How do people feel about this one? Will it be short and sweet?
Mod warning:
https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121425200/#Comment_121425200
Someone on a 4 day week can still take a month off in the summer.
Yes I know but certainly in my business area they don’t
Would that be unprecedented after a 6.5% rise? I can't find anywhere to go back and see what the salaries used to be. I know it's unprecedented prices rises and budget surpluses so hoping a chunky increase is possible. Haha
I did both (a shorter week, and SWYS for 4 weeks in summer) and it was never held against me for promotional purposes.
Given that, if someone goes for a promotion, they may be required to go back to full time.
I never had to, but work sharing and SWYS is always dependant on business needs.
Exactly.
I work in one organisation which has a strong core team after being built out. Saving us a fortune. Absolute specialists are brought in, as contractors, for fixed term projects but everything else is in-house.
The issue only issue there is the pay scale is literally like 10-15% lower than what could be enticing to poach people looking for better work/life.
If engineers can be given a dedicated grade, so can IT.
If you ever evaluated a tender from the big tech contractors you would cry out for internal staff
Despite everything, there is a lot of highly competent staff working in civil service IT. But there's nobody coming in so when the current 40 or 50-somethings retire it's fcuked.
Very true, though it depends on the exact role and level.
A 2% or similar increase is more an insult than a reward.
Those offering and negotiating such offers should compare basic commodity prices, inflation is far from being the short term issue that the government suggested with the last agreement. Items that cost a euro 2 years ago are now a euro 50 cent or more.
The organisation I work for is loosing staff faster than it can recruit replacements and reassigning those left in an attempt to mask the gaps in service.
True but I'd worry about what the qualification criteria would be. I've been working in IT for 25 years but my degree is not in IT.
It's not going to happen anyway, it's been talked about for over 30 years at this stage. Over 20 years ago I saw a report on civil service IT staffing co-written by my then AP approx 1990 (I was still in college then) naturally it recommended a special pay scale for IT staff but of course it went nowhere.
We really need a Dublin allowance too but that's another kettle of fish!
The National Cyber Security Centre uses the Engineer grade for some roles. So it's not like it couldn't be used, but can't see how it would work in places using standard grades.
You have people at HEO level doing a similar role, why would they add the Engineer grade? Is there that many IT people actually leaving civil service roles? Are they having that much trouble attracting people?
Leaving, no
Attracting, very hard
I suspect you won't see any change until people started leaving.
They'll augment attracting people by outsourcing or contracts rather than new grade
The leaving is happening through retirements and being unable to replace.
New roles are also going unfilled
Really? I occasionally have a look at public jobs and there doesn't seem to be that much recruitment going on so that's interesting.
HSE seems to be really building up though. It does have a bit more variance in grades which helps
Its not just at IT or higher grades.
My section has lost 3 COs in the last year. None replaced and we've been told not likely to be replaced anytime soon.
This is in Dublin.
No government will ever have the balls to give a Dublin allowance despite it being a completely sensible thing.
There's already a huge amount of outsourcing. All the large organisations; OGCIO, Revenue, Garda, Justice, Agriculture are hugely dependant on contractor staff in key roles, There's a few individual contractors I could name that would leave these organisations very badly exposed if they moved on elsewhere.
Someone needs to manage contractors though, so you end up with individual HEOs or APs with 20 or 30 or 40 contractors supposedly reporting to them, which is just for show really. No one can manage that amount of senior staff effectively. Someone needs to negotiate contracts with contracting orgs and hold them to account.
I know of one smallish team that has two key HEO roles vacant for months now, with no likelihood of them being filled anytime soon.
I don't see how the public sector can react fast enough to market demands for IT staff. I don't see how they can be competitive. Outsourcing it solves that issue. It creates others that need to be solved.
Absolutely would never happen.
It doesn't need to "react fast". It just needs to pay enough, less an obvious lower percentage the PS pays.
No one expects market rates, there's an obvious trade off for that PS stability, but 50%+ is killing it.
There's no fecking point in paying a contractor (plus the company fee) €150k, indefinitely, when an equivalent permanent private sector role is €100k, and you could fill it on a PS permanent contract for €75k
We will agree to disagree
Outsourcing companies are having trouble getting people too. Especially anyone who needs to work in Dublin.
And you end up with a high turnover of staff which is very hard to manage as they're having to constantly step into existing work streams, have no knowledge of your systems or ways of working, and you've no idea how they'll interact with existing staff
Managing contracts is a bloody nightmare.
There is the apprentice scheme, we've two lads who are quiet good and most likely will join our team. Also I know DPER are working on the professionalization of ICT, been quiet there though, I would prefer less focus on admin/management in the role but hard to find a common area there.
I know there was a post about not being considered for next grade on a 4 day week but if the jump up meant working on more technical issues/ bigger projects then that would be more appealing than working on more management/ procurement areas.
I think by bringing in the 4 day work week and making an IT specific grade that is at least closer to competitive with private salaries, they'd have less difficulty attracting people with experience who want to be able to enjoy a better work-life balance
I know I said it before and some people have said negotiations should be about pay only, but allowing flexitime for grades above HEO would help with work/life balance.
That should be a separate issue to pay, as it only applies to certain grades.
Lets not muddy the waters here. Any pay negotiation should be for all grades.
The AHCPS have already passed a motion to seek a four day working week.
Yeah, i only care about pay right now.
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