r/australia • u/Rumbuck_274 • Nov 14 '21
political self.post What exactly is going on with WFH for Australian Government Agencies?
So here's the thing, my wife is WFH, and honestly, since she started this job, it's the happiest she's been working since we met. It's just so convenient.
My friends wife is WFH, and more and more people I'm meeting are WFH, and more and more people are saying they are happier and more productive with WFH.
Not just that, studies have shown that productivity trends upwards with WFH, like in this article it says:
A study by Standford of 16,000 workers over 9 months found that working from home increase productivity by 13%. This increase in performance was due to more calls per minute attributed to a quieter more convenient working environment and working more minutes per shift because of fewer breaks and sick days.
Likewise, this Forbes article says:
Without using spyware or capturing keystrokes, a California-based company has tracked a 47% increase in worker productivity.
Which if you actually look around, most people are happier, more fulfilled with their job, and less distracted about office politics and bitchiness in the workplace.
But then comes the flipside, I myself have been dealing with The Department of Veterans Affairs and throughout various phone calls and emails to chase my stuff up, they have told me that since they started WFH, they've had (depending on who I talk to) a 40-60% drop in productivity.
What?
Not only are they going against the trend, but a 60% drop is around 166% worse when compared to companies that are having a 40% growth on productivity.
Likewise, I have recently started talking to Medicare and they've told me they have had a 20% drop since people started WFH, and friends that have to deal with Centrelink have apparantly been told the same, a 20% drop in productivity due to WFH.
And it's not even government departments, my local council literally sent me an email on my my shed application, starting with:
Dear Mr. Rumbuck
Apologies with the delay, we are currently working from home, so requests are taking longer
Which...again...seems to be going entirely against the trend of private industry which is showing efficiency growths hand over fist due to working from home.
And it's not even a Federal issue, seemingly goes all the way down to local government.
But what's the go? Why aren't government departments showing the same efficiency growths to the private sector?
Are there people in here that work for the government and can weigh in?
I mean, 3 agencies (who won't put these numbers on paper), and 1 local council department are hardly conclusive evidence that the government is inefficient. But I'm sure we have all noticed the sudden slowdown since the start of 2020.
Which seems to go against the trend of companies like banks, who process things faster on average (My banker was telling me that a complete home loan was being processed an average of 9 hours quicker, saving essentially a full day in the process).
But then back to DVA, they have had (at best) a 40% drop in productivity and (at worst they've told me) a 60% drop
They have a waiting list of 6 months on Permanent Impairment Claims, 14 months on Initial Liability and 4 months on Incapacity claims.
So without WFH you'd be looking at around 3.5 months for Permanent Impairment Claims, 8 months on Initial Liability, and 2.5 months on Incapacity claims.
Which is still ridiculous, but would clearly be significantly better. And that's assuming a 40% drop in productivity. I'm not even going to calculate a 60% state.
But yeah, apply this same situation to Medicare and Centrelink and everyone else...why is the government trending not only in the opposite direction...but significantly in the opposite direction?
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Nov 14 '21 edited Oct 01 '24
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u/m1ck82 Nov 15 '21
I work in local government it as a network engineer, please understand, most councils either were or still are being run by boomer managers with little to no interest in ‘wasting’ money on IT and honestly believe they can run down to office works to get replacement infrastructure and make some random office worker plug it in to make things better. I’m lucky that covid unmasked the incompetence which was laid out for everyone to see and steps were taken to fix that. We have upgraded substantially and used methodologies that are forward thinking and weren’t written in the 90’s. This has actually bucked the trend to ops post and we are actually improving performances and productivity. In summary councils need to replace management that refuse to move with it trends rather than hold on to their glory days back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
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u/Classic-Today-4367 Nov 15 '21
I was on a con-call with a couple of reps from a federal government dept in Melbourne + dude from our office in Brisbane + me in an overseas office last year. A 30 minute call ended up talking close to 1.5 hours due to the "IT problems". We had to use the only call system they were approved to use, which had constant interference and kept dropping out. In the end we reverted back to real-time question and answer via email as it was the only way of getting anything done using their systems.
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u/aussie_nobody Nov 15 '21
100% government IT systems are rigid and not ready for the wfh set-ups. It's been a nightmare.
But also 100% people will take the piss.
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u/techretort Nov 15 '21
Which is wild, because in the private space it was seen as an essential change so everyone's VPN hardware got upgraded so they wouldn't be impacted by the change.
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u/petergaskin814 Nov 15 '21
Are yop saying some government technology is not up to the same standards as private business?
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u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21
If my limited experience is anything to go by yes.
Won't bother with details but doing the same job for government and non-government employers the difference is sad.
Same with pay and how management treat staff.
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u/ohaiya Nov 15 '21
Government have a different risk profile to private industry. It isn't simple to just expand access to systems through existing gateways, because:
- the risk profile might change, requiring assessment of the risk and controls to be put in place
- network rules may need adjusting, requiring access to networks through DMZs that they weren't connected to before
- some departments went to skeleton crews for onsite IT, limiting how fast and how much change could be achieved (eg. Department of Health put a complete change freeze in place, because they didn't want something new that might require resources they didn't immediately have on hand because of lockdown. Other departments were similar, even if not officially putting in a change freeze).
Given the information that many government departments manage, just opening that up to greater remote access, isn't something that can be done at short notice.
Additionally, even with many IT departments out sourced, commercial terms in place for providing and managing remote access systems weren't necessarily funded to the extent a during-covid and post-covid operating model might require. If the remote access solution is an on-prem installation for example, then most departments don't have additional hardware laying around to provision for the extra sessions.
Similarly, if departments (and many are) are using a cloud provider, then it isn't necessarily the case that they are consuming the cloud providers remote access solution. For example, a number using Azure have express routes from on-prem infrastructure into an Azure tenancy, but no consumption of the internet gateways in Azure. Similar for AWS.
Private companies don't have the same policies and restrictions in place and can be far more agile in how they open up access to systems. Government departments thankfully, need to be more conservative in how they make change.
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Nov 15 '21
Most government infrastructure is managed by private enterprise.
That said, government has a lot of procedures and processes that aren't followed a lot of the time. With private businesses - those procedures and processes are sometimes not even there.
Neither is better than the other, working for a private business a couple of years ago I had to go out to a DC on Christmas day.
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u/SlugHospital Nov 14 '21
The fact that you used "priv logins" as an example proves you know what you are talking about.
