Civil servants told to spend more time in the office - Irish Times - Mod warning #526

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137307#Comment_123137307

I think it needs to be a realistic option to sack an employee if they evidently aren't good enough to do fulfill the role. It's impossible to know for sure how a candidate will perform once in the role.

SodiumCooled

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137207#Comment_123137207

Why would anyone want to make it easier to sack people, thankfully in Ireland we have very strong employment law for both private and public service. It is very difficult to sack someone in the private sector even without going through multiple procedures and even then the employer needs to be absolutely certain they are 100% in the right.

The situation in places like the US is disaster and you should look there to see what would happen without our strong employment laws - people over there are sacked on a whim with no notice whatsoever. I had a colleague who I interacted with in one of our US sites - one day his email just bounced so I sent him a whatsapp. He reported to a director and he called him up one day and they had a disagreement over a policy on something and he just sacked him there and then on the call as he would not agree to go forward with what he was being asked (which knowing some of the detail my colleague was correct to be cautious).

TaurenDruid

This thread is supposed to be about a diktat that civil servants spend more time in the office.

Can we not go off-topic about people's particular pet subjects, such as abusing civil/public servants, or calling for more sackings? Please?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137322#Comment_123137322

It IS a realistic option.

But if you get your recruitment right, you don't have to use it very often.

Seems bizarre though that someone would want to see MORE sackings…

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137544#Comment_123137544

It's not bizarre at all as the civil service is notorious for waste and inefficiency. A round of sackings would immediately make people sit up straight.

What's bizarre is being content to see taxpayer money being wasted. That's money that could be spent in better ways, for example going towards disabled people to improve their well being.

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137544#Comment_123137544

What's really bizarre is jokers in the cs hanging on well past their their tetirement and to make it worse they can hang on until they are 70 now and not one word will be said to them about underperformance

A friend described a colleague who was not competent unable to do his job ,never missed a day,never late who could spend the day staring at computer screen sometimes it was not even switched on but whom management were afraid of ousting him and left him be ,surely this ain't right .

Similarly now cs wat to disregard any demands of higher productivity .

Working from home my arse a share of them are working from the bed and this must be corrected!!

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137589#Comment_123137589

The 1970s called for you. They want their HR management approaches back.

More sackings is a sign of bad recruitment and bad performance management. Try living the real world for a change.

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137653#Comment_123137653

Sackings are often necessary. It's impossible to know for sure if an employee will perform well in a role regardless of recruitment policies. It's also possible that an employee's performance will drop after years of good performance.

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137665#Comment_123137665

That's what probationary periods are for, on average 6 months, more than enough time to know if someone is capable for a role.

Hotblack Desiato

Ironically probation can't be longer than 6 months in the private sector now by law, but in the civil service it's still 12 months.

Other poster didn't get enough bites for their liking in the McGregor thread the other day so thought they'd try their luck on here, the usual crap.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137665#Comment_123137665

If you find that sackings are often necessary, you need to train your line managers properly.

Stop trying to drag everyone else down to your level of incompetence.

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137775#Comment_123137775

If you think sackings are never necessary I'm not sure what to say to you. I'll leave it at that. Best of luck.

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137715#Comment_123137715

Yes, and sometimes you need to let people go during that period. There are also cases whereby employees let their standards drop well after the probationary period has finished.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137297#Comment_123137297

I've no idea. I've never seen any sort of official statistics on either sector, so I'd look like a fool if I tried to make any sort of a definitive statement about the relative difficulty in doing it in either……….

We weren't talking about rates, though. We were talking about the difficulty and how one is greater than the other, which you stated with absolute certainty and have dodged three attempts to explain why you're so certain, bar your made up friends in 'management level'…….

You don't know what you're talking about and everyone can see you don't know what you're talking about.

You are repeating prehistoric nonsense that has been irrelevant for, literally, decades. I've seen multiple friends, coworkers and managers sacked. I was even given the bullet once, after a load of fake 'evidence' was supplied by a dinosaur who tried to bully me out of the organisation I was in. So you can understand, maybe, why I take umbrage with "It's impossible to get sacked from the civil service" after I was sacked (and reinstated) for SFA reasons?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137358#Comment_123137358

I think you're taking me up wrong.

