Thread: Hospital report,BlackBetty

Originally Posted by Jamo

For big organisations, its common to 'blame the shareholders', and in some cases that's true; but I think the problem there lies with overpaid CEO's (eg Telstra) who don't take responsibilty commensurate with their incomes!

When I was a lower level manager within OTC (Overseas Telecommunications Corporation), I had an annual budget (which had been developed by myself in conjunction with my senior management) to operate within and monthly reporting on my group's expenditure to my senior manager. That reporting showed any variance from the projected budget. Any variance had to be explained. On some accounts, e.g. OH&S, I didn't care if I went over-budget.

When OTC was merged with Telecom Australia to become Telstra, financial control was wrested from OTC and given to Telecom people. There was no more budget constraints at lower management level. It was all moved up to GM level - so basically we could spend what we liked.

Ron

We had a CEO in a certain state govt dept that I worked for, who felt the need to 'suck up' to the minister for perceived personal status, rather than for the depts best interest.

He proudly told us how he had managed to save $2mill on actuals vs budget for the year (the total dept budget was only $10mill) and how pleased the minister would be!.

He genuinely couldn't understand why the minister then chose to shave $2mill off the next year's budget!