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Thread: Phoenix pay system debacle

  1. #1
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    Default Phoenix pay system debacle

    I see that the federal government's Phoenix pay system is back in the news - quite a debacle that beast has become and it brings back memories of similar situation from when I used to work at TELUS. There were a number of new systems that TELUS brought in over the years and some just seemed doomed from the outset and the company would just continue to throw money at them - I'd name some of them but I've been gone long enough that the names/acronyms now evade my memory. What I could never figure out is that there were larger companies doing the same thing but TELUS often felt that they needed to develop their own in house solutions instead of seeking out what appeared to be tried and tested systems - it's kind of like the CoC's electronic fair system or whatever that they have been unable to successfully implement.

    That all said, there are a number of beyond members who do work for medium/larger sized companies who must have experienced the same thing though the Phoenix pay system is becoming laughable but at the same time not really laughable because it's us joe blow tax payers who will be on the hook to pay to fix that thing. $1 billion was not dismissed by the responsible minister as a possible number to have everything fixed and running smoothly, $700 million plus is now a realistic number meaning that the Phoenix pay system will most likely reap no savings over it's lifetime as compared to the purported $70 million a year it was supposed to save us.
    Will fuck off, again.

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    In a large government organization (or the government itself), the goal of management is not to do a good job. Its to accumulate power/resources under yourself.

    From that viewpoint, it all makes a lot more sense.

    Even private corporations suffer from the same thing, but at least shareholders can hold them to account.

    Where I work has gone through 3 different systems for work hour tracking on projects in 5 years. Zero accountability.

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    More taxes will fix it.
    Originally posted by SJW
    Once again another useless post by JRSCOOLDUDE.
    Originally posted by snowcat
    Don't let the e-thugs and faggots get to you when they quote your posts and write stupid shit.
    Originally posted by JRSC00LUDE
    I say stupid shit all the time.
    ^^ Fact Checked

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    Quote Originally Posted by firebane View Post
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    Wow, some of those linked CBC stories are amazing.
    Will fuck off, again.

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    I'm not involved in phoenix (or work for the government) I'm just going to speculate because this isn't exactly uncommon when it comes to implementing complex technology platforms anywhere. I imagine this is compounded even worse because now we're talking about politicians being involved too.

    1) In large organizations that are not technology focused, decision makers lack the understanding of how complex projects like this are and rely on the stakeholders to present a solid business case. The stakeholders driving projects like this usually are not in IT (i imagine an HR senior leader given its payroll), and there is a lack of consultation from the functions on how best to solve a business problem (be it with technology, or sourcing a supplier). However, they will drive it from the business side (since they're the end user and no one else can tell them how to run their business), and hire consultants to build their business case. They convince a leader that buying a technology solution is the answer (without limited consultation with the IT function), because some other organization has done something similar, the consultant has made it work there, and they're going to save big dollars or become industry leaders in this space.

    2) Systems like these are highly complex from the technology side, and usually are business transformational (meaning you have to change the way you do business so you can use the technology). It's the resistance to the latter half which is usually the problem - people just want a tool to work and automate things, and will pay to customize the tool to do that. Consultants that advise leaders aren't compensated based on outcomes, so they'll just do whatever they're told to do (even if it's going to be a bad idea) and get paid a ridiculous hourly wage to do it. Customizations themselves will lead to a series of issues (since you're now making a tool do something it wasn't designed to originally do).

    3) Many companies believe (whether true or not) they lack the inhouse expertise and hire consulting companies to steward them through projects. There's little incentive for long term 'big picture' thinking since it's a consulting company hired to deliver a 1 time project. Once the project is 'complete' (sacrificing quality), these companies move onto other things. These projects are prioritized based on schedule (there's usually some business case that shows benefits realization if achieved within a certain timeframe) and the people involved are rewarded for hitting schedules and managing costs while sacrificing quality (which leads to cost overruns later). Anyone who asks questions or tries to put due diligence puts the schedule in jeopardy, and usually some variation of 'Well you're putting risk on the schedule, so you're going to have to explain it to the gatekeeper' is used. . Operations picks up the technology and realizes it's a fucking dogs breakfast, and since the transition to operations was so bad, they have to hire the same company to come back and fix it.

