Have Public Sector cuts now gone to far?

nheather

A few years ago my wife had a bit of a mid-life crisis and decided to give up her successul career as a Finance Director to become a newly qualified Maths teacher.  This reduced her remuneration package to 20% of what it was previously but a few years on she is still enjoying it - so in her case it is true that is money isn't everything, but I guess it is easy for her to do that when she has my salary to fall back on.

Anyway, getting to the point - about progression, in schooling it is pretty difficult to fill positions on the next ladder up because staff say "the extra salary isn't worth the extra responsibilities I would have to take on".  So positions like Head of Department, Head of Year and Head of Key Stage, and Leadersip Team are notoriously difficult to fill.  The shortage of Head Teachers is now quite acute and often reporte on the main naional news.

So there is a culture in the past for a proportion of the workforce of "why should I take on extra responsibilities when I can continue as I am and get increments each year".

I suspect the salary reforms are to try and bring in a similar culture to the private sector - if you don't improve, if you stay doing the same thing, then your salary doesn't increase.

Cheers,

Nigel

Ruperts slippers

No, not at all, ground level management need to find practical ways to motivate staff, a culture of  lethargy exists amongst team members, for example what is the point in arriving for work at 730, sitting around for an hr, setting up for a list at 830, commence list at 900, only for staff to then disappear off for a break, this then sets off staff rotation to cover for breaks, what kind of working practice is that, they've just been sat down for an hr.
A recent management meeting, the chair asked the meeting members to sit in silence for a minute and 'Think of a time in their life when they were happy', what is that, what kind of nonsense is that, staff just walk out feeling like they've just been in the twilight zone. Some of the tales would make 'Frank Spencer' proud..
The Francis report highlighted the word 'Fundamentals', Lord Rose highlighted weak management lacking in common sense, it's endemic and will ultimately lead to partial or whole privatisation. Criticism can be used as a tool for positive change and enable improved working practices, but unfortunately the NHS, just defends it's position, pays lip service and carries on regardless.


On a practical level, managers should use appraisals to highlight skill shortages, highlight individual staff progress, ask staff what extra training they would like, rotate staff to different teams to make sure staff are up-to-date and not stagnating, which also means staff can cover and have confidence in their ability, give team members minor responsibilities, reward staff by letting them leave early, allow flexible working rotas, make sure overtime payments are paid on time, make sure staff are presentable and talk in a respectful manner, put those mobiles away, no extended break times during busy periods. People like to highlight 'Rights' again, what about contractual 'Duties'..

My original post was to compare the private sector and the public sector, a brief look shows that private sector pay is far higher than public sector for comparable positons.
As for Zero hrs and min wage, it's my belief that the zero hrs contracts are a market response to min wage regulations... High rates for low skilled work means flexibility during periods of high/low demand has shifted from the employer to the employee, companies cannot now afford to pay staff for periods of downtime..

Faust

You may also have noted then from other various posts that in effect pay has actually been cut due to other changes to their terms and conditions - so absolutely no pay rises.

Faust

Another grossly unfair practice that has been applied since around 2012 is the annual appraisal. There have been many unfair impositions made by management e.g. if you have been off work ill and that included maternity leave then the member of staff was likely to receive a 'not met' marking and given six months to improve?  

To add to this, management were given clear instructions that a certain percentage of staff had to be given a 'must improve' marking whether it was warranted or not - this was initially set at 20%. As you can imagine this caused real distress to many workers.  The idea behind this was to keep everyone on their toes and lift performance.  Totally outrageous.

I'm not sure if this is still in force or has now been removed following criticism and threats of legal action.  However, it demonstrates just what it is like having the government for your employer in 2017.

jamescarter1981

It would be illegal to penalise someone for maternity leave so I do not believe this.

This is known as forced ranking or the bell curve and is very common in the private sector.

Welcome to the real world public sector.

Faust

I work in the PS and have had a 1% pay rise for the last 5/6 years I believe. I also had a pay progression freeze for three years, so while my salary went up by 1% a year, losing my progression and inflation being 3%  led to effectively a pay cut.
PS departments are struggling massively, I can see that from the huge changes in my job since '09/10

Faust

You can believe what you want Thomas, check out the archives on the PCS website.  Plenty of evidence for you to look at.  That is why there was a threat of legal action.

So you think it a perfectly acceptable practice to mark someone as 'must improve' even though they may have produced sterling work throughout the year?  It's not hard to see why the British worker is seen as the most exploited in Europe is it?

I find it puzzling and concerning that you want to bring in the worst excesses of the private sector for everyone.  A definite race to the bottom mentality if ever there was one.

Faust

You have had it marginally better than some of your colleagues, who if at the top of their span didn't get a pay rise of any description depending on which agency they worked for.

Ruperts slippers

I have been reading a review on forced rankings and the use of bell curve for appraisal carried out by M.I.T. no less.  Their conclusions are -
This process:

Alienates and demoralizes high performing employees who get labeled as averageEncourages “average” employees to be content with being the status quo, because higher rankings are limitedInstills fear in your employees, instead of incentives to grow

Faust

It's just a method of gathering and compiling information, working practices and improvements can then be made for the benefit of individuals and the collective group as a whole. It's not meant to be an arbitrary tool of judgement.
I used to work at a company that did spot check appraisals every month with no notice, failure to meet standards meant being removed from the high earning contracts.. The actual appraisal process was fine, the spot checks were often at inappropriate times and caused consternation..