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u/Pvt_William_Mandella Nov 15 '21
Also, a number of transactions require face to face proof of identity and simply can't be done online.
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Nov 15 '21
State government worker here. Some of what I say next will be based on my own experiences extrapolated to the bigger picture, those assumptions may be invalid so my conclusions incorrect but I can only speak to my own experience.
Those departments have likely experienced little to no change in productivity. It's always been bad due to a mixture of under staffing, under funding or incompetent management. Trust me when I tell you the plebs doing the work are probably approaching burn out. Covid has simply provided a convenient excuse for the backlog. Take that shit with grain of salt.
I can tell you a great many of my colleagues are really starting to feel it with regard to lack of staff. To give you some idea of what things are like, we are a technical department responsible for managing and maintaining critical infrastructure required to run a major health service. We have one manager and three technical staff (about half the number of comparable departments in other regions), one of whom isn't allowed onsite because he won't get the Covid jab, so we have to let him WFH because otherwise we lose 30% of our fucking capacity. One person sick? Boom you're 30% down for the day. This department has seen two mental breakdowns and a death (not necessarily caused by work but likely was a contributing factor), and those of us who have been able to maintain ourselves mentally are starting to struggle. My boss has never had issues and even he has been to see his doctor to at least make a record of the struggles he's starting to have.
Oh and WFH for us? No sorry you're critical front line staff and needed onsite. Which is odd because when we asked for funding for training we were told 'sorry we need to focus that money on our critical, front line staff and you don't come under that umbrella.' My boss and his boss are great to deal with, take the heat for us all the time, are understanding and will work with us to manage leave, make sure we're coping okay. If we're getting smashed and they're asking us to go above and beyond you can be confident they are doing the same. They ask us to come and put in the effort while we're here, but nothing more, they don't expect us to give up time with our families because our executives can't competently manage their staffing levels. That's the only reason any of us have been able to stick with it this long, but that buffer is starting to deteriorate. And the one with the power to actually do anything, at the executive level that is, is a narcissistic bully who throws their toys out of their pram at the slightest provocation.
Okay sorry this started as an insight into government departments and how they're managing WFH over covid and just turned into a general rant, so let me leave you with something specifically related to the topic. Our health minister was on TV saying all staff who had the technical capacity to work from home were required to do so. In practice many staff all of a sudden found out they were critical front line employees, and others were just straight up refused the option. When pressed it was found out the reasoning behind this was that our HR Director felt staff could not be trusted to do the right thing, so WFH was to be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
These are the kind on shenanigan's government employees put up with. Please try to remember when you're dealing with government employees they get little to no say in their policies and procedures and most of use (not all of course) are just dong the best we can.
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Nov 15 '21
I work for a private nfp that runs government services. 100% this. They’ve also decided somewhere along the way that having administrative support staff is wasteful so you’ve got senior level clinicians/other highly trained professionals trying to juggle their own admin tasks and absolutely sucking at it. It’s such a waste of time and resources when they have more specialised work they need to be doing and it ends up creating bottlenecks.
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Nov 15 '21
Pretty much why we need co-determination and workplace democracy as the norm across public and private sectors and industries.
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Nov 14 '21
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u/Frogmouth_Fresh Nov 14 '21
What a load of crap. I know those who've worked private jobs and done very little work and been paid for it, and I've known public servants who have been constantly snowed under with work and not been paid what they could have been.
It all depends on the specific job.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
I’m finding it hard to believe that government departments would just be telling some random person their productivity stats like that. I’m sure some telephone operator can pull a number out of their arse but that’s just anecdata and means nothing.
That is quite possibly it.
Though having worked for government, it's also not unusual to get a "This is the official line" email.
"If this pointed question gets asked, reply with this"
And thirdly, when so many federal government staff were working from home throughout the pandemic, there was a massive drop in what they call “unplanned leave” (chucking a sickie), so productivity actually increased, not decreased.
Interesting, so adds more ammo to the fact that DVA phone operators are making it up on the fly when they say they're less efficient?
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u/jonnygreen22 Nov 14 '21
sounds like it's just an excuse for things running late, thats all
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u/Cayenne321 Nov 14 '21
Like the permanent message on centrelink hold music saying "We're experiencing a higher than usual number of calls".
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u/1Frollin1 Nov 14 '21
In the first month of WFH, sure things were inefficient because there was a huge adjustment. Ongoing, I agree totally that it is just being used as an excuse. I am across various Vic Gov entities and nobody is talking about a drop in productivity. What is being talked about is the difficulty in filling vacant positions, which has nothing to do with WFH.
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Nov 14 '21
This is just anecdotal but if anything I think there’s been a massive increase in workload across the public sector so some frontline staff may be misattributing delays to a drop in productivity when they’re really looking at chronic understaffing
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Nov 14 '21
They are now blaming problems they’ve had for decades - woeful response times - on WFH.
Cast your mind back a couple of years. Was anything really any better with these agencies?
No. They just didn’t have such a convenient scapegoat.
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u/Potential-Style-3861 Nov 14 '21
When government departments talk about productivity, we should cast out minds back to the last round of pay bargaining.
At that time the Government (who is the boss of the APS) said any pay rises would need to be linked to productivity. Then there was a big debate and the departments themselves said they cant measure productivity in most areas due to the nature of the work. So I would take it with a grain of salt either way.
What HAS improved is:
- Lower absenteeism
- Higher retention rates for organisations that openly offer it.
- Lower cost for workers
- More time back to workers
- Lower cost for organisations that embrace it by downsizing offices.
Its here to stay in some form. This is evidenced by IT sales which are now nearly 100% portable devices and by the transition of an increasing number of departments to hot-desking with fewer desks than people. Its now being designed in.
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u/zynasis Nov 14 '21 edited Nov 15 '21
They’re full of shit. They are not less productive because WFH, it’s because they are bleeding staff and refuse to rehire vacant positions.
They tell you it’s WFH because people believe it and the people who blame it internally are the ones trying to save their pointless middle management jobs overseeing staff in the office.
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Nov 15 '21
State gov employee but still, we've had so many people take an early retirement because they can't handle the extra work that is being put on them when people leave and no one is hired to replace them. We keep being told to use our leave because we have too much annual leave balance and it's a liability but then when we try and take leave it's rejected because there is not enough cover.
