Justinthyme

Press ganged

Towers Perrin were the victims of a savage rottweilering in the Wall Street Journal, as its diversity practice was accused of offering “generic” diversity advice to corporate clients, pointing out “similarities” between the reports generated for different clients. Clearly, TP’s diversity advice isn’t diverse enough, and didn’t consider the range of possibilities available in diversity practice. For example, we noticed that in no case did they advise any client to underpay ethnic minorities, cut maternity benefits or sack homosexuals. Shocking.

Smashing stuff

Consultants Ellis Hayward were so delighted with their work for newly privatised railway company GT Railway Maintenance that they press-released it – with the reassuring headline: “Railway company driven by customers”. Couldn’t be worse than South-West, I suppose.

Am I having fun yet?

Oh God. It’s fun time in the States again. In February it was National Fun at Work Day during which companies had such fun as: “Backwards Day”.

“Instead of ‘go to lunch’ we said ‘lunch to go’,” giggles one Betty Kay of Minnesota. Meanwhile, MBAs at the University of Chicago are improvising comedy routines, and one Jordan Ayan is consulting with clients such as Nasa and AT&T using Play-Doh and Silly Putty to “free your creative spirit”. Soon this wave will hit the UK and it will be just like Red Nose Day. Every day.

Demarcation lines

Does anyone remember Worldbusiness? This was KPMG’s ultraglossy attempt at a business magazine for top executive types into which (according to US newsletter Consultants News) they sank “millions of dollars”. What can we say, except that as a conciliatory gesture, we’ll close down our consulting arm.

Put on your red dress baby

But there are signs of resistance from stuffy Brits: “dress down Fridays are increasingly unpopular with British bosses, which is highly understandable if you’ve ever seen the average British boss’s idea of casual wear. Casual dress is “unprofessional and unreliable”, “encourages sloppiness” “diminishes professionalism” and is an irrelevant gimmick, according to a survey by the Aziz Corporation. This backlash is, surprisingly, being led by the increasing number of female executives in the workplace. Expect starch sales to rise sharply.

Watching the detectives

Sad news for us funsters in that Coopers & Lybrand has apparently decided not to buy Kroll Associates, the world’s largest detective agency. “Her name was Velma. She had legs that didn’t quit and a data warehousing strategy that badly needed aligning with her overall business objectives …”