Only 1% of Civil servants not performing

Menas

Amazingly good news from an internal review of the performance levels of our 30,000 civil servants shows that only 1% of them have a performance level of 'needs improvement' or 'not acceptable'.

In my company, a profitable IT company with a few thousand employees we normally see about 20% fall in to these categories in our annual reviews.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/civil-service-performance-review-deemed-failure-as-majority-pass-1.1621423

Boombastic

internal review?

So this great news is brought to us by other civil servants?

seems legit :pac:

PanaDrama

awec

Internal review = worthless.

DeanAustin

awec wrote: »

Internal review = worthless.

Exactly. Not only the civil service that uses these incorrectly. Every company I've worked for does it.

1% is particularly laughable though.

Aglomerado

DeanAustin wrote: »

Exactly. Not only the civil service that uses these incorrectly. Every company I've worked for does it.

1% is particularly laughable though.

PMDS really is a load of arse.

SpaceTime

It's a bit like asking someone's mammy for a reference!

I'd rather see some kind of external review.

I wonder what you'd have to do to get a 'needs improvement' or 'not acceptable' rating!?!

Dravokivich

SpaceTime wrote: »

I wonder what you'd have to do to get a 'needs improvement' or 'not acceptable' rating!?!

Not turn up on the day of the survey?

wmpdd3

That's laughable, if they were going to play with the results they should have googled the norm first!

Banjo String

Saw thread title.

Thought it was sex related. Thread disappoints. :mad:

SpaceTime

Maybe if you called for a massive internal review of performance you might score quite badly

SEPT 23 1989

SpaceTime wrote: »

I wonder what you'd have to do to get a 'needs improvement' or 'not acceptable' rating!?!

I think you would have to be in vegetative state

Menas

A junior manager in the civil service contacted Newstalk this morning.
He said that one of his reportees was a definite non-performer and he gave him the appropriate rating.
But he was then contacted by the HR department telling him to change his rating as the employee would not get increments if he was badly rated.

SpaceTime

It reminds me of those soviet 'election' results.

100% turnout
99% voted for the communist party.

I mean, at least make it vaguely believable and say 5%

The other possibility is that the performance targets are just set so low that everyone actually does achieve them.

Boombastic

Trigger Happy wrote: »

A junior manager in the civil service contacted Newstalk this morning.
He said that one of his reportees was a definite non-performer and he gave him the appropriate rating.
But he was then contacted by the HR department telling him to change his rating as the employee would not get increments if he was badly rated.

and...did he tell hr to feck off , or did he run with his pens to review his review?

DeanAustin

If the results say that only 1% of the civil service is not performing then managers are not doing their jobs right because they are setting expectations too low. Therefore, they aren't doing their jobs and should fall into the "needs improvement" rating.

Remember being in a company that was losing money and a miniscule amount of people were in this bracket. Funny how everyone was a great performer but the business was not performing. Something doesn't stack up there.

jester77

They must set the bar very low, or most likely they didn't even lift it off the floor.

keeponhurling

1% is clearly not realistic and it's just a way to get extra pay and somehow categorise it as performance-related. Sure the taxpayer has bottomless pockets.

That said, a lot of civil services do a very good job, and by nature civil servant position sod not attract the most motivated.

If you compared the Irish civil service to other countries', I suspect they'd compare OK (albeit they are on much higher pay)

Riskymove

Boombastic wrote: »

internal review?

So this great news is brought to us by other civil servants?

seems legit :pac:

Originally Posted by awec
Internal review = worthless.

did you guys actually read the article?

Boombastic

Riskymove wrote: »

did you guys actually read the article?

yes
Senior managers are incompetent,
the system for reviews is not fit for purpose, the people who designed the system are incompetent, and we're paying them a lot of money to be incompetent....
Have I missed anything?

Riskymove

Boombastic wrote: »

yes

Grand, I was wondering why you seemed to think it wasn't legit or was "great news" for some reason.

