Day 202 - 11 Jan 96 - Page 16
1
2 Then it says: "As a way of seeking solutions, John Atherton
3 suggested that Ray Coton should retrain, going through the
4 basic management programme designed for trainee managers
5 but without taking the exam."
6
7 Mr. Skehel remembers that. Do you remember that?
8 A. I remember the discussion of various options for Ray to
9 help him to address the problems he was having in managing
10 his restaurant and suggesting that he could take some
11 retraining to enable him to cope, was one of those
12 suggestions.
13
14 Q. How many Managers go through retraining? Is that something
15 that is fairly -----
16 A. Well, within the Company, it is common for people to do
17 refresher courses after a while; and, also, it would be
18 common if you had a problem with the performance of one of
19 the managers, you have discussion with him about that. If
20 he thought it would be useful for him to do that, then we
21 would send him on a course just to refresh himself on that.
22
23 Q. So, it is not a punishment thing; it is something that is
24 available for Managers at any suitable time?
25 A. It is available for Managers, and normally done
26 systematically; round about after five years or so you
27 would go back, because things would have changed on the
28 course. But it is unusual -- it is an indicator of poor
29 performance to suggest that you need to go on a retraining
30 course to help you resolve the problems you are having
31 within the restaurant.
32
33 Q. Who would write up the reports of these kind of meetings
34 where you review somebody's career or present position; who
35 would write that up as a report?
36 A. It would be -- a report was not always written up when
37 you would discuss these things. I think, with Ray, my
38 recollection is that there was an ongoing dialogue with him
39 about this. So, if we are just referring to the meeting
40 that we talked about before, that was not written up; that
41 was, you know, a face to face discussion.
42
43 Q. When a Manager ends their time at McDonald's over a period
44 of time and their performance is being reviewed and various
45 options being put forward, goals and objectives and all the
46 other stuff are coming out, being discussed, whose
47 responsibility would it be to write a report of that so
48 that people know what is going on, so that the personnel
49 department knows what is going on, operations department
50 knows what is going on? Who would be responsible for that?
51 A. In the case of Ray, the communication was slightly
52 better than writing a report. Neil had involved me, and I
53 was involved with discussing with Ray.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you talking about the reviews which we
56 have seen copies of from the personnel files?
57
58 MR. MORRIS: No. I mean the reports of these meetings, this
59 series of meetings.
60
