Thanks for your reply, Steve.
Steve wrote:
Non-project office staff people or their functional managers may very
well
be entering their own actual performance but they should NOT be
entering
work breakdowns, duration estimates, constraints, etc. Project
planning is
the job of the project manager and his staff working in conjunction
with the
functional managers, but not staff people outside the project
management
office. And while the staff of the PMO might very well see
confidential
information, staff in other departments do as well without everyone
getting
in a huff over confidentiality. Non-management payroll and human
resources
clerks see personal salary information every day while accounts payable
staff see the confidential invoicing from vendors and contractors and
no one
worries much about it. If it's an issue, have them sign an NDA.
Some of my clients don't have "PMO's", though this may be hard for you
to believe. The situation you describe is probably ideal, but not
reality in many offices. And most employees are used to having HR see
their salaries but not the person across the hall. You can label them
anything you want, to me it's just human nature and they deserve
consideration.
And:
Agreed with you point about smaller organizations who don't use
averages for
their cost data. But even they should be using figures that include
benefits, hiring costs, training costs, etc as well as base salaries in
order to have budgets that reflect the true cost of doing the project.
One
of the reasons I bristle when people try to use project to manage
client
billing for project oriented service and consulting businesses is that
just
because Joe IT Consultant gets paid $50 per hour for programming on a
client's site doesn't mean that what it is costing me to have him
employed
there on that project. It cost me $XX to locate and hire him, $YY to
provide him a desk in the office, $ZZ for that company owned laptop he
takes
with him, I have to absorb AA% of his paid time as non-billable hours
against the client, perhaps BB% of his time is idle because the client
doesn't need him that day, I have utilities in our office etc etc it
goes on
forever it seems ... all of those things need to be factored into the
cost
of his work on the project and the rate I charge our clients.
I understand the difference between burdened and unburdened labor.
Which an organization tracks is up to them, based on availabitiy of
data, level of effort required, confidentitality requirements, and
other factors.
And:
To tell the truth, I don't understand why that's such a sensitive issue
anyway. As a culture we measure our personal worth largely by our
economic
productivity and love to show off the nice house and nice car we can
afford,
then get uncomfortable if anyone finds out what our salary actually is.
I
think the reason that companies who worry most about it do so is they
are
trying to cover up the fact that they are gouging their employees -
they
don't want Bill to find out that Suzie is earning more than he is for
the
same job because they're afraid he'll ask for a raise. If they did the
right thing and paid people what they're worth from the git-go instead
of
making a zero sum game out of it, trying to pay as little as they can
get
away with, the issue of confidentiality would largely disappear.
Personally it doesn't bother me if someone knows what I earn, except
that
I'm embarrassed because it's so damned low <grin>.
Others do not share your opinion on this matter. We need to respect
their opinions as well as yours.