I don't want to make it easier. I'm calling out the previous poster who said it "needs to be easier" and implied there's a lack of accountability. I'm challenging that stance because it's nonsense. I'm asking them to show me what/why/how it's more difficult and what could be done to make it easier because, I suspected, they were talking a load of bollocks. I have, thus far, been vindicated for having those suspicions.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137825#Comment_123137825

Who said that sackings are never necessary?

Remember the "It IS a realistic option" bit?

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137832#Comment_123137832

I don't think it's impossible to be sacked in the civil service, I think it's alot more difficult to sack an employee in the civil service than the private sector, generally speaking of course.

You say I don't know what I'm talking about, yet you've never seen any statistics on the matter. My advice is keep an open mind if you haven't seen the data.

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137850#Comment_123137850

Good to see that you understand that it can be a necessary option. Sometimes people just need to be let go.

billyhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137852#Comment_123137852

Thats because it's too unionised. There are a proportion of wasters in the civil service just like the private sector. There are also competent hard working staff aswell.

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137885#Comment_123137885

So in a nut shell, there's some very productive workers, some grand ones and some dossers. That's basically all walks of life.

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137893#Comment_123137893

Yes but dossing tends to be tolerated less in the private sector.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137852#Comment_123137852

The statistics are immaterial. They don't tell you anything about the relative difficulties in either sector.

I'm asking you, again, WHY you think it's more difficult. You are now telling me to keep an open mind because I don't have access to the statistics while you yourself are not keeping an open mind even though you don't have access to the same statistics. Hypocritical, much?

You are making huge, grandiose statements with nothing to back it up, bar a made up anecdote.

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137967#Comment_123137967

When did I say I don't have an open mind? I'm willing to change my mind if the statistics support an alternative view.

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137934#Comment_123137934

says??

TaurenDruid

This is all off-topic 🙄 - but if it's going to be talked about, let's look at actual facts rather than "My mate said…", "I heard that…", and not forgetting "I'm going to state my opinion as fact, without any sort of source or figures to back up my assertion!"

Between 2011 and 2021, there were at least 30 dismissals from the civil service - and that's only counting the line departments, not large civil service employers like Revenue, the CSO, the NSSO, etc. There were more dismissals than 30, but one department, in answer to a PQ, just said there were "a number" of dismissals. Another said they didn't keep older records because of GDPR, and another couple only had records from their formation, a few years after 2011.

In addition to that, there were at least another 28 instances of verbal and/or written warnings, demotions, deferral of increments, disbarments from entering promotion competitions, etc. Again, that's only counting those that happened in the line departments.

Those figures also don't include numbers for people who failed probation.

Source: a series of Parliamentary Questions, asked in November 2021 - https://www.kildarestreet.com/search/?s=Carol+Nolan+2021-10-01..2021-12-10+section%3Awrans&p=3 (yes, you'll have to click on several other links when you get to that page).

There are other initiatives, too - every single manager in the civil service receives training in handling underperforming staff.

Now - can we get back on topic?

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137985#Comment_123137985

Whenever there is a lack of accountability people tend to take advantage of that. That's human nature for the most part.

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123138045#Comment_123138045

so just yourself then.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137383#Comment_123137383

This is why it's impossible to have a conversation on boards anymore. It used to be a forum rule no off topic derailing. Now it goes unchecked.

Ezeoul

As an aside, I applied for my WFH rebate for 2024 on Ros last Friday night.

Money was in my account this morning. Can't get much better service than that. 😊

GreenTea777

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123138158#Comment_123138158

Totally agree! I sent a query to the ROS team via email and received a response the next day, within 24 hours. I am happy with the service too. It really didn't matter to me whether the person was working from home or the office.

billyhead

Ultimately correcting underperforming staff is the responsibility of proper management to nip it in the bud, take action immediately and not let it fester. I do think that some departments or divisions in the civil service are probably overstaffed with not enough work to go around.