Yeah... I'm lost too. And, technically speaking, I work for the HR department of one of the largest companies on Earth (incorporated in the US and falling within the OFCCP's definition of "Federal Contractor")... so this is not a good thing.
Incidentally, these new rules actually make me less lost. One of my biggest frustrations in the past has been guessing as to what the government means by "applicant". Developing the reports that need to go to the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has been an infuriating excercise for me in the past--I remember being pointed at several cabinets full of roughly categorized hardcopy resumes and official job application forms, along with countless electronic responses to job ads posted in various places, all of varying quality... and I was given a set of vague reporting requirements from the EEOC and told to work with a consultant and just "make it all go away".
Sadly, TFA (as others have pointed out) is not the greatest piece of reporting. The article makes the rules sound as if they're all brand new... and throws in a confusing and woefully incomplete statement about the statistics involved in recruiting--"diverse and random" is important, but the brief sentence devoted to it makes it sound as if companies are out there filling a hat with the names of anyone but white males and hiring the first people they pull out of the hat.
The new rules don't really introduce any drastically different practices--they mostly clarify guidelines that have existed for a long time. Now that the OFCCP has finally defined what they mean by "applicant", I'll be able to develop the reports they and other government agencies require without nearly as much guesswork as I had been forced to use before. And, contrary to the picture painted by TFA, the day-to-day process of posting jobs and filling positions won't really change. If anything, we'll be able to more accurately define the process and therefore be able to automate more of it, and keep human bias from affecting how the "applicant" pool is built--i.e., because no human will actually need to look at an "application" until sex/race data has been automatically stripped and stored in a separate table that users (HR/recruiters/managers) don't have access to, the users' personal biases will (hopefully) not enter into the process.
I know many of you probably won't believe me... but at least at my company, there's no great conspiracy where hiring is concerned... we're all just trying to make sure we get the right person in the right job without letting the position stay open forever. If the recruiters are doing their jobs right, the applicant pool should be sufficiently diverse to meet the government's requirements, and if the interviewers/managers are doing their jobs right, the people ultimately selected for jobs will be a representative cross-section of the applicant pool. The right people get the right jobs, the company gets good people in positions it needs filled, and no one gets sued. And, now that the government has made my job a little easier, I might get to go home after less than 4 hours of "casual" (unpaid) overtime more often.
Before you break out your Little Red Books and start chanting "Workers of the World Unite!" you may want to RTFA.
The "Eureka Groups" mentioned in the article were formed for the express purpose of fostering the development of expertise and sharing of knowledge within the larger organization. The groups were self-governing in that they elected "leaders", but these people--and everyone else in the groups--had day jobs. They all had bosses. Their bosses had bosses, and their bosses' bosses... and so on... whose boss' "boss" were the shareholders of the company.
An egalitarian, colegial environment is usually what you see when ideas are the main currency of the organization. But once you start talking about cold, hard cash, accountability (e.g., who did the shareholders entrust their money with) becomes paramount. Particularly as the goals of the organization become larger, more formal command structures become necessary just to keep track of the sheer complexity of the business.
In the end, whenever you talk about getting together with other people to accomplish some sort of task--be it producing edible food on an organic farm, or designing and assembling a full automotive product line--someone needs to decide how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. You can take your pick when it comes to governance--the structure you need will depend on what you're trying to accomplish--but you'll always need to find some way of making decisions, setting direction, etc.
Now, if you want to talk about actual business decisions being made democratically, the best example is... drum roll, please... a democratic government. Want a good example of a product created by a democratic government? The Space Shuttle comes to mind...
In any event, it's easy to sit in a cubicle knee-deep in code, engineering drawings, etc, and wonder what your boss does all day. While you're sitting there, posting on Slashdot and contemplating the ways in which you might be able to avoid doing things you don't like doing, your boss is involved in deciding what kind of work you're actually going to be paid to do.
For those of you who read German-English machine translations better than I do, I've pasted one below. Maybe it's just that I'm too lazy to read closely... but can anyone figure out how the heck this guy cranks enough heat out of the machine to achieve a rolling boil?
Beer brow with PC and washing machine - we came a report through Jean Pütz and the "Hobbythek" on the idea to brew even once beer. The first attempt took place as INDUSTRIAL TRADE UNION in a vacations warehouse: the groups leaders got given a bottle apiece of "Hankenberger-Lager-Bier of the participants to the end of the warehouse". Did after the Verkostung the question stand: "and when we brew the next time?"
In the following 3 years, there was a row of brow trial with different persons circle. Again and again the problem stood to find a suitable brow container and a suitable Heizquelle.
