Introduction: – I currently work as part of a Shift team in the Data Centre Environment; this is structured as follows
• Our team consists of an Area General Manager.
• Below Him is the Contract Manager.
• This then branches off to 4 teams of two engineers, one is a Shift Manager (Me) and the other is a Shift Tech.
• This team of Engineers run a continental shift pattern of days and nights.
• On a shift orientation, shift Managers have to manage four other staff members.
• Within the team is 2 Day engineers who work a five days a week, one of the engineers is a fully trained Electrician, the other is a Fabric Engineer.
• We also have an onsite IT Engineer who assists with the onsite IT structure and Security IT.
• The Shift Managers tasks consist of daily briefings with the other Engineers, and management of any sub-contractors that may be on site to carry out any critical equipment maintenance. Shift Managers are also responsible for ensuring team trainings kept up to date along with maintaining a specific service level agreement (SLA) for the client.
• There is a great emphasis placed on how tasks are managed onsite as there is little room for error in this environment, this is due to the high financial, and health and safety risks and costs to the client and their customers.
• At all times the client requires the onsite shift teams to deal with any onsite, unforeseen emergencies affecting the whole site or individual Clients within the Data Centre’s Halls.
Know how to plan work in the workplace
Organisational targets identified, in order of priority as relevant to my particular job role, team and site contract.
• Facility and Server System up time must be 100% : – Due to the nature of my role in the Data Centre industry, the Facility and its server systems must remain 100% operational at all times and must maintain full service 24/7 365 with zero outages, as laid out in Data Centre Tier four specifications.
• Corrective Maintenance must be closed out within 4 hours: – Again due to the nature of my role in the Data Centre industry, if we have ANY critical break downs occur during our 12 hour shifts, these MUST be managed and closed out within 4 hours, with ZERO client server system down time.
• Team training and development targets: – Training and development targets are important for our teams, as it allows for specialist equipment on site to have the correctly trained operatives using and maintaining it. This must be within 3 months of initial exposure to the site equipment, this helps reduce human and equipment error in our Environment.
• Customer satisfaction regarding service provided by our onsite team: – Our teams must ensure our customer receives a minimum service level agreement of at least 92% on a monthly basis, as set out in agreed KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators).
Constructing a clear and positive objective assists the implementation of change, the delivery and the communication and engagement of the people involved. Objectives should be SMART:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time bound
S.M.A.R.T objective’s to help our teams to achieve the previous listed Targets
Facility and System up time must be 100%: –
SMART objective: On-site shift teams must maintain 100% operation of Facility equipment and its systems performance along with all Data Hall environmental conditions. Teams must maintain full Facility equipment and environment condition capacity at 100%,(temperature and humidity readings trended hourly by onsite teams) 24/7 365 with zero outages to customer services on a daily basis as per Tier four Data Centre design.
Corrective Maintenance must be closed out within 4 hours: –
SMART objective: Continually monitor and measure Teams corrective critical maintenance breakdown tasks. This will be measured weekly by random auditing of the teams critical task activities, to ensure the team is consistently within the 4 hour site specific completion target.
Team training and development targets: –
SMART objective: All shift teams will receive training on HITEC Diesel Rotary Uninterrupted Power System operation. This is to include fault diagnosis principals; this will be complete within three months of whole team exposure to site equipment, to prevent human error and equipment risks.
Client is satisfied with service provided by our onsite team:-
SMART objective: Increase our clients SLA by 8% from the minimum 92% to the full 100% before the end of March 2016. This is measured monthly by regularly submitting client satisfaction surveys regarding KPI statistics. This also involves site teams applying improved effort towards each measured KPI.
Suggested action plan for objective chosen.
Client/CBRE target: This site-based example; involves training required for specialist equipment on site, and have the correctly trained operative’s onsite; this example involves training required for HITEC Diesel Rotary Uninterrupted Power System operation and fault diagnosis principals. This is a company and client (Infinity) request.
Individual target: We will develop and train team Engineers with improved skills, expertise, and knowledge regarding correct operational and monitoring procedures linked to the HITEC Diesel Rotary Uninterrupted Power System units, by attending a workshop/course before the end of March 2016.
Description:
• Initial Meeting organised with the client regarding training requirements including what they expect to gain from proposed training investment.
• The meeting will be in late January 2016 with key members of infinity’s operational team. The meeting needs to identify if the training can be financially facilitated by the client and is it financially viable? Infinity will foot the full financial costs of the training.
• Along with this, all the Engineers trained in one go, if not there has to be more than one course. The course will have to be done over two training dates to take account for Team Engineers on shift leave.
• The training will be facilitated and completed by the CBRE sub-contractor (HITEC) and will be split over two training sessions. Sub-contractor HITEC confirmed two suggested training day availabilities and to submit costs to client Infinity direct.
