Policies ‘demotivate staff’
Saturday 12th September 2009, 3:00PM BST.
Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur
JERSEY’S public sector workers are at risk of becoming demotivated, complacent and drained of ambition because of huge inequalities in pay, a damning new report has claimed.
A review of States salaries has concluded that workers at the lower end of the pay scale are paid well above the market average, while those at the top end are significantly below it. The differences, combined with a lack of pay awards to recognise hard-working staff, are in danger of creating problems within the workforce, the review claimed.
The report is likely to inflame tensions between ministers and the Island’s 7,000 public sector workers, who earlier this summer were told that they would not receive a pay rise this year. Earlier this week more than 1,000 workers tabled a vote of no confidence in the States Employment Board, the official employer of public sector workers, during a heated meeting at Fort Regent.
The independent review, carried out by consultancy firm Hassell Blampied Associates, warned that well-paid workers at the lower end of the scale will lack motivation to learn new skills, while those at the top end may leave the States in search of better pay.
In a statement, Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur said that the review justified the recent decision to freeze pay for public workers. He said: ‘The report confirms that the States pay well, in relation to the private sector, at the lower ends of the pay scales, competitively in the middle grades and not as well at the higher ends.
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“well-paid workers at the lower end of the scale will lack motivation to learn new skills”
It’s not motivatiuon they’re lacking, we’ve been saying for ages that those in manual positions in states jobs are on the gravy train. They earn more than their public sector counterparts and do less work.
As for those in senior positions being less well paid – leave if you feel hard done by, you won’t though as you might have to work for a living.
States jobs – a licence to doss.
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Another excuse to pay the already over paid managers more money…. if their not happy with their pay then they should leave.
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Yes, this review makes complete senset.
The lowest paid workers in the public sector are so much better off than the highest paid workers.
This is such an insightful report and reveals everything that is good about the Chief Minister’s Communications Department.
It’s good to see that the COMs, who sanctioned this review, are spending tax payer’s money so wisely in times of cut-backs and financial hardship.
Given that the top earners in the civil service are so disadvantaged would it not only be right and proper,and as a matter of principle, to hold an internal enquiry in support of the proposition to refund our hard done by chief officers for their guitar lessons and other legitimate expense claims.
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How can public sector employees possibly feel demotivated? I’ve never heard such nonsense. The fact that they are employed should be motivation enough for anyone. Many people these days are being made redundant. What about the poor Jersey Telecom workers, HSBC, not to mention Woolworths.
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Public Sector Workers need to get real. Seven staff at C T Maine are to be made redundant. They should be grateful to be employed.
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You could cut out a lot of deadwood in senior management/civil servants and politicians and use the money to give nurses and the like a decent pay rise.
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Am I reading this correctly? How to motivate staff – give them a pay freeze.
Also I suspect that the figures behind this report were supplied from the States Statistics unit again – with a little spin applied, of course.
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It will be difficult to make comment on the above news item without attracting criticism from some quarter. Nevertheless, I feel I must comment not only on public sector, but also private sector senior management.
Some of these people earn mega bucks, way beyond the dreams of many of us. They tell us such salaries are required to attract the right people with the right talent. Who says they are that talented? Many seem to make some huge faux pas and get away with it.
Surely if they don’t get a pay rise, these individuals can ‘cut their suit according to the amount of cloth they have’.
Whilst lower paid workers in the public sector as paid more than counter parts in the private sector, that’s no excuse not to give them a pay rise to meet inflation. What the States need to do is increase the minimum wage of private sector workers and control the salaries of senior managers – how can they justify being paid so much more than their staff? It is only through the efforts their subordinates that they can perform in their role. They can be rewarded when the good times reappear.
If there is a financial crisis, it is because government and those who are supposed to be regulating the financial sector, took their eye off the ball.
Aren’t those in power supposed to have drawn up contingency plans to deal with financial problems? Even in Moses’ time, they spoke of saving in the seven good years, for the seven bad years.
