To ask about being fired from public sector

[Bringbackspring]

This may be very unreasonable to ask, and there isn't much point to it as nothing will come from this. But AIBU to ask if anyone on here has ever known someone lose their job in the higher education (HE) sector? I'm not talking about a fixed term or casual appointment coming to it's natural end and it not being renewed. I'm talking about staff from any of the HE 'job families' (not just lecturing, there are 100's of job types in HE) being given the boot either mid-contract or from a permanent contract.

I have worked in several UK universities over the past 20 years. I have worked with mostly brilliant people who really go above and beyond, and lots of good people who just get on and do their job to the letter. All fine. I love the work and it makes it easy to get about of bed for as it's work that helps a lot of people.

However, I have worked with a handful of absolute waste of space coasters. People who are incompetent (despite being given training, and endless amounts of support), people who are lazy and will seemingly sit back and just let everyone else pick up the slack because everyone else is too conscientious to just let it all fall apart. One person could not follow even the most basic health and safety protocols (think spilling toxic chemicals regularly and just wandering off to let someone else find and sort it) and was generally a walking hazard!

Not once have I ever seen a case of one of these people losing their job. Only once have I seen a line manager escalate someone to HR (following procedure) and the senior dept. leaders turned on the line manager. The useless employee was protected, and apologised to, and the line manager ended up handing her notice in. So we ended up losing a brilliant member of staff in order to keep a useless one.

I am getting a bit fed up of everyone, including very senior people, being very well aware of these people's short comings, and the impact it has on the teams who work with them. But nothing is ever done about it. It's like HE is terrified of firing people because it's not a very 'wellbeing' sort of thing to do. What about the wellbeing of everyone else!!

In the private sector, I get the impression that coasters wouldn't last long. But maybe I am wrong?

I work in the public sector and I’ve seen one person lose their job in the 22yrs and I personally sacked them. For sickness - believe me they played the system, back pain but working as a DJ on the sly. He knew when to go off sick again to delay warnings etc, I didn’t feel bad atall when I dismissed him (some details changed for privacy but similar)

Odd post, you neglected to say what you’re doing about it. Are you raising concerns, a grievance, speaking to management. Other than the toxic guy, the decision in them being incompetent time wasters seems to be your opinion?

I won't argue, it is an odd post. I did say that there isn't much point to it as nothing will come from it. I simply was looking to find out if anyone else has shared my experience. I haven't seen any rules stipulating that I cannot ask people about their experiences on this forum.

As for their incompetence being 'my opinion', that is not the case. All of these individuals over the years have been flagged to senior management (not necessarily by me), and in every case it has been acknowledged that the person is a problem. But nothing ever comes of it, nothing ever changes. I am interested in knowing if this is a sector-specific issue or if it happens everywhere.

I am working with one such incompetent person at the moment who is massively letting our team down. It has been flagged at quite a high level, and a performance plan was put in place. But that has been and gone and still nothing has changed. Senior management acknowledge the problem still exists but it seems they are at a loss as to what to do about it.

I work in a different public sector with the same problems.
I've only ever seen one person sacked and that took many years plus legal fees and paying her off for them to get rid of her.
They finally managed it when she got verbally and borderline physically abusive with her colleagues but my husband (who works for the private sector) was astounded that it got that far.

I know someone, A, who has worked with someone else, Z, who has been in the job for much longer than A (10 years or so) but is in a more junior role.

A says Z is worse than useless, pleasant enough but so inept that she just makes more work. Z recently cocked something up big time, leading to a major panic.

Public sector and therefore won't be given the shunt.

You are absolutely right.

No one who works in the public sector (NHS, local authorities or education, for example) ever gets sacked for incompetence, laziness, bad attitude or poor attendance.

Occasionally, very senior managers are "allowed to go", but they will go with a large pay-off and good references.

The only way to get the sack in the public sector is to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. Do that and you'll be out of the door before you can say "corrupt bastards".

My experience is that at the highest levels HE can be brutal but there is zero interest in managing poorly performing junior staff, especially those in admin roles. There are so many hoops it’s exhausting and there is no support for the often quite low paid team leaders and managers who have to go through the hoops.

I worked in education and have known a number of people 'managed out' basically a new head/leader wants to impose his/her vision and rapidly imposes 'improvement plans' resulting in resignations, and people leaving under settlement agreements. In two cases they were weaker members of staff who did need to leave but others were experienced women over 50 managed out and replaced with younger/cheaper staff.

Are you asking if this is a thing in the public sector? Because yes, it is. The public sector is notorious for never firing anyone and consequently tolerating all kinds of underperformance and bad behaviour. It's one reason why I don't work there.

I worked in the public sector. Anyone taking sick leave for more than a few weeks a year was at risk of being sacked for this and quite a few were.

I also worked in HE. People were reorganised out. Reorganisations almost every 18 months and the lowest performing were pushed out.

