Is this the biggest load of tripe you've read?

[bobby47]

Richard Woolley is Director of Resources at Herefordshire Housing. ‘We saw the refurbishment of our main office as an essential part of the change management process,’ he says. ‘So whatever we did not only had to offer exceptional value for money, it also had to help us deliver more and better services to all of our residents and other stakeholders as well as offering us the chance to improve the way we perform as an organisation and as individuals. For those reasons we had to work with a company that ’got’ us as an organisation so that they could take part in the process of change, help us work better as an organisation and a business and deliver outstanding results. We’re delighted not only that Fresh Workspace were more than able to deliver but also challenge us with new ideas.’

 

The first step was to make a bold but welcoming statement to people from the moment they walk in the door. Behind the revamped reception is the new beating heart of the building, a hub space with eye-catching floor to ceiling graphics, soft seating, flat screen televisions, benches, tables, kitchen and breakfast bar, which not only functions as a breakout space for colleagues but also as a welcome space for residents and other visitors. The space is fully equipped with WiFi so is usable by anybody.

 

‘It was essential that the design should break down silos,’ explains Richard Woolley. ‘Not just those that may exist between members of the internal team but with tenants and everybody with whom we work. It’s a space for everybody. We wanted the lack of hierarchy and vibrancy we had introduced as an organisation to be evident in the design of the refurbishment. We needed the culture we had to be reflected in the places we work and meet.’

...........................................................................

This pile of pigswill and rancid excrement serves to illustrate why our public services and agents acting for them are completely detached from reality and have an overwhelmingly negative impact upon each and everyone of us.

This culture of pointless management speak was given a foothold upon all of us during the formative years of New Labour. Now, after years of denying commonsense and practical operational ability a way in through the management door, we are now subject to a stranglehold by these people who can produce this rubbish. And it is rubbish. If there is anything within this that you can admire and marvel at, it is the relative ease in which they can shovel this garbage out.

Me? I think its frightening that this culture continues to exist unchallenged by those with commonsense, operational ability and a tongue to say, 'No more. We've had enough of this corporate gibberish. Be gone. Leave us be!

[ragwert]

http://www.freshworkspace.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Fresh-case-study-Hereford.pdf

[dippyhippy]

What on earth is a "breakout space"??

And precisely what is its purpose?

More pointedly, how much money has been spent on it, when many folk are living in sub standard property?

As an organisation, do they not "get" why people are cheesed off with this sort of complete and utter nonsense. I am sure Herefordshire Housing residents could have come up with a variety of different uses for the money which has been spent on this refurbishment.

And if Richard wants ideas that "challenge" him, I am sure posters on here could come up with quite a few!

[silent bull]

Nice to see 'our' money being spent wisely ;-)

[bobby47]

And it is our money. Oh, they'll say, we are nothing to do with the Council. We are a private charitable company and we'll spend our money as we see fit.

Well, when the Council handed over their property portfolio of thousands of properties, these once belonged to us. They were ours, bequeathed to us by the toil and labours of our Great Grandparents and our Grandparents who, after fighting two World Wars, set to work on a huge nationally funded building programme that was to ensure that us, their descendants would be able to live in them and build our own families and increase the wealth of our nation.

That was the promise. That's why they worked and toiled and built. They built a future for us and our offspring. And now? The promise has gone. It's been broken by asset stripping suits, who, with the flick of a wrist and the push of a pen, have signed away any say we have in how our homes are dished out and, more importantly, who can make money and profit from our inheritance.

It's all gone. Lost and swallowed up by the corporate machine that bleats, 'we've gotta pay the best if we want the best', and on and on the game goes. Profit, Gain. High Salaries and huge pension pots that the rest of us can only dream of.

[Ubique]

‘It was essential that the design should break down silos,’ explains Richard Woolley. ‘

 

One advantage of reading the posts on the HV is that at even my late stage in life I learn a new meaning of a word - silos .

 

Also learnt that Silos ,while beneficial when used properly , can be abused . One of the behaviours that is prevalent in silos is local optimisation where decisions get made that are good for the silos , but may be bad for others or the company , my research also suggests that it can push people to become very secretive and not want to share anything with the people they should be sharing information with .

[bobby47]

A silo! In darker days, when war with the East was a possibility, a silo was a vast concrete cylinder secreted beneath the ground, reinforced by giant steel rods and it contained a missile. Now, certainly within Hereford Housing and Im guessing the entire public service, it now means something completely different. It's all rubbish. Bloody silo!

[Cambo]

& a breakfast bar & kitchen well fancy that treating themselves to bacon sandwich's @ our expense… they might as well have stuck a bar in while they were @ it so as they could have a drink on us all too?!

[bobby47]

And I'll tell you what I think to my favourite bit. This little slice of pleasure comes tumbling out, hits you smack between the eyes and adds weight to the argument that whoever invented the printing press needs flogging.

Here it is. Ready! Whoever we chose to carry out this work had to 'get us'! Ain't it a beauty. You don't get that said very often do you?

'Get Us'! Sweet loving Jesus. I can tell you one thing for nothing, Fresh Workspace would have 'got them' straight a bloody way.

They'd have muttered, 'we've landed on our feet here lads. We are dealing with a highly unusual organisation that's based its entire ethos of management on undiluted bollocks'

[Denise Lloyd]

Never having had any direct dealings with Herefordshire Housing I always thought naively they were ok guys but now having read that crap and other comments on here I realise that they are just the same as another large organisation in this county.  In it for themselves and everybody else can go whistle.  Mind you I see they have changed their logo on their vehicles always a bit dodgy isn't it a tax fiddle or something along those lines. Disillusioned again I will learn one day.