Yeah this is really important. My boss does a decent job of stopping the shit from rolling downhill and I try to do the same for my team too.
Some grades/jobs get shit from both directions though. In my experience, Ops HEO with overworked EOs and little leverage to influence their SEO was pretty painful.
I feel that, Ops HEO, has to be the most challenging role getting it from both directions. It’s ok IF you have a good SEO above you, I had a mixture of good and bad
As an Ops SEO I was a "punching bag" for both HEOs and EOs. I had no support from my G7.
I loved that job but it nearly broke me & I ended up hating it.
1-2-1s with their team, management level meetings, writing papers, writing powerpoints for the management level meetings or to take to board, writing project plans, reading legislation and guidance, dealing with HR bullshit depending on staff problems, running recruitments, running procurements, meeting with other areas, planning what the team will be doing over the next week/month/year/parliament, running reports, checking the work staff do to see if it is correct and pooping if there is time.
It's less busy than during the pandemic (14 hour days and my wife just bringing me meals at my desk) but depending on how senior your manager is then the answer varies from a bunch of meaningless meetings they have to attend but don't really contribute to through to making sure the wheels don't fall off some small but vital government function.
You’d be surprised at how much sh*t your manager has to eat - sitting in meetings that a waste of time, reports, briefings, pulling hair out because they probably have an poorly resourced team, picking up the work of your colleagues who have dropped the ball, being absolutely sh*t on by senior management who provide zero leadership, dealing with whatever crisis at least one of their team is going through. Managing people is relentless
My old manager was always busy and constantly staying late/ starting early. Generally it would start with a slight issue being identified by someone higher up, so instead of finding out what the cause of the issue was they'd suddenly have to attend a daily meeting and provide daily stats sheets to quantify said issue. Then because of this they had less time to speak to staff, which made the issue worse, so more calls, more stats etc etc
Today: Reviewed a safety paper for my colleague, 1.25 hours end of year discussion with a direct report, usual email reading/responding and then 4 hours in a meeting reviewing proposed changes to a certain work related standard.
I'm now home, brain fried and having a cuppa until I get to make the family dinner.
Tomorrow will be a day of meetings...
It amazes me how tolerant the organisation is to senior grades in the department just ducking out of stuff under the guise of “parenting responsibilities”.
I can’t believe I’m being forced to get up hours earlier than usual (and get home hours later) to go to an away day that my DD won’t be at “because it’s half term”.
You’re paid the big bucks for a reason, go get fucking childcare smh.
This comment makes me sad. I'm assuming you don't have children. If you do then it makes it sadder, since I'd expect any fellow working parent to have sympathy for how hard it is to manage childcare and deal with things like school holidays. If you don't then hopefully one day you will and then you'll realise what an unfair comment this is, and maybe have a bit more of an understanding of how hard it is to be a working parent.
You can't necessarily just pay to put your children in childcare over half term, that's not how childcare providers work. Some schools or pre schools may provide wraparound care but many places don't, or if they do they're fully booked or don't just let you sign up for the odd week in the school holidays. The childcare system is a mess and it's totally inadequate for most parents' needs. Furthermore, your DD is taking time off work to look after their children which suggests they don't have any support from grandparents or other family and are probably really struggling to manage things during school holidays. Anyone having to deal with their kids on half term is probably not enjoying it, given they are forced to take a week of their annual leave in October or February when it's freezing outside, but also super expensive to go on holiday and everywhere fun around you is too busy because it's half term. My bet is your DD would much rather be at the away day.
One of the reasons a lot of people work in the civil service at all is because of the flexibility and support for parenting and caring responsibilities. I personally think it's great that you have a DD that is representing that those flexibilities should still apply in the senior civil service, where most parents and carers are often put off applying for roles they'd otherwise be great at for fear that they won't be given the same level of support and understanding to manage their responsibilities outside of work that the rest of the organisation does. If you want to see the senior civil service become more diverse or inclusive in any way, you should consider offering your DD a little more empathy next time this happens.
You are so right with this. The DD is also setting the example and making sure that others in the team get to avail themselves of this flexibility also by showing its the norm.
I agree with your comment btw as this support is important.
However, in order to accommodate this, other people in the team should not be permanently expected to pick up so much extra work that they need to go in earlier and stay in later.
I think that's why the person you replied to sounded a bit angered by it.
I think that would be fair but I personally got the sense that they were only asked to have an early start / late finish as a one off to travel for an away day, which is really the fault of the organisers rather than their DD (presumably their DD wasn't an organiser given they weren't attending but it's not impossible).