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What a load of rubbish – it’s completely the other way around. Since these reviews are instigated by those at the higher levels – what else do you expect these “expert” reports to say?
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im a states worker im getting bit confused am i better off not working or working no pay rise for the workers but a rise in benefits .. no tax to pay no social to pay cheap housing and even free passes for the merton aqua dome nice
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So let me get this right:
Paying those at the bottom of the scale well makes them lazy and unmotivated. So the way to get the best out of them is to pay them poorly.
Paying those at the top end of the scale poorly makes them unmotivated and so the way to get the best out of them is to pay them well.
Is this just sloppy thinking or is it a result of deeply held prejudice or then again perhaps it’s just cynical special pleading? At which end of the pay scale do you think you’ll find the authors and sponsors of this report?
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I agree, 6,7,9.it is a load of rubbish.
Are they trying to put people against these workers?
Le sueur and his henchmen are doing their best to cause strife among the working force.
Some of these lower end workers are more important than others in office and other jobs.
wonder how they came to this conclusion,did they do a survey?
I bet not, just trying to demean them,i suspect.
these so called experts can clutch any figure they like from the sky and take us all for fools.
I stopped believing anything these “experts” say as most of it is spin and rubbish
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the thing that would demotivate me, where if i was a states worker would be the glass ceiling above me as i attempted to climb the ladder.
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Awesome way to spin statistics.
Even if this was actually a well conducted study and these are independent conclusions why release this information ?
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David Brown # You are so right….lots of nepotism in States departments so that not always the best people get to the top. It is who you know and not what you know or achieve.
As for some of the comments on this site on lazy States workers….well I guess you could be right, but you can’t say that about all of them – many work hard. One thing that is immediately visible is the excellent Parks & Gardens Department and the Refuse and Cleansing Department. On a recent visit to the Island I saw that public areas looked clean and well decorated with floral displays.
You can get lazy people in all jobs, including the private sector – don’t just point the finger at the public sector.
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Unbelieveable.
We have seen lots of letters from States manual workers recently complaining about how they are nowhere near the “average” Jersey salary. Not too long ago we were being told about how senior civil servants were being paid way too much.
Now it seems we were all wrong and we need to pay the manual workers less and the largely imported “talent” more. Seems like motivators are different depending on what you earn.
I would strongly question the credentials of the consultants brought in to do this evaluation. The data used to make comparisons should be checked as well as the methodology.
At first glance this report does not pass my “common sense” filter (or BS meter) and I strongly suspect it to be wrong in its conclusions.
It seems like a case of asking a consultant to tell you what the time is.
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Mark G #2 and others. Too true. It is well known that the Jersey civil service is better paid than it’s counterparts across the water. The queue of applicants to fill and hang on to these well paid management jobs is as good a performance indicator as any consultants report. The whole civil service I over paid.
Motivational theory is more than just money; take any HR manager, be they consultant or otherwise, back to Maslow or the Hawtrhorne experiments and the Jersey problem will be seen to be deeper. Managers commissioning consultants to report on their own pay is a neat trick, but it does not withstand scrutiny.
The Sates of Jersey has become a leviathan of a businesses; a businesses which Margret Thatcher world have privatised years ago. Even New Labour would have slimed the Jersey local government.
The cash cow of the ‘Finance Industry’ has reached maturity and is now in decline.
Where is the political will to confront the problem head on? Not in the States, they are protecting their own jobs. Roll up the angry men of Jersey.
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If this is the best the communications unit can come up with they should be closed done. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic …
Get real.
Staff are demotivated becuase of incompetent managers, lack of direction and accoutability and a total failure of leadership all the way up to the top … or should I say, more accurately, all the way down from the top.
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No 12: Bella – “Le sueur and his henchmen are doing their best to cause strife among the working force”.
I think we are giving the COM and the others far too much credit, the simple truth is, they are way out of their depth and they are advised by people who are out of their depth too.
This is why so many “external consultants and contractors” are employed by the States. I wonder what would happen if States depts were closed and the private sector took up their work. If all these people are employed doing real work, then that real work will pass over to the private sector (stimulus?)
