Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Staff Representatives Say It Has Gotten Very Hard to Get Promoted (Forget About Getting Rewarded for Hard Work)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 12, 2024,
updated Jul 12, 2024

Great Job Black Stamp

Snapshots rewards exercise 2024: under rewarding

THE LACK of incentive/s at the EPO leads to worse work and worse staff, as staff retention and recruitment are both impacted; moreover, why would an examiner wish to work harder if that has no positive effect, either financial or something more symbolic it not superficial such as a job title?

This has long been a problem and the staff representation is circulating new instructions today for challenging this. Here's the message they sent today to staff in The Netherlands:

Staff Representation provides guidance on how to contest a lack of rewards

Dear colleagues,

If you have not received a career advancement or bonus in April 2024 concerning the performance of 2023, you have a chance of reversing the decision and receiving a step or promotion with retroactive effect.

In this paper, Staff Representation provides you with updated information about the process of contesting the lack of reward.

An updated presentation will explain the procedure to follow if you did not receive a reward in April 2024.

Here is their guidance.

Staff Committee The Hague
Comité du personnel de La Haye
Personalausschuss Den Haag

Rijswijk, 12 July 2024
sc24007hp

Further information on
contesting a lack of rewards

An updated guidance document was prepared by Staff Representation, following the April 2024 rewards exercise. Extra considerations need to be taken into account when contesting a lack of rewards.

The rewards statistics show a tremendous variation between the distribution of pensionable rewards: in the last ten years, staff have received between seventeen steps and no step at all, as if highly rewarded colleagues would contribute seventeen times more to the success of the Office than those receiving the minimum rewards.

If you have not received a career advancement or bonus in April 2024 concerning the performance of 2023 and either received a good appraisal report for 2023 or contested your appraisal report for 2023, you have a chance of reversing the decision and receiving a step or promotion with retroactive effect.

For more information about the process of contesting the lack of reward, please read this updated guidance document.

Contesting a lack of rewards can be done by filing a request for review (RfR) until three months following the earliest of the following two dates:

- when your manager called you to announce the decision, or

- the 26th of April (your April 2024 payslip).

It is important that you personalize your RfR to your individual situation. Judgment 4711, consideration 8 states: “Even though the new system is not automatic, neither is it left to an unfettered discretion.”

The main objective of your RfR will be to prove that this was not the case in your situation.

Kind regards,

Your Local Staff Committee The Hague

There's further information in this deck of slides.

The EPO is trying to get 'cheap' work done for a high price. This will doom Europe on several levels.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 19/06/2025: Unix Primitivism, Zine Club, and Gemini Protocol Turns 6 at Midnight
Links for the day
 
Microsoft's Windows is a Niche Operating System in Africa
African nations aren't a large contributor to Microsoft's income, but if many African nations move away from Windows, then the monopoly is at risk
Links 19/06/2025: WhatsApp Identified as Assassination 'Crosshairs', Patreon Now Rips Off People Even More
Links for the day
"Told You So": Another Very Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Now Confirmed in Mainstream Media
So we were right to believe the rumours, based on the credibility of prior such rumours
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 18, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Gemini Links 18/06/2025: Magit and Farming
Links for the day
Slopwatch: BetaNews is Now a Slopfarm (Like Linuxsecurity) and Google News is Overwhelmed by Slopfarms
The Web is bad
Links 18/06/2025: SCOTUS Decision on Fentanylware (TikTok) Still Ignored, 4.5-Day Work Weeks
Links for the day
Links 17/06/2025: Windows TCO and G7 Rifts
Links for the day
The Right to Know and the Freedom to Report on Crime (at the Higher Echelons)
I'd like to do the same thing for the next 20 years
BetaNews Appears to Have Fired All Of Its Staff
Even serial sloppers
After the Web Becomes Slopped to Death
A lot of people are rightly fed up with the "modern" Web
Gemini Protocol Turns 6 on Friday
Active (online) Gemini capsules are estimated by Lupa at over 3,000
Like Most Social Control Media, Microsoft LinkedIn is Collapsing
One reason for Microsoft acquisitions is debt-loading, i.e. offloading and burying its debt
Microsoft is Losing Its Richest Clients
Unlike some very poor countries, Germany and the EU are a considerable source of income to Microsoft
Proprietary Means Not Secure
Proprietary software tends to rely on secrecy, not good design
Slop in 'AI' Clothing is a Passing Fad, We'll Get Past It (Like Blockchain Before That)
Many people cheat in exams using slop and there are professionals that try using slop as a "shortcut"
GNOME Does Not Campaign Against Microsoft, KDE Does
It's good to see that KDE is still active in promotion of Free software - a term that it uses
Slopwatch: BetaNews, Linuxsecurity, and Other Prolific Slopfarms
name and shame the sites that establish such proliferation of slop
Gemini Links 18/06/2025: Birch Lake and Loon Pond
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Links 17/06/2025: "The Grift Economy" and Kubernetes Does Proprietary
Links for the day
Microsoft's "FUD-as-a-Service" (Against Linux) Not Functioning Well
This is the kind of contribution companies like Microsoft and Google have to offer to society
Betanews Becoming a Slopfarm is "Betanews Growing Alongside You", According to Betanews
Their first 'article' in over two weeks is 52% "AI-generated" (slop), 33% mixed (edited slop), 18% human-written, says an advanced scanner.
Coffee Day and LLM Sloppers
The LLM slop "bros" are a lot like fake-money bros; they lie to people, they boast that they lie to people, and they're generally bad people, BS artists in colloquial terms
Double-Dipping the Docket for Microsoft Glory and Censorship of Microsoft Critics
same lawyer, same barrister, all US, all Microsoft
TheLayoff Censorship of IBM Threads Has Gone Truly Ludicrous
we do not argue that TheLayoff should not cull LLM slop
More Stallmanites Added to FSF Board and Summer Fundraiser Commences
There's some good news from the FSF
Gemini Links 17/06/2025: Consistency and Notes About NixOS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 16, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 16, 2025