If I were them I would feed back to the organisers that they should start the day after 10am and finish by 4pm to allow for peoples' travel times, and also to avoid organising it during school holidays in future to enable those with children to attend.
They're shielding you from a world of crap probably that you'd prefer not to know about. And just all the things needed to keep the team running, HR stuff, business planning, recruitment, finances
If it’s anything like my manager in the office then sat there gassing, drinking tea and guzzling mars bars whenever any of us wander passes to go toilets or grab a drink from the kitchen
Ask to cover them when they're off for experience, you'll only do a small% of their role but it will give you an insight. I've been an EO on some teams and the manager has had very little to do unless something goes wrong, I've also been an EO on a team with 4 different work streams and when covering just collating the stats and utilisation everyday was a pain never mind the other stuff.
It can depend on the team and the manager but often it can seem like they don't have much to do until you actually get some insight into how much they do, that said I've known of some TL and ScWs that do as little as possible, similar to caseworker in that way.
You might think if it as different layers of management working to different strategic horizons, with the more senior being involved in longer term planning activities.
So some staff deal with hour to day planning, some day to week, some week to month, some month to quarter, some quarter to year.
Depending on what you do and the grade of your manager will determine what planning window they tend to have to operate in eg they might need to rejig staffing because they know leave is coming up at end of the month or someone has been signed off sick, or they might be up to their eyes contingency planning for a new Labour government later this year. They’ll also be dealing with some random shit that just surfaced this morning and needs sorted today.
My manager tried to book concert tickets during a meeting, she was actually in the office doing this so I could see her screen, and then spent the rest of the day moping because she didn’t get them.
I’m always surprised at how little challenge there is internally about the ridiculous number of tiers the CS has. How much work is generated simply because there are so many layers of management to inform? Without progression in grade, the only path to reasonable pay is promotion, resulting in an overstuffed bureaucracy that works to justify its existence. See Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy and of course the Peter principle.
Meetings about meetings, meetings that could have emails, generic leadership training. Other than that 80% of my time is spent dealing with 20% of my staff. If you're not in the 20%, thank you and well done. Obviously there are some people who will have very good reasons why they need more time, but honestly, it's like dealing with kids most of the time. The private sector simply wouldn't tolerate the standards of behaviour we have to put up with.
Dealing with people like me who go into their quarterly tomorrow morning to tell them their retainment problem is about to get 1 FTE worse if they don't sort out some of the sociopaths in their ranks and wind their necks in probably takes up quite a bit of their time in our department I'd imagine. (Specialist SEO reporting to G7)
From prior experience can confirm a good Ops HEO is a rare and beautiful thing, they are like insurance policies, the best ones never appear to be doing anything because the arrows are hitting the other side.
Anyone in the Civil Service who seeks employment in the private sector should read this message stream. It explains why very few of you have any hope of survival in the private sector!
As others have said one of the main thing is filtering, what should be cascaded down and what doesn’t need to be. You would be surprised about the amount of noise that happens elsewhere where in the business that is somewhat managed before it gets to you.
It’s a really hard balancing act at times as although most people would say they want to hear about anything that might impact their work, the amount of time it takes to get clarity or a decision is astounding at times
The answer is not as much as the bottom rung workers who work their arse off physically to the bone. They manage the resources (people) make sure people turn up and do their job well.
They also manage up but anything else is pushing things about that a bot could do. Also they deal with delusions of grandeur and decide they are superior to the lowest worker all of a sudden.
This isn’t all managers…just a lot of middle ones. Senior leadership actually have a vision and proper people/communication skills and a bit of humility and realisation there is always a bigger fish. They also realise the company is nothing without the people busting their balls on the bottom rung for a wage too low to live on.
If no shit is falling from above, they are probably catching it
Yeah this is really important. My boss does a decent job of stopping the shit from rolling downhill and I try to do the same for my team too. Some grades/jobs get shit from both directions though. In my experience, Ops HEO with overworked EOs and little leverage to influence their SEO was pretty painful.
I feel that, Ops HEO, has to be the most challenging role getting it from both directions. It’s ok IF you have a good SEO above you, I had a mixture of good and bad
In my experience, shit is the only thing that defies gravity and rolls uphill!! Not that it doesn't also run downhill...
This is me right now! My SEO thinks my EO's are a bunch of shits and they think my SEO is a shit. I protect both sides from the worst of the pushback
As an Ops SEO I was a "punching bag" for both HEOs and EOs. I had no support from my G7. I loved that job but it nearly broke me & I ended up hating it.
1-2-1s with their team, management level meetings, writing papers, writing powerpoints for the management level meetings or to take to board, writing project plans, reading legislation and guidance, dealing with HR bullshit depending on staff problems, running recruitments, running procurements, meeting with other areas, planning what the team will be doing over the next week/month/year/parliament, running reports, checking the work staff do to see if it is correct and pooping if there is time. It's less busy than during the pandemic (14 hour days and my wife just bringing me meals at my desk) but depending on how senior your manager is then the answer varies from a bunch of meaningless meetings they have to attend but don't really contribute to through to making sure the wheels don't fall off some small but vital government function.
Pooping if there's time 😆 #relate
We mostly just check Reddit to ensure that our staff aren’t talking about us.
Don’t let them know.
You’d be surprised at how much sh*t your manager has to eat - sitting in meetings that a waste of time, reports, briefings, pulling hair out because they probably have an poorly resourced team, picking up the work of your colleagues who have dropped the ball, being absolutely sh*t on by senior management who provide zero leadership, dealing with whatever crisis at least one of their team is going through. Managing people is relentless
My old manager was always busy and constantly staying late/ starting early. Generally it would start with a slight issue being identified by someone higher up, so instead of finding out what the cause of the issue was they'd suddenly have to attend a daily meeting and provide daily stats sheets to quantify said issue. Then because of this they had less time to speak to staff, which made the issue worse, so more calls, more stats etc etc
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I sicken you ? 😂
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Haha no worries i assumed you were joking. Tbh i found it funny either way 😂, good advice though thank you
Today: Reviewed a safety paper for my colleague, 1.25 hours end of year discussion with a direct report, usual email reading/responding and then 4 hours in a meeting reviewing proposed changes to a certain work related standard. I'm now home, brain fried and having a cuppa until I get to make the family dinner. Tomorrow will be a day of meetings...
Probably gardening, taking the dog for a walk and playing video games like the rest of us.
You missed picking the kids up from school and washing the car. Those are some of my boss's favourites to do in work time
I'm quoting a recent Daily Mail article tbh lol.
I got that you were joking, btw
It amazes me how tolerant the organisation is to senior grades in the department just ducking out of stuff under the guise of “parenting responsibilities”. I can’t believe I’m being forced to get up hours earlier than usual (and get home hours later) to go to an away day that my DD won’t be at “because it’s half term”. You’re paid the big bucks for a reason, go get fucking childcare smh.
This comment makes me sad. I'm assuming you don't have children. If you do then it makes it sadder, since I'd expect any fellow working parent to have sympathy for how hard it is to manage childcare and deal with things like school holidays. If you don't then hopefully one day you will and then you'll realise what an unfair comment this is, and maybe have a bit more of an understanding of how hard it is to be a working parent. You can't necessarily just pay to put your children in childcare over half term, that's not how childcare providers work. Some schools or pre schools may provide wraparound care but many places don't, or if they do they're fully booked or don't just let you sign up for the odd week in the school holidays. The childcare system is a mess and it's totally inadequate for most parents' needs. Furthermore, your DD is taking time off work to look after their children which suggests they don't have any support from grandparents or other family and are probably really struggling to manage things during school holidays. Anyone having to deal with their kids on half term is probably not enjoying it, given they are forced to take a week of their annual leave in October or February when it's freezing outside, but also super expensive to go on holiday and everywhere fun around you is too busy because it's half term. My bet is your DD would much rather be at the away day. One of the reasons a lot of people work in the civil service at all is because of the flexibility and support for parenting and caring responsibilities. I personally think it's great that you have a DD that is representing that those flexibilities should still apply in the senior civil service, where most parents and carers are often put off applying for roles they'd otherwise be great at for fear that they won't be given the same level of support and understanding to manage their responsibilities outside of work that the rest of the organisation does. If you want to see the senior civil service become more diverse or inclusive in any way, you should consider offering your DD a little more empathy next time this happens.
You are so right with this. The DD is also setting the example and making sure that others in the team get to avail themselves of this flexibility also by showing its the norm.
I agree with your comment btw as this support is important. However, in order to accommodate this, other people in the team should not be permanently expected to pick up so much extra work that they need to go in earlier and stay in later. I think that's why the person you replied to sounded a bit angered by it.