You seemed to be dismissive of the findings

anncoates

It's not so much the internal review rather the percentage which sounds a bit unbelievable for any company.

Turkeys trying to postpone or cancel Christmas spring to mind.

Boombastic

Riskymove wrote: »

Grand, I was wondering why you seemed to think it wasn't legit or was "great news" for some reason.

You seemed to be dismissive of the findings

why, because I'm not shocked the whole review system is fecked up? An idiot on a galloping horse could have told us that

Zulu

Sure aren't they all working an extra 23 mins per day? A more cynical person might suggest that that counts as exceeding expectations.

Riskymove

Boombastic wrote: »

why, because I'm not shocked the whole review system is fecked up? An idiot on a galloping horse could have told us that

I think you need to read your OP again so

It certainly implies that because it was an internal review the findings should be dismissed...yet the findings are correct imo

BMJD

The problem is that if you do the absolute bare minimum you will get a 3 and thus appear to be performing well. If you are genuinely good and go the extra mile time and time again you will probably just get a 4 as managers don't like giving a 5 as it tend to raise eyebrows at a more senior level. The whole process is bollox anyway, most managers are too spineless to call out people who aren't doing their jobs right.

Glinda

I would be interested to see what proportion of 'needs improvement' and 'unsatisfactory' ratings awarded by managers were later overturned on appeal - I suspect that if these initial ratings were revealed (instead of the final ratings following further review up the line) the figures would be far closer to the norm.

Unfortunately it seems almost impossible to get a negative review rating upheld if the person appeals up the line. Awarding negative ratings therefore is just a gigantic pain in the arse for the immediate manager and will only lead to their decision being overturned later, resulting in them losing credibility and having their underperforming staff member thumb their nose at them forever. Easier all round to cop out and just give everyone a satisfactory rating (not saying all managers to this, but you would really need to be motivated to fight the battle, and be prepared for all kinds of flak from bullying complaints to having to justify yourself repeatedly and in detail in investigations and reviews of your decision).

Glinda

And in the end you'll be overturned anyway...

woodoo

Thats impressive. We should be thankful we have such good quality public servants.

Knasher

Sounds like the person overseeing this review process might be part of that 1%.

diomed

If your standards are in the basement you will get a 99% satisfaction rating.
So they have CIRCLED THE WAGONS. Hardly news.

Capt'n Midnight

Civil servants have an absenteeism rate of 4.21% compared to 2.58% in the private sector. Though in the bad old days you'd hear stories about people taking off their untaken sick leave at the end of the year.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/local-authority-sick-leave-twice-that-in-the-private-sector-1.1616147

The absenteeism rate for illness across the State’s 34 local authorities was 5.19 per cent in 2011, in the HSE it was 4.9 per cent and in the civil service 4.21 per cent. However, in the private sector, the rate was 2.58 per cent, or fewer than six days missed per worker, according to employers’ body Ibec.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/cost-of-public-sector-sick-leave-falls-10-244146.html

However, the civil service has bucked the trend, experiencing a 13.2% increase in the cost of sick leave, from €52m to €58.9m, in the space of just three years. Certified leave accounts for the bulk of the increase, rising from €46m to €53.5m.

Conmaicne Mara

Internal review? What a joke.

Days 298

The one percent include the civil servants that made the report?
What waste of our money. They just can't help it.

The Irish pictorial weekly portrayal is bang on if this is the best they can do. At least they made their bias unmissable.

Artful_Badger

Were the 1% that weren't performing the ones that carried out the review by any chance ?

Icepick

And they won't even fire the 1%.

Son Of A Vidic

Trigger Happy wrote: »

Only 1% of Civil servants not are actually performing

Fixed the obvious error in the thread title.

UCDVet

I've only had a few experiences with Civil servants, but I found them all to be as good, if not better, than my experiences with private employees.

Menas

UCDVet wrote: »

I've only had a few experiences with Civil servants, but I found them all to be as good, if not better, than my experiences with private employees.

