Dear All,
One important aspect of the monthly Design Review Meetings which myself and Henry attend with K. Jon is the issue of site experience of all our Designers.
Clearly the regular place of work of all Design staff is here in the Bangkok office (except Henry of course) but it is normal in most organisations within the façade industry for design staff to show a willingness to attend site or a design review meeting when requested to do so and it is on the job site where most experienced is gained in the development of individuals as you can see the issues which can arise onsite which are sometimes directly attributable to the design process.
This e-mail is not about getting designers to spend days or weeks on a job site as clearly we are a busy Dept and as I have already said your regular please of work is here in the BKK Office, but I have spoken to K. Ray, K. Rolf and K. Ray Seymour about the company's need to get more site experience within our design groups and they have agreed to work with me on this by encouraging designers to go with them and attend project sites for a day as and when the opportunity arises.
The initial focus is going to be on the Thailand projects such as The Residence, K. Vicha's house, Swiss Embassy, Chambord and any other future residential or retail project in Thailand and this message is not just directed at yourselves as Team Leaders but also at your colleagues who are directly involved with the design of these projects. If you are too busy to go then assign one of your team colleagues to go with the Project Manager and make the necessary arrangements to either meet at a convenient location them or preferably go with them in the car to attend site together.
By copy to this Ray/Rolf/Ray S: The more notice we can have on this the better so we can plan our resource around any individuals attending sites with you.
This is normal practice guys within this industry. I expect you guys as Team Leaders to manage this situation within your respective teams and when I come to do the individual appraisals at the end of the year the willingness of your colleagues to attend sites as and when requested will be a factor within the overall performance of each individual, so you need to make your team members aware of this.
At my next monthly meeting with K. Jon in July I have been asked to report on which individuals have attended sites and when? I will consult with the PM's before this in order to get their take on whether there is a willingness to go with them or they have faced some resistance to this issue?
Please manage this both individually and collectively amongst your team members and make them aware that this is not about putting them in a difficult situation on site but more over it's about individual development within MBM which can only help in the long term both professionally and of course financially.
Thanks.
Kind Regards,