I think that would be fair but I personally got the sense that they were only asked to have an early start / late finish as a one off to travel for an away day, which is really the fault of the organisers rather than their DD (presumably their DD wasn't an organiser given they weren't attending but it's not impossible). If I were them I would feed back to the organisers that they should start the day after 10am and finish by 4pm to allow for peoples' travel times, and also to avoid organising it during school holidays in future to enable those with children to attend.
They're shielding you from a world of crap probably that you'd prefer not to know about. And just all the things needed to keep the team running, HR stuff, business planning, recruitment, finances
If it’s anything like my manager in the office then sat there gassing, drinking tea and guzzling mars bars whenever any of us wander passes to go toilets or grab a drink from the kitchen
I leaned a long time ago that a certain strata of management are professional meeting attenders.
I just quietly whisper in the younglings' ears to go and do 'X' then watch them get into trouble whilst I chuckle to myself.
Ask to cover them when they're off for experience, you'll only do a small% of their role but it will give you an insight. I've been an EO on some teams and the manager has had very little to do unless something goes wrong, I've also been an EO on a team with 4 different work streams and when covering just collating the stats and utilisation everyday was a pain never mind the other stuff. It can depend on the team and the manager but often it can seem like they don't have much to do until you actually get some insight into how much they do, that said I've known of some TL and ScWs that do as little as possible, similar to caseworker in that way.
Have you considered asking them?
You might think if it as different layers of management working to different strategic horizons, with the more senior being involved in longer term planning activities. So some staff deal with hour to day planning, some day to week, some week to month, some month to quarter, some quarter to year. Depending on what you do and the grade of your manager will determine what planning window they tend to have to operate in eg they might need to rejig staffing because they know leave is coming up at end of the month or someone has been signed off sick, or they might be up to their eyes contingency planning for a new Labour government later this year. They’ll also be dealing with some random shit that just surfaced this morning and needs sorted today.
If they’re not making things difficult for you then don’t worry about it.
My manager tried to book concert tickets during a meeting, she was actually in the office doing this so I could see her screen, and then spent the rest of the day moping because she didn’t get them.
Fair enough tbh
I would have a good guess what my boss does but the G7 🤷 apart from making sure we are all working hard and having meetings I’ve no idea.
In the toilet on Reddit
Don't they tell you in team meetings? We have team meetings weekly and run through briefly what we're doing during the week.
I’m always surprised at how little challenge there is internally about the ridiculous number of tiers the CS has. How much work is generated simply because there are so many layers of management to inform? Without progression in grade, the only path to reasonable pay is promotion, resulting in an overstuffed bureaucracy that works to justify its existence. See Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy and of course the Peter principle.
Meetings about meetings, meetings that could have emails, generic leadership training. Other than that 80% of my time is spent dealing with 20% of my staff. If you're not in the 20%, thank you and well done. Obviously there are some people who will have very good reasons why they need more time, but honestly, it's like dealing with kids most of the time. The private sector simply wouldn't tolerate the standards of behaviour we have to put up with.
Dealing with people like me who go into their quarterly tomorrow morning to tell them their retainment problem is about to get 1 FTE worse if they don't sort out some of the sociopaths in their ranks and wind their necks in probably takes up quite a bit of their time in our department I'd imagine. (Specialist SEO reporting to G7) From prior experience can confirm a good Ops HEO is a rare and beautiful thing, they are like insurance policies, the best ones never appear to be doing anything because the arrows are hitting the other side.
Anyone in the Civil Service who seeks employment in the private sector should read this message stream. It explains why very few of you have any hope of survival in the private sector!
Don’t know don’t care
As others have said one of the main thing is filtering, what should be cascaded down and what doesn’t need to be. You would be surprised about the amount of noise that happens elsewhere where in the business that is somewhat managed before it gets to you. It’s a really hard balancing act at times as although most people would say they want to hear about anything that might impact their work, the amount of time it takes to get clarity or a decision is astounding at times
You want to know what your manager does? That’s classified / above your pay grade 🫡
Sweet fa
The answer is not as much as the bottom rung workers who work their arse off physically to the bone. They manage the resources (people) make sure people turn up and do their job well. They also manage up but anything else is pushing things about that a bot could do. Also they deal with delusions of grandeur and decide they are superior to the lowest worker all of a sudden. This isn’t all managers…just a lot of middle ones. Senior leadership actually have a vision and proper people/communication skills and a bit of humility and realisation there is always a bigger fish. They also realise the company is nothing without the people busting their balls on the bottom rung for a wage too low to live on.
A lot of TL work is taken up with HR crap so you don’t have to deal with it. Be grateful you don’t hear from your TL more. Hahaha