Bonum Certa Men Certa

Human Resources at the European Patent Office (EPO): Another Crisis in the Making

Video download link | md5sum a3befb6fac64118fd2273d680a531dcf HR Crisis at EPO Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Human Resources at the second-largest institution in Europe has been run by a stubborn mule without any Human Resources skills; as it turns out, there's a crisis brewing there (internally) as well

The Central Staff Committee (CSC) of the EPO has spread around a publication about "[p]rioritisation of HR requests," arguing that "HR [is] Drowning in work," resulting in anxiety. This typically results in an exodus of those most capable of doing the job. The EPO is going to lose not only a lot of highly skilled examiners; even administration-level staff will flee and whatever replaces or fill the gap/vacuum lacks the experience and skills. This assures further deterioration of the Office's operations.



The CSC promises "to follow up the issues with senior management." Here is the letter to staff:

Zentraler Personalausschuss Central Staff Committee Le Comité Central du Personnel

Munich,05/09/2022 sc22115cp

Human Resources:

Drowning in work



Dear Colleagues,

In July, our colleagues in HR posted a cry for help1 on the Intranet, asking staff to “be patient” as they were “experiencing a large volume of incoming requests and enquiries” and needed “time to process the requests received”.

Since then, many colleagues have received individual emails informing them that the processing of their requests to HR would be delayed.

This announcement made obvious that our colleagues in HR have been brought to a point where they are no longer able to respond to telephone calls or emails in an appropriate amount of time2.

Considering the current Office policy of only filling up to 50% of vacated posts outside DG 1, severe understaffing is a major factor in the problems currently experienced in HR, coinciding with overly complex procedures and regulations. The recent reforms and related portals do not take into consideration the impact on our HR colleagues, they are implemented in a hurry, and instead of alleviating work pressure, they aggravate workload.

With the reform of the education allowance, the administration promised a simpler scheme that is easy to understand and administer, the feedback received so far from both staff and HR colleagues proves this assertion wrong. We are concerned both for the wellbeing of our HR colleagues and for staff members who are not currently receiving the service they are entitled to when contacting HR.

Over the past months we have met with several HR teams and collected their concerns regarding staffing and IT tools. Instead of enjoying proper working conditions, the workload is piling up, service is delayed and all the conditions for health problems are met. Nevertheless, our HR colleagues continue to strive for quality support.

Some staff have been recruited recently but it is far from making up for the many departures the team is facing. External recruitment, as opposed to the current practice of internal transfers amounting to “robbing Peter to pay Paul”3, could be the solution to the staffing problem but management so far refuses to consider this.

Following the intranet announcement, we recently again met some HR colleagues to reaffirm our support and our determination to follow up with senior management.

The Central Staff Committee

_____ 1 “Prioritisation of your HR requests” of 1 July 2022 2 See also the results of the EPO Staff Engagement Survey 2022, e.g. slide 26. 3 “Déshabiller Pierre pour habiller Paul.”



As noted in the video at the top, the EPO's site has been mostly dead lately and there are profound changes in the Bulgarian and British delegations. Maybe it's a bit of a mystery, at least temporarily, why all this happened. Maybe insiders can enlighten and tell us?

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Links 29/03/2024: Fentanylware (TikTok) Fines and UK High Court Makes It Seem OK to Assassinate People Wrongly (Falsely) Associated With "Russia"
Links for the day
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries