Joining the Civil Service, what to look out for?
Discussion
Chipstick said:
As a Civil Servant myself, I can relate to a lot of what’s been said so far.
Cabinet Office have recently announced a push for all Civil Servants to attend office/be out on business a minimum of 60% of the working week which is bound to kick up a stink.
I’ve broadly been unable to have a conversation about anything else for the last 3 weeks. The trouble is they all whip themselves into a frenzy about even the smallest change.Cabinet Office have recently announced a push for all Civil Servants to attend office/be out on business a minimum of 60% of the working week which is bound to kick up a stink.
dave123456 said:
Chipstick said:
As a Civil Servant myself, I can relate to a lot of what’s been said so far.
Cabinet Office have recently announced a push for all Civil Servants to attend office/be out on business a minimum of 60% of the working week which is bound to kick up a stink.
I’ve broadly been unable to have a conversation about anything else for the last 3 weeks. The trouble is they all whip themselves into a frenzy about even the smallest change.Cabinet Office have recently announced a push for all Civil Servants to attend office/be out on business a minimum of 60% of the working week which is bound to kick up a stink.
But this now means that there are 10s of thousands of Civil Servants working entirely remotely from their colleagues, stakeholders and support networks. This hasn't been a problem in terms of getting work done, because it's all sitting looking at a computer and talking to people on the phone. And those people were largely working at home pre-covid anyway. During covid many departments formalised those arrangements and also recruited many new staff on the basis that they would largely work remotely. So rugs are being pulled for what appear to be largely political purposes.
Now the fuss that is being kicked up is on the one hand the typically petty, "If I have to be in the office to do my job, everyone else should too" vs "What is the point of me coming into the office when my colleagues and my work are not there?" It's difficult to argue with the later, it was after all Government policy to encourage roles of that nature to be spread geographically and for good reasons. Generally what I've observed is that people are happy to be in the office, happy to have flexibility around their working week, but are resistant to being forced in when it is completely unnecessary and in many cases counter-productive.
paulrockliffe said:
dave123456 said:
Chipstick said:
As a Civil Servant myself, I can relate to a lot of what’s been said so far.
Cabinet Office have recently announced a push for all Civil Servants to attend office/be out on business a minimum of 60% of the working week which is bound to kick up a stink.
I’ve broadly been unable to have a conversation about anything else for the last 3 weeks. The trouble is they all whip themselves into a frenzy about even the smallest change.Cabinet Office have recently announced a push for all Civil Servants to attend office/be out on business a minimum of 60% of the working week which is bound to kick up a stink.
But this now means that there are 10s of thousands of Civil Servants working entirely remotely from their colleagues, stakeholders and support networks. This hasn't been a problem in terms of getting work done, because it's all sitting looking at a computer and talking to people on the phone. And those people were largely working at home pre-covid anyway. During covid many departments formalised those arrangements and also recruited many new staff on the basis that they would largely work remotely. So rugs are being pulled for what appear to be largely political purposes.
Now the fuss that is being kicked up is on the one hand the typically petty, "If I have to be in the office to do my job, everyone else should too" vs "What is the point of me coming into the office when my colleagues and my work are not there?" It's difficult to argue with the later, it was after all Government policy to encourage roles of that nature to be spread geographically and for good reasons. Generally what I've observed is that people are happy to be in the office, happy to have flexibility around their working week, but are resistant to being forced in when it is completely unnecessary and in many cases counter-productive.
The problem is that the civil service seems unable to get even relatively senior staff seeing the bigger picture.
Edited by dave123456 on Friday 17th November 13:09
V 02 said:
Is there any way to speed up the process with the new role?
Unlikely, generally there will be a process to be followed which will have set the date, unless you specifically asked for a date which is further away than the earliest date they can manage. dave123456 said:
if any changes are made the union wastes 6 months fighting to prevent Barbara having to give up her window seat
My mother used to work for an ex-civil service company that ran radio transmitters. The first year after they were privatised the union held up the pay process for months by arguing about what the minimum pay rise anyone should get, eventually settling on something like 2%. Finally the pay rises were allowed to go through and the smallest rise anyone got was something like 3%. Suddenly lots of people wondered what the hell they were paying thier union subs for 
We find that most delays are due to a candidate's referees not responding to the reference check promptly. So could be worth checking with your named references to see if they've been contacted and are sitting on an email. Assuming you've given them your references? The CRB check is usually pretty quick these days but used to be another cause of delay.
The outsourced HR service who sent you the contract would probably be best to update on the progress as usually the line management involvement ends at the interview and restarts when they are told by HR that everything is in order and they can arrange a start date.
The outsourced HR service who sent you the contract would probably be best to update on the progress as usually the line management involvement ends at the interview and restarts when they are told by HR that everything is in order and they can arrange a start date.
35+ years in across several departments.
The grade structures have been hugely devalued. G7s are at best the old HEOs.
Everything is significantly over - graded. Jobs for the “boys” now more than ever.
I’m an older fecker who can’t wait to get out but still have a purposeful role which I mostly enjoy.
Plenty of opportunities if you can talk the talk & make things look / sound flashy. Forget the substance as BS absolutely baffles brains.
The grade structures have been hugely devalued. G7s are at best the old HEOs.
Everything is significantly over - graded. Jobs for the “boys” now more than ever.
I’m an older fecker who can’t wait to get out but still have a purposeful role which I mostly enjoy.
Plenty of opportunities if you can talk the talk & make things look / sound flashy. Forget the substance as BS absolutely baffles brains.
I’m now nearly one month in, but it’s not been the smoothest of starts.
The recruitment process was abysmal.
Wondering what everyone thinks and what I should be doing.
Turns out:
1) my entire JD was wrong. I have a set of completely different tasks which I only found out on day 1, with little transferable knowledge from my previous role.
2) My line manager is inexperienced, but friendly. When i say inexperienced she started after me and has no managerial experience.
3) I was told by the hiring managers (the line manager’s line manager(, that I could start any time between 7:30-9:30am, up to me. This is wrong. I can only start at 9am, which is disappointing because I now commute for 1hr 20 mins trawling through London at rush hour, which is horrible.
In addition I did very little for 2 weeks because nobody trained me properly or knew what I was supposed to do.
4) The above would have been fine if I was allowed the work-from-home, my line manager had set this for me. Today is my first work from home day. I made 2 minor mistakes due to my inexperience (as my job role is not what I expected).
One of the other business managers, who is not my manager but works in another team, has complained and wrote an e-mail copying in my manager, and some other members of staff expressing her displeasure at me working from home and thus making mistakes.
I had already had a private conversation with her where I expressed my disappointment about her being against my work from home (she says she wants me to work 6 months, which I believe is insane). I spoke about my commute but she shot it down saying people drive further than me. I was internally frustrated as my situation is not the same as everyone else’s, I am a full time university student.
She also complained that I go for my 30 minute lunch at 14:00. I explained to her that I suffer from a chronic illness, which is true, and the medications I take suppress my appetite to where it is best for me to eat at 14:00 for its course. She didn’t like this/believe this and I heard her talking behind my back as I left the room. To reiterate she is not my manager. She is actually a nice person TBF. Personally I don’t see why I need to give any more information than this, as it is a private and embarrassing topic to me.
5) It is completely fair to undergo training before being allowed to work from home, but to be denied it for 6 months (after being initially told I can take it within a week) makes commuting expensive - I wouldn’t have bothered signing up for the job, as like I said I am a student, and it is even more draining than my previous job now. Working from home allows me to skip the commute and feel more relaxed. My own line manager has started my WFH from today, I can choose to against the other person but I risk pissing her off which might just cause more trouble.
I have scheduled a meeting with all of these staff’s manager - the big boss (the person who initially hired me) tomorrow. I want to know what I should say to alleviate the situation. I don’t want to quit - it’s too early to do that and I want to work for this department in the future, as the top employer or my degree role. But the mismanagement is starting to grate already.
Let me finish that by saying I have sought out all of my own training to even get me started
The recruitment process was abysmal.
Wondering what everyone thinks and what I should be doing.
Turns out:
1) my entire JD was wrong. I have a set of completely different tasks which I only found out on day 1, with little transferable knowledge from my previous role.
2) My line manager is inexperienced, but friendly. When i say inexperienced she started after me and has no managerial experience.
3) I was told by the hiring managers (the line manager’s line manager(, that I could start any time between 7:30-9:30am, up to me. This is wrong. I can only start at 9am, which is disappointing because I now commute for 1hr 20 mins trawling through London at rush hour, which is horrible.
In addition I did very little for 2 weeks because nobody trained me properly or knew what I was supposed to do.
4) The above would have been fine if I was allowed the work-from-home, my line manager had set this for me. Today is my first work from home day. I made 2 minor mistakes due to my inexperience (as my job role is not what I expected).
One of the other business managers, who is not my manager but works in another team, has complained and wrote an e-mail copying in my manager, and some other members of staff expressing her displeasure at me working from home and thus making mistakes.
I had already had a private conversation with her where I expressed my disappointment about her being against my work from home (she says she wants me to work 6 months, which I believe is insane). I spoke about my commute but she shot it down saying people drive further than me. I was internally frustrated as my situation is not the same as everyone else’s, I am a full time university student.
She also complained that I go for my 30 minute lunch at 14:00. I explained to her that I suffer from a chronic illness, which is true, and the medications I take suppress my appetite to where it is best for me to eat at 14:00 for its course. She didn’t like this/believe this and I heard her talking behind my back as I left the room. To reiterate she is not my manager. She is actually a nice person TBF. Personally I don’t see why I need to give any more information than this, as it is a private and embarrassing topic to me.
5) It is completely fair to undergo training before being allowed to work from home, but to be denied it for 6 months (after being initially told I can take it within a week) makes commuting expensive - I wouldn’t have bothered signing up for the job, as like I said I am a student, and it is even more draining than my previous job now. Working from home allows me to skip the commute and feel more relaxed. My own line manager has started my WFH from today, I can choose to against the other person but I risk pissing her off which might just cause more trouble.
I have scheduled a meeting with all of these staff’s manager - the big boss (the person who initially hired me) tomorrow. I want to know what I should say to alleviate the situation. I don’t want to quit - it’s too early to do that and I want to work for this department in the future, as the top employer or my degree role. But the mismanagement is starting to grate already.
Let me finish that by saying I have sought out all of my own training to even get me started
Edited by V 02 on Monday 22 January 16:58
V 02 said:
I’m now nearly one month in, but it’s not been the smoothest of starts.
The recruitment process was abysmal.
Wondering what everyone thinks and what I should be doing.
Turns out:
1) my entire JD was wrong. I have a set of completely different tasks which I only found out on day 1, with little transferable knowledge from my previous role.
2) My line manager is inexperienced, but friendly. When i say inexperienced she started after me and has no managerial experience.
3) I was told by the hiring managers (the line manager’s line manager(, that I could start any time between 7:30-9:30am, up to me. This is wrong. I can only start at 9am, which is disappointing because I now commute for 1hr 20 mins trawling through London at rush hour, which is horrible.
In addition I did very little for 2 weeks because nobody trained me properly or knew what I was supposed to do.
4) The above would have been fine if I was allowed the work-from-home, my line manager had set this for me. Today is my first work from home day. I made 2 minor mistakes due to my inexperience (as my job role is not what I expected).
One of the other business managers, who is not my manager but works in another team, has complained and wrote an e-mail copying in my manager, and some other members of staff expressing her displeasure at me working from home and thus making mistakes.
I had already had a private conversation with her where I expressed my disappointment about her being against my work from home (she says she wants me to work 6 months, which I believe is insane). I spoke about my commute but she shot it down saying people drive further than me. I was internally frustrated as my situation is not the same as everyone else’s, I am a full time university student.
She also complained that I go for my 30 minute lunch at 14:00. I explained to her that I suffer from a chronic illness, which is true, and the medications I take suppress my appetite to where it is best for me to eat at 14:00 for its course. She didn’t like this/believe this and I heard her talking behind my back as I left the room. To reiterate she is not my manager. She is actually a nice person TBF. Personally I don’t see why I need to give any more information than this, as it is a private and embarrassing topic to me.
5) It is completely fair to undergo training before being allowed to work from home, but to be denied it for 6 months (after being initially told I can take it within a week) makes commuting expensive - I wouldn’t have bothered signing up for the job, as like I said I am a student, and it is even more draining than my previous job now. Working from home allows me to skip the commute and feel more relaxed. My own line manager has started my WFH from today, I can choose to against the other person but I risk pissing her off which might just cause more trouble.
I have scheduled a meeting with all of these staff’s manager - the big boss (the person who initially hired me) tomorrow. I want to know what I should say to alleviate the situation. I don’t want to quit - it’s too early to do that and I want to work for this department in the future, as the top employer or my degree role. But the mismanagement is starting to grate already.
Let me finish that by saying I have sought out all of my own training to even get me started
Unless I was absolutely stuck, I'd have got as far as the Job Description not being what I signed up for before going back to the hiring manager with the reasons why I was leaving.The recruitment process was abysmal.
Wondering what everyone thinks and what I should be doing.
Turns out:
1) my entire JD was wrong. I have a set of completely different tasks which I only found out on day 1, with little transferable knowledge from my previous role.
2) My line manager is inexperienced, but friendly. When i say inexperienced she started after me and has no managerial experience.
