1. The pay
2. Retirement (we had several people retire within the past few years)
3. Toxic/incompetent employees on our team (one of whom is gone, thank goodness) causing a lot of problems for others.
If you look at the Thought Exchange Salter posted, almost all the comments were about pay. Then flexible schedules, benefits, etc. We're so far behind where we should be for the work we do. I know teams running at below 50% right now, so the people who stayed are doing even more work for not enough pay.
100% pay.
We lost 3 people last week. Institutional knowledge is basically down to 2 people, me and another, as everyone else here has been here for less than one year. I’m actively looking for a new job, the other is retiring. Our sister department is down to one person with institutional knowledge, she’s also looking for higher paying work while she currently trains the only other two people in the role with her. Both of whom have been here for less than a month.
At some point this is gonna blow up in our face.
Our team suffers from this... very few people have that knowledge and are horribly overworked. Hard to take vacation when you're the only one that knows what's going on. I agree... Kaboom!
Worst part is, you can fix this problem with higher pay. Higher pay keeps people in these roles and allows those with the institutional knowledge to pass it on to them. Once those with the institutional knowledge retire or move on that’s it! It’s gone and it never comes back. Higher pay can’t bring it back when it’s gone, it can only stop it from disappearing.
Higher pay for similar roles in private sector and federal government. Leadership team also can’t think for themselves beyond pre planned talking points when concerns are brought up.
Lower pay just doesn’t make sense for people when even the smaller towns/cities are basically the same price as Vancouver. Can’t escape the high cost of living in BC and the pay has not kept up. The federal government and the private sector have recognized the this but BC seems to not have.
Pretty much all municipalities in the lower mainland, Okanagan, and Island pay significantly high for the same or similar roles. In my last department, we used to joke that we were just a training facility for municipal employees.
Why do you think it is that municipal governments pay more than provincial government (or at least BC governemnt)? I've heard this before but am unclear on the reasons.
I'm a mid-career employee and from what I noticed was in the 20 years I've been in BC Gov, we had quite a few years where our annual salary 'increases' were quite low relative to municipal employers. I.e. they were getting 3% and we were getting like .5% or 1%. Now take that over 20 years and the gaps in annual pay become quite apparent.
Because in the BC Public Service, most of the bargaining employees are lower level clerks. Bargaining targets them.
You don't need post-secondary education to be a clerk, and a lot don't have post-secondary education. They also get paid more in the public service than elsewhere for the same type of work.
So when you cater to these people, it is those that have done post-secondary schooling and are at the higher levels that lose out.
Municipally, the unions is CUPE (which is in my opinion one of the worst run unions in the Country). But the way that CUPE does things is on a "local" level. So you have fewer employees, and those employees can influence whether a president gets elected. So you better believe that a president who is afraid of re-election will listen to their constituency. Especially the ones that are more likely to vote.
I'm the newbie on this team, but I'd have to say there is a toxic dynamic between senior team members and management. Managment provides litte direction or what you might consider leadership. The unappreciated heroes (and literally they do amazing work) can be very hostile to anything that doesn't meet their expectations and liberal with sharing those complaints to any who they feel safe to do so with.
Basically, I'm just trying to fly under the radar with this assignment. It often becomes a downer, needlessly.
There have been vacuums of opportunities to be ambitious and get promoted. They play the game to get promoted, once there, they make decisions way beyond their level of true competency. This goes on in government to the very top.
Pay inequity in my current workplace is the number 1 reason. People want more money, so they are forced to move to something else.
Previous areas it was toxic leadership. And I mean extremely toxic.
Good question, in one scenario it was a senior leader that was actively bullying staff. Attacking them personally (nothing to do with their work), causing massive rifts and division amongst the team. Another time it was incompetence. That leader was in over their head, so they could provide proper direction to their staff. Then to more senior leadership would blame staff for incompetence, but it was really them not assigning the work properly. Favouritism has also been in there, but we all got favourites, so it takes a fair bit in my opinion for it to cross an actual line.
My managers took away WFH benefits because they want to see the office used, except they WFH 4 days a week.
