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February 20, 2013

Local government warning over “pressure-cooker” stress

A survey of more than 14,000 local-government workers reveals that 87 per cent are struggling to cope with increased stress and pressure at work.€

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Andrew
Andrew
11 years ago

Aw, diddums! That still means that at least 13% are slacking. Go and work in the private sector.
I’d like to spend more time deconstructing every statistic given (i.e. half have personnel debts of more than £5000! So what?) but I’m too busy earning money to pay taxes to keep the local government sector afloat.

Andrew
Andrew
11 years ago

I’d have let the bank fail, but Darling ‘n’ Brown did ask me; they just forced me to pay. The mortgage book would be sold as an asset, any savers still wanting would have been covered by the Saving Compensation Scheme. The biggest losers have been investors and sadly, staff. For investor read ‘gambler’. I can only offer my sympathy to the staff, the same with any company that goes bust through incompetent and hubristic management.
Public workers better value; by what measure?

Andrew
Andrew
11 years ago

Nigel, I accept your point about inefficient management; I’ve seen it in both sectors. I would add that the prospect of one’s inefiiciancy collapsing the business does focus the mind.
To my original point, numerous studies have shown that the public sector salary & benefit package now outstrips the private sector by 10%. The study comes from Unison, whose members have enjoyed(?) pay rises irrespective of performance; this hasn’t happened in the private sector.

Andrew
Andrew
11 years ago

I can’t argue against your statistic, but it might have more validity if you also included a measure of council chief exec / hospital trust director salaries against council / trust performance.
The Head of Mid-staffs got paid how much?
Do you think your local council chief exec is worth £200k pa?
Perhaps all these hard-done by Unison workers should go and work for the FTSE 100 companies, then everyone would be happy.

Andrew
Andrew
11 years ago

Nigel, I agree with and support your last post.
I developed some care & maint procedures with equipment users 10 years ago, that were subsequently rolled out across the organisation as ‘best practice’.
The public sector doesn’t have a monopoly on bad mangers, it’s just they’re harder to remove. David Brent was private sector 🙂
Look at the current argument between over the merits of home-working. Who’s management is right; Yahoo or Vodafone?

Bland
Bland
11 years ago

Why did the LGA even bother giving you that quote? It’s the blandest load of PR guff I’ve heard in a long time and shows utter contempt for all those hard-working council employees who obviously feel very far from supported or rewarded. Its just the standard line for all duty holders who cock up now isn’t it – we take health and safety seriously blah blah blah

Nigel
Nigel
11 years ago

The private sector that paid a failed CEO a £2.8 million lump sum; a £2.6 million annual bonus + £342,500 a year pension from leaving the bank, for his inspired leadership that left the organisation broke and taxpayers – like yourself – coughing up £40 billion. And of course sacking 36,000 workers since 2008, while posting the biggest annual corporate loss – £24.1 billion – in 2008? Public workers are likely to be better value. I’m not too sure we can afford such private sector efficiency.

Nigel
Nigel
11 years ago

On the other hand the HSE have a ‘Do Your Bit’ campaign that is based on evidence confirming that the greater the worker involvement in an organisation the better the health, safety and business performance that will result. Perhaps if all employers invested in and supported their workforce, rather than just berating them to work more for less, we might have a better chance of getting out of this economic mess.

Nigel
Nigel
11 years ago

The comparative measure of private sector inefficiency. If both the public and private sector could concentrate on how to achieve efficiency from their respective workforce, it would go a long way to address our current economic problems. Unfortunately too many managers equate working long hours with efficiency: hence they prefer berating workers to work harder rather than work more efficiently.

Nigel
Nigel
11 years ago

Andrew – The problem is that the public sector is open to a scrutiny that is not applied to the private sector. That some private companies have stripped workers of benefits that may still apply to some public workers is beyond dispute. However the top 100 FTSE companies have increased pay and executive pay over a long period by relatively huge amounts, while the average share price has flatlined over the same period: reward for poor performance?

Nigel
Nigel
11 years ago

Financial study – FTSE 100 – in 2012: ‘It found that over the last 12 years, share prices have not increased but chief executive pay has quadrupled.’ Unison’s survey of their members – presumably – is indicating that ‘change management’ in the public services is not being managed very well. The result appears to be a lot of workers under pressure, whose efficiency is likely to be impared. What is the evidence that public sector pay rises were not for their improved performance?

Nigel
Nigel
11 years ago

The argument ‘public bad’ ‘private good’ is full of holes. Organisations should redirect their thinking. Instead of wasting £Billions on poor management in both public and private sectors, shift resources to where value is being added in an organisation. Then instead of berating workers to accept any old lousy conditions managers impose on them, introduce measures that involve workers to identify solutions: people support what they help create. There’s plenty of evidence to show it works.

Nigel
Nigel
11 years ago

Andrew – I had a suspicion that if we continued the discussion we might be in danger of agreeing! Every organisation is different. In one company with the same standard to certain defined work they had three different approaches in the first three districts I looked at. An organisation needs to establish which style is best for itself. However there is much more to be done about developing an approach in which those people ‘adding value’ can effectively influence managerial decision making.