The Safety of Shawken's Workers

[Klesta]

With the money earned from selling ergonomic assessments all across Chiss space, and, of course, in the Caldera, Klesta was now in charge of the ergonomic assessment division. That, despite the short period where the various Lords fought each other in the Caldera, in rather low-key fashion, with limited damage due to the destitute state of the Resurgent Empire's forces, whereby they had virtually no airpower and no other heavy firepower at their disposal. Now it was time to go back to the Core. They already had a good headway around the Colonies and the Expansion Region, thanks to their coverage of Cyrillia and the Ombakond sector, of which Yutan is the capital. Today, he had to write a datapad message with a Braille attachment, which contains the brochure for ergonomic assessments so printed, knowing how Miralukas operated for the written word. That is, he used the Miraluka blind alphabet, known to non-Miralukas as Braille.

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ATTN: [member="Darth Erebos"]

Your workers represent a precious resource, too precious for Zuguruk Tyuk Industries to be sidelined by work accidents. Ergonomic assessments go a long way towards preventing work accidents and, in turn, increasing your organic workforce's productivity. If you're ready to take us up on our special offer, including the possibility of group and bulk discounts, please let me know what works for you.

Attachments: Ergonomic assessment brochure in Braille

Klesta
Executive VP, Sith Inquisitor

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[Shaddi]

Sitting at his desk with his rare visits to the ZTI HQ with a datapad in his hands. "Hm? Ergonomic Assessment? I thought the personnel managers had already done this." He muttered to himself as he signed a request for the assessment to proceed. While waiting he got through a few choice project assessments of his own and signed off on a few new projects to be started as well.
The large space station in orbit around shawken hovered lazily as the supply ships moved in and out of it and supplied ZTI's other facilities in the system and beyond.

[member="Klesta"]

 

[Klesta]

"All right, we're going to need a team of inspectors to Shawken: work is to start immediately after the contract is signed"

What [member="Darth Erebos"], and so many prospective clients often seem to misunderstand, is that ergonomic assessments have specific aims: prevention of work accidents. Part of his job as a purveyor of ergonomic assessments was to explain exactly how these fit within health and safety, and how ergonomic assessments helps enhance productivity. But the verbiage of the request sent back to him left no doubt that, once the details of the amount of work to be done were clarified, the work was to begin immediately, so he had to grant that on the resulting contract. Plus he knew that, if possible, proper segmentation of the work was required to minimize the inconvenience of the ergonomic assessments to the employees. That is, not all assessments had to be done at once. And yet those clients that actually used ergonomic assessments realized that implementation of the recommendations was key. Sometimes asking the employee whose station is being inspected for sources of discomfort allowed to tailor the assessment of that particular station to look for specific items. T'zanith would likely have to disclose the organic workforce before the work begins; while a good number of companies would prioritize locals, that would likely have no impact on the recommendations: it would overstep his bounds. Klesta thus departed for Shawken with a team of ergonomic inspectors in tow, but not before responding to the request:

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ATTN: T'zanith

I understand that the assessments are to begin immediately after the contract is signed. Before the contract can be signed, and, from there, for the assessments to begin, I would like you to answer a few questions. However, for confidentiality and security reasons, I have to be there in person, alongside my team of ergonomic assessors. Please respond at your earliest convenience.

Klesta

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[Shaddi]

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ATTN reply: [member="Klesta"]

There will be a comity waiting for you upon your arrival.

T'zanith.

_________________________________________

After sending the reply he leaned back into his chair and turned his head to look out the view port behind his desk in his private office. His thoughts on the past and what he had been doing with that time since he had last been inside it properly. With an almost exasperated sigh he stood up and stretched before walking to the next room, into his private library and began to read through it as he waited.

Upon arrival a squad of security officers along with pr representatives awaited for Klesta and his team and gave him a respectable welcome. The entire company had been notified and already improvement ideas and suggestions had been pouring in, so much so that they had to hire an additional team to the human resources department.

 

[Klesta]

Klesta wasted no time getting to Shawken with his team of ergonomic assessors; he does realize that the rendezvous point of the health and safety committee is on an orbital station over Shawken. [member="Darth Erebos"], a.k.a. T'zanith, has had a few lists of recommendations prepared by his staff; while ergonomic assessments would likely touch on only part of the problems, what can be addressed with ergonomic assessments as a starting point is still better than nothing. Working conditions are a complex topic that, unfortunately, Klesta only partially understood. But he realized that there was a willingness to address that part, and that many in the NFU business community in the Caldera have only begun to realize: it's easier to avoid high turnover with good work conditions and a safe workplace. However what good work conditions mean is highly industry-dependent: a defense contractor, such as ZTI, may not have the same definition as a service industry, and it often seemed to depend on how tight the job market is for the key personnel that make operations happen. Once he arrives to the designated docking bay for the regulatory authorities, a squad of security officers came to Klesta and the team of ergonomic assessors, where he took the opportunity to introduce himself and state his purpose for visiting the place:

"This is Klesta from the Sith Inquisitor: the ergonomic assessment team has arrived"

"Follow us: the health and safety committee awaits you" the security squad leader told Klesta.

