Walked into a shit show

[Melony17]

I’ve started a new job recently. Honestly, I’ve come in as the manager and staffing is diabolical. People are just going off left right and centre and not just for a day. For prolonged periods. I’m honestly losing the will with these people.

I don’t want to divulge what I do. But it’s a proper profession whereby attendance shouldn’t be this poor. It just feels like I’m managing a mess. I have nothing but hassle from the moment I walk in to the moment I leave. I left my old work place for this reason. And now I’ve picked up the same shit in a diff place.

Education?
Health?

It’s one of them yes.

I bet it's nursing.

No it’s not. And I didn’t post it for the hopes of anyone guessing my job. Just needed a vent and rant. I may just end up looking for a new role even.

I left teaching at least partially because the staffing issues meant my workload became unmanageable.

I think most education settings have major staffing issues now.

I don't know about health but it wouldn't surprise me.

Knew it!

I feel for you- have is the morale/culture and what can be improved?

Can you contact your predecessor maybe via linkedin and ask them for their thoughts and advice?

What sort of help do you have from your own manager and above?

What is the HR support like?

Those two are essential when attempting to manage in a shit show.

If the answer is 🤷‍♀️ then I would be seeking a new role.

Maybe list it as a fixed term contract on your CV and LinkedIn. I do that re a role I had nine years ago that didn't work out - and it's fine.

Seek out and identify specific things to tackle there while you're on the jobseeking trail again; quick wins, with a view to listing them as tasks you handled, managed, solved, delivered, as a short term engagement.

Just ‘going off’ or phoning in sick? What is the under laying issues which are causing it?

are you sufficiently senior to enable you to have authority and make meaningful whole- school/ department if FE/HE, changes - ie stage a mass intervention and improve working conditions or otherwise upend whatever it is that is causing the mass absence?

If not, I’d just leave and find a supply post. You’ll be banging your head against a brick wall for a paltry amount of additional pay,

it’s a proper profession whereby attendance shouldn’t be this poor

I'm not sure how the nature of the industry is supposed to magically make the workforce healthier. If people are ill they are ill. And if the absences are work-related, particularly stress, well, that tells you that you need to start applying elsewhere.

It's not the fault of the staff if the management are mismanaging them to this extent.

They’re either unwell, or they’re taking days off because they can’t stand it there.

If healthcare I can empathise - my wife is constantly dealing with staff in a cycle of ill health and mental health battles preventing them from working. But guess what, as soon as the full pay runs out, they reappear. Until they can begin the process again.

I would say there is a massive issue with people treating NHS roles like a benefits scam, and doing as little as possible to earn their wage.

I would say that there's a massive problem with NHS staff dragging themselves back to work in a shitshow because they can't afford further time off, barely enduring the job until the sick pay cycle resets, and then collapsing back out again.

Other sectors with comparable sickness benefits don't have this problem, so it's not something that people do because they fancy a lot of paid time off.

I sympathise.

I got a HoD job in a secondary school some years back. Don't laugh...not until I had signed my contract was I told that my predecessor was being kept on, on a conserved salary.

Turned out he'd had an affair with an NQT and his wife had found out, whereupon he'd had a "breakdown". Let's just say that staffing was challenging until he eventually moved on.

Until then, he kept going off sick, meaning that I had to collapse classes, take turns teaching exam classes so that kids could get through their coursework, etc...

One Saturday, I was having a coffee in the city when I bumped into him and a blonde. He'd been off for a few days. "Oh, hello!" quoth I. "Glad you're feeling better. I'll see you on Monday." [I swear that I wasn't being sarcastic.]

"Nice to meet you, Mrs X," I added - at which point, she gave me a poisonous look.

Two years later, I met his actual wife...

All I can say, OP, is hang in there - it'll be hard work, but it'll get better.

Healthcare and teaching are two of the professions that had repeated exposure to Covid - and still are - yet have been expected to drag themselves into work before recovering properly.

Not only are they run-down and knackered, with traumatised immune systems, they're being subjected to continual resource cuts and top-down restructures. With several of their colleagues off sick at any given time, they're always picking up extra slack while being vilified by everyone from upper management to end users.

I'm not surprised they're dropping like flies with both psych and physical issues.

Depending on what the prevailing culture allows, you could try initiating a collaborative project to improve load-sharing, incorporating self-care and mutual consideration and whatever else THEY feel will help them to feel more sustained and sustainable in work.

It's really not fair that you should have to try and resolve problems caused by the faltering system you work within - but you'll feel bloody great if you manage to get somewhere!

That may be a good idea, Melony. A change of profession. Good luck.

We have the same in our school. People are fed up and burnt out.

Exactly. Sounds like a horrible toxic workplace.

Do you have the means to improve things, so staff feel engaged?

If not, look for something else.

Well the replies any time any one mentions breaking a fingernail at work is 'well just go off sick' so you have lot of people off then the ones there have to cover for everyone

so not sure how 'well just go off sick' helps anyone in the long term

Well people wanted to live with COVID and this is what it looks like.

People seem to have this notion that attendance is lower because of school avoiders and "missing" children but there is genuinely more illness around. This applies to staff as well as children.

Couple that with schools already understaffed and or badly run and you have a recipe for disaster.

It's the same in university. Literally the least stressful/cushiest job I've ever had, yet people are constantly off with stress.

I’m in the middle of a very similar thing. Left a lovely job to go and manage a department full of hostile staff who are off all the time and used to doing whatever they want. The worst thing is the head won’t back me on anything even though he’s told me to make all these changes. It’s exhausting and I’m at the point of being signed off myself.

@Melony17 I'm assuming there's an absence policy which is being applied? If the same people are regularly self certifying for lots of days then surely they will hit the criteria for formal absence reviews quite fast. If people have actually medical reasons and are signed off then thats because they have a genuine need to be off....you can't be expecting people to just turn up anyway because they are educators.

Sounds tough. Maybe you’re the person they’ve been waiting for to turn things around. I experienced similar in 2021. The team was so strained, a lot of tension. I’ve added some humour and kindness while also rolling up my sleeves and being present alongside my staff. Hardly any wfh days and I’m pleased to say I’ve made a big difference. Yesterday there was so much laughter over lunch. One of my staff who used to hide away in her office now sits with everyone and is completely involved. People feel safer. We also do birthdays in the office which wasn’t a thing before. We all enjoy going to work. Embrace it!