The private sector won’t have enough people to do this work, so the public employees can work in the private sector, unless of course they are not of the right calibre, in which case, why are they being employed in the States? If the private sector can do this work with just a small increase in staff and some public employees have no work, then we will find the truth of how many public employees weren’t actually needed.
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Reality check – while Jersey civil servants still live in cloud cuckoo land, those in the big island above them are being told by all political parties, that come the UK election there will be huge public sector job cuts.
I know Jersey does not have the huge ‘bank bailout’ debts the UK government does but in these times I think jersey public sector workers should just be happy to have a job.
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Where do they get this spin from? We have unemployment at its highest for sometime in Jersey yet a civil service and some left wing politicions that beleive they should get more tax payers money. I hope people remember all this silliness at the next elections because I find it more annoying than GST.
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Garbage in; garbage out. That’s what to be said about this report.
Totally agree with #4,5 and 6.
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A few facts I think, some civil servants work very long hours without any overtime pay! Many are specialists in what they do so are unlikely to find any work in the private sector to move to. Many are locals and went away to uni to get qualifications to come back here and work.
re pay rises in previous years (many of them)the states wanted restraint because of inflation, and in camparison to the private sector they do not get bonuses either. So now inflation isnt the issue they have no pay increase at all ?!!!, so I wonder if when the economy returns to ‘normal’ will they get a proper increase? I’m not talking manual workers they are a seperate bunch and I have no particular experience of their issues, but please note that the so called brilliant pension is one that they contribute to,this seems to be forgotten by states members and the press ( are you reading JEP editor about time you mentioned that I think) unlike many in the finance sector who do not. How do I know well i worked in it, and whilst my partner worked harder he got less pay increases than I did never got a bonus and works an eleven hour day most of the time without extra pay overtime hasnt taken a lunch hour in years. Has so much leave owing its ridiculous and everytime he books a week he lands up having to go in for 4 days of it.
Meanwhile our fixed rate mortgage has gone up food has gone up and our income has gone down in relation to not only those things but if I compare what he would be earning in another job (private sector) commanding the same level of competency, training, experience. I will leave out hard work commitment dedication and love of the job, I would be looking forward to a new car ours is falling to bits havenbt bought one for over ten years a holiday (whats one of those) and I wouldnt be doing the painting I’m doing at the moment as I could afford to pay a painter!
To sum up yes I know there are some sectors where the pay does not compare to those jobs in the private sector because we are in it!!! I wont even start on the conditions holidays and perks that the private sector get.
Also to be remembered in this bracket are those that do not get free anything , subsidised housing, doctors bills, energy saving stuff etc etc etc we will have to pay for university for our children, full cost (if they choose to do that) whilst paying an increasing tax bill because of 20 means 20 not due to an increase in pay.
Oh and I just remembered this report isnt the first one that came to this conclusion 6 – 8 years ago they had another which said the same thing, what did they do with it they kept it very very quiet! So yes some of us are slipping backwards in the pay front and have been for a very very long time.
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I guess this one was commissioned by those at the senior end of the scale then.
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Well said ZBD (#8)
Do the States think we are stupid? We all work, I’m sure many of us have worked under so-called ‘managers’, we know just how useless some of these people are. We also know how some of them got their jobs NOT on merit. I know those who were promoted because they were less of a threat to the Directors’ jobs than those that SHOULD have been promoted.
It’s not always in someone’s best interests to promote the person that is acutally the best person for the job, especially if that person is better than their own manager! It is, of course, best for the company that the best person gets the promotion but too often these decisions are made by an individual.
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If you think things are bad now wait until 20 means 20 is fully active in a couple of years time. Every way you turn you’ll be taxed.
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You don’t need to hire consultants to know that what they have reported are the facts. I know people who left the private sector to become manual workers in their exact same trade to benefit from 20% higher salary and guaranteed income. They also report they do less work, but that’s not because they are lazy, it’s because they are not allowed!