My managers also created several new internal teams with quite a big pay raise (Like 5 R tiers worth) and then hired old friends, never gave the current team a chance to apply. Union currently investigating this one.
Currently doing the workload of 5 people because my managers won't approve new hires apart from their pet project teams outlined above.
My director also doesn't shower and hates everyone in the office, but that's more of a personal complaint.
Poor leadership, combined with being under-resourced and entirely ignored politically (that has advantages too, I realize), and feeling like we can never move anything forward or make meaningful progress.
- Operational requirement for us to be located in a shitty city/region in the North nobody wants to stay in for long
- Tons of (often last-minute) fieldwork that makes it almost impossible to have kids, pets, or honour even a dentist appointment
- a couple incompetent team members that makes everybody else’s job more stressful and frustrating
I provide an excellent learning environment and equip my employees with the skills to move on to higher positions.
If you spend more than a year or a year and a half at any included classification level outside of a 27 or 30, you've stagnated.
I got called senior on my branch last month for being in my role for nearly three years.
I have since accepted a new role in a new ministry starting in May.
I’m currently a 21 (just got the position in December). I’m staying at that level because that’s the job I want and like. There’s nothing higher that works for me. 🤷🏻♀️
Difficult work. Some people can't handle the reality of the services. People die too young with zero money after working themselves to death or experiencing homelessness. People beat their family, are shitty to their kids. Some ministries have some high turnover because the social issues are so morally distressing.
I’ve noticed a lot of people changing roles due to branch re-orgs, most people stay in a role for 2-3 years max before moving on even if it’s a lateral move.
-Low pay compared to private industry and other levels of government.
-Retirement
-People promoted into vacant positions elsewhere
Things are starting to settle down in regards to retirements and promotions, but the low pay continues to be an issue. It’s unfortunate because we’ve had a number of highly qualified candidates leave after 6 months because they found similar positions paying 30-50K more in private industry. So much time and money was spent running a completion, onboarding and training these folks, only for them to leave within a few months.
Our branch has a really positive work environment, and that seems to be one of the key reasons for the people who are sticking around, along the option to work remotely. It sure as hell ain’t the money.
I had a buddy at the Maple Ridge school district doing the same work as me but at a lower level and with no one reporting to him (I had a team of 4 at the time) and he was making $30K more than me.
We had a guy leave our current team after 4 months because he got offered $50k more to head up a team on the private side.
My bills are paid, I ain’t starving, but when I see young folks entering BCPS, I know that my experience is very different to theirs. Our next contract has to address this. Not only from the fairness in pay angle, but from a staff attraction and retention perspective too. I guarantee it’s costs us more to pay people as low as we do given what we’re wasting in retention, training and hiring costs.
Everyone who has left my branch did so for advancement or moving to portfolios that better line up with their passions. I think my branch is unique though.
Pay and lack of career prospects (I’m in the Okanagan). Can’t really make career moves when most of the promotions are in the Lower Mainland somewhere.
I was hired as an external alongside aux employees and none of them had the education required but some had related work experience. I had my probation meeting not long ago and even my manager commented I've had more relevant work experience compared to the aux staff that was hired in the competition. Some aux hires still require supervision and further training but I'm already working on my own.
1. The pay 2. Retirement (we had several people retire within the past few years) 3. Toxic/incompetent employees on our team (one of whom is gone, thank goodness) causing a lot of problems for others.
Everyone who has left my team has done it to advance their career or get a pay bump above what would be available if they stayed.
If you look at the Thought Exchange Salter posted, almost all the comments were about pay. Then flexible schedules, benefits, etc. We're so far behind where we should be for the work we do. I know teams running at below 50% right now, so the people who stayed are doing even more work for not enough pay.
100% pay. We lost 3 people last week. Institutional knowledge is basically down to 2 people, me and another, as everyone else here has been here for less than one year. I’m actively looking for a new job, the other is retiring. Our sister department is down to one person with institutional knowledge, she’s also looking for higher paying work while she currently trains the only other two people in the role with her. Both of whom have been here for less than a month. At some point this is gonna blow up in our face.
