NATS culture
 

Could anyone please advise what the current culture at NATS is like? I do not refer just to ATC issues, but a much broader spectrum of the mood within the company since it moved from the public sector to part privatised.

Mant thanks,

AB

Of course we could :)

Before we do though, can we ask politely why you'd like to know please?

Should I assume that the culture is a little on the paranoid side then.:confused:

It's exactly the same as any other company or organisation. There are those who happily get on with their jobs, satisfied with their working conditions, salary, leave, etc.. And there are those who moan and whinge and are never satisfied.

From the operational point of view, I don't tknow how things may have changed since I retired 2 years ago, but I enjoyed every moment of my work and my colleagues.

average bloke
 

Hi! Are you just off a management course or something, or perhaps another ALSTOM buddy?
We are all well thank you, however "culture" is one of those non-words which may be more applicable to non-people.
Basically we do our job in spite of the organisation, every few years a few new faces appear and in turn are replaced by more new faces. Whenever outside industry conditions get a little hot we seem to inherit the "where-can-I-hide-for-a-cooloff" gang.
This outfit cannot afford top-whack salaries, and no NATS staff are ever head-hunted.......put those factors together.......we the workers just get on with our work.

havent noticed much difference

We have 'destinations' now, though. :rolleyes:

I am very much looking forward to "the journey ahead". :hmm:

On my last night shift I had a great time laughing my way through the NATS' Mission Values and Guiding Principles. Hilarious! :D

We have some nice culture stuff in Swanwick .... that's if you mean paintings and murals :)

NATS obviously has Americans on the management team now, because all the buzzwords sound like they come from 'The Bachelor' and other TV programmes of its ilk. :yuk:

All we need is our managers to manage.

We don't need mission statements, we were given our task on the first day of training and we don't need any other buzzwords.

The statement was ;

Control Traffic in a safe, orderly and expeditious manner

I don't think we need anything else

So,

cost doesn't matter?

flower, well said. I couldn't agree more. Less management bull please........

Soft top:

Yes, of course cost matters, but not to the sort of person you would find posting hereabouts....all I and my colleagues care about is preventing aircraft hitting each other and moving the traffic in a safe, orderly and expeditious manner (very much in that order). We leave considerations of cost to the bean counters, that`s their job.....they would probably run screaming from ours.

I wondered which NATS are we talking about?. Are we talking about the NATS where real people with shirts and ties beaver away enthusiastically for the good of the company, where everyone is "On board to exciting new destinations" and have careers and all that stuff, or are we talking about the "other NATS" of the operational resources who walk around in jeans and teeshirts, inhabit the operational areas at all times of the day and night when real people are in bed, who have to rely on vending machines for food when the real people are not there, who are obstructive, dogmatic, argumentative, and probably pick their noses in public as well!.

DC10RealMan

and most importantly, the "other NATS" is the one which produces much more than 75% of the income that keeps "both" NATS's in business and also keeps all those tie wearing, gobbledeygook speaking, muppets in a job :ok:

"The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth"

I'm one of those T-shirt and jeans wearing oiks that inhabit NATS properties at all times of the day and nights.

:cool: :cool:

If I even knew where the ticket office was i wouldn't be bothered to buy one for the "exciting new journey", but I'm more than willing to pop down to departures and wave the suit wearing muppets off on theirs. :ok: :ok:

Mind you they'd probably find something to moan about if they were delayed :{ en route and it would all be our fault. can i tell them not too rush back?:*

Bizzare if you ask me all this new management rubbish ....:mad:

Not all tie werarers are muppets
 

heh I wear a tie

NATS is multicultural.

But as in any big tribe there is infighting.

I wear a tie also. I also speak in tounges but not management autobabble. There are many people in NATS without which the systems that the gods use would be back in the dark ages. Little respect please. :mad:

From the above posts it won't need a very large Petri dish then ?:=

NATS culture
 

From an engineering perspective, I cannot recall in the last 30 years, when morale has been lower. Clapped out gear which should have been retired 10+ years ago is still in operational service,and guess who gets it in the neck if the service is compromised? Mission statements, destinations,visions, new horizons, ace agents etc.etc..... BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, DIDN'T LIKE IT THEN, DON'T LIKE IT NOW. Just want to do the job without some "mechant banker" in a "tin flute" (hint cockney rhyming slang) screwing me about.