The main difference between private and public sector manual work ethic is that in the private sector you are expected to do all kinds of work. So if you’re a mechanic you’re still expected to pickup a brush at the end of the day and clean or use your initiative to save costs by helping out others. In the public sector you have your own little area and if you’ve finished your particular job you cannot do someone else’s (and there lies the inefficiency of it all) because that’s when the unions get involved. If you’re a welder and you start cleaning you’re area the cleaners report you to the union, or if you’re a charge hand in sewage and you tighten a nut on a vehicle same reaction! The place is full of creeps looking to dob you into union authorities should you show some initiative and tighten a nut to save the whole vehicle going into the vehicle shop to be ‘repaired’.
Until hard working manual workers stand up against this lunacy and accept they generally have it better than their equivalents in the private sector I’ve not got much sympathy.
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I can only comment from personal experience. I was a fairly senior civil servant. I felt demotivated by my salary. I was told that was all the money that was available so i left and got a job in the private sector where I work much harder but get 50% more cash.
Oh, and also that I once worked as a bin man for a summer job when I was at university and was taking home £280 a week for working 6-2 5 days a week and 6-10 Sat and Sun. that was in 1992. Utterly overpaid.
So, a good report by professionals that backs up my personal, unbiased opinions.
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“If you think things are bad now wait until 20 means 20 is fully active in a couple of years time. Every way you turn you’ll be taxed. ”
Or go anywhere else in the world and see how you cope with VAT at a much higher rate than Jersey, income tax at much higher rates and much smaller personal allowances. Oh, and much lower quality public services.
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Mad foetus (29) I think you have just hit the nail on the head with regards to the very high level of quality the jersey taxpayer gets for their money out of the local public services! Everywhere else in the world the taxpayer pays more but gets a poorer quality of public service!
I think that comment in itself shows how dedicated those that work for the States are and all the goodwill that goes into the work that they do! Do you not therefore think that they deserve at least a cost of living indexed pay increase?
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Well Well reading the reaction above it is clear that states workers and their soft jobs for life are not getting much sympathy. May I offer some facts having worked in two seperate states departments full time.
The States pay considerable more than the private sector, but it is not as clear as it seems. Ask the union rep. why do States employees get paid treble time if they work overtime on their second day off. I worked when ever I could, because those that had been there longer could not be bothered. Yes my pay packet started at above average, but a little overtime here and there and always my second day off made a fortune. It gets even better.
That wonderful pension,the working clothes, the working shoes, I seem to remember free dentist and free glasses. Go off sick no manager will give a damn, in fact some of them are worse. The states sickness record is appalling.
Finally just touching on the second day treble pay scam, did the enquiry ask how many high ranking police men, went into to tidy up their paperwork on their second day off at £600 pounds a shift.
Its human nature to want more, its bad indecent Government not have the correct checks and balances is place, with other peoples money.
To those that say that they pay into their own pension plan so do we (non states workers ) social security contributions costing over £30 million a year.
Its all just sheer madness on 48 square miles.
Davey West.
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Davey West – your comments help nobody. It sounds as though you worked for the states a long time ago. As a current states employee I can tell you that the department I work for is trying to reduce overtime (by the way this affects the public due to reduced service levels). Any overtime that is required gets offered to the lowest paid employees possible first with double time being the highest rate available on second day off and only if those on time and a half have been offered first. I am not able or willing to comment on specific departments as I wouldn’t want to get my facts wrong. I reiterate that there is no dental or opticians service as a perk (in fact there’s not even a discount scheme offered – we pay full price like everyone else that doesn’t have these as part of their remuneration package). The best “perk” we get is “corporate” membership rate for the gym (same rate as offered to private companies)!
Sickness is an issue in all shift work. Fact. Working shift patterns (particularly nights), in a nutshell, affects your body clock which leads to being run down and more prone to bugs. No way of getting round that in the areas where the work is 24/7 I’m afraid. But hey we states workers help to pay the GPs wages out of our own pockets with all them extra sicknotes we allegedly clock up!