So you think this assessment of their job performance is accurate?
Hold off on answering while I grab the popcorn.

UCDVet

Trigger Happy wrote: »

So you think this assessment of their job performance is accurate?
Hold off on answering while I grab the popcorn.

I have no reason to believe it is inaccurate.

Unacceptable - ~.01%
Needs Improvement - ~1%
Fully Acceptable - 40%
Exceeded the Required - 53%
Outstanding - 6%

So - 6% of their workforce is pretty awesome at what they do. 53% do a good job. 40% are meeting the bare minimum....1% are problem employees and .01% should be fired.

That seems reasonable to me. And it would mirror what I've seen in most jobs I've had. Still, I feel like people misuse performance labels - if an employee gets 'needs improvement' and they aren't on a fast track to being fired; they don't actually 'need improvement'. At the jobs I've had, almost everyone was doing enough to avoid being in trouble. And the numbers here suggest that civil servants are doing what is expected of them.

joe swanson

Or maybe just maybe we have a hard working public sector who,even after all the cuts and abuse are good workers.

Boombastic

joe swanson wrote: »

Or maybe just maybe we have a hard working public sector who,even after all the cuts and abuse are good workers.

Good one! :pac:

Zulu

joe swanson wrote: »

Or maybe just maybe we have a hard working public sector who,even after all the cuts and abuse are good workers.

Yeah, good one.


...oh wait, were you being serious?

UCDVet

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Civil servants have an absenteeism rate of 4.21% compared to 2.58% in the private sector. Though in the bad old days you'd hear stories about people taking off their untaken sick leave at the end of the year.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/local-authority-sick-leave-twice-that-in-the-private-sector-1.1616147

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/cost-of-public-sector-sick-leave-falls-10-244146.html

Not disagreeing with you at all; but....I've also seen in other articles that the median age of public workers is higher than that of private workers. They also have more years of experience and a higher educational attainment.

I'm not saying there isn't a difference or that it should be something worth looking at - but I'd want to see more data before I'd think that, as a general rule, public workers are 'worse' than others.

I'll also say that, just in my own limited experience, the type of job had a huge impact on how 'okay' it was to take sick time. In an office type job, writing software or typing reports or whatever office people do; there is normally some deadline and work output is non-linear. If you go in sick, you won't get much done anyway. Missing a day there...not a big deal. On the other hand, I used to be a cashier at a small business and if I were sick the place couldn't open unless I got someone else to do it in my place. It was a huge hassle.

When I was a cashier, unless I thought I might die....I went to work. And it sucked....but that's what we did.

As an office worker, unless I have a super-important deadline (which I rarely do), if I don't feel good, I just take a sick day. No big deal.

I went from ~1 sick day per year to ~5 sick days per year. But in both cases I was just 'normal' compared to my peers.

Spring Onion

I know in Galway they are too busy being sick!!

http://www.connachttribune.ie/galway-news/item/1902-staff-illness-costing-councils-3m-a-year

"Maybe there’s something in the water . . . staff at Galway’s local authorities are among the sickest employees in the country.
High absenteeism rates at Galway City Council and Galway County Council have put a huge strain on finances at the two organisations that are already hard-up, according to Government figures.
The direct cost of paid sickness absence at the two local authorities was nearly €3 million in a year – that’s €1.157 million at the City Council and €1.848 million at the County Council. The report showed that every member of staff at the College Road institution takes on average 13 days sick leave per annum."


In 23 years of work, I haven't taken 13 days off sick...

Cee-Jay-Cee

Trigger Happy wrote: »

Amazingly good news from an internal review of the performance levels of our 30,000 civil servants shows that only 1% of them have a performance level of 'needs improvement' or 'not acceptable'.

In my company, a profitable IT company with a few thousand employees we normally see about 20% fall in to these categories in our annual reviews.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/civil-service-performance-review-deemed-failure-as-majority-pass-1.1621423

So a fifth of those in IT are wasters, surprised that it's such a low figure, I would have thought closer to 80% would have been more accurate...