Agreed. Its all more of the same 'New Horizons' bullcrap. I do believe that morale has been taken to a new depth by this management exercise. An intelligent, experienced workforce sent paper aircraft and fake boarding cards? If I had not worked for NATS for so long and not seen this all before I would be insulted. Nah - I AM insulted.

It makes it easy to pick out the the ones for the 'bye bye' letter though. All the idiots that get behind this!!!

Oy. Management. WITHDRAW THIS RUBBISH.:mad: :mad: :mad:

OK - all this negative stuff is getting boring. If you think that management's cr*p (I think that's the drift) why don't YOU tell us what YOU would do to sort out the mess you reckon that NATS is in?

If fact, why don't you become a manager and do it right? I don't want to hear the "I'd rather be on the shop floor doing a good job shifting planes" argument, I want to see what YOU would do that's better.

If you can't answer that, maybe it's time to give it a rest.

By the way, I don't have any answers either, but I do recognise that we need to change.

To use the tired old saying "You're either grit in the gears or your the grease". I'm seeing a LOT of grit.

ST

Soft Top,
We are saying stop giving us this bulls**t and wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on silly gimmicks. I believe New Horizons cost somewhere in the region of two million pounds .

We don't need them , we don't want them , they are a complete and utter waste of money which could be being spent far better where it is needed on staffing and equipment.
Why on earth would we want to become managers, we want to keep our headsets on and do the job we were trained to do.

All we want is for the Senior management to stop looking at gimmicks which may work well in other environments, but it shows full well they haven't looked at the average ATCO and what we do if they think we would be in the slightest bit impressed by this latest fiasco.

Paper planes and boarding passes. oh for goodness sakes, when what i need is a new headset.

What would I like to see?

More ATCOs and engineers on the shop floor; sectors split more often. It's quality of the service provided we should be looking at, not how many aircraft an individual can shift in a session.

An ATCO may be able to 'cope' with a certain amount of traffic, but whilst merely 'coping', are the customers; the Airlines etc, getting the best service? I very much doubt it. So; more bums on seats, and I mean real seats, not fictitious paper seats on paper aeroplanes. It is a sad day when BA pilots comment on the RT that 'this sector should be split'. Even sadder when they are correct but we cannot do it.

I heard of someone wishing to split a position just 3 days ago, because a management planning decision on another sector meant that the first position was becoming unworkable... the answer - 'no split' not enough staff. The only solution - MDIs. The result - customers P***ed off!

Less money spent on gimmicks would mean more money to bring in much needed AAVAs to bring the manpower up to a minimum acceptable level!

Out of interest ukatco, when the BA pilot asked for the sector to be split were you "allowed" to give the real reason why it wasnt?

I did the other day and got a b@llocking for saying that we didnt have enough staff to split GMC at the time. Pilot files ASR, tapes pulled, me getting another telling off.

Wasn't given any advice on what to say the next time the question is asked!

GT3,

I hope you'd say exactly the same thing as last time, as I would!
:E

Or maybe next time a similar thing happens it will be: "The assistant that handles that is out on the balcony doing a weather report, because NATS have taken over the contract to supply met info, but haven't employed any extra staff to cope with the much increased workload."

Yes sorry my assistant is carrying out a wx report so can't check to see if your DLA message has come through.

Oh and btw we are short of staff

1. Reduction of needless process and the people that create it, especially in engineering.
2. Establish the options for ALL new markets, not just the ones that we think we should be in.
3. Aggressively seek every ATC and ATC engineering contract worldwide and if we don't have the staff then hire them.
4. Do you add value? No? Bye!
5. Listen to ATC staff a LOT more.
6. Listen to out airline customers even more than that.
7. Target the UK NATS workforce for the needs identified above.
8. Close what used to be called the EU at Hurn.
9. Buy in top flight project managers to teach ours!

