This isn't a post about any particularly interesting topic.
This post was simply about something that's happening in my professional life.
As I've mentioned in other posts, I work as an Application Specialist in a Digital Innovation Department that doesn't actually invent new applications, but rather manages the digitalization of processes for the various companies in the group.
To give you a brief overview of my state of mind, about a month and a half ago, I had a meeting with the department director (and my direct boss) because I had received a job offer and was deeply considering accepting it (it wasn't going to be any better, my current conditions were the same).
In this meeting, I explained my state of mind and why I was considering leaving the company, making it clear that financial matters weren't the issue.
During the meeting, my boss understood my perspective and my feelings, saying he would do everything in his power to change things.
With this in mind, I decided to give the company and the department another chance, and I know that changes can't be made overnight.
This past month, I've encountered two situations that make me think I might be at the wrong company.
The first was when one of the group's companies needed software to record training data between internal employees and external students. Currently, this process is done in separate Excel spreadsheets. In other words, the employee fills out an Excel spreadsheet with their training times for each external student, and each external student fills out a separate Excel spreadsheet.
Besides the fact that in the 21st century, it doesn't make sense to continue doing this in Excel, which could lead to numerous errors. The employee and external student data rarely, if ever, matched.
I proactively decided to understand the requirements and used one of the AI platforms that generate code through prompts to try to create a Proof of Concept and thus validate it with the business so we could move forward with something more definitive, even if we had to hire a consulting firm.
I was astonished when I showed this proof of concept to my boss, and he raised more questions than just understanding that we had an easy way to create proofs of concept and validate requirements beyond a requirements document, where 99% of the time people can't understand the workflow in the future application.
This clearly discouraged me and made me question whether I'd made the best decision. However, I felt this approach was disturbing and needed to be addressed and discussed.
In short, I'm still waiting for a real response from my boss.
The latest incident occurred today when I asked my boss about a request from one of the companies as part of the project we're implementing a new HR platform that will be common to all companies in the group.
In the group, we have three companies that carry out the same type of activity, but in different geographic locations. One of the companies already has a very mature HR process with the previous software, and the other two didn't have HR software.
Yesterday, I received a question from one of the companies that didn't have HR software, which I discussed with my boss. We discussed the request, in which I expressed my opinion that it wouldn't make sense to do what they were saying, as this would mean that two companies would have the same process implemented differently, something that, to me, makes no sense from the perspective of the group's future strategy.
However, my boss, instead of saying that what I was arguing made sense, ended up saying that the Process Owner ultimately decides how to implement it. In other words, we could have the same process implemented in three different ways.
This makes me question why our department exists if we don't criticize, we look at a future strategic plan, and there's no need to standardize the same processes across companies in the same business.
Am I completely out of touch with the company's objectives?
I would say no, because in previous meetings with Management, they always conveyed to us this desire to have a future strategic plan for the group, and especially for these three companies, since they are the core of our business.
Right now, I honestly don't know what to do if I should look for other companies or not.