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Treasurer, for example, had never allowed any of my predecessors to
work with his assistants on salary matters. Within six months he invited
me to handle the matter with his assistants and simply give him a pro-
posed semi-annual salary program for his department. It wasnt possible
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the half of my group concerned with sending employees overseas to
report to him. It was a constant battle, because two of my men in that
group were old buddies of his.
A few months after I had left Chevron Overseas, I was having
pains in my stomach. An examination at the hospital disclosed that I
had an ulcer in my stomach. I knew very well where I had earned the
ulcer; it was a Swede Nelson ulcer. I began taking the medication and
the problem subsided.
We continued to work on analyzing how we could make foreign
service attractive. We found, for example, that sometimes one of our
engineers or geologists could complete a two-year assignment overseas
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neighborhood in the States because home prices had escalated substan-
tially during his absence. Most employees returned to the same gen-
eral location from whence they had gone overseas. When an employee
moved, the company paid the expenses of selling his house. After ana-
lyzing the situation, we found that it would be as cheap for the company
to pay the employee a home retention allowance and let him rent out
his home during his foreign assignment. The combination of the rent
he would receive and the home retention allowance made it attractive
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the house when he returned. Frank Davis, a Personnel Policy Analyst
in the Corporate Personnel Department, proved to be helpful in getting
such policy changes approved. Frank had no foreign service experience
himself, but he was a sharp analyst and came to be a real supporter.
In my experience there are two kinds of human resources man-
agers:
1 Those who respond to requests for assistance. Unfortunately, this
type is the great majority.
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