What's the best way of motivating a DEFRA vet? Remember these are men and women tackling some pretty tough work - Bovine TB, bluetongue, stressed farmers etc. Well, you stick them in a room together, make them play games and encourage them to find their inner self through banging drums loudly. At least that's what DEFRA seems to have done with about 130 of its staff working in animal health.
One of the vets involved rang our news editor Jonathan Riley very distressed yesterday complaining about the exercise. She was really upset and angry that what she thought would be a useful strategy day turned out to be something less serious. "We wasted an entire day playing games, mucking about and banging drums," she said. "I was appalled that taxpayers will foot the bill for this when we are actually employed to fight disesase."
The news team is trying to investigate the complaint to see what DEFRA were really trying to achieve...... if it was an effort to be motivational and build a team spirit then poor old DEFRA officials have backfired again.