— You will hear five speakers talking about their work. — For each recording, decide what the speaker is trying to achieve. — Wr

It’s a cliche, isn’t it ’our biggest asset is our people’? But if it’s true, we’re in real trouble here. Staff turnover’s alarmingly high, with far too many people going off to talk to recruitment agencies. It’s the same across the board, in every department. And it’s costing a fortune in paying short-term people to fill the gaps. I want to increase levels of satisfaction in order to increase retention and stop wasting money.

It ought to be a fairly straightforward management task, so I don’t know why it’s proving so difficult. Of course we need to get together to review progress at each stage of any given project, but surely we don’t have to take all day to do it? We should try issuing bulletins in advance, and then, when we do sit down together, we’ll all be in the picture already, and can discuss the important points.