It is very, very easy to manage someone out of education. They might be excellent at their job, good results, liked by pupils - but if your face doesn't fit for any reason I've seen a lot of people got rid of.

Increased workload, put down to teach subjects not your speciality, lots of observations, lots of criticisms.

If they want rid of you they will do so. They will push until people hand in their notice. I basically agree with @Meceme

I would agree in HE admin low performance was tolerated. But that is because the pay was so poor for the responsibilities that they could not fill posts. So decent people left and they had no choice but to keep those not performing so well.

I’ve known people managed out in education too, whether justified or not. Support plans that are anything but, more and more expectation etc.

Ive also seen some who really do take the proverbial.

Look at senior NHS managers. Even those who were involved at failing hospitals, causing deaths due to negligence, get quietly paid off, spend 6 months on the golf course, then magically pop up in a different trust. It's actually almost criminal.

I'm an academic.

Everything you say resonates totally. Universities are absolutely stacked with lazy coasting, incompetent people across all job families and at all levels.

I've only ever known two people who were 'managed out' of the sector:
An academic who somehow failed probation despite the fact that the university made probation almost unfail-able.

Another academic who was kindly encouraged to leave by a brilliant, visionary head of department who recognised his laziness and incompetence. This head of department was subsequently bullied out of the sector by a group of lazy, mediocre, incompetent senior professors.

But, yes, no-one ever fired.

I know someone who physically hit a colleague in the face in her public sector job and didn't get terminated.

Meanwhile in the private sector someone doesn't like the colour of your shoes and you're out the door!

I've seen it in schools. And not just teachers.

We had a member of staff who was successful in interview for a slightly higher grade post. The job was more technical but she persuaded the interviewers that she was up to it. She wasn't.

Long story short - within six months she had handed her notice in. Head teachers don't mess about when they want you gone. Whether that's for good reasons or bad.

To add to my post above - DP is also an academic. He did a citizenship role in his department a few years back which had a dedicated administrator for that role.

That lady did nothing. I don't mean she was lazy, I mean she did absolutely nothing. Her and DP used to have a weekly check-in and she'd always have a million excuses for why she hadn't completed the action points from the last week's meeting (action points like "Book a room for a half-day seminar" or "Email Jon and ask about the thing", not rocket science).

DP couldn't get her to actually do her job. No stick. No carrot. To keep things running, DP started doing the action points himself. Then he got pissed off and stopped. Then the whole system started to fall over and the head of department got involved.

DP told the HoD that it was the administrator refusing to do her job. HoD had a word, nothing changed, HoD said "Ah well, what can you do?" and it just went on.

Fair enough, the answer is yes it happens in private too. Not for things like assault or heath and safety breaches, in my experience, but yes lazy, incompetent, etc often don’t get fired.

they don’t progress, they don’t get big pay rises, but yes, I’d hazard a guess that every company has them, be it private or public.

of course people do get managed out, passed on to another team to avoid the problem, and yes some get on formal pips and fired, but after two years it’s a complex process.

im working with one right now, and quite frankly its driving me fucking potty. I’ve complained long and loud, as has everyone else, but still he’s there, doing fuck all and making everyone’s life a bit harder.

I've known people to be sacked in the civil service, for poor performance, sick absence, gross misconduct and for failing probation.
However, probably more hoops than in (some of) the private sector to get rid.
Generally, I think it's easier to coast or hide in big organisations than in small and the public sector has more big organisations than small, whereas more private sector posts are in SMEs.
Also, private sector tend to use more settlement agreements, often encourages people to go without fuss for the right pay-off and references.

I know of people in the NHS who were let go but it only happened when they were on extended sick leave (we are talking years with chronic illness) and were effectively let go because there was no hope they would recover and therefore could not perform in their role.
If someone in a public sector is a member of a union, it is very unlikely they will get fired unless there are issues with gross misconduct or they are in breach of professional code of ethics. For example, we once came across a case where a registered pharmacist was administering covert medication and we reported him to the professional body who then revoked their license, hence they could no longer be legally employed.

I have worked in academia and I think there can be a culture of constructive dismissal rather than sacking - making it impossible to stay in the role but technically the person resigns rather than being sacked.

I work in HE and unfortunately I know EXACTLY what you are talking about from experiences at two different universities.

I have never seen anyone sacked for poor performance in 19 years . I have seen many playing the ' performance management' process, but nothing ever happens.

These people are also adept at abusing the sickness policy, knowing exactly when and for how long to take sick leave.

They care nothing for their colleagues, they are selfish and dishonest and drag teams down to their level.

In the private sector they would be given a verbal warning, a written warning, a final written warning and then dismissed. This doesn't happen in H.E.

Really. Must have imagined all those people who failed probation, got sacked for being too sick or in one case useless in a LA I worked in.. Also know that HR gave the managers squat help though, they had to prep their case well

Yup. But they are quick to trumpet how terrible public sector is, they would never get away with it etc etc.