Some of the appointment decisions in this country over the last 2 decades or perhaps more beat my small but thought-provoking mind. Why would a transport company of any size need 3 Deputy CEOs to run efficiently? I looked up a few of the well-run transport businesses across the globe and found the following:
- Northern rail runs 3,500 services daily covering over 500 stations involving 345 trains. They have one MD and no Deputy MDs
- Transport For London (tfl) runs the Underground rail service, overground service, the Elizabeth Line, Trams, and the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). The Underground tube service alone moves about 4 million passengers per day, the buses move about 5million passengers per day, Elizabeth moves over 700,000 passengers per day while the DLR moves over 600,000 passengers a day . This humongous organisation has one MD (commissioner) and no Deputy MDs.
- The world’s biggest airline, Delta Airlines runs with a CEO and 1 President. No Deputy CEOs. Delta operates over 900 aircrafts and over 70,000 employees and flies over 520,000 passengers daily.
- Emirates Airlines has one President (CEO) and no Deputy CEOs yet it operates 260 aircrafts and flies over 140,000 passengers daily
- Ethiopian Airlines has 1 Group CEO and no Deputy CEOs but operates 154 aircrafts.
The above are just a few of the well-run Transport Companies in the world and it’s clear that they have a strategy of keeping the top lean and less heavy.
The nomenclature you assign to a role can have significant impact on the size of compensation that is tagged to it. If the Deputy MD Operations’ role is to run the day-to-day operations of the company, call it Head of Operations or given the span of control, you might want to refer to the role as the chief Operating Officer.
The way to make organisations, particularly, State Owned Corporations ineffective and less efficient is to make the top-heavy resulting in unnecessary bureaucratic red tapes.
How can a struggling company like Intercity STC which operates about 145 buses with just about 50 roadworthy buses and unable to finance payment of workers’ pension deductions, have 3 Deputy MDs? It just beats my small brains.
Strategy without commensurate structure, they say, is bound to fail. Keep the company lean and efficient, declare profit for the state, pay workers well and we will all be clapping for you. We will not clap for an array of MDs and their Deputies who are superintending over failing businesses.
This is the take of a troubled tax payer.
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