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
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?
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?
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.
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.
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