3) I was told by the hiring managers (the line manager’s line manager(, that I could start any time between 7:30-9:30am, up to me. This is wrong. I can only start at 9am, which is disappointing because I now commute for 1hr 20 mins trawling through London at rush hour, which is horrible.
In addition I did very little for 2 weeks because nobody trained me properly or knew what I was supposed to do.
4) The above would have been fine if I was allowed the work-from-home, my line manager had set this for me. Today is my first work from home day. I made 2 minor mistakes due to my inexperience (as my job role is not what I expected).
One of the other business managers, who is not my manager but works in another team, has complained and wrote an e-mail copying in my manager, and some other members of staff expressing her displeasure at me working from home and thus making mistakes.
I had already had a private conversation with her where I expressed my disappointment about her being against my work from home (she says she wants me to work 6 months, which I believe is insane). I spoke about my commute but she shot it down saying people drive further than me. I was internally frustrated as my situation is not the same as everyone else’s, I am a full time university student.
She also complained that I go for my 30 minute lunch at 14:00. I explained to her that I suffer from a chronic illness, which is true, and the medications I take suppress my appetite to where it is best for me to eat at 14:00 for its course. She didn’t like this/believe this and I heard her talking behind my back as I left the room. To reiterate she is not my manager. She is actually a nice person TBF. Personally I don’t see why I need to give any more information than this, as it is a private and embarrassing topic to me.
5) It is completely fair to undergo training before being allowed to work from home, but to be denied it for 6 months (after being initially told I can take it within a week) makes commuting expensive - I wouldn’t have bothered signing up for the job, as like I said I am a student, and it is even more draining than my previous job now. Working from home allows me to skip the commute and feel more relaxed. My own line manager has started my WFH from today, I can choose to against the other person but I risk pissing her off which might just cause more trouble.
I have scheduled a meeting with all of these staff’s manager - the big boss (the person who initially hired me) tomorrow. I want to know what I should say to alleviate the situation. I don’t want to quit - it’s too early to do that and I want to work for this department in the future, as the top employer or my degree role. But the mismanagement is starting to grate already.
Let me finish that by saying I have sought out all of my own training to even get me started
CraigyMc said:
Unless I was absolutely stuck, I'd have got as far as the Job Description not being what I signed up for before going back to the hiring manager with the reasons why I was leaving.
Yeah, your best bet for meeting the hiring manager is take a copy of the job description you were hired for. Tell them you don't mind being flexible and understand it may take a while to get integrated in to the team, trained up etc, but it's been a month and you're still not doing what you were hired to do.CraigyMc said:
Unless I was absolutely stuck, I'd have got as far as the Job Description not being what I signed up for before going back to the hiring manager with the reasons why I was leaving.
Yup.Imagine putting up with this crap for the next couple of years.
I'd write down a list of issues, talk to the manager and agree a timetable (1 month) for getting them resolved. Otherwise I'd be looking for another job.
I had my meeting with the hiring manager, who was very pleasant as usual. Just to clarify again, the hiring manager is also the other managers’ line manager.
She summarised it for me.
Her assistant business manager put in a complaint about “my behaviour”, and the performance of my line manager, and her criticisms of my training. (She didn’t agree with the complaint)
I explained I have been here 3 weeks and I’ve only just started, I don’t know what I’m really doing yet because no one has been training me properly (but said in a neutral tone without criticising anybody). She then said it doesn’t matter if the business manager complains, because they’re not my line manager.
But then she went on to say I shouldn’t have been given WFH yet until the probation period is over. She said they would be able to accept a possible compromise of a staggered transition into 1 day, but only after discussions with the line manager.
The line manager is chilled and accepted my proposal of coming into work 30-45mins early and doing 5 days a week to save me valuable commuting times (much to the fury of the business manager).
The hiring manager’s response was basically its not the business manager’s problem what you do so you can kindly tell her to FO.
She summarised it for me.
Her assistant business manager put in a complaint about “my behaviour”, and the performance of my line manager, and her criticisms of my training. (She didn’t agree with the complaint)
I explained I have been here 3 weeks and I’ve only just started, I don’t know what I’m really doing yet because no one has been training me properly (but said in a neutral tone without criticising anybody). She then said it doesn’t matter if the business manager complains, because they’re not my line manager.
But then she went on to say I shouldn’t have been given WFH yet until the probation period is over. She said they would be able to accept a possible compromise of a staggered transition into 1 day, but only after discussions with the line manager.
The line manager is chilled and accepted my proposal of coming into work 30-45mins early and doing 5 days a week to save me valuable commuting times (much to the fury of the business manager).
The hiring manager’s response was basically its not the business manager’s problem what you do so you can kindly tell her to FO.
