With a view to the current European crises and the new CDR procedure, R&D Ispra organises for all staff a lecture from the perspective of a former HR specialist from the banking sector.

"Bonuses and appraisal procedures (e.g. CDR) are not well designed, de-motivate staff and do not lead to better performance"

The speaker

That is the opinion of Dr. Kilian Wawoe, a Human Resources specialist, who wrote his thesis on "bonuses & banking". Almost his whole professional life he worked for a big international bank in various places across Europe and Asia. In his last function as Head of Human Resources for west & south Europe. He discovered in his research project that what he was doing in his daily job, e.g. paying bonuses to bankers, was one of the reasons of the financial crisis. He left the bank in 2010 to become a professor and consultant on Performance Measurement & Reward. 

Whistleblower

As a whistleblower he flagged the risks of the bonus system, in- and later outside the company. Mr. Wawoe is a much acknowledged and frequently invited speaker. His aim is to achieve a mentality change in staff rewarding, in order to prevent that a huge majority of taxpayers have to pay for the benefits of a small minority. For example, the takeover of Banca AntonVeneta in Padova which was the beginning of the end for ABN-AMRO: the staff that completed the deal were rewarded huge bonuses, the tax-payers however lost EUR 20.000.000.000,-.

The lecture

Based on his experience, Kilian Wawoe will explain in an accessible and entertaining way what and how it went wrong. Furthermore he will address staff-rewarding systems in general from a socio psychological point of view. We would be very interested to hear his opinion on our rewarding system and especially in a research environment. So if you want to know how a wrong staff rewarding system created the problems we are all facing now, please attend the lecture. The lecture is free of charge and will be held in English.

 

When: 20th January 2012, h. 10.30

Another year has almost passed and you might be worried what 2012 will bring to you, your family and friends, Europe or maybe the whole world. It is definitely not the easiest moment. We all know that those who are against a possible regulation of the financial markets are as well the owners of the newspapers and TV channels. And, let’s not forget, a manipulated public is made believe by misleading media (often steered by the very profiteers of the current crisis) that it is good news when these nasty, overpaid and useless civil servants are getting punished.  

Where are R&D and the JRC standing in this complex situation?

As R&D Ispra we are aware of the importance and impact of the financial markets and we would welcome more JRC involvement in this issue. For this reason we have organised a presentation on the bonus and rewarding culture given by an external banking expert to all staff in the new Auditorium on Friday 20 January 2012 10:30.

Having been the leading force behind the harmonisation of the JRC administrative processes, the first Scientific Open Competitions ever and the move of the JRC to the heart of the Commission, we can conclude that at least for the moment, taking also very well into consideration what is happening "outside", we are not the worst off. That doesn't mean that we are happy with the way the JRC reorganisation was communicated to staff or that we will just accept the proposed changes of the staff regulations. The problem of the proposal for the new Staff  Regulations is the intention behind it and what the Council will do with it. If the modifications were proposed to improve the efficiency of the European Commission, reducing the costs at the same moment, it would have been easier to accept them. But we have the strong impression that the intention of the proposal is to weaken the European Institutions. However, what is happening didn't just come out of the sky; we informed you in our 2008 electoral programme under the Crystal Ball chapter. We guarantee that R&D will continue to defend your future, accepting compromises on, for example, working hours but strongly against a further abuse of temporary staff on permanent jobs or weird calculations of the Correction Coefficient.