sic sickness

[Ghostrider]

^ It is extremely rare in my experience to encounter a SIC employee in a position where they are face to face with the public permanently as part of their work, that they provide less than a decent service, even it requires they have to go that extra bit "over and above" to do so.

 

As soon as you start dealing with those employees higher up the totem who hide behind phones and desks in hidden offices, and generally only interact with the public "by appointment" or never at all, the experience starts to reverse. By the time you're dealing with "Manager" level, finding common sense and a desire to "get the job done" rather than "tick the right boxes" and/or "make the numbers look pretty" and/or just be a jobsworth, and/or be obstinate "just because I can", is quite a rarity. They do exist, but it takes a lot of swearing under your breath and wasted time/communication losing several numpties before you get lucky.

 

I would argue, despite having slagged them off muchly for decades, that elected councillors when in session do generally act with good intent and with the best of interests at heart, and similarly that council employees involved in service delivery to end users, generally try and do their best with what they've been given. Somewhere in between the two extremes though, feedback and advice travelling up to councillors from which they have to make decisions, and similarly how those decisions filter back down to point of delivery. Are both so mangled, abused and generally hijacked for unconnected agendas by far too many of whom the information passes through, that the council is a lumbering, grossly high maintenance middle heavy beast, where communication is little better than guesswork, and it survives and delivers some kind of service despite itself, rather than because its actually equipped and capable of doing so.

 

Something or someone needs to go through both the "operational procedures" and "middle management" structures of the SIC like a dose of the runs. Procedures need to be pared down to the minimum - If its a legal requirement, then fine, if it is unavoidable to the provision of service or serves a VFM purpose, then fine, but make them all as efficient and minimalistic as humanly possible. Likewise with "Managers", some managing is needed, but at the end of the day its the employees at the point of service delivery that makes or breaks the whole issue, not the manager(s). Only employ the minimum absolutely necessary to get the job on the ground done, only have them "manage" to the absolute minimum, and only hire those with a "get it done" attitude and atrack record for doing so. Not just because they managed to tick the right boxes to get some piece of paper, or worse, that they were the best of the a bad lot, but that was all that applied....

 

Managing is like jungle drums, the simpler the story and the fewer people who have an opportunity to retell it marginally differently, the quicker and more accurately information travels from one end to the other and is acted upon appropriately.

[Rasmie]

It is extremely rare in my experience to encounter a SIC employee in a position where they are face to face with the public permanently

 

i would expect that the greater majority of sic staff deal face to face with the public permanently as there are a lot of careworkers for instance.

[Redrobbie99]

What has demoralized many sic staff is watching their head of departments riding of into the sunset with their saddlebags stuffed with cash.No doubt to reappear in a year or so in a different position i believe they call it double dipping.

[shetlandpeat]

^ who are they then,,,

[Ghostrider]

It is extremely rare in my experience to encounter a SIC employee in a position where they are face to face with the public permanently

 

i would expect that the greater majority of sic staff deal face to face with the public permanently as there are a lot of careworkers for instance.

 

Well, you'd hope so, or there would be as many, if not more "Managers" than workers. There seems to be an inordinate amount of "Mangers" as is, but we've not hit a 1/1 worker/manager ratio yet....I hope.

 

The SIC machine is very much a "Too many cooks......" problem and been for much of its life, as I see it. You need the 22 at the top for the buck to stop with, and to keep it all "democratic", and you need the "hands on" service delivery folk at the other end, its the box ticking, paperclip counting unproductive dead wood types in between the two that need paring to the bone. They're the money pit that contribute least VFM to getting the work done.

[sawdust]

When I had a job that meant I wouldn't get paid if I wasn't off for more than three days ill, I solved this problem by always going in. Even with fevers, even with colds, even with sick bugs, because I couldn't afford to be off work.

 

The current job I have gives me guaranteed sick pay, so I may reluctantly take the odd day off when I'm too ill to stand up, but I don't need to worry about it so much. I still occasionally get sent home, but not nearly as often.

 

It's not always about taking the piss.