V 02 said:
I had my meeting with the hiring manager, who was very pleasant as usual. Just to clarify again, the hiring manager is also the other managers’ line manager.
She summarised it for me.
Her assistant business manager put in a complaint about “my behaviour”, and the performance of my line manager, and her criticisms of my training. (She didn’t agree with the complaint)
I explained I have been here 3 weeks and I’ve only just started, I don’t know what I’m really doing yet because no one has been training me properly (but said in a neutral tone without criticising anybody). She then said it doesn’t matter if the business manager complains, because they’re not my line manager.
But then she went on to say I shouldn’t have been given WFH yet until the probation period is over. She said they would be able to accept a possible compromise of a staggered transition into 1 day, but only after discussions with the line manager.
The line manager is chilled and accepted my proposal of coming into work 30-45mins early and doing 5 days a week to save me valuable commuting times (much to the fury of the business manager).
The hiring manager’s response was basically its not the business manager’s problem what you do so you can kindly tell her to FO.
Your managers seem reasonable and hopefully you've explained it from your side so it's down to them to sort out your training. Take the commuting issue as short term pain for longer gain once you're out of probation. She summarised it for me.
Her assistant business manager put in a complaint about “my behaviour”, and the performance of my line manager, and her criticisms of my training. (She didn’t agree with the complaint)
I explained I have been here 3 weeks and I’ve only just started, I don’t know what I’m really doing yet because no one has been training me properly (but said in a neutral tone without criticising anybody). She then said it doesn’t matter if the business manager complains, because they’re not my line manager.
But then she went on to say I shouldn’t have been given WFH yet until the probation period is over. She said they would be able to accept a possible compromise of a staggered transition into 1 day, but only after discussions with the line manager.
The line manager is chilled and accepted my proposal of coming into work 30-45mins early and doing 5 days a week to save me valuable commuting times (much to the fury of the business manager).
The hiring manager’s response was basically its not the business manager’s problem what you do so you can kindly tell her to FO.
The business manager sounds like she's sticking her nose on where it's not needed and quite rightly needs to FO. You'll find characters like that through your career, just don't bother yourself to worry what they think as it's irrelevant.
I'd see how it goes over the next couple of months and see if the training is rectified. If not, don't be afraid to look elsewhere as there's plenty jobs out there and life is too short to be miserable in one.
As I understand it, you must have totted up 26 weeks of civil service before you can apply for it. The outcome isn’t guaranteed to go in your favour.
You should have access to your department intranet and HR system so you can research there.
If you’re looking for health related reasonable adjustments, you’ll find details on there too.
Have you had an induction yet? Has your onboarding line manager completed their check list?
All of this is laid out explicitly and accessible to all.
Don’t go looking for aggro. It always takes two to tango!
You should have access to your department intranet and HR system so you can research there.
If you’re looking for health related reasonable adjustments, you’ll find details on there too.
Have you had an induction yet? Has your onboarding line manager completed their check list?
All of this is laid out explicitly and accessible to all.
Don’t go looking for aggro. It always takes two to tango!
I left the meeting content rather than happy. The WFH thing sorted, following the rulebook now, can’t complain if that’s the rules. They made reasonable adjustments by allowing me to come in earlier, to me that is the end of that matter they have done their job.
But I got in the office and my colleagues told me about how the business manager (but not my LM or the ones I had a meeting with)had called me “cheeky” and “disrespectful” numerous times.
Luckily I have a line manager and a team who supports me, people have been told they are being too harsh.
This is the only e-mail I sent to be accused of being cheeky:
For context, I had sent an e-mail to a general team, rather than a specific dept, as that was the e-mail on the training manual to speak to the dept.
Following the training manual as my response to a rude email.
So already within 1 month I have been ostracised and do not have good working relationships outside my team.
My colleagues advised me to just take it on the chin , for now. But everyone can see I am the new person to be kicked around.
But I got in the office and my colleagues told me about how the business manager (but not my LM or the ones I had a meeting with)had called me “cheeky” and “disrespectful” numerous times.
Luckily I have a line manager and a team who supports me, people have been told they are being too harsh.
This is the only e-mail I sent to be accused of being cheeky:
For context, I had sent an e-mail to a general team, rather than a specific dept, as that was the e-mail on the training manual to speak to the dept.
Following the training manual as my response to a rude email.
So already within 1 month I have been ostracised and do not have good working relationships outside my team.
My colleagues advised me to just take it on the chin , for now. But everyone can see I am the new person to be kicked around.
Edited by V 02 on Tuesday 23 January 16:41
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