“To those that say that they pay into their own pension plan so do we (non states workers ) social security contributions costing over £30 million a year.” – Yup we all pay social security too as well as into the pension scheme as well you know!
And another interesting little fact for those that still believe that states workers are overpaid – my UK colleagues are now on higher pay than those working in my department as a result of years of less than true RPI pay increases let alone the current pay freeze! Need I say anymore about the cheaper costs of housing, food and clothing??
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To focus on pay is a neat diversion from the central issue.
The central issue relates to the failure of civil service managers to deliver an efficient and streamlined public service.
Comparisons of pay between the private and public sectors are spurious as they do not compare like with like.
There are too many middle/senior managers in the civil service who would be unemployable in similar positions within the private sector. They just have not got what it takes to deliver efficiency and quality.
Likewise our politicians. They are weak and, fearful of their political careers, they have consistently avoided facing up to the might of the managerial arm of the bureaucratic beast that controls our civil service.
Time and again we see politicians defending the indefensible and regurgitating the spin that has been spoon-fed to them by the chief officers and the communications unit.
This pay review is most convenient for our politicians and civil service managers. By focusing on issues of pay it shifts our attention away from the fundamental issue of a failed and corrupted managerial structure.
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Red Herring # 33. “There are too many middle/senior managers in the civil service who would be unemployable in similar positions within the private sector. They just have not got what it takes to deliver efficiency and quality.”
I wholeheartedly agree with your comments. Some of the people in the higher echelons of the public sector, are totally inept – They can ‘talk the talk’ but not ‘walk the walk’ i.e. they are all style and no substance.
I now work in local government in the U.K. and I am amazed at the folk who have reached the top. Many of them would not survive in the private sector and haven’t got the qualities or qualifications to perform outside the public sector.
Having said that, there are still some good people employed in the public sector, but it is unfortunate that their ability to ‘think outside the box’ and to be innovative is stifled by lesser beings. Until this occurs there will always be financial waste and inefficiency.
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Red Herring #33
You missed the most difficult obstacle for the civil service bringing in efficiencies – the unions. Any threat of bring in change for the better and it’s tools down.
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‘And another interesting little fact for those that still believe that states workers are overpaid – my UK colleagues are now on higher pay than those working in my department as a result of years of less than true RPI pay increases let alone the current pay freeze!’
And no doubt your UK colleagues are now fearing for their jobs with the public service cuts likely to happen on a big scale in the UK. Last time I checked the states government was not looking to cut jobs.
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“Davey West – your comments help nobody”
I think what you mean to say is “Your comments do not support my case”. For those of us seeking to put public finances on a sustainable footing, rather than just throwing money around for a few years a la Gordon Brown and letting the generations after deal with the consequences, the comments were immensely helpful.
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Licence to doss? -I take it you assume that nurses,teachers,paramedics all have an easy life then-demotivation occurs when excellent staff have to wait for someone to retire to move up the ladder;or be best mates with those in power!
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Demotivation also occurs when you are busting a gut every day for a moderate sum and some people assume that just because you work for the States that you are a lazy freeloader getting paid an extorniate wage for doing nothing.
Whilst I agree there is some dead wood that needs clearing out, the majority of States workers work hard for their crust and are not over paid.
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Big Bean you are right on point #39. 2 of my family are now-retired public sector workers and 1 is still a public sector worker. The belief in the UK is the same ‘public sector workers are all lazy’. It simply isn’t true. My sister can identify those that are lazy but she sees no difference in the level of laziness to what she witnessed in the private sector. In large organisations (whether private or public) it can often be easy for people to slip by under the radar doing the minimum (if that!), it is not purely a public sector phenomenon.
What is very common in the public sector (for office-based work) is no overtime pay. Once a month (at least) my sister has to work a week of nights (on top of her normal day hours) to complete the work that should have been done by her 5 colleagues. However, they are all parents, and the public sector allows parents to fit their job around their children. I understand that their is legislation covering this type of situation but thankfully the private sector usually manages to ignore it!
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