Three years ago, we had the idea, an old washing machine (Toplader) for brewing umzubauen. Following reasons spoke for that:
Large Edelstahlgefäß with incorporated Heizquelle motor to the stirring and pump to the Umfüllen incorporated are easy and wassersparende cleaning possibility accidentally saw I some days later a suitable washing machine in a colleague stand. It was defective (like itself later laid out, must only the condenser renewed become), and I was able to take it directly with home. So that the geschrotene malt did not fix itself on the Heizstäben and the pump did not clog, a type of giant tea bag was sewed out of material diaper. So the drum in the machine was able to remain and used become the motor stirring.
In a sample conduit - the machine naturally before was cleaned and the flow tube replaced become - was tested, theoretically reasoned functioned should be washed out whether that principle, for the contents materials yes out of the malt into the brow water. When this attempt was arrive, I went at the reconstruction of the machine.
Certainly it would be also possible to serve motor and heating per hand, but I searched for an automatic solution: the brow process should be driven over time sections to be selected freely and temperatures, and also the drum rotations should be freely eligible.
Therefore I removed the electromechanical control and replaced it through a row of relay, that individually can be addressed and drive water and flow, heating as well as motor to the left and/or to the right. The temperature measurement takes place via an electronic building block, that changes the temperature into digital impulses, that delivers water level measurement over a building block, that according to water pressure (=Füllstandshöhe) a corresponding tension, that is changed into digital signals.
The parallel interface of the PC gives the relatively simple possibility to address single tax directions and data directions. Through a C program, the beer brow washing machine is driven now.
A brow process looks now so:
The machine is connected to the water direction, that flow tubes hung out of security reason into the Spülbecken. The computer is connected and the program started. If the temperature is reached to the Einmaischen, the computer gives a signal and holds the machine on. Now the well locked bag with the malt on abundance and the cover is closed. The machine heats now up to the different Rastzeiten, the drum revolves in the intervals determined before. If the purification phase is terminated, bag and drum can be removed. For a better Ergiebigkeit, it is however meaningful let run the Sud in an external Läutergefäß once again through the Maische.
The Sud is heated now on 100 degrees and the hops in a little bag admitted. After an hour, the Sud is finished and can become into the Gärgefäß umgefüllt. If he cooled off himself on 20 degrees, the beer yeast in addition gift prepared before becomes.
The beer later is drawn-off some days of the yeast and in bottles umgefüllt where now the remainder fermentation worries for the necessary carbon dioxide pressure. Some weeks the beer is later finished.
Continuing literature:
Wolfgang left, fairs - taxes - rules over the parallel interface of the PC, Franzis publishing house Munich 1994
Slashdot Mirror
Incidentally, these new rules actually make me less lost. One of my biggest frustrations in the past has been guessing as to what the government means by "applicant". Developing the reports that need to go to the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has been an infuriating excercise for me in the past--I remember being pointed at several cabinets full of roughly categorized hardcopy resumes and official job application forms, along with countless electronic responses to job ads posted in various places, all of varying quality... and I was given a set of vague reporting requirements from the EEOC and told to work with a consultant and just "make it all go away".
Sadly, TFA (as others have pointed out) is not the greatest piece of reporting. The article makes the rules sound as if they're all brand new... and throws in a confusing and woefully incomplete statement about the statistics involved in recruiting--"diverse and random" is important, but the brief sentence devoted to it makes it sound as if companies are out there filling a hat with the names of anyone but white males and hiring the first people they pull out of the hat.
The new rules don't really introduce any drastically different practices--they mostly clarify guidelines that have existed for a long time. Now that the OFCCP has finally defined what they mean by "applicant", I'll be able to develop the reports they and other government agencies require without nearly as much guesswork as I had been forced to use before. And, contrary to the picture painted by TFA, the day-to-day process of posting jobs and filling positions won't really change. If anything, we'll be able to more accurately define the process and therefore be able to automate more of it, and keep human bias from affecting how the "applicant" pool is built--i.e., because no human will actually need to look at an "application" until sex/race data has been automatically stripped and stored in a separate table that users (HR/recruiters/managers) don't have access to, the users' personal biases will (hopefully) not enter into the process.
I know many of you probably won't believe me... but at least at my company, there's no great conspiracy where hiring is concerned... we're all just trying to make sure we get the right person in the right job without letting the position stay open forever. If the recruiters are doing their jobs right, the applicant pool should be sufficiently diverse to meet the government's requirements, and if the interviewers/managers are doing their jobs right, the people ultimately selected for jobs will be a representative cross-section of the applicant pool. The right people get the right jobs, the company gets good people in positions it needs filled, and no one gets sued. And, now that the government has made my job a little easier, I might get to go home after less than 4 hours of "casual" (unpaid) overtime more often.
http://esa.un.org/unpp/
Last I read, the world population was a little less than that.... http://esa.un.org/unup/p2k0data.asp
Before you break out your Little Red Books and start chanting "Workers of the World Unite!" you may want to RTFA.