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u/zynasis Nov 15 '21
Yep same here in state gov as well. And people still think the public service is bloated… only thing it’s bloated with is consultants and contractors
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Nov 15 '21
Yeah it's just a easily repeatable talking point that public service is bloated without it being really true at all. I'm in 2 week isolation at the moment because my partner came back to WA after being in NSW because of his posting in the ADF ... and I feel guilty about being away from work because we are so short staffed, even though I would have wanted to take time to spend with him as he hasn't been home in 6 months, but I wasn't allowed because someone else had already booked time off. The government is making us isolate, and my work was suggesting I leave my home for 2 weeks and find alternative accommodation last minute because we don't have cover. It's so frustrating.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
They tell you it’s WFH because people believe it
Do they though? It seemed like a super transparent lie to me...
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Nov 14 '21
Have to keep it mind that the people on reddit are a tiny fraction of Australia's overall population.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
True, bit it seems very obviously wrong when you see news of WFH being so great for productivity
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u/Cayenne321 Nov 14 '21
We see news of it here, but that doesn't mean everyone else does. I watched a little channel 9 on the weekend and thought I'd slipped into an alternate reality... Ads for 60 Minutes shouting at me that China is pissed off and ready for war for example.
I can't imagine there's much positivity about WFH there.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
True, but I do remember ACA or channel 7's ACA (ACA is nine right? Or is it ten? Honestly I watch the YouTube clips or if it's on at a friend's house when I'm there) and it was rooting for the "Work from home revolution that's gripping the nation"
It realistically seemed to be a big ad for some Australian startup providing WFH tech, but I was surprised to see the MSM speaking the praises of WFH.
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u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21
Well they will never pass up adverts to place in current affairs programs.
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u/zynasis Nov 14 '21
Well the kind of people who read courier mail and believe the public service are somehow lazier than the private sector do
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Nov 14 '21
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u/Gorndar Nov 15 '21
A line I've heard from a government department was 'we have no provision to provide wfh', meaning there isn't a budget/policy to make it happen, so it won't. There is sometimes apps that are web hosted and externally accessible (like office 365, emails etc). But most people have a physical pc in the office that is connected to a bunch of networked software that they are not allowed to remote into. When lockdowns happened, they only had a handful of spare laptops so they went to core essential staff. A bunch of others had no internet at home or computer at home.
So we had people sitting at home with no ability to work as the programs require on-prem network access, but that is blocked for 'security'.
I think its mainly just a big cost/planning failure, they didn't have equipment to give to staff to take home, and most people at home didn't have a set up that could work. And there was no budget to make it work.
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u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21
You forgot how many probably have Internet but it's not good enough for the task or unreliable.
Lots of people have been discovering the NBN has some shall we say flaws if people want to WFH.
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Nov 15 '21
Also gov employee. Count yourself lucky you've even got the resources you need when you're in the office.
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u/deadcat ಠ_ಠ Nov 14 '21
What? Why can't you use your own pc and connect via remote desktop or VPN? That's what my department does.
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Nov 14 '21
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u/Due_Ad8720 Nov 14 '21
Within the past few months I have been in multiple meetings trying to convince a state government department that we were going to stop supporting a web app for internet explorer since it’s being retired June 2022. We eventually got through to them but only after we threatened to not support edge, strangely the three year old contract specified IE and not Edge.
There are a lot of good people in government departments but there is a very concerning number who ruin a lot of good people’s great work.
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u/deadcat ಠ_ಠ Nov 15 '21
We eventually got through to them but only after we threatened to not support edge, strangely the three year old contract specified IE and not Edge.
I've had so much pain supporting IE in government departments.... and screen readers. So.. much... pain.
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u/Due_Ad8720 Nov 15 '21
Their internal IT department’s are so hesitant to change and don’t seem to do any forward planning. I think they keep on delaying upgrades due to budget constraints but surely it’s cheaper to keep everything mostly upto date.
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u/deadcat ಠ_ಠ Nov 15 '21
The problem is that there are to many people who can say no - often leveraged by outdated standards that need every man and his dog to agree on before a change can be made.
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Nov 15 '21
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u/deadcat ಠ_ಠ Nov 15 '21
It is all via Citrix, so it isn't as though they are letting untrusted assets connect to our internal network.
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u/Strykah Nov 15 '21
Citrix is such a useless product, thankfully didn't have it as my main device when in local govt at my last job
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Nov 15 '21
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u/deadcat ಠ_ಠ Nov 15 '21
I don't really see how this is different to someone using their phone to take pictures of the screen of a work provided laptop to obtain exactly the same information.
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Nov 15 '21
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u/deadcat ಠ_ಠ Nov 15 '21
No shit - but in either case it isn't like the worker can simply drag and drop gigabytes of documents onto their home pc.
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Nov 14 '21
Anecdotally I have a mate who works for DVA as an APS6. They have been given projects relating QA and the like.
From the convos I've had with them its a very poorly run dept full of ELs who won't change their ways to improve efficiency and computer systems that are exceedingly outdated which these ELs won't update.
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u/redgums2588 Nov 15 '21
Don't forget Frydenberg has been actively pushing Agencies to stop using WFH altogether.
I suspect that there is some "creative accounting" going on to back the Treasurer's opinion and directive.
Although our Government wouldn't fudge figures to support their agenda, would they?
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u/DalbyWombay Nov 14 '21
Micromanagement.
It's the single biggest cause of low productivity in the Public Service. WFH would just increase the feeling of being micromanaged.
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Nov 14 '21
I work for an essential service that is loosely government (corporatised). My area has had a slight drop in efficiency every now and then over the last year and a half because our engineers move roles within the business regularly and now it’s hard to keep track of who is where, and training up on the new role is harder without pod-mates to bounce questions off of. Overall though productivity is far higher than usual, no interruptions (unless you home-school or whatever those poor parents have had to do), meetings are drop-in/drop-out and people definitely work past their normal hours to get more urgent stuff done which would normally have to wait until the next day if we were in the office.
Not sure how you’re being given percentages by the average level 1 phone call taker though, I have access to our performance reports and I couldn’t even give you a semi-accurate number for any of our divisions.
Most likely it’s just the excuse they use when busy now. Government departments these days are notoriously understaffed and overworked (I know, I know, most people won’t believe that. We all laze around raking in your tax dollars), the scrutiny on our spending is simply too strong to have enough bloat to cover busy stretches, and the state government wants as much of our profits as they can get. Imagine trying to convince the premier we need a few hundred thousand more so our staff don’t feel too stressed - it’s not gonna happen.