That should take around five years. No paper planes, fewer accountants.

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong (again!). I understood that "The Management"at LHR are looking to reduce ATSA numbers whilst the existing personnel have to be omnipotent ie: Met observing and tower duties which means being in two places at the same time.

Manch ATSAs are shortly doing the Met too
watp,iktch

DC10,

It's ok really, I had a chat to someone yesterday and apparently the ATSAs will all be trained to 'manage their time more effectively' (sic).

So that's alright then. Nothing to worry about. :rolleyes:

I also believe that natural wastage rather than redundancy will reduce atsa numbers at LHR over the next few years.

Makes you wonder what might happen if we are still using paper in the new tower............

If? ? ? ?

IF???

:E

Where is Soft top???

After his rant about people coming up with ideas or shutting up, some colleagues have done just that and as usual..... management hide in the sand!!! Typically proving our point.

Ties inhibit rational, sensible thinking - or in some cases provide an excuse for those who have not the ability to do so :oh:

Management?

I've come over all peculiar ...

And there was me thinking I was being a bit of a devil's advocate. I'm pleased to see that there are constructive comments out there, but they still don't provide the "how?". That's the trick. Come up with a means to achieve all the good stuff (and it is all good stuff) and you could be onto a winner. Trouble is, with so much hot air and belly-aching out there as well, the constructive ideas disappear into the swamp.

Just out of interest, how many of you have taken part in any sort of "management" initiative or workgroup or local improvement project? Of those who have, how many only did it because they'd get paid in hard cash for the time (i.e. AAVAs, overtime etc.)? How many WILLINGLY volunteer their own time to help?

I've been with NATS man and boy (1972 til now) and I've probably seen more initiatives and reviews than most. I have taken part in a few of them (mostly when I was young, keen and thought I could change the world) and I found that the process was always a bit hurried and seemed, at the time, to be very relevant. That was generally followed by feelings of "why did I waste my time", but looking back on it all I CAN see the changes in which I played a part and most of them were successful in terms of improving performance both operational and in general efficiency terms.

If you want to change the direction of the bus, it's important that you don't stand outside and, worse still right in front of it, waving your arms about and shouting a lot, because you'll get left behind or run over. It's always best being on the bus so you can argue with the driver and conductor, maybe even lead the rest of the passengers in a sing-song (sorry, getting too enthusiastic there). That way you have the chance to change the course, slowing it down or stopping it. I'd rather be inside.

I didn't use the aircraft example, because their all hijack proof these days. Damn - what a thought!

ST

Soft top, you're missing a very simple point. I am paid to shift aircraft, I do that. Management are paid to manage the company, they are making a mess of that. It's that simple - they don't help me at my job, I am certainly not going to help them at theirs. I thought you may have suggested working voluntarily at one point, but I'll let that slip, I'm sure you're not insane :=

NATS is now a profit orientated company, not my choice but there you go. Reap what you sow and all that.........

"They don't help me with my job, I'm not gonna help them with theirs."

Does that not make one as bad? With which one loses the right to complain IMHO.

actas
 

Dee Mac is right. We do our job in spite of Management, not because of of it.
Alstom Air is seeking to diversify into a global expertise provider, lots of travel and expense account lunches no doubt. Meanwhile the poor bl@@dy infantry will continue to sweat their nuts off holding up the home front.
I am a little vague on what exactly NATS is supposed to be tasked with these days; this is a result of a less-than-perfect [ and certainly unclear ] divorce from the old CAA. Empire building and self-engrandisment has left NATS with not just a core business of Air Traffic Service provider but a service company with much of the old regulatory and R&d workload that it had pre-separation. This suits both Goverment and CAA alike because all the "fringe" costs are disguised in NATS' charge structure....it also explains why NATS has such a bloated non-operational workforce far in excess of what is required for a pure ATS provider.
Perhaps you can understand why operational staff who have pride in their professional work ethic might want to steer clear of the short-term cancers that plague our sacred territory from time to time.