 

[Shaddi]

T'zantih stood in the command center of the station, wearing a simple suit made of quality silks but also designed for ease of movement along with a smart pair of glasses over his eyes that also obscured his eyes from being seen, standing before the view port as he watched the skeletal hull of a new ship prototype come together as it was built by droids in the vacuum of space. His company kept organics as far away from heavy industry work as he could to ensure his employees wouldn't have to take unnecessary risks and could always have the numerous worker droids do the job.
While the security team would pair off so that there were two security guards per assessor, four escorted [member="Klesta"] to the command center to meet with T'zanith.

Once Klesta arrived, T'zanith would simply look over his shoulder at the new comer to the active command center and turned with a friendly though business smile. "Welcome to Shawken. How was your trip?"

 

[Klesta]

"Pretty good"

Keeping organics away from heavy industry was standard practice across the galaxy, that much he knew, even in the Caldera. He was finally face-to-face with the head of the operation, the Miraluka they called [member="Darth Erebos"], that Klesta ought to call T'zanith, standing alongside the health and safety committee. But getting the office of Shawken up and running was not going to be easy, and had to be done separately from dealing with ZTI. But it was bizarre that His Majesty wanted the work to be done before the full extent of the work would be known: in the ergonomic assessment world, one usually got the statement of scope made and, with it, the contract, before the actual work is done. Not like the more ad-hoc dealings outsourced support serviced usually had, on a smaller scale. So he wastes no time asking about the scope of the ergonomic assessments to be performed in the orbital station over Shawken, starting with the number of workstations manned by organics, so that any applicable volume discount, likely to be a bulk one, would be applied.

"Just so we're clear, any and all ergonomic assessments done here as we speak will be billed, as it was understood that every workstation manned by organics will be inspected. My first question: how many workstations manned by organics are there?"

 

[Shaddi]

T'zanith simply smiled when he heard [member="Klesta"] mention that the assessments already underway would be billed. "Isn't that why I asked you here?" He said in a joking manner before he placed his hand up to gently grip his chin in thought. "I believe there are around six hundred and seventy stations in total on this station alone. The lessons learned here by the organic resource department personnel following your assessers will be implemented throughout the company once it's finished." He then said as he used the hand from his chin to gesture at the table that had been placed near the view port, two cups of steaming coffee on the neat table complimented the documents and the datapads on the table prepared for both of them.

 

[Klesta]

"That takes care of the willingness to implement the recommendations. Because of the volume of work that has to be done, you are eligible for a bulk discount"

Out of the 670 they would get about 40-50 done by now. By the end of a standard week they should get the reports out. The reports will likely be sent out to the H&S committee in a sectional manner, that is, the recommendations will be given for each section of the station with workstations manned by organic workers. There is one question left to resolve for [member="Darth Erebos"] to answer, but once he gets that answer then he could get the contract drafted. The hard part in this business is the salesmanship: it's usually smooth sailing once someone takes the bait.

"One last thing before I produce the contract: do you want the ergonomic assessments to be done on a regular basis or just leave the option to have assessments made again at a future date?"

 

[Shaddi]

T'zanith leaned into the seat and took a sip from the coffee as he listened to [member="Klesta"] speak. "I believe that having this happen on a regular, yearly basis will be for the best." He spoke in a soft tone as he continued to sip on his coffee with one hand while the other held a datapad with reports from the companies security teams and staff on the activities of the Assessment teams.


(Sorry for the late reply.)

 

[Klesta]

OOC: Apologies for those tag malfunctions.

IC: With ergonomic assessments being done on a yearly basis, [member="Darth Erebos"] was a client that almost behaved like a Xi Charrian when it came to ergonomic assessments. To Klesta's knowledge, Xi Charrians were the only race that actually prescribed set standards when it came to ergonomic assessment frequency, and not only because they considered work accidents as blasphemy, and their victims as requiring penitence. So Klesta produced the contract, for 670 ergonomic assessments to be conducted on a yearly basis. Perhaps other Shawken-based industries would want their ergonomic assessments, even though, to non-Xi Charrians, the saying you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink was all too true, the Jawa thought, while he apposed his signature at his dotted line. He expected T'zanith to put his line on what was his dotted line; even if he used Braille (a.k.a. Miraluka script) to sign those documents, it would still work out.

"Here's the contract"