the study were so negative and why staff complained that they were not heard when he spent so much time having breakfast with them. Märpel remarks that listening needs actions to be effective. What about implementing the actions that the staff and the applicants request:

-lower objectives of all staff and thereby give more time to quality?

-show respect to staff by reintegrating the unduly dismissed union members?

-show respect to DG3 by reintegrating the unduly dismissed member and moving them back in the empty BT8 building?

-define a career system with a clear link between achievement and reward, and not the present system where, in 2018, staff exceeded all production targets to be rewarded with an unmatched number of "below" or "far below objectives"?

Unfortunately, the latest news do not show that management is listening. In the next article.

It really pays to be Mr Benalla!

This was posted in the comments:

The document CA/F 6/17 contains another juicy morsel on page 15: "Agreement No. 2106/3270 on expert security services" signed off by the EPO on 14 Nov 2016.

This contract was a direct placement, i.e. no tendering. The amount involved was EUR 1 344 000.
CA/F 6/17 does not reveal who the lucky recipient was: "Name of supplier not disclosed for security reasons. Information available on request."

If we assume that the same "security services" were involved (and Märpel never saw any other ones when chasing mice at night...), the total over the two years amounts to 1.8 million Euros, all spent without any oversight as to which purpose they were really spent.

Rat race 3.0

The following text was published last Friday on the Suepo web site. That document can only be seen from within the EPO, but Märpel believes it is of general interest. Applicants deserve to know that the production pressure was further increased by President Campinos.

"Rat race 3.0" Part I: Staff Reporting in the New Career System (NCS) – Total mayhem

Dear SUEPO Members, dear Colleagues,

Background

In September 2018 Mr Campinos dismissed an examiner colleague for alleged professional incompetence. He did so even though the CSC had drawn his attention to the unlawfulness of any procedure based on Art. 52 ServRegs (dealing with professional incompetence) until and unless implementing rules to Art. 52 are defined. The CSC could not support the implementing rules proposed by management in the GCC-meeting of 18 December because they were lacking clarity and sufficient safeguards for staff.

With no implementing rules to Art. 52 in place, management now follows an alleged "existing practice", implying that EPO employees can be brought before the "Joint Committee on Art. 52 & 53" after three consecutive years with a very poor assessment of their overall performance (at level "8" in the appraisal report). This opens the perspective to subsequent dismissal by the President. We are convinced that any decision to dismiss a colleague under such undefined "practice" would be illegal, as it cannot replace the missing implementing rules. Unfortunately, such consideration will not deter management from firing anyone, as already demonstrated by Mr Campinos' September decision.

Fear policy

Some colleagues have already been informed by their Reporting Officer (RO) that their overall 2018 performance is likely to be rated at "far below the expected level". In the managers' interpretation this puts or keeps the staff member on the track leading to possible dismissal for incompetence. Clearly procedures for dismissing staff for incompetence are not meant to be used only in truly exceptional cases. Threatening with professional incompetence procedures is becoming an HR tool for implementation of EPO policy. The intention seems to be to get everyone working harder or quicker for fear of dismissal. Such management methods are toxic and dangerous. They have already been tested elsewhere, e.g. in France Telecom 10 years ago, with a disastrous effect on staff's health and a wave of work related suicides.

Removing the overall box marking...

Together with the New Career System (NCS) management introduced new rules for staff reporting, i.e. Circular No. 366 (C366) "General Guidelines on Performance Management". The first version of C366 entered in force on 1 January 2015 and was applied for three years until the end of 2017. At that time C366 was totally revamped and replaced as from 1 January 2018 by the present "Guidelines on performance management". They were in force in 2018 and remain in force in 2019.

For the first time in the EPO's reporting-history the current C366 was introduced without a template for the appraisal report . Only when accessing the online tool SuccessFactors after the 2018 reporting exercise was closed did staff discover the exact structure and layout of their 2018 appraisal report. This clearly puts the EPO at the forefront of chaotic HR practices in international organisations...

But there is more. Current C366 does not foresee any box marking for the overall assessment of EPO staff. As a matter of fact current C366 was drafted with the clear intention to remove any box marking for the overall assessment, as stated in the introduction paper accompanying new C366 when it was put on the agenda of the GCC in November 2017: "new performance management approach articulates around 3 main pillars", one of them being "the absence of an overall box marking to put the emphasis on qualitative feedback"; "the overall performance is assessed in a qualitative manner and the 8 point scale box marking is removed".

Why did the Battistelli administration introduce this change in C366? From 2015 to 2017 the Office had already been successful in de facto uncoupling staff reporting from career progression (step increase/promotion). By amending C366 management further emptied the appraisal report of its substance. We suspect that the "cunning plan" was to definitely discourage staff from challenging appraisal reports. Why investing time in challenging an appraisal report which has become useless for career progression?

However, during discussions at the end of 2018 between HR and the Staff Representation about professional incompetence, it appeared that HR had realised that an overall box marking could be useful after all, however not for rewarding staff. Their concern was the situation of colleagues already in the "incompetence pipeline", e.g. with two consecutive appraisal reports over 2016 and 2017 with an overall assessment marked "8". Would the absence of an overall box marking in 2018 let them off the hook? Management did not seem to be at all happy about that.