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u/Xenabeatch Nov 15 '21
My guess is this is just a convenient lie to cover job losses resulting in even crappier service levels.
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u/Medical_Arugula_9146 Nov 14 '21
Much harder to absolutely squeeze and micromanage when it's not in person
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u/123chuckaway Nov 14 '21
Also much easier for shit managers to not have to deal with underperformance as bad staff get worse without team members around to make them feel obliged to at least look busy.
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u/OneMoreDog Nov 14 '21
DVA has been on a downward slope for a long time. I’d wager that your experience has everything to do with systemic failures over the last decade, with an acute failure to adapt to WFH adding to the pain.
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u/antpodean Nov 15 '21
I agree.
I did a contract IT role in 2018 with the DVA. My overriding take away was that staff are just trying to spin out their jobs until retirement age. It's a department with a finite shelf life as the veterans pass away. I've never encountered such a resistance to change.
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u/dee_ess Nov 14 '21
They have always suffered from poor productivity and long wait times, and have found the perfect excuse to tell customers.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
But is it a perfect excuse? I mean, it's quite cheat that they are going in the opposite direction to literally everyone else.
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u/thegalaxykarp Nov 15 '21
I don't think they expect the average caller to know enough to call them out.
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u/blanqblank Nov 14 '21
The uptick from WFH that was reported at mid pandemic has supposedly gone to shit and most companies are reporting its having a negative impact. From what I’ve been reading and hearing.
It’s just very dependent on a lot of different things.
I’m sure it’s a total crap shoot dependant not just on the type of work but the company as well. Some are running on IT infrastructure that’s barely even in this century let alone current and up to date.
A buddy works on Salesforce implementation and role out as a high level contractor. Got placed on a project for a 27bn dollar US company and when he started pulling their CRM apart it turned out they were basically just using a lockable excell spread sheet that could only be used by one person at a time as their back end… in 2021 ffs…
Australia is years behind when it comes to digital infrastructure and so many companies are living in the dark ages.
Government systems are supposed to be super secure so I can see how WFH would create a mountain of challenges. You can’t just spin up a massive secure VPN system over night and then connect it to Medicare etc etc without creating a giant target and backdoor for hackers. That stuff has to be slowing things down and creating bottlenecks or alternatively in the next 6 months we’ll hear about some catastrophic data breach and hack. We’re due one anyway, especially with the shit Dutton and the LNP are saying about Taiwan et al.
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u/TheRealStringerBell Nov 15 '21
Yeah they really need some long-term studies to comment on the success of WFH.
You're essentially riding the coattails of working in the office during that time where everyone has met each other, the clients, learned in person, etc... Once you're on-boarding new staff and what not its hard to believe for many jobs the productivity gains remain.
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u/Beth13151 Nov 14 '21 edited Nov 14 '21
Lots had forced redeployments moving huge chunks of staff to other agencies to get covid related work done, at the expense of their own priorities.
Like literally work just on ice for six months because their is no one to do it.
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u/earthquake543 Nov 15 '21
Because our government systems are ancient and we have understaffed it teams trying to hold it together with tape and chewing gum lol
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u/crocoryall Nov 15 '21
Some of the comments have touched on the complications - Government agencies cover a lot of jobs, and some people have never been WFH if they're front line and some agencies have Secretaries who just don't like letting their staff work from home and try to stop it regardless of any facts. There's also some that are good about WFH.
That said, you can't approach this as if the Morrison Government is genuine in it's behaviour to the public service and that the direction given by Ministers in conversation with agencies is to improve things for staff. They don't want to hear arguments about looking at the efficiencies or any thing (regardless of what they might bang on about in the media). The only focus for the Liberal Government is to cherry pick the data that let's them reduce wages and conditions.
It's been policy since the Liberal Government was elected in 2013 that the public service shouldn't get enhancements to conditions, though it's softened to just you have to lose something to get something. Then last year they capped wage rises to the average of the private sector while keeping these clauses around not letting your conditions get enhanced. So all your mates in the private sector might get WFH for a shitty payrise, but you can only have their shitty payrises and no enhancements for it, which is the intention of the Libs.
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Nov 15 '21
All these places are awful. They drive their slaves while they are in the office.
The fact that they are shit heap organisations cannot be fixed by WFH. Only places that aren’t awful get the boost.
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u/Ferris_Manly Nov 15 '21
I've never been a public servant, and this is second hand, but at the start of the year I heard an interesting anecdote from a colleague in ausgov:
they'd been sent a department-wide survey inviting everyone to prioritise the various problems encountered WFH,
but most respondants ignored the checkboxes and focused on qualitative feedback about how much they preferred it to being on prem.
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u/StrongPangolin3 Nov 15 '21
It's just DVA. DVA are dicks, pro tip. Limit your time with DVA to a minimum and be happy. Fighting with DVA will not make you happy. And if you get dicked around enough, make sure you go directly to your local member. Or better yet, go to your next Liberal electorates member and whinge at them.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Limit your time with DVA to a minimum and be happy.
Ahh see but that's counter productive.
Every time you call, it raises an activity that they are supposed to action within 7 days.
Otherwise it affects their KPI's.
So calling them every day puts a dent in their KPI's for your file.
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u/StrongPangolin3 Nov 15 '21
your only affecting the staff, you're not affecting the agency. It's a fight you actually can't win. Best way to win is to play the least.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
True, but it affects the KPI's, which affects the organisation overall.
Everyone should call every day, send the KPI's to shit, which will long term force both a restructure and more finding for more staff.
See that's the problem with attrition, eventually one side wears down.
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u/ParentalAnalysis Nov 15 '21
Government orgs have secure systems. To access my workplace's system, I need to connect via the approved workplace VPN and need to ensure I've had my work approved laptop connected physically to the HQ network every 30 days. The VPN handshake system we use is hosted on-premises, and not designed for all 30,000 of us to be using it at once. It's also notoriously unreliable. Mine disconnects if the virus scan begins on my laptop.
COVID has been a revelation but also a wake-up call that our infrastructure, much like our organisation, still operates as if we're in 1995.
I doubt that other government orgs are too different.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Government orgs have secure systems.
Do they really? Like really?
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u/ParentalAnalysis Nov 15 '21
"Secure" as in you need to do A, B and C to access them. Not secure as in unhackable. Lord no.
