Management resources for civil service?

[JunesDunes]

TLDR can anyone suggest any podcasts or books or even websites about how to line manage in the civil service?

I have accidently found myself being promoted to HEO and line managing 17 EOs and second line managing 10 AOs.
They are split accross 5 offices, none are in my office.

We are part of a larger team of 100ish people. Some of my team are dysfunctional eg they dont talk to each other in the office and some individuals are problematic like refusing to attend team meetings.

I am new to the HEO role and have never line managed anyone before so this is huge and scary. This is not a position I would have chosen and I dont want to do it but I'm stuck in it for the time being.

This is about people's lives so I dont want to mess up.

Line manager training is 2 sessions online. 1 telling you not to tell your staff they are crap in 1-1s (even if they are) and the other telling you about various policies. Neither tell you about day to day line management.

The 4 other LMs are lovely and will help with specific issues but they are too busy to hand hold me. My manager is nice but has a hands off approach.

I'm going to look into coaching/mentoring.

In the meantime I've been looking for podcasts about management but none really address the "uniqueness" of the civil service. I've not found any about the public section even. So some bits of them are ok (I found a useful one about feedback and why the shit sandwich feedback sandwich is rubbish and what to do instead) but most doesnt apply (eg about how you develop or discipline people).

I am going to get some help with how to tackle the individuals not attending team meetings as a priority but I havent a clue how to manage or support people on a day to day basis.

Can anyone suggest any resources for civil service or public sector line managers?

I don’t have any specific resources op but just wanted to say you will come across people in civil service who say that firing people who are useless is impossible and therefore there’s no point going down disciplinary routes. Please ignore that because it’s not true when policy is followed properly and its attitudes like that that lead us to paying for people who are so brazen they refuse to attend team meetings.

I've just gone onto government campus and there are 6 different line management related courses just on the first page of 7 from a search under 'line management'.

Not saying they're any good, of course! But there are more than 2 modules.

That said, i don't think line managers get anywhere near enough support in the civil service. Having been a line manager now for around 6 years I have had to learn most things myself, spending endless hours scouring our intranet for HR guidance (which is often out of date or missing!).

I think a mentor is a good idea. I think the most important thing is someone there to bounce your ideas off and sense check your approach.

I'm guessing you're in somewhere like DWP or HMRC. Are you task-managing as well as pastorally-managing them? Godspeed!

You sound very conscientious so that's always a great start. Personally I just don't believe an HEO should be line-managing that many people
My best advice would be to get a mentor ASAP and don't try and solve all the problems at once. Sometimes all you can do with people is assign them tasks, keep an eye on their performance, and offer regular wellbeing conversations, e.g. asking how they're doing at their 121s, instead of just launching in on work stuff.

Bear in mind that in a lot of Depts it's quite rare for HEO to manage more than 1-2 EOs - have you considered moving eventually? You'll have lots of behaviours to showcase at interview!

I know. It's one of miscomceptions that annoy me. If soneone doesnt have discipline action when they should, then that's a failure of the management team, not CS. 😊

I'm not afraid to do what needs doing. Well I am because I haven't a clue what I'm doing but in theory I'm not afraid.

That's why I'm prioritising that person. It's something that pisses people off, is specific and can be dealt with and publically shows I wont tolerate poor behaviour.

You're statistically more likely to die as a civil servant than be fired.

Someone I QA for just performance managed someone out of our organisation. It took 12 months (and that was 'quick').

This person lied on their CV (admitted it in a performance management meeting and then claimed he'd never said that) could barely spell or write, constantly vanished for hours at a time when WFH and, most impressively of all, took three full days to pull together a brush-by when it was his only task. A brush-by. Less than a 100 words). And worst part? We weren't allowed to take any work away from them because we had to prove beyond a doubt that he was incompetent.

We did every single thing by the book which meant it still took 12 months. It was not, in any way, a failure of management. It's a failure of the HR system. When you manage someone difficult - be that incompetent, personally unpleasant, or anything else - you have to do things by the book and that takes months, if not over a year.

So please don't say it's a failure of management - it's grossly insulting to those of us who have had to performance manage people out. We didn't fail. The HR system failed us (and the person who we fired).

All well and good to say you won't tolerate poor behaviour, but realistically...you're going to have to play the long game to get people fired. And that means 'tolerating' their behaviour.

Advice on being a good manager? Learn on the job. Training and books won't get you anywhere when you are performance managing someone out - it's a learnt skill, not something you get from opening a book.

Performance Management is straight forward

• set objectives = tell them what you want them to do
• check what L & D they need
• regular 1:2:1s - give honest feedback I.e. this is what you do well, this is where you need to improve
• Keep evidence
• I exited several direct reports

Flexible working - be creative and open but remember flexibility is two way Annual Leave - set minimum staffing levels but give them responsibility for managing their own leave Know where the HR policies are and use them Learn to say no.

If you look for 'having difficult conversations' in the resources, I think that's aimed at how to tell direct reports that they need to buck their ideas up.

But I'm curious as to how you've 'accidentally' found yourself promoted into a HEO role. In my (CS) organisation, to get promoted, you have to apply for a vacancy and be interviewed against external applicants and that's often after you've been doing the job without the pay or grade recognition for years because it was dumped on you when someone else left.

What on earth was I looking at in Campus then as I completely missed all the above? 🤣 Thanks for helping out a stupid person! Now to find time to do them!

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks apologies. What I meant was that managers were unwilling to go down that route, not that it was an easy route. Our team HR person is fantastic and really on the ball. I've been on leave so need to follow it up when I'm back but we did have a discussion before I went on leave.

@Belmondo it's unusual to LM this many and I really dont think it's fair that they have given a new LM this many especially as there are some characters in the team. However HEOs in my dept do commonly manage 10ish people. They aren't really meant to manage more than 7 and less if they are also second line managers. Even EOs manage 5+. They are starting recognise that you can't LM that many people effectively and do the technical side so are beginning to seperate out the roles. And yes pastoral and task.

@Kirschcherries it's the learning to say no that is going to be a problem for me. I'm quite relaxed with things but now need to think about other people, not just me. I always had very clear boundaries on what I needed to be concerned about and what was the management concerns. Now I'm management I really wish I'd paid more attention!

@Bjorkdidit I applied for HEO in another team. Internal post. I wasn't successful. The post had 2 parts, technical and LM. The person who got the job "took" the LM part. A week later I was offered a TP to do the tech bit which I took. I wasn't told the team was being restructured and I feel a bit tricked and like this was always their plan. 2months into the post I was told they needed another LM because of the restructure and it was going to be me. I either took a perm HEO as LM or went back to my old team at EO. You know what the CS is like for gossip and people would think I went back because I couldn't do the job. I want to work in this team not my old team and it would damage my future prospects if I said no so I took the LM. I'm not sure it was the right thing to do and have made it clear that I would jump straight into a tech role if one becomes available. I want to do the job in my little cupboard, not supervise other people doing it. I wouldn't have applied for the LM post.

People keep telling me about all the experience. I don't want it! 🤣 I can't see myself progressing anymore. It gets a bit strategic and even political for me above HEO. See my above comment about wanting to do the actual job not talk about it. I always keep an eye out but I've been after working in this team for ages and I feel quite sad and duped.