ShellNews.net: leaked Shell email spells trouble for Irina Gordiyenko

By John Donovan

As regular visitors to this website know, we receive a regular flow of leaked Shell emails and other information brought to our attention by Shell insiders. A substantial proportion relate to the subject of employee recruitment.

For example, a few days ago we reported on Shell’s attempt to recruit a dozen investigators to cope with some 200 cases of fraud, contract corruption, bribery, money-laundering and organised crime per year inside the Shell Group (is that just within Shell senior management?): Shell to investigate fraud and corruption inside Shell Group

Shell is desperately trying to find new specialist staff because management made a monumental blunder several years ago by getting rid of many highly experienced people during the so called “transformation” process instituted by the then Shell Group Chairman, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart. As a consequence of the ruthless cost-cutting cull of loyal employees, some of whom had worked for Shell for decades, Shell now finds itself in the position of trying to recruit at a time of considerable shortage of specialist expertise in the oil industry. (And word is reaching us that Shell is contemplating another cull of managers in the salary group A and B level, i.e. the echelons below the ‘real’ brass, but as soon as that starts we will let you know. All these guys know already and are looking around outside Shell for quite a while. They also represent the last group of people that still have a bit of the old norms, values and knowledge about the business. Once these are gone, the transformation started by Moody-Stuart will be complete, and there will only be people left who know how to tick a box in a process and say yes to the boss).

The whole exercise is made more interesting by burgeoning EU regulations and Shell bureaucracy, plus an enthusiasm for pc policies. All of this, combined with a tendency to treat Shell staff involved in the recruitment process as being dim, has resulted in guidelines for dummies (authored by idiots), as per the recent leaked Shell email featured below.

It was sent by Irina Gordiyenko, a “Talent, Learning and Resoursing Advisor”. Most of us make typing errors from time to time in our emails, but one would have thought that for the sake of setting an example, a “Talent, Learning and Resoursing Advisor” would use a spell check program. But Irina must be a clever girl, because she proclaimed in her email that her outfit already is ahead of the rest with their ‘global best practice’. Clearly she is fishing for a bonus this year! We hope she gets one too. Women should be rewarded handsomely to show they are not discriminated against!!

One of the links below the email is to a “terminology guide” (one of the items mentioned in the email) in which the same basic guideline is repeated 10 times, thereby treating recipients as if they are children learning by rote instead of the brightest and the best. This is rubbish sent by well paid grown up people to other very well paid and very clever people. The mind boggles. Underneath the link is an explanation on some of the abbreviations used in the guide. It was kindly supplied by a Shell insider.

We feel confident that Shell management will not mind us drawing attention to these matters bearing in mind that this website has achieved the status of being an important and dynamic communications medium (unpaid) within the Shell Group.  Due to the interactive daily participation of Shell insiders around the globe, it has taken on the role of being the heart and conscience of Shell. By the end of January we will break through the two million hits per month barrier for the first time. We may well be receiving more traffic than www.shell.com. Our Live Chat facility is more interactive, lively and busier than the “Tell Shell” forum was in its heyday, before it was “suspended” in November 2005 after we exposed secret censorship by Shell.

THE LEAKED EMAIL

—–Original Message—–
From:   Gordiyenko, Irina SIEP-EPH-G 
Sent:   donderdag 18 januari 2007 10:46