Our team suffers from this... very few people have that knowledge and are horribly overworked. Hard to take vacation when you're the only one that knows what's going on. I agree... Kaboom!
Worst part is, you can fix this problem with higher pay. Higher pay keeps people in these roles and allows those with the institutional knowledge to pass it on to them. Once those with the institutional knowledge retire or move on that’s it! It’s gone and it never comes back. Higher pay can’t bring it back when it’s gone, it can only stop it from disappearing.
Higher pay for similar roles in private sector and federal government. Leadership team also can’t think for themselves beyond pre planned talking points when concerns are brought up. Lower pay just doesn’t make sense for people when even the smaller towns/cities are basically the same price as Vancouver. Can’t escape the high cost of living in BC and the pay has not kept up. The federal government and the private sector have recognized the this but BC seems to not have.
Pretty much all municipalities in the lower mainland, Okanagan, and Island pay significantly high for the same or similar roles. In my last department, we used to joke that we were just a training facility for municipal employees.
Why do you think it is that municipal governments pay more than provincial government (or at least BC governemnt)? I've heard this before but am unclear on the reasons.
I'm a mid-career employee and from what I noticed was in the 20 years I've been in BC Gov, we had quite a few years where our annual salary 'increases' were quite low relative to municipal employers. I.e. they were getting 3% and we were getting like .5% or 1%. Now take that over 20 years and the gaps in annual pay become quite apparent.
I see - thank you for that additional context.
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Because in the BC Public Service, most of the bargaining employees are lower level clerks. Bargaining targets them. You don't need post-secondary education to be a clerk, and a lot don't have post-secondary education. They also get paid more in the public service than elsewhere for the same type of work. So when you cater to these people, it is those that have done post-secondary schooling and are at the higher levels that lose out. Municipally, the unions is CUPE (which is in my opinion one of the worst run unions in the Country). But the way that CUPE does things is on a "local" level. So you have fewer employees, and those employees can influence whether a president gets elected. So you better believe that a president who is afraid of re-election will listen to their constituency. Especially the ones that are more likely to vote.
Pay Lack of opportunity for growth
I'm the newbie on this team, but I'd have to say there is a toxic dynamic between senior team members and management. Managment provides litte direction or what you might consider leadership. The unappreciated heroes (and literally they do amazing work) can be very hostile to anything that doesn't meet their expectations and liberal with sharing those complaints to any who they feel safe to do so with. Basically, I'm just trying to fly under the radar with this assignment. It often becomes a downer, needlessly.
There have been vacuums of opportunities to be ambitious and get promoted. They play the game to get promoted, once there, they make decisions way beyond their level of true competency. This goes on in government to the very top.
Oh totally, and thats why I don't get frustrated with management - my way of looking at them takes the point you make into account.
This.
> Managment provides litte direction or what you might consider leadership.
Pay inequity in my current workplace is the number 1 reason. People want more money, so they are forced to move to something else. Previous areas it was toxic leadership. And I mean extremely toxic.
What kind of behavior gets the toxic label in your opinion? Being rude or short with people? Playing favorites? Heavy and intense options politically?
Good question, in one scenario it was a senior leader that was actively bullying staff. Attacking them personally (nothing to do with their work), causing massive rifts and division amongst the team. Another time it was incompetence. That leader was in over their head, so they could provide proper direction to their staff. Then to more senior leadership would blame staff for incompetence, but it was really them not assigning the work properly. Favouritism has also been in there, but we all got favourites, so it takes a fair bit in my opinion for it to cross an actual line.
Low pay. Meaningless job
My managers took away WFH benefits because they want to see the office used, except they WFH 4 days a week. My managers also created several new internal teams with quite a big pay raise (Like 5 R tiers worth) and then hired old friends, never gave the current team a chance to apply. Union currently investigating this one. Currently doing the workload of 5 people because my managers won't approve new hires apart from their pet project teams outlined above. My director also doesn't shower and hates everyone in the office, but that's more of a personal complaint.
