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?

Try the charity sector for the worst of both - rubbish pay and rubbish pension!

Have done charity, private and public sector.

Was well paid in all 3, as my role is valued. requires it.

Public sector definitely the hardest work, most significant in terms of impact, fastest in pace of change and the least work life balance.

Corporate life way too much running round to keep CEO happy, at expense of what was smart, or right -- I couldn't believe how much sycophantic sucking up was displayed trying to keep one person, whose judgement was one non-expert opinion, happy. Mary/John doesn't like beige, let's have the hotel conference room repainted at vast expense type-mindset. Really inefficient procurement and huge budgets for things that should cost much less. At that point I had worked in the charity sector for years and was aghast at the prices being charged by suppliers for things that I had got for fractions of the price previously. Shareholders would weep at the waste and the culture of spending.

There was a lot of entitlement and laziness -- large established corporate, not a scrappy start up with everyone mucking in. 20 percent of people did very little. 20 per cent did most of the work (and got ahead). The rest muddled along.

These are about the same proportions in my published sector body!

I've moved from Private to Local Government. I've also worked for a organisation with Charitable status.

By comparison (Private to Local Government) I'm doing a much easier role with a far superior benefit package (more sick pay, holiday & LGPS), the pay for the role is actually higher than the old job and stacks up compared to similar roles locally. The culture is also less competitive and more inclusive.

The Flexi is extremely valuable to me as is working from home for a proportion of the week.

I'm also part time which is just accepted as the norm. When I worked in Private/Charitable status organisation this was very much looked down upon and the workload was not adjusted. You just did a full time job in less time whilst being seen as less than.

I'd say there's probably a massive cultural element in my experience and this can vary widely across all sectors. So it just depends? Some private companies are awful, some are great. Same for the public sector, a spectrum of good and bad?

But for me, I'm paid more, treated better and have a better pension, work load and work life balance in public sector.

For me, it's been worth dealing with all the bureaucracy.

In the local authority I work for only staff on more junior side have flexi time, the more senior managers (Band 7 roughly) are not entitled to flexi time.

I'm AD level and technically get Flexi.

I think the only con I've come across from going into private is the pension. Currently my company pays in £250 a month and I pay in about £180 give or take.

At my public role I was getting about 20% paid in.

In all honestly though I've never looked back from private. I can work 6 or 7 days a month on full pay, can start at 10am and be finished by 1pm depending on sited and work to be carried out.

As others have said I don't have to go through X,Y and Z to get something signed off or paid for, company trade card and credit card available.

It really is swings and round abouts and finding the right role. There's a lot of positives and negatives in both sectors.

I love public sector ❤️ when I was in the private sector my boss was mean and said that I needed to do more in my appraisal but it wasn't fair as I just like to do things a particular way. In public sector I can work at my own pace and people leave me alone thank god. It really stressed me out in the private sector and wasn't fair at all. I should be able to work without being bullied and told what to do.

I also get a great pension and flexi. Win win 💯

Private (everything from tiny offices, to consultancy and household name companies) to public. I really miss the private sector. Work flexibility just as good in private sector and pace of work was much quicker, people moaning/blocking work which needs to be done a lot less, less politics and far less bureaucracy. I get paid slightly less now but I do get much better pension which makes up for it. But I'm so frustrated and miserable... want to do a few more months to get a decent amount of time in this role for my cv and then I'll be moving back to private sector.

I think there's lots of difference in the public sector, between departments, in terms of culture and pay. I used to work for the job centre and the pay was awful, the work was relentless and the pension bad too, no hope of progression. I then went to a different department and it was a lot more relaxed: I wasn't really busy during the day - the pay, pension and progression opportunities better. My partner works in the public sector for a different department, and has a very relaxed job, with a decent employer's pension contribution and some opportunity for progression: this suits him as he isn't very career focused. But you never get a decent rise in the public sector (look at the strikes age public resentment now even after 10%+ inflation).

I'm in the private sector now, the pay and progression opportunities brilliant, my work-life balance is great. I can work from home as much as I like. The emploer only contributes the minimum to my pension, but this is more than made up through better pay. I would only go back to the public sector if I was desperate for a job, and then I would be looking for something else ASAP. I can't see any benefits of being in the public sector unless you find that 'sweet spot' job that works for you, and you don't want to progress or get a pay rise - for example if you're just ticking along until retirement.

It really depends on what you are doing in the public sector. If anything to do with Education / SEN side of things it is definitely not easier in todays climate. The demand is higher than ever and budgets more strained, the stress in public is unbelievable. I do some private work on the side and it is a walk in the park in comparison and pays double. It’s completely remote which helps
with school run etc. I love working for myself and hope to increase the amount I do temporarily to get our house finished. When kids start high school we’ll sell up and can start building up the pension pot again.