Sand

Just not surprising. I know many in the public sector in general and the civil service in particular might feel hard done by, but its difficult to respect something so obviously rigged as performance reviews where 99% are rated good enough for an increment. Its blatantly the tail wagging the dog.

The difficult thing is the managers are caught in a difficult situation. If they were to go in and mark the ratings realistically, there would be uproar from the trade unions, and the craven politicians and ministers would back down. The managers would be left in the cold very fast. Everyone knows this. It would take leadership from the government to send a clear and unequivocal message to change the mindset. Something like refusing to pay any increments until a proper performance review is carried out for examples.

But leadership is in desperately short supply from the current (and the previous for that matter) government.

suicide_circus

joe swanson wrote: »

Or maybe just maybe we have a hard working public sector who,even after all the cuts and abuse are good workers.

Yes many are good but not 99% of them. There isnt an organisation in the world with those kind of stats.
A 1-5 rating system for employee reviews/progress/development is totally unfit for purpose and leads to misleading figures. A jobsworth who doea the bare minimum and slidea through their career never breaking a sweat is classed as "good" in this system.

SHOVELLER

Trigger Happy wrote: »

A junior manager in the civil service contacted Newstalk this morning.
He said that one of his reportees was a definite non-performer and he gave him the appropriate rating.
But he was then contacted by the HR department telling him to change his rating as the employee would not get increments if he was badly rated.

Laughed when I read this but wouldnt discount it and fair play to the chap for telling it as it is. HR departments in the Civil Service are generally spineless anyway.

BMJD wrote: »

The problem is that if you do the absolute bare minimum you will get a 3 and thus appear to be performing well. If you are genuinely good and go the extra mile time and time again you will probably just get a 4 as managers don't like giving a 5 as it tend to raise eyebrows at a more senior level. The whole process is bollox anyway, most managers are too spineless to call out people who aren't doing their jobs right.

Exactly. No manager wants to be the bad guy and the old saying in the service of going with the flow is still apt.

The amount of PMDS reports that are copied and pasted year after year is not a shock.

5p9arw38djv2b4

Spring Onion wrote: »

I know in Galway they are too busy being sick!!

http://www.connachttribune.ie/galway-news/item/1902-staff-illness-costing-councils-3m-a-year

"Maybe there’s something in the water . . . staff at Galway’s local authorities are among the sickest employees in the country.
High absenteeism rates at Galway City Council and Galway County Council have put a huge strain on finances at the two organisations that are already hard-up, according to Government figures.
The direct cost of paid sickness absence at the two local authorities was nearly €3 million in a year – that’s €1.157 million at the City Council and €1.848 million at the County Council. The report showed that every member of staff at the College Road institution takes on average 13 days sick leave per annum."


In 23 years of work, I haven't taken 13 days off sick...

I did a piece of work for a Council in UK about 4/5 years ago, and one of the policy documents I looked at was targets for sick leave - their mission was to get the average sick leave down from 25 days per staff member per year to 15 days. I was in total shock and had to keep checking the numbers!!! Crazy stuff.

woodoo

Spring Onion wrote: »

I know in Galway they are too busy being sick!!

http://www.connachttribune.ie/galway-news/item/1902-staff-illness-costing-councils-3m-a-year

"Maybe there’s something in the water . . . staff at Galway’s local authorities are among the sickest employees in the country.
High absenteeism rates at Galway City Council and Galway County Council have put a huge strain on finances at the two organisations that are already hard-up, according to Government figures.
The direct cost of paid sickness absence at the two local authorities was nearly €3 million in a year – that’s €1.157 million at the City Council and €1.848 million at the County Council. The report showed that every member of staff at the College Road institution takes on average 13 days sick leave per annum."


In 23 years of work, I haven't taken 13 days off sick...

How many times have you went into work and smit other people in that 23 years?

If someone has the flu then stay the hell out of the workplace for a while.