Nats Staffing

[Nogbad the Bad]

In the thread concerning "Stuff in the Sunday Mirror", that wise sage 160to4DME wrote (quote) :

Whilst we're on about earnings and staffing, I believe that at MACC alone, 8 people have applied to NavCan, 1 has already has an assessment and 2 others are about to go over for theirs.

Hello management, are ANY alarm bells ringing yet ?????

memo to all: insufficient staff forecast for sector reorganisations planned.

160

Now, my question is :

Does NATS (in this case) "management" (purposely SMALL capitals on that) realise just how short of staff we are ??

[All Systems Go]

You should think yourself lucky NTB, they are looking to carve the amount of engineers in half in just under 10 years. The staffing of engineers reminds me of the good old boom and bust spending policy of the Tories on the 80s and 90s. We've got too many, so stop recruiting. A few years later we've not got enough so lets go overboard and recruit loads more. I can't complain though. I'm one of the boom era from a few years ago!!

[Hairy Badger]

Another interesting point is that our current management are cutting staff to save money for future investment, but at the end of this will not have enough trained staff to impliment the investment they have saved for.

So this means more off the shelf ATC products, and look at how well that worked at Swanwick.

[All Systems Go]

It worked really well HB, cos it means me and the likes of me have got a job for the life of the current AIX/CXSS system, supporting it's little tantrums and issues. And I think you'll find the whole RISC6000/AIX/CXSS thingy is an off the shelf product. Errr... I meant off the shelved product by our FAA friends. We do occasionally get off the shelf products, which then have to be re-written or frigged around with in some way so that the software writter can then charge NATS a kings's ransom to support ot for the next few years. Roll on NERC 2!! (That's an engineering joke anyone who doesn't know or doesn't care - NERC 2 will never happen!!)