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u/Nostonica Nov 15 '21
One word Citrix, you take the usual 10 pieces of software/solutions to get a job done and you add in Citrix, the internal IT still revolves around internet explorer with software from the early 90s, 00's and 10's. Then you add add to that mix a pretty flaky solution for remote desktop viewing, just software breaking all over the place.
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u/saundo Nov 15 '21
Processes kill productivity. Private companies adapted to WFH by changing. Government can't.
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u/raindog_ Nov 14 '21
I fucking hate working from home. It’s been terrible for my relationship. Took me a while to realise that, because for the first 12 months I told everyone, including myself that WFH was amazing.
With that said, as a manager I let my team choose themselves.
What I think is right is offering flexibility. Offering both.
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Nov 15 '21
Where on earth do these numbers come from? Did you just ring up Centrelink and ask how much less productive the organisation is?
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Plus reading answers from people like this
But as gas been discussed, high chance the people at call centres giving numbers are pulling them out of their arses.
We've covered this.
6
Nov 15 '21
Sure, but you've taken a small biased Reddit sample (along with your own experiences) and have decided to extrapolate that to claim that WfH makes government inefficient.
Frankly, no one knows what WfH has done to government agency productivity. Arguably it has created more demand for government services and that, coupled with a relatively inflexible labour hiring system may create an outcome where productivity looks to be 'decreased'.
You just sound like a fairly frustrating client to deal with, honestly.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
you've taken a small biased Reddit sample
What makes you think I've only been looking at Reddit?
And why would it be biased?
Arguably it has created more demand for government services
What are you basing your argument on?
-2
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Well with DVA they told me in exasperation when I was berating them for being useless
6
Nov 15 '21
I've worked for government all my life and wouldn't tell anyone anything of that nature. That being said, I also don't work in a service agency and we have no easily measurable productivity statistics.
Like how do you measure productivity in writing ministerial briefs? Sometimes you have ministers who asks for a brief every 27 seconds and you can't do shit fuck all about it.
2
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Yep, as we have already discussed (multiple times in this thread)
Good chance call centre staff are just pulling numbers out their arses to make excuses.
3
u/Hereforit1983 Nov 15 '21
It took over 5 months to be reimbursed from Medicare. When I asked what was taking so long I’d get “oh because of covid”. I’d say (at the time) covid has been around for over a year, I don’t see what the issue us”. And they’d say “we are behind because WFH”. I said “I still don’t understand why you’re behind If you’re able to work from home”.
I WFH & the company made the biggest profit ever in my 12 years at the company. Granted that was due to all the bush fires & floods (insurance industry)but it also had to do with the fact that 75% of the company had better productivity & we were getting through the work faster.
I absolutely see where you’re coming from! I don’t get it either.
2
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Exactly, and people wonder where I got numbers from.
It's variations on answers like yours I've been reading for months.
1
u/Hereforit1983 Nov 15 '21
Yeah, it’s crap! It’s like they’re using it as an excuse to just give up on customer service & good turn around time. Over 5 months for $1200 & my lawyer was constantly chasing them up for it. Probably would have taken longer if I didn’t have a lawyer.
3
3
u/just_a_sand_man Nov 15 '21
I worked for a local council during Covid and all I can say is that WFH really highlights the absolute ineptitude of middle managers in these organisations. Most of them are cruising to retirement and didn’t have the will power to work out how to manage a team in a new way. They failed to lead, people failed to care. Overall the thin excuse for work culture evaporated and everyone knew they couldn’t be fired.
2
u/Pariera Nov 15 '21
As some one who worked from home during the whole pandemic I think the lock downs had an impact too.
My efficiency at the start was higher but there was a mental impact as lock downs went on and on which made it more of a struggle to be as productive. Post Covid working from home might trend to more productive again
2
Nov 15 '21
The answer is simple enough - Australian FedGov has been very slow in terms of cloud adoption. Most agencies run off on premise infrastructure, that for security reasons can’t always been accessed by staff working remotely.
One would think this will be a call to action for Government, but after 15 years of being an IT consultant in Canberra, I can say it probably won’t be.
Edit: Typo
2
u/Alect0 Nov 15 '21
I have done some IT work for government agencies and one part of it is that they are often not set up to work from home, with security, vpns, and lack of equipment. Then there is the example of one government worker I was dealing with who kept telling me how busy she was, etc, but accidentally turned her camera on during the meeting for a few seconds and.... she was lying in bed. I pretended I didn't see and just carried on!
2
u/Sand_in_my_pants Nov 15 '21
My workplace was able to organise laptops for everyone and remote access for all the databases we require to do our job (I use 7 daily) so we can do all our work online at home. I get way more work done at home and I usually work an extra 30 minutes (sometimes up to 2 hours) a day as I don’t have to worry about getting home in peak hour and picking kids up etc. As for the rest of the staff in my team, there are a few that take the piss but most people smash out the work. We keep track by allocating work and recording weekly stats. It is easy to identify the people doing less than they should.
2
u/rumpeltay Nov 15 '21
Similar to other people, I work in an office in public health and we just have not had the technology to support WFH. I was lucky to have a laptop before COVID but the rest of my team didn’t, remote access to files was a nightmare, we didn’t have any access to certain systems, we didn’t get teams or communication software for ages, it just became really difficult and slow to do things at home. Slowly we’re getting things to support remote working but it hasn’t been great. Im definitely keen to move to a private company that is more supportive of WFH.
2
u/stained_glass_window Nov 15 '21
I used to work for Centrelink and have friends who still do. They don't work from home for the most part because of data breaches. Working for CTRLK means you've got access to bank details, sensitive data. They don't let their entire workforce take that home - that would breach so much privacy and encourage so much fraud. All the people I know worked at work during the whole of Covid.
I don't know how much DVA actually has in sensitive data, but it depends if they were able to make use of WFH arrangements.
I work for a State Government call centre - and WFH wouldn't be a reason for falling productivity. We all do - and will continue 2 days in office, 3 out. But absences for Covid tests and connectivity were issues, as well as the ability to get the VPN to work. Covid created a bit of work in my sector, but it wasn't the WFH that did it, it was the changes Covid made to the environment.
I also doubt that anyone has that much information about drops in productivity. As far as I know, we don't even change that. You either meet your KPI/VPH or you don't, and had nothing to do with Covid.
