Have you moved from public sector to private sector or vice versa?

[ThefourseasonsFrankie]

How have you found the different cultures? Do you have a good work life balance?

Of course there are different cultures. There are different cultures between different private employers and different public sector employers. In large organisations, you can find cultural differences between different departments.

Culture is important when you work, but IME, that's based on the people and you can get good and bad in both public and private. I'd say the size of the organisation is probably more important, but mostly the people.

Public, private, back to public. Liked both both I’m a control freak so found private frustrating as all about the brand. Back to teaching and no work life balance. Great colleagues in both places but my teaching team are ace!

What’s your specialism? 21k is very low for an NQ. I started on £40k and that was 5 years ago!

@SettlingForANewPassword i will add I am nowhere near London!

Public to private. Work life balance is worse but pay has more than doubled, I’ve been promoted twice which wouldn’t have happened in public sector, and much more job satisfaction.

In my place the junior staff have to cover the core hours. The rest of us have complete flex.

Family law- child protection.

Question for those who've gone private to public for pension. Have any of you done it post 40? Was it worth it?

Yes I was 47 when I moved

Yes me, mid 40's and my annual pension is much more than what my old pension was predicting.

This is exactly me too! I'm loving it!

The employer contribution is meaningless in a defined benefit pension. The defined benefit element of it is what makes it amazing, not the contribution rate!

Public NHS to Private, recognisable healthcare company. Professionally I was promised a LOT in the interview. Professional development, progression, training in the software I would be part of developing, paid time for learning. Guaranteed yearly Bonus as long as profits, fully paid team Christmas parties away from home.

Generally, when we were away from home we were allowed to stay in hotels that were actually nice, had a decent budget for food, all expenses paid. Managers had company credit cards so if it was full team visits they just chucked everything on it. First couple of months we got booked by corporate into two separate, gorgeous hotels for visits. Got cancelled as we were at the arse end of covid and it was decided we would do these visits (where it was so "essential" we meet in person that they made two staff members cancel Annual Leave in the school holidays) over Teams 🙄

Now we get fuck all. Company is making apparent record profits. They have stripped it right down to having every visit go through a strict authorisation process (these were once so essential you couldn't get out of them without being fired), every expense report scruitinised, every energy bill combed over. You have to basically get on your knees and scrap up the pennies that the top dogs deign to chuck down at you if you want anything out of them. Oh, and they love to gloat in the monthly and quarterly company wide brag fests about the record profits they are making, praising you all for "Pinching with Penny" while you literally cannot do your job because they won't allow you to hire more staff or go where you need to go when you need to.

I am paid 10k more compared to the NHS but I am starting to think it's not worth the hassle of the financial micromanagement to the detriment of my team.

I also found out that my colleagues are all paid more than me for doing exactly the same job (one of them does less and is less experienced). Bonus.

How do you consider the pension for public sector given that you may not live long past 67 years?

You could use the higher salary to invest in property or something else for retirement. Money today is worth more than money tomorrow. So it is said.

I’ve got no intention of working until 67 , planning on partial retirement at 55 and switching to a job share and then full retirement at 60. I’ve got a lot of long term health issues and feel more secure in public sector to achieve those goals - I couldn’t get the same salary in private sector unless I was contracting and been there done that

What do you mean?

I understand what you mean but surely the more your employer pays into the pension, the less you have to pay to make up the total amount needed?

NHS (10+ years) to private

Pros:
Higher pay
Bonuses and enhancements
Choice of projects
Better training/line management

Cons:
Target/metric driven
Highly competitive
Slightly (although it is marginal) longer hours
Poorer pension scheme

I found the NHS blame culture had got significantly worse towards the end. As more staff left, work was piled on without replacements, management kicked harder and generally morale plummeted. The ironic thing being in my private role I work with the same people as I did in the NHS (who also left). It's like a little expat community!

In my early 40s I moved from private to public.

What an eye opener.

Training courses involved practices and theories that had been abandoned in the private sector. Eg 'creating wordles' had long been abandoned in my previous private sector and was only just beginning in the Local Authority that I had started to work in.
Don't get me started on those 'getting to know you' games that had long been abandoned in my previous sector as being naff and unproductive as well as non-inclusive.

Public sector seemed to assume that you worked beyond your hours 'for the greater good' and that you weren't committed unless you gave over and above your allotted hours.

Private company just expected you to work your contractual hours.

Twas a joy to leave the public sector.

Went public (govt, 14 years) to private (6 years) to public (NHS, 4 years) to charity 1.5 years). Not had a job yet with decent work life balance. 🤔

😁

If you earn more in the private sector you can invest it and have good equity for your retirement years. That would counteract the better pension in the public sector.

I was also saying that pension in the public sector is good but what if you don’t live long enough to enjoy it? Is it better to have more money now and a good enough pension vs low salary now and a great pension that you only enjoy for a few years?

Public sector is so much nicer. Really relaxed and still there now and the work life balance is great. Didn't enjoy the private sector. I felt out my depth and people kept challenging my input which I didn't think was fair at all. I'd rather be left alone and get on with things my own way. Can do that in the public sector and my pension is far better. Public sector 💯

I moved to public from private and lasted 8 months before being back in the private sector.

It was the worst time of my life. I'm constantly approached to go back to public sector organisations and there is literally no amount of money that would induce me.

The inertia, the lack of dynamism and the lack of accountability was soul destroying. I worked in Finance and the bloat was absolutely disgraceful whilst all of the underfunded and under resourced front-line provisions had to suffer.

I finished any work given for the week in a few hours and then when I asked for more work my manager used to put her head in her hands. I was constantly told 'that's not a finance responsibility' when I offered to help and no one was held accountable for their budgets. or encouraged to make any progress on projects. In the 8 months I was there there were 3 fully staffed ICT projects that literally made no progress. It was utterly bonkers.

I left for a job that paid nearly twice as much and I'm still there 8 years later.

I'm still angry about it.

You can still draw down your pension early in the public sector?