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

Negotiating?

The December council meeting is upon us and Märpel heard that there was little progress on the disciplinary cases. Remember: Laurent Prunier, Elisabeth Hardon and Patrick Corcoran.

Laurent Prunier and Elisabeth Hardon were dismissed together with other prominent union representatives. Even if the official word is that the disciplinary measures were only grouped on prominent union representatives because of "mere coincidence", everybody working in the office knows that President Battistelli wanted to bring staff representation to their knees. Apparently, this is what they teach in France at the ENA and the recent events show the results of that policy.

The dismissals were political in nature. It comes therefore at a surprise that President Campinos was able to stall the procedure concerning Mrs Hardon and convince the office internal "independent" disciplinary court to wait for him to negotiate. How convenient that he can tell the Council tomorrow that he is "negotiating", with full powers to stall the proceedings for as long as he wishes. And is there anything to negotiate when your sole offense was that you were head of the staff union?

The dismissal of a DG3 member was also political in nature. President Battistelli simply could not accept that they were independent of him, as everybody understood from his later actions. Yet, Mr Corcoran was reintegrated to DG3 for a week and has not been seen in the office since that time. Rumour is that he is seriously ill. The council washed their collective hands, satisfied that "justice was done". Whether the Federal constitutional court shall come to the same opinion remains to be seen.