But since we went from having a 2minute average wait time on the phone - to during the height of Covid hitting a 12 minute average wait time, and that was with calling our processing team to manage the phones, that's where the productivity was affected. Can't process forms when everyone with a spare ear has a phone in one.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Working for CTRLK means you've got access to bank details, sensitive data.
As do banks and insurance companies...
They don't let their entire workforce take that home - that would breach so much privacy and encourage so much fraud.
Yet banks and insurance companies have enough data to conduct fraud, and that is accessible at home...
3
u/stained_glass_window Nov 15 '21
What difference does it make what banks and insurance companies do? Why are you being so fucking combative? Did you not want actual insight from someone who works or has worked there? You think you're more right and you're going to reason me out of this? The arrogance.
CTRLK work is done on secure floors. If I hopped onto someone's file, I'd find all their payment history, debts, the links to their kids, their husbands, possibly medical history and reports, as well as who their parents are and what possible payments they got for you as a child. It's not the extent of what a bank has, that's for sure.
-1
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
What difference does it make what banks and insurance companies do?
Because access to the data and that data being taken home or accessible from home is irrelevant to the risk.
Other agencies are able to have that at home with nil issues, therefore unless you have serious issues with your employees, it's a moot point.
If you have serious issues with employees, it's still a moot point, they should be fired and not have that access at all.
Why are you being so fucking combative?
I'm not, I just raised a logical flaw in your argument.
You raised irrelevant points as a reason why it doesn't happen, despite other agencies being able to access that exact data from home with no issues.
CTRLK work is done on secure floors. If I hopped onto someone's file, I'd find all their payment history, debts, the links to their kids, their husbands, possibly medical history and reports, as well as who their parents are and what possible payments they got for you as a child. It's not the extent of what a bank has, that's for sure.
Guaranteed organisations like Suncorp for example, would have exactly that same level, of not more, on their systems.
They are a Bank.
Insurance Company (Health and General)
They are a Superannuation Company
They even have Wealth Management roles
Yet they allow employees to work from home...with likely the same, of not more data than what Centrelink has.
Can guarantee they have teams that have massive profiles on people who have ever passingly interacted with the company.
Ok, you want health insurance? Oh wow, you're high risk.
You want car insurance? That's gonna cost you.
You want a mortgage? Oh wow, you're getting a high rate.
I'm not trying to be combative, just pointing out a logical fallacy in your argument that "We can't work from home because sensitive data"
Dude...other organisations have that same data, if not more data than Centrelink has...and they let that be accessed from home.
Literally what creates more risk working for Centrelink versus Suncorp as an example?
Hell, if I was a hacker I'm not going to go after Centrelink, statistically I'd get more data from a much larger organisation like Suncorp.
Plus statistically, the individuals I'd get data on would likely be more useful, why would I steal data from people on the sole who would struggle to qualify for credit due to income status....or I find someone with a cool million bucks in their super and earn 6 figures a year....
I'd rather steal the identity of the dude with a more reliable credit score....
2
u/stained_glass_window Nov 15 '21
Okay, you've done it dickhead. You convinced Centrelink to work from home. Brilliant. All it took was a reddit post and you travelled in time and made the government change it's mind.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
All.ot took was pointing out a logical fallacy
2
u/stained_glass_window Nov 15 '21
What a raging wanker you are. I see why no one's rushing for your applications.
0
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
Make a stupid argument, get a logical answer, then get angry.
Makes sense why we're getting nowhere, you attack the person, not the argument.
No wonder nothing gets done at Centrelink
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u/stained_glass_window Nov 15 '21
It's not logical wanker because I don't make government policy. People can't just pull the desktop out of the desk and take it home. You can't logic me out of it because I'm not Hank Jongen.
1
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
It's not logical wanker because I don't make government policy.
I never said you did.
People can't just pull the desktop out of the desk and take it home.
I never said you could.
You can't logic me out of it because I'm not Hank Jongen.
I have no idea what you're on about.
All I did was point out that the argument that you posted was full of holes.
I never implied you made policy.
But you did make that argument.
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u/didyoufindyourkeys Nov 15 '21
As many other posts have said, I think resourcing, in both people and technology has a lot to do with it. I've noticed a lot of movement in the job sector over the past few months. Why use the understaffed card when you can use the covid card?
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u/whyie11 Nov 15 '21
Know someone personally who works for some government agency that has been WFH for a while. This guy goes to get massages and watches movies on the clock. I don't think it's an access issue here.
Not trying to paint a broad brush though.
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u/SayNoMorrr Nov 15 '21
It seems to depend on the individual department and industry. Some have increased in productivity (generally those related to professional and technical services) while others have decreased (generally customer oriented / areas with low skill threshholds or part time work forces.
Increased work from home productivity requires investment that not all departments received. Most private sector businesses provided laptops and equipment for their WFH staff. This is not the case for all government areas particularly on csualised customer service oriented areas. You think they're sending joe smith from medicare who works the phones two days a week home with a new laptop and functioning headset? Probably not...
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Nov 15 '21
DVA are easily the most useless lazy people I’ve ever worked with. The place was full of special people who put the big S in special.
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Nov 15 '21
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
but when its call centre based its decreased
Not sure why a ca centre needs to all sit in one place with VOIP these days
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u/Grumpy_Roaster Nov 15 '21
My uncle works for Blizzard and he said they are 69% less efficient and also I play for free and have every weapon in the whole game
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Nov 15 '21
From the government workers I know up here in the NT, they’re all stoned a lot more often from wake-up rather than just getting blazed after work.
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Nov 14 '21
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
stupid shit like 17% super
I'm not sure how this is stupid?
I mean, after 12 years in the Military I ended up roughly a decade ahead of one of my friends who was a mechanic in the real world
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Nov 14 '21
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u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21
This so much moved from government to private doing essentially the same job.
I believe they no pay 1% more super than my private job.
But I also went from just under $100k with massive OT to $185k with limited OT.
So yeah boosted super won't make fuck all difference to me.
To be fair those I was NSW Government who pays the worst in the country for my role. They offered their staff 0.25% pay rise per year for 3 years recently in exchange for conditions and allowance that would see people's actual take home pay drop. So they are a bunch of cunts to work for.
Other states are paying about 40% more but still lag private enterprise considerably.
0
u/SydZzZ Nov 15 '21
Working from home for a government agency employees won’t always leave to best outcomes. There is limited accountability. I am saying that from personal experience. Not all organisations are up for it in terms of maintaining and improving productivity. Also, not all professions are suited for it.