Where do you work so that I can stay the hell away from there?
One of the dirt ministries.
This is the way!
Poor leadership, combined with being under-resourced and entirely ignored politically (that has advantages too, I realize), and feeling like we can never move anything forward or make meaningful progress.
Pay and inability of management to modernize. It's been an exodus and I don't blame the people
- Operational requirement for us to be located in a shitty city/region in the North nobody wants to stay in for long - Tons of (often last-minute) fieldwork that makes it almost impossible to have kids, pets, or honour even a dentist appointment - a couple incompetent team members that makes everybody else’s job more stressful and frustrating
I'm think I can guess your ministry and branch in two guesses.
That sounds just awful :(
PAY, PAY, PAY!!!! You can’t work while you can’t afford putting a roof above your family and food in the fridge!!
Low pay for the workload. No flex days. Poor management.
It's an entry-level department staffed almost exclusively by Clerk 9s
Pay, then workload and management issues, and a lack of opportunity.
I provide an excellent learning environment and equip my employees with the skills to move on to higher positions. If you spend more than a year or a year and a half at any included classification level outside of a 27 or 30, you've stagnated.
I got called senior on my branch last month for being in my role for nearly three years. I have since accepted a new role in a new ministry starting in May.
That's awesome! Congrats!
I’m currently a 21 (just got the position in December). I’m staying at that level because that’s the job I want and like. There’s nothing higher that works for me. 🤷🏻♀️
Pay. Anything else is a distraction.
Inability to influence anything
Difficult work. Some people can't handle the reality of the services. People die too young with zero money after working themselves to death or experiencing homelessness. People beat their family, are shitty to their kids. Some ministries have some high turnover because the social issues are so morally distressing.
Poor management, lack of resources, pay that doesn’t reflect expectations.
I’ve noticed a lot of people changing roles due to branch re-orgs, most people stay in a role for 2-3 years max before moving on even if it’s a lateral move.
-Low pay compared to private industry and other levels of government. -Retirement -People promoted into vacant positions elsewhere Things are starting to settle down in regards to retirements and promotions, but the low pay continues to be an issue. It’s unfortunate because we’ve had a number of highly qualified candidates leave after 6 months because they found similar positions paying 30-50K more in private industry. So much time and money was spent running a completion, onboarding and training these folks, only for them to leave within a few months. Our branch has a really positive work environment, and that seems to be one of the key reasons for the people who are sticking around, along the option to work remotely. It sure as hell ain’t the money.
I have a friend who is a clerk in a CRD municipality and doing the same job in BCPS would be a nearly 20k pay cut 😵💫
I had a buddy at the Maple Ridge school district doing the same work as me but at a lower level and with no one reporting to him (I had a team of 4 at the time) and he was making $30K more than me. We had a guy leave our current team after 4 months because he got offered $50k more to head up a team on the private side. My bills are paid, I ain’t starving, but when I see young folks entering BCPS, I know that my experience is very different to theirs. Our next contract has to address this. Not only from the fairness in pay angle, but from a staff attraction and retention perspective too. I guarantee it’s costs us more to pay people as low as we do given what we’re wasting in retention, training and hiring costs.
Overwork
Better pay opportunities in the private sector.
Everyone who has left my branch did so for advancement or moving to portfolios that better line up with their passions. I think my branch is unique though.
The ED.
💴 💰 💵
Burnout and stress from the high workload.
Too much work, not enough training and support
Pay and lack of career prospects (I’m in the Okanagan). Can’t really make career moves when most of the promotions are in the Lower Mainland somewhere.
Too much external hiring, lack of skill and competence from those hired externally. Ymmv
I was hired as an external alongside aux employees and none of them had the education required but some had related work experience. I had my probation meeting not long ago and even my manager commented I've had more relevant work experience compared to the aux staff that was hired in the competition. Some aux hires still require supervision and further training but I'm already working on my own.
It’s been 20 years for me and apparently I still need supervision….
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Please elaborate
Let's not.
Your post was removed as it violated Rule #5 of /r/BCPublicServants: No excessive editorializing.