To:     Abd-Rahim, Emilda SIEP-EPH-G; Austin, Angela SIEP-EPH-G; Denie, Til MMA SIEP-EPH-G; Devonish, Veronica V SIEP-EPH-G; Djurrema, Rudi SIEP-EPH-G; Economu, Steliana SIEP-EPH-G; Gentzel, Nancy SIEP-EPH-G; Halick, Anne AE SIEP-EPH-G; Harbin, Frank F SIEP-EPH-G; Jin, Henry Z SIEP-EPH-G; Kaya, Aynur A SIEP-EPH-G; Mason, Stephan W SIEP-EPH-G; Phung, Andrew SIEP-EPH-G; Roelfs, Christel SIEP-EPH-G; Sidorova, Anna SIEP-EPH-G; Ten Velden, Mira SIEP-EPH-G; Van Bennekom, Ingrid IME SIEP-EPH-G; Van der Laan, Karin SIEP-EPH-G; Voogt, Astrid A SIEP-EPH-G; Woldhuis, Kelly O SIEP-EPH-G; Barela, Gina SIEP-EPT-WCP; Brock, Judith SIEP-EPT-SCCT; De Wit, Siska S SIEP-EPH-G; Hempenstall, Amanda A SIEP-EPH-G; Mulder, Marga MJE SIEP-EPT-RCC; Reparon-Nagel, Anneke JTM SIEP-EPT-VAS; Richards, Carolyn E SIEP-EPT-SCQE; Verweij, Mirjam M SIEP-EPT-SE
Cc:     Arabome, Anthony E SIEP-EPH-G; Arokyla, Timo Y SIEP-EPH-G; Baglin, Ross R SIEP-EPH-G; Davis, Gregory GM SIEP-EPH-G; Gouwens, Annemiek M SIEP-EPH-G; Lazare, Pascale SIEP-EPH-G; Silver, Kathy SIEP-EPH-G; Kamp, Adriaan SIEP-EPT-PNR; Knotter, Althea SIEP-EPT-PNR; Moeckell, Judith J SIEP-EPH-G; Pasman, Michel SIEP-EPH-G; Roosens, Karolien SIEP-EPH-G; Valles, Peter SIEP-EPH-G; Washington, Carol C SIEP-EPH-G; Wijsman, Chris CJ SIEP-EPH-G; Woodcock, Helen SIEP-EPH-G; Saunders, Neil DN SIEP-EPH-RR; Reiziger, Irene IP SIEP-EPH-B

Subject: MOR jd and interviewing – effect of Age Legislation

Dear all,

This is to draw your attention to the effect of New Age Legislation UK/ EU on job descriptions and MOR and need to adapt job descriptions and interview questions to the requirements of the law.

Note the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 became UK law on 1st October 2006. Although derived from EU Directive, it has global implications. Respective changes have been adopted already as ‘best practice’ globally by A&R to ensure adherance to legal compliance and Shell’s global standards.

The essence is that explicit or indirect reference to individual age/ years on experience might be recognised as discriminatory, potentially leading to litigations.

The reference to number of years of experience should be by defining the experience as substantial, significant, etc. – the Clock faces .ppt below contains the agreed references.

I attach below the LiveLink to the full set of legislation guidence documents. However, those 3 below will give yourself and the line managers a quick reference to Do’s and Don’t when preparing job desriptions and interviewing.

http://siepteam-livelink.shell.com/teamsiep/livelink.exe?func=ll&objId=7937713&objAction=browse&sort=name (not accessible to non-shell staff)
<> <> <>

• A reminder on the schedule – the outline of jobs should be recorded in the MOR tool by 21st January for prioritisation and the full job descriptions by 10th Feb 2007.

Please work with your line managers to make them aware of the impact and requirements of Age legislation.

• Update on MOR batches status as of today: 26 jobs recorded and 10 candidates in 720. There are 2 more working days left to complete recording of outline of jobs. The local batch 737 contained a job on expat T&C – please correct to local – as this is the Local batch.

• Note the MOR system is down for maintenance every Thursday, 13:00 to 14:00 CET.

Let me know if any queries,

Kind regards,
Irina
Irina Gordiyenko
Talent, Learning and Resoursing Advisor
Shell International Exploration and Production B.V.
Kesslerpark 1, 2288 GS  Rijswijk (ZH), The Netherlands
Tel: +31(070) 447 4477
Email:
Internet: http://www.shell.com/eandp-en

EMAIL ENDS

LINKS:

Terminology Guide

Clock Faces

Do’s and Don’t Quick Guide

Some explanation on abbreviations:

MOR = Managed Open Resourcing (in the past people were moved to those places that were best for the business and own development, since 10 yrs people have to find jobs themselves on an internal bulletinboard (= Open Resourcing) and it has been a failure from the start. So, since Shell NEVER goes back or admits they were wrong, they introduced Managed OR…. Nobody knows or understands how it works. The effect is that the nicest and best jobs/locations go to a small inner circle of ‘connected’ people. And Nigeria is starved of talent and so is Sakhalin. And guess once where there are major problems?

jd = I have no idea, perhaps job development?
Expat T&C = Expat Terms and Conditions

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