The "Eureka Groups" mentioned in the article were formed for the express purpose of fostering the development of expertise and sharing of knowledge within the larger organization. The groups were self-governing in that they elected "leaders", but these people--and everyone else in the groups--had day jobs. They all had bosses. Their bosses had bosses, and their bosses' bosses... and so on... whose boss' "boss" were the shareholders of the company.
An egalitarian, colegial environment is usually what you see when ideas are the main currency of the organization. But once you start talking about cold, hard cash, accountability (e.g., who did the shareholders entrust their money with) becomes paramount. Particularly as the goals of the organization become larger, more formal command structures become necessary just to keep track of the sheer complexity of the business.
In the end, whenever you talk about getting together with other people to accomplish some sort of task--be it producing edible food on an organic farm, or designing and assembling a full automotive product line--someone needs to decide how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. You can take your pick when it comes to governance--the structure you need will depend on what you're trying to accomplish--but you'll always need to find some way of making decisions, setting direction, etc.
Now, if you want to talk about actual business decisions being made democratically, the best example is... drum roll, please... a democratic government. Want a good example of a product created by a democratic government? The Space Shuttle comes to mind...
In any event, it's easy to sit in a cubicle knee-deep in code, engineering drawings, etc, and wonder what your boss does all day. While you're sitting there, posting on Slashdot and contemplating the ways in which you might be able to avoid doing things you don't like doing, your boss is involved in deciding what kind of work you're actually going to be paid to do.
For those of you who read German-English machine translations better than I do,
I've pasted one below. Maybe it's just that I'm too lazy to read
closely... but can anyone figure out how the heck this guy cranks enough heat
out of the machine to achieve a rolling boil?
Beer brow with PC and washing machine - we came a report through Jean Pütz and the "Hobbythek" on the idea to brew even once beer. The first attempt took place as INDUSTRIAL TRADE UNION in a vacations warehouse: the groups leaders got given a bottle apiece of "Hankenberger-Lager-Bier of the participants to the end of the warehouse". Did after the Verkostung the question stand: "and when we brew the next time?"
In the following 3 years, there was a row of brow trial with different persons circle. Again and again the problem stood to find a suitable brow container and a suitable Heizquelle.
Three years ago, we had the idea, an old washing machine (Toplader) for brewing umzubauen. Following reasons spoke for that:
Large Edelstahlgefäß with incorporated Heizquelle motor to the stirring and pump to the Umfüllen incorporated are easy and wassersparende cleaning possibility accidentally saw I some days later a suitable washing machine in a colleague stand. It was defective (like itself later laid out, must only the condenser renewed become), and I was able to take it directly with home. So that the geschrotene malt did not fix itself on the Heizstäben and the pump did not clog, a type of giant tea bag was sewed out of material diaper. So the drum in the machine was able to remain and used become the motor stirring.
In a sample conduit - the machine naturally before was cleaned and the flow tube replaced become - was tested, theoretically reasoned functioned should be washed out whether that principle, for the contents materials yes out of the malt into the brow water. When this attempt was arrive, I went at the reconstruction of the machine.
Certainly it would be also possible to serve motor and heating per hand, but I searched for an automatic solution: the brow process should be driven over time sections to be selected freely and temperatures, and also the drum rotations should be freely eligible.
Therefore I removed the electromechanical control and replaced it through a row of relay, that individually can be addressed and drive water and flow, heating as well as motor to the left and/or to the right. The temperature measurement takes place via an electronic building block, that changes the temperature into digital impulses, that delivers water level measurement over a building block, that according to water pressure (=Füllstandshöhe) a corresponding tension, that is changed into digital signals.
The parallel interface of the PC gives the relatively simple possibility to address single tax directions and data directions. Through a C program, the beer brow washing machine is driven now.
A brow process looks now so:
The machine is connected to the water direction, that flow tubes hung out of security reason into the Spülbecken. The computer is connected and the program started. If the temperature is reached to the Einmaischen, the computer gives a signal and holds the machine on. Now the well locked bag with the malt on abundance and the cover is closed. The machine heats now up to the different Rastzeiten, the drum revolves in the intervals determined before. If the purification phase is terminated, bag and drum can be removed. For a better Ergiebigkeit, it is however meaningful let run the Sud in an external Läutergefäß once again through the Maische.
The Sud is heated now on 100 degrees and the hops in a little bag admitted. After an hour, the Sud is finished and can become into the Gärgefäß umgefüllt. If he cooled off himself on 20 degrees, the beer yeast in addition gift prepared before becomes.
The beer later is drawn-off some days of the yeast and in bottles umgefüllt where now the remainder fermentation worries for the necessary carbon dioxide pressure. Some weeks the beer is later finished.
Continuing literature:
Wolfgang left, fairs - taxes - rules over the parallel interface of the PC, Franzis publishing house Munich 1994