Week 9: Survey Audits and Business Practices

Colin Hall – Senior Surveyor in the Office of the Surveyor-General of Victoria

Colin dressed the survey audit program and how it was undertaken. The audits are actually based on the surveyor individually not the company they work for. Therefore if you get a bad reputation, it does not matter which company you move to, that bad reputation will follow you there.

I found it interesting how often audits actually failed and were not up to standard. Although it has dramatically improved in the last decade it is still only at 91% satisfaction. Which may sound very good but 1 out of 10 surveys being submitted that can adversely effect the cadastre is a large number in the scheme of things.

Leo Bateman – Taylors

Leo had an interesting change of pace with his topic by encroaching business operations as a whole rather than just talking about the surveying. This was actually quite interesting. I think the most relevant point he made is that we as uni students could come out of our education in the wrong mindset. He made it very clear that a pass mark at university would not be sufficient at work. Being right and accurate in a work environment 50% of the time is not satisfactory, at Taylors they are aiming for 100% success rate.

Leo also touched on communication for the second time in the semester. Once again with an extra interesting addition. The insight on how to deal with problem clients was quite valuable. The main thing i grasped from this was not just to ignore them, but be quick in response and aim to fulfil their needs as quickly as possible as a method of moving them on. Also this is something you can never take personally, it must be treated as just business.