• Our client expects all training completed by, or no later than early March 2016 as stipulated.
Time scale:
• Initial meeting has been organised for late January 2016 with key members of Infinity’s operational team along with key CBRE operations team.
• All Team’s Shift Engineers on site invited to weekly team meetings, and by e-mail and personal contact by end February 2016 that attendance is a statutory. All Shift Engineers allocated training dates.
• All Shift team members who attend the HITEC training course will be put on approved operators list on site with names and contact numbers for quick access.
• By early March 2016, all Shift team members who have participated in HITEC training course are to apply knowledge/skills at work within 1 month.
Explain how to monitor and control the planned objective.
Monitoring of the planned objective requires weekly meetings to evaluate the progress of the planned training schedules as outlined above. Individual performance will be monitored, progression of individuals on course(s). Questions will be asked around attendance, pass rates, no attendance, and cancellation of courses. Consideration will be given to new staff, and staff that have left employment to ensure that the correct number of staff are trained at all times.
Know how to allocate work to team members
Identified resources to complete the team training
Resources for the planned activity start with a meeting with key members of the CBRE site operations team and the client to gain an understanding of their requirements along with available or required budgets for the activity. The next requirement is how the trainings facilitated, in this case, CBRE are required to place site Engineers on critical equipment training, provided from one of CBRE sub-contractors and all costs are to be meet by the client. Another resource factor taken in to account is staff overtime will be paid for engineers on shift leave who attend the course on their days off. The client has agreed to meet all costs of training and overtime for this specific activity.
Explain how to allocate the training to the team members.
Confirm the training required of the team with my manager and seek clarification, where necessary, on any outstanding points and issues. Plan how my team will undertake its required training, identifying any priorities or critical activities required, making effective use of the available resources.
Allocation of the training to all team members on a fair basis taking account of:
• Their skills, knowledge, and competence
• Their backgrounds and experience
• Their existing workloads
• Opportunities for their development
Brief my team members on the training they have been allocated and the standard of performance expected from them after the training. Encourage my team members to ask questions, make suggestions, and seek clarification in relation to the training they have been allocated, this will be done through a pre-training question & answer meeting. Address any concerns my team members may have about the training requirements through the pre-training Q&A meeting.
Assess and support my teams, and individual performance in achieving training objective.
• To achieve the critical equipment training objective, a full explanations given to the teams and individuals regarding the reason and the purpose and expectation of the training.
• Opportunities for my teams and individuals to monitor and assess their own training performance against planned training objective, this can be by personal one to one meetings if required.
• Self-monitoring of teams and individuals carried out to maintain and improve performance for the planned training.
• Assessment of the performance of my teams and individuals, based on sufficient, valid, and reliable information, this should be assessed objectively, against agreed criteria and should ensure that assessments take due account of the personal circumstances of my team members and the organisational constraints on their work as to their attendance for the training.
• Provide feedback to my teams and individuals, which helps them to maintain and improve their performance before and after the agreed training this may involve issuing my team some type of pre-training to assist with technical understanding of the critical equipment .
• Provide my team members and individuals with suggestions and encouragement, along with some technical support for improving future performance against their current training and development objectives
• Give opportunities to my teams and individuals to respond to feedback, and to recommend how they could improve their performance in the future after training has been completed
All these factors help contribute to the teams and individuals meeting potential to achieve the required training on the critical site equipment.
Understand how to improve the performance of a team in delivering to plan
A possible cause of variance from the planned activity for this particular example would be all the team engineers have been booked to attend the critical equipment training with the agreed company subcontractor. This has been paid for upfront by the client and is a, per head costing for training. A phone call from two of the engineers confirms sickness; they are unavailable to attend the agreed training dates. This unavoidable action affects the plan to train all team engineers and unavoidably affects the costs paid by the client for their training. The client has now paid for two engineers upfront who are unable to attend the training, along with this 25% of the engineers will now not be trained or competent to operate the critical equipment onsite.
A possible way to overcome this variance is to offer the two; dayshift engineers the vacant spaces at short notice. This ensures the plan for the particular training activities overcome, by ensuring the client is not financially out of pocket, they get the correct number of engineers put onto the training and CBRE as a service provider still provides eight engineers as first agreed in initial planning stage.
To involve team members in identifying ways to improve performance to meet training objective
Start with openness in the review process; provide training which will develop their knowledge, skills, and competencies. Provide positive and constructive feedback on a joint basis.
Involve all the team members in the decision-making process and agree objectives collectively.
Coaching team members on a one-to-one basis and supporting their individual development.
Create a friendly environment where team members feel that their input is valued and welcomed.
Creating an open-door policy whereby you make yourself available to all staff at all times.
Communicating effectively with your team, by making sure that all team members know what
is happening all of the time.