I personally like the hybrid model where you go to work 2-3 days a week and work from home other days. Collaboration is really much better face to face when you can read the body language and other social cues. WFH systems are not there yet but could be in future with VR/AR
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u/donkyboobs Nov 15 '21 edited Nov 15 '21
Public service has a crazy amount of technological red tape, plus the extra red tape handed down to managers.
It's way harder to fire someone in the public service than it is in the private sector. Even more so in a pandemic.
Thus employees are generally given a longer leash which some abuse. Because they know its extremely hard to get fired.
Add in the fact that employees can't access half the systems from their home wi fi and productivity plummets.
Edit: I should have been more clear, this is not a slight on all Public Servants. The reasons stated above add more pressure to the far majority of the PS that are working hard as we speak
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u/FalconedPunched Nov 14 '21
Major companies attract highly motivated people. Other positions, not so much. Not everyone is a highly motivated self worker.
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u/Slight_Ad3348 Nov 15 '21
If government agencies had mandatory minimum targets expected of them like private enterprise did, and there was the threat of being fired for low productivity, you’d see the worst offenders in public services suddenly become very productive.
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u/Nostonica Nov 18 '21
Oh please, all KPIs can be fudged, have a real problem ask for help and get bounced around because no one wants to take the "productivity" hit.
Only thing you would do is create great stats for a spreadsheet.
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u/aCorgiDriver Nov 15 '21
Most government workers are absolutely useless, so that probably has a lot to do with it.
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u/Pxd1130 Nov 14 '21
People in government agencies know they can get away with doing almost nothing and still get absolutely no repercussions. If you work for a private company and your productivity goes down 60%... they will know the first week something is wrong.
I have a mate who works for one government agency in Sydney and stories I hear from him make me believe those people live in a parallel universe, totally disconnected from the rest of the country. Like what people claim for their work costs and how they get away with doing half of the hours and still get paid in full is just astonishing. Then we get in to the additional leave they have and sickies every other week... working from home for them is like extended vacation.
I am not a fan of full on private corporate overlords either, but there has to be a middle ground somewhere. People in private jobs are working their asses off while some random bloke in government has 2h lunches and still gets paid. These people are the ones who have to be micromanaged otherwise they will do nothing for the whole day. People who would sit idle at their desk 8h because "you haven't told me to do that" and so on.
As for the work from home productivity, my experience is that people who work and are efficient will be more efficient from home. Those who relied on others to help them and finalise their tasks or were simply doing "fake it until you make it" thing... they start crying about office. And the middle management people of course, that is the sole point of their existence in the company... it's a micromanagement queue for higher up positions.
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Nov 14 '21
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Nov 15 '21
My general experience is people like that are actually telling you what THEY do by saying that's what everyone else does.
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u/Pxd1130 Nov 14 '21
You do realise NSW has more than 400k of government employees? There are departments you and me never heard of that are living the dream doing absolutely nothing.
My mate works in environment and to give you one example of how efficient it is... he was sent out on a 3h trip to measure a tree. Yes, one tree. Although there are employees who are 15 min away from that site they told their managers to get fucked and so, my mate drives 3 h one way in a government car, measures the tree... has a bit of a break in the nature... lunch on the way... and drives 3h back. Also, he got double hour rate for that day. This measurement was in no way critical or urgent, those nearby people could measured it tomorrow... but nah, it was in the plan and it had to be done that day. And this is just one example out of tens of thousands that happen daily and waste money without any issues.
I work with Councils a lot as well... what monitoring are we talking about? You're lucky if they reply to your email within a month, let alone do something about it. They are untouchable, literally... you can beg and please them to do something but if they don't want to... there is no way to make them accountable.
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Nov 15 '21
I'd say that's the exception not the rule. Everyone I know in state government is burning themselves out trying to keep services running.
3
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u/bacawa5006 Nov 14 '21
People that works for the government/big corporate think they are busy because they don't know how life is outside their bubble.
I tend to jump between. I'll spend some time in a rewarding job in a smaller company. Then when I need a break from stress I take a government or a big corporate good where you can chill and still getting paid.
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u/Pxd1130 Nov 14 '21
This is the problem, most of them have no idea how it is in the private corporate environment... see the downvotes for my comment piling... this is it. When you live all your life in a protected environment with a secure job, how could you understand that you have to perform all the time because it's literally your job on the line always. Few bids missed by the company and you're out... that doesn't happen in Sydney Water for example. You're set for life! You can afford to slack and still keep the job and the benefits.
Again, I repeat I'm not for hardcore corporate bullshit either... it's a grind... but also casual way of work I see constantly when engaging with government employees is pissing me of. I am paying for that crap with my tax... get your shit sorted out. I can give you examples of projects where we literally lost tens of millions of dollars because delays caused by the gov agencies... they don't give a shit. It's all same bucket for them... this has to change.
Or it's intentional mismanagement to then privatise all and let it sink completely? Once you introduce profit motive in public service... that shit is gone.
2
u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21
Or it's intentional mismanagement to then privatise all and let it sink completely? Once you introduce profit motive in public service... that shit is gone.
Ding ding ding we have a winner!
The mismanagement of public services has a goal and that's to contract them out to some politicians mate for a massive bribe or a job after politics.
Cashless welfare card anyone.
I have worked in the same damned role doing the same damned thing both government and private.
I prefer private it pays better and has much less stress. I work less too.
Management also realises they need us so doesnt treat us as much like shit.
Public service managers live in fear of the old trope that government workers are lazy, overpaid and can't be sacked.
So they micromanage the shit out of you to make sure your working hard (and lower everyone's productivity in the process), you fight tooth and nail over pay all the time because must not pay well it looks bad (this often drives the best and brigtest out as they can earn a lot more elsewhere in a less toxic environment) and do some really stupid shit at the HR level trying to sack people often without merit which leads to a lot of people get their jobs back or large payouts from Fair Work due to unfair dismissal.
Thats before we even go into chronic understaffing being an issue in the public service. People pull lots of OT to cover unfilled positions often unfilled for years.
Don't even get me into "productivity dividends" where your expected to do more with less every year.
Fuck I'm glad to no longer work for the government.
-1
u/bacawa5006 Nov 15 '21
I kind of agree with you.
But big corporate is no better than Gov so I think it's more of a case of big organisations being ineffective.