For an amended version of C366 to enter in force on 1 January 2019 it was put on the agenda of the GCC meeting of 18 December 2018. This proposed C366 was reintroducing an overall box marking with only 4 levels to be applied with retroactive effect to the 2018 appraisal reports. The President finally withdrew this amended C366, as already reported by the CSC (see sc19002cp), which therefore never entered in force. It follows that, in accordance with current C366, there cannot be an overall box marking in appraisal reports over 2018, whether on an 8 or a 4-points scale. The overall assessment over 2018 must remain strictly qualitative.

But this is not the end of the story. After having failed to re-introduce lawfully the overall box marking for 2018 (on a 4-points scale instead of 8), management is now implementing it through the back door. The most visible example of this move is the new DG1 "Guidance to performance assessment 2018" circulated by VP1 Office to all DG1 managers on 15 February 2019 and officially published on the Intranet and signed by Mr Rowan, VP1, a few days later.

Surprise, surprise - this "Guidance to performance assessment 2018" asks DG1 managers to conclude their overall assessment of staff's performance by using one of the following expressions:

• above the expected level 
at the expected level 
below the expected level 
far below the expected level
  

• This is a 4-points scale of the overall assessment in all but name . It has no legal value since the retroactive DG1 guidance contravenes C366 in force for 2018, both in letter and spirit . The fact that top management does not seem to care to be seen publishing such an unlawful "guidance" tells volume about the interest for (and the respect of) the rule of law in management circles. This reminds us strongly of the Battistelli times. 

  

The introduction of a 4-points scale overall box marking is not only illegal, it increases the risk of being assessed at "below" or even "far below", since finer assessment over an 8-points scale (as in 2016 and 2017) is no longer possible. In view of the possible very negative consequences of an overall "(far) below" assessment, we advise to challenge your 2018 appraisal report if it contains either the expression "below the expected level" or "far below the expected level". Not doing so would mean that you de facto acknowledge that your 2018 performance was indeed below the expected level . This would weaken your legal position should a procedure for professional incompetence be started later on. In any event we strongly recommend challenging any 2018 appraisal report mentioning "far below the expected level".

In the current EPO environment, we can only recommend that you protect yourself against any (ab)use of the reporting system.

Your SUEPO Committee The Hague

It pays to be Mr Benala.

Märpel found a reference to a security contract with 6 individuals in document CA/ 6/16, last page. For 6 months and 6 individuals, the office paid €550 000, so about 15278€ per month (if all 6 people were paid the same amount and Mr Benela did not benefit from a preferential treatment as is usual within "System Battistelli).

Computers

Märpel heard that the office computer tools are not working as well as they should. This was confirmed at the beginning of this month by an audit that was concluded by Boston Consulting Group and published by President Campinos. Märpel is frankly surprised that the audit did not leak into the general public as it paints a dismal picture of system Battistelli. Our readers will certainly remember that under President Battistelli millions were paid for software development and that a surprisingly high proportion of the IT firms chosen were French.

The pinacle of the IT tools was supposed to be the "Electronic dossier system" or eDossier. The office had great hopes in the eDossier, as it would have rendered formality officers redundant: the computer would have managed the procedural aspects automatically. The catastrophic state of formalities results from a continuous policy of understaffing in the past years: why replace staff if the computer will render them all redundant anyway?

But the e-dossier does not work. The audit suggested to close the project and the decision was published last week. Here is the announcement in full:

The EPO management team has taken the decision to stop the eDossier project in its entirety.

After three years of intense efforts to design and deliver eDossier, the implemented solution is unfortunately neither performant nor scalable enough to create a paperless, electronic workflow. In addition, after two rounds of corrective testing, the latest release has not reached the required quality levels. This was independently confirmed by the recent IT Audit performed by Boston Consulting Group. The Audit also highlighted that the planned benefits have not materialised and expressed concerns over the expected benefits and feasibility of the programme, as currently defined.

In light of these findings, the management team has followed the recommendation of the IT Audit and stopped the eDossier project, including the Cellule de Suivi. The three directorates currently using it for Stock Management will now accept and allocate files in the same way as all other directorates.

Stopping a project of this magnitude is never easy and the decision has not been taken lightly. The Office invested greatly in this project with the aim of delivering significant benefits to the organisation, through the introduction of an electronic dossier and workflow. We also appreciate that this has been one of a number of efforts over time to introduce a more electronic workflow. However, it is a reality of innovative organisations that not all projects work out exactly as we had hoped, no matter how great the effort from those involved.

We will now draw lessons from eDossier to better prepare us for other projects in the future. With a more agile BIT structure that is being proposed, and the overall maturation of technologies, we are also better equipped to achieve our aims in the future. As part of the Office's Strategic Plan, the Office will now make proposals for a new back-office to support the patent grant process using an improved platform, which will deliver both performance and scalability.

We fully realise that many of you have invested great energy in this project to make it a success. We would therefore like to express our sincere gratitude to all of you, whether examiner, para-technical, formalities officer, team manager or director, who has used eDossier Stock Management, as well as all the IM, PD13 and PD14 staff who worked on the project and supported the cellule during the past two years.

eDossier Stock Management will stop on Friday 1 March 2019 at 16:00. All those using eDossier will receive information later today on how the transition will be managed and what you can expect and when.

Stephen Rowan

Vice-President DG1

Nellie Simon

Vice-President DG4