It appears that the bigger an organisation becomes, the longer the job titles of management develop. Here in Australia we have not succumbed to having vice-presidents as in the USA but we have executive project directors or executive general managers. These titles can morph into wonderful handles such as Executive General Manager – Sustainability and Green Star Initiatives. Seriously someone gave me their business card recently at some junket and that is what it read. pretty soon this person will have to have special business cards made to fit his title.
I am unsure if these expanded titles are bestowed upon employees in lieu of pay rises but to make them feel important, to be one of the chosen elite, to have perceived importance and status.
One future development, I would support, would be to have business cards replaced with electronic lapel labels. They could be called iTags. The iTag could be worn proudly with the person’s name and title and would wirelessly update your phone/iPads contacts.
A further refinement could be that when we have meetings these electronic iTags would change their display to how much per minute the person costs the company and up on the electronic inter active white board there would be a running total of how much the meeting was costing.
This caused me to recall my time at a now long defunct company. Is it too far-fetched to consider every employee just like a running taxi meter?. Perhaps not, because when one of these Executive Senior General Head of Whatever asks the site foreman a question which is so dumb a fresh-faced apprentice could answer, we would all see that these “promoted to the level of their own inefficiency” managers are probably contributing nil and costing twenty times more than the person to whom they asked the question.
PREMDALE CONSULTING 