2015 Corporate dysfunction:bitter fruit

The bitter fruits of corporate dysfunction

A few years ago I was involved in a 3 year 'Train the trainer'  project for teachers in Malaysia. The project was a disaster from the start because insufficient preparation was carried out either by the Malaysian government or the partnering private company that did the recruiting. However, like many others, because I needed work at the time I accepted an invitation to lead the project.

This involved me hiring 15 Academics within a period of about six weeks. It was quite a  task considering that academics are supposed to give considerable notice to their current employers before they will leave a post. Obviously, those who were prepared to move  immediately were given priority-not necessarily a good thing from the point to of view of quality control perhaps.. but that is another story entirely. For more details visit this link.

http://lifeandtimesofanoutsider.blogspot.com.au/search/label/2015%20Adelaide%20diary%209e%20Corporate%20irresponsibility%20The%20Training%20Fellows%20Project

I recruited most of the trainers by phone.

The last trainer I recruited was an Englishman who turned out to be a 'longstayer' on the project. In fact he was one of only 3 of the 15 original Trainers I recruited to complete the 3 years.

We were sound colleagues and had a good professional relationship during the eighteen months I was in post.

Fast forward a few years  to earlier this year and I was looking for work with the same company as an E trainer-based in Adelaide. My ex-colleague, who is now leading this project lead me to understand after interview that I had been selected for a start date a couple of months hence.  We exchanged pleasantries in several E-mails.  Unfortunately, during this period one of the directors of the company unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack. I was not sure if this would affect the project or not.  I thought there might perhaps be a delayed start date.

There was a delay: three months passed. During this period  I e-mailed my former colleague who was now leading this E-training project.

He didn't reply to either E-mail. Eventually, I had to  e-mail another director to ask him if there had been a delay.

He told me the Government had cancelled the project.

Now my point is this..why didn't my former colleague reply to my E-mails? It is hardly because he didn't receive them. Presumably he did but had been instructed by his corporate bosses not to reply. (either that or he was just being deliberately negligent or bloody-minded. I have no reason to believe the latter was the case as I had known him previously to be both competent and generous)

There would have been dozens of other trainers in my position waiting to get start-up instructions for the project. This means dozens of professionals like myself disappointed and unable to schedule our own time. Huge inconvenience caused by corporate callousness.

This type of corporate abuse is unacceptable and should be punished.

How can corporate entities expect employee to be loyal to them when thy are so blatantly disloyal and /or incompetent to their employees?

Loyalty is a two-way process.

As for my ex-colleague who didn't answer my e-mails-well...

I'm sure he can live with it.