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    As I work at a time tracking/management company, some of our customers integrate their data with their payroll systems, so we know how pissed off people get when things dealing with paying people go wrong. Not that it happens often but when it does, we classify any payroll related issues as a severity 1 all hands on deck incident, work with the customer and have an SLA to turn around fixes prior to the actual payroll cutoff time. How the government and IBM can fuck this up for so long is beyond me, we deal with more users than the # of govt employees so clearly even larger scale, as well as world wide pay/timeoff rules and legal obligations and not just Canada/Provincial specific. People not getting paid for months? I'd be out of a job, company would go under haha.
    Originally posted by SEANBANERJEE
    I have gone above and beyond what I should rightfully have to do to protect my good name

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    I used to work for a payroll processing company and dealt with many people in the payroll department. From my experiences, my analogy has been that payroll is the sphincter or an organization. No one really pays attention to it, they don't get resources, as long as everything is working and people are getting paid. But if it ever backs up, and someone higher up doesn't get paid, does shit ever hit the fan.

    This was back in 2002 or so, and I remember that at one company, the computers in the payroll department were still running windows 3.11. And they were wondering why things were so slow
    heloc that shit

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    We use ADP for payroll... I currently am getting paid on time but no one seems to be able to tell how I can view paystubs...

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    It amazes me that anyone getting screwed around A) keeps showing up to work and B) hasn't filed a lawsuit.
    "Masked Bandit is a gateway drug for frugal spending." - Unknown303

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    I've worked for the federal government for over a decade and this phoenix BS has really affected me. There were LOTS of issues with how this program was hurriedly rolled out but still over 2 years later problems still exist. IMO they never should of rolled out all departments at the same time or at least did a test case before hand. They never should of got rid of the compensation advisors beforehand.(which they ended up hiring most back at increased wages to help sort out backlog)

    For the most part basic pay has been sorted out and as long as you work a set schedule with no acting, extra duty, shift premium, or standby pay things probably aren't affecting you anymore. Unfortunately I am not that lucky and work tons of OT and go in and out of acting positions all the time so this has really affected me right from the start. Within the first 2 weeks I put a ticket in for 14 pay issues (prior to this I had went a decade without a SINGLE pay issue) To this day that ticket has not been closed nor have I even been contacted. You can try and call but you will sit on hold for 2hours and get some call center employee that just reads you the same screen you have access to and nothing gets resolved.

    They are cherry picking the easy cases to resolve so that at the end of the month they can send our there cheery little email saying we closed X amount of cases this month but anything that is complex will sit on the back burner till the end of time. They are in no way doing them in the order they are received.

    Also due to this system it is super hard to track what exactly you are being paid for it basicaly just shows up in your bank acount and on your pay stub gives a vague description with no time periods or rates. The amount rarely match up to any of the sheets that are submitted. There is no uniformity in how it is payed or presented and every Extra duty pay has shown up different than the one before depending which new payroll employee attempted to process it. Its extremely frustrating and makes it damn near impossible to track what is actually owned. At this point now I'm just taking all my extra duty pay as compensation time and going to have them do a payout of it at the end of the year. Comp time is still handled by compensation services(whats left of it) and is still always correct. I'm just going to request a payout of my time come year end. I figure I may as well limit the amount of times they have to fuck up my pay...

    I really am surprised that a class action lawsuit hasn't been filed yet. As it is total BS that they are not paying late fees or interest on the amount owed.(especially when they are holding people money for years at this point) But it is hard to hold the highest level of government accountable and you would need extra deep pockets to personally fund this legal battle.


    I'm really surprised their hasn't been a class action lawsuit raised over this. As it is quite BS that they are not compensating people correctly.

    The cost presented in those articles is a joke because it doesn't take into consideration all the lost time due to employees trying to track their pay, sitting on hold, filling out form after form, getting signatures from managers, or the extra paperwork that goes along with this new system...

    This was Harper's last FU to the public service before he got canned for another inept politician.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Crazyjoker77 View Post
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    This was Harper's last FU to the public service before he got canned for another inept politician.
    Shared Service IT consolidation was all the rage with corporations. So why won't it work with governments with is 10 to 100x more complicated than corporations.

    Because the guy who need to keep seal population files and RCMP for evidences is the same.

    I have seen so many consolidation in IT in my career that none of them saves money. Even if ones that does, productivity usually suffers. And I have seen departments in a huge multi national corp actually split out into independent company because they can't deal with the red tape of consolidated IT.

    There is at one point that a company is large enough that consolidation will actually raise the cost, not lower it because some departments lost the flexibility to use lower cost options.

    And this Pheonix shit show? Typical IT projects from major vendors, over-promised, under delivered. And they usually blame it on scope change and the fact the scope on RFP/Q is wrong. So many ERP projects went that route.

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