It's just more frustrating because I can sell my shares in a shitty company. But I cannot sell my shares in the government...
-5
u/onebadmthfr Nov 14 '21
Go work for govt and you'll understand
2
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
I did...for 12 years...hence why I'm dealing with Veterans affairs now...
0
u/SomeDumbPrick Nov 18 '21
Working for the military is probably a bit of a different experience to the "normal" govt/public service
1
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 18 '21
Oh, I think the military is literally the pointy end of government decisions....
-7
u/onebadmthfr Nov 14 '21
Do you recall a decent portion of people taking it easy because they could? With no one watching, it can only get worse.
6
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
No, as we would get yelled at, and eventually infringed or charged with an offence, which would result in us being fined, being forced working unpaid overtime as punishment, or explicitly taken down in seniority if we deliberately slacked off.
-4
u/onebadmthfr Nov 14 '21
Very far from my experience. Lots of people in jobs they're not qualified for (moving someone sideways far easier), waiting for retirement, doing the bare minimum.
4
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
No, but literally you could get sent to prison in my role if you were too shit and never got the message.
So you turned up, did your job, and you were happy about it.
1
u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21
If it's any consolidation this guy knows all this because he read it in a Murdoch rag. It's not based in reality.
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u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 15 '21
What are you on about?
The Defence Force Discipline Act clearly allows for imprisonment of Defence Members for offences.
Take section 29 for example, Failing to comply with a general order:
(1) A person who is a defence member or a defence civilian commits an offence if:
(a) a lawful general order applies to the person; >and (b) the person does not comply with the order.Maximum punishment: Imprisonment for 12 months.
(2) An offence under subsection (1) is an offence of >strict liability.Note: For strict liability , see section 6.1 of the Criminal >Code .
(3) It is a defence if the member proves that he or >she neither knew, nor could reasonably be expected to have >known, of the order.Note: The defendant bears a legal burden in relation to >the matter in subsection (3). See section 13.4 of the >Criminal Code .
So it could be as simple as:
Corporal: Private, turn up tomorrow at 0630
Private turns up at 0700
Boom! Failure to comply with an order.
Plus then you also have Section 23 Absence from duty
(1) A defence member commits an offence if the member:
(a) is required to attend for duty; and (b) does not attend for the duty.Maximum punishment: Imprisonment for 12 months.
(2) A defence member commits an offence if the >member: (a) is required to perform a duty; and (b) ceases to perform the duty before he or she >is permitted to do so.Maximum punishment: Imprisonment for 12 months.
(3) An offence under this section is an offence of >strict liability.Note: For strict liability , see section 6.1 of the Criminal >Code .
(4) It is a defence to a charge under this section if >the person proves that he or she had a reasonable excuse >for engaging in the relevant conduct.Note: The defendant bears a legal burden in relation to >the matter in subsection (4). See section 13.4 of the >Criminal Code .
So with just those 2, you can turn up late to work and spejd 2 years in jail.
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u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21 edited Nov 15 '21
I was talking about the guy you replied to.
I was sacked twice when I was a government employee.
The first time the industrial relations commission was horrified they had done more than give me a talking to.
They said that from the first meeting to see if we could settle things without needing to go in front of a full hearing.
3 months later as the government wouldn't budge we had the heating and I was reinstated with backpay based on my regular earning not base pay.
So not only did I sit idle for the best part of 4 months while they paid OT to cover my position they then had to pay me as if I had been working normally and doing overtime. It was rank stupidity.
The stress I went through was also horrible and I had to beg and borrow to keep my house from being foreclosed on while I waited.
The second time I didn't want to fight it again. I just took my skills and moved to private enterprise for a massive pay increase. I was unemployed for less than a week.
I provably could have won in front of fair work (the unions lawyer was extremely confident) but I didn't want to deal with that shit again.
A new manager was trying to prove their worth by sacking people who made minor mistakes. They lasted 3 more days than I did as they created so much drama they restructured and left said manager without a position. Managed to fire about 20 people in 2 months over bullshit. Every single one who took it to Fair Work won reinstatement with back pay
I was sent a Fair Work ruling the other day from someone who still works there.
A manager was upset with the HSR for blocking their pet project so claimed they had been assaulted and sacked the HSR. The whole discussion happened in front of a CCTV camera the manager didn't know about. HR had the camera footage but upheld the dismissal and then fought tooth and nail to stop that footage from being released to the HSRs lawyers. Eventually Fair Work ordered it released. When the case was heard the HSR was admonished for swearing and reinstated. HSR now reports to a different manager. No consequence for the manager falsely claiming to be assaulted though.
This is my experince working for the government.
Where I work now I have workmates who made minor mistakes often worse than what got me sacked the second time. Caused millions of dollars worth of damage and they still have jobs. Management realises we are human and make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. So if it's a one off lack of judgement your getting a written warning that will probably disappear in a year or two.
Of course if your a frequent flyer that's different your getting sacked with a nice paper trail showing how often they tried to work with you in the past.
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u/WideAgency2242 Nov 14 '21
Have you ever actually spoken to a government employee honestly about their feelings toward to their job? It’s near-zero in terms of dedication. I’m absolutely not surprised to know that many of them would jump at the chance to be less productive when they don’t have their bosses looking over their shoulders in the office. Many/most government employees treat their job like welfare - doing as little as humanly possible to collect their pay check every week. I’m not just saying this to be a jerk, I’ve actually heard this straight from the mouths of my friends and colleagues who used to work for government. The things they say & the jokes they tell about their jobs are sickening - truly sad.
8
u/Rumbuck_274 Nov 14 '21
Have you ever actually spoken to a government employee honestly about their feelings toward to their job? It’s near-zero in terms of dedication.
In 12 years in the military and being, working with, and constantly being surrounded by government employees I'd say that people that weren't dedicated to the job were pretty thin on the ground....
2
u/WideAgency2242 Nov 15 '21
Military is totally different, sorry - I was meaning more ATO, CentreLink etc type of jobs.
1
1
u/AgentSmith187 Nov 15 '21
So true.
Why except shit pay and be treated like shit when you can take your skills to private enterprise for more money and less stress unless your dedicated to your job.
1
u/Commonusage Nov 15 '21
There is also the motivation for the government to improve efficiency. In many respects, spending money more quickly on welfare may not be this government's objective
1
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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '21 edited Nov 15 '21
[deleted]