How flexible have you found the civil service?

[Summertime10]

Hi everyone, I'm looking to join the civil service from teaching.
I have children so was wondering how family friendly and flexible you've found it to be please?
I understand there'll be departmental differences but I was just trying to get an overview before I commit to joining it.

It's an EO position I've been offered.

Thanks

@VitaminEZ less annual leave 😤 ....which department are you in that are trying to reduce annual leave??? .....we've just had ours altered to fall in line with other departments - for the better I might add.

I’m a bit worried about saying which department! The whole thing has been really awful. We were asked if we would be happy to accept a change in Terms and Conditions in order to have more pay. Obviously a lot of people said yes but then it all got a bit sinister because they didn’t tell us what those changes would be! Reduced annual leave would have been one possibility. They’ve shelved the idea for the time being

No TT work where I have been but some flexibility around school run on WFH days but it was in a professional service and the hrs were relentless at times. Negotiating leave during school hols and covering an entire teams work when peak holiday time if you're in. I've always been allowed to work pt but not flexi time because we all work far in excess of our hours so it wouldn't work. There are many many variations of roles.

I’ve been at my grade for 10 years and there is no chance of promotion in my area

For progression you really have to be flexible as to where you work I think, I've progressed 2 grades in 3 years but have done that by changing employers twice, if I'd stayed at my first department I'd still be an SEO now.

I'm in a policy role. Lots of flexibility at all grades and regardless of whether you have children or not. Lots of options (part-time, compressed, flexitime). Varies by team, but there's a lot of trust in people to manage their own time. We're 40% in the office but lots of people are granted exemptions based on health/personal reasons. Most departments have Working Parents Networks to support and advocate for you. Also, I've worked with a few teachers-turned-civil-servants and know they've really appreciated the autonomy and flexibility.

I should have said there are no opportunities for promotion in my specialism in my location. Everyone thinks that it’s simple in the civil service to get a promotion, but it’s not always. I don’t really want to move to the south east just to go up a grade

@VitaminEZ I have quite a niche specialism, thankfully have found they've been quite flexible due to it's niche-ness to let me WFH, I'm not in the SE either. It's always worth applying for jobs and seeing what they're willing to offer, if they're struggling to recruit it's amazing what they can pull out the bag even if it's against the outward facing policy for the department!

My bit of the CS is very flexible but pay is so dire that those not needing that are leaving in droves. I have no realistic option of my pay going up within my grade. My salary has in effect gone down for ten years. I'm now struggling to stay. But flexibility is hard to give up

I don’t want to derail the thread @user8545 but what I’m trying to say is that you can’t always expect to get promotion. I see so many threads on here where people think they’ll join as in EO and get to G7 in a couple of years. I’m sure it is possible in certain roles and are willing to change departments. But promotion and pay increases are not an automatic thing as you gain experience, even if you are working above your grade

@VitaminEZ well no of course not, but I'm sure no one is expecting to sit in a job and get promoted most people know that's not how the public sector works, like any career the more flexible you can be the more opportunity there will be to progress (especially if it's a specialism
with less roles in an organisation). There are a lot of opportunities in the CS, whether someone is able to to utilise that will be down to location, ability and feasibility, that'll be unique to the person. No one is saying it is common to jump 3 grades in 3 years, I'm merely saying I would be the same grade I am now if I hadn't moved Department.

DH is Civil Service & he does get a good degree of flexibility. Works from home except one day a month in the office. Core hours, but can be flexible when needed. He can do some of the school drop offs/pick ups & even finishes early to take DS to swimming. Hours have to me made up elsewhere of course.
Very understanding manager makes a huge amount of difference too.

I have been in the CS 20 years and as others have said it really depends on the department you work in, whether your role is classed as operational or requires shift work and the management team you are under . Some departments/teams certainly have their favourites.

I currently have core hours of between 7 and 7 each day, and an expectation to be in the office 2 days per week (which is local to me so I am fortunate) but with some departments centralising work, offices are being closed meaning my colleagues are expecting to attend an office up to 90 minutes commute away on those 2 days. We are able to take 3 days flexi a month as well as leave. But I love my new role and the people are great and very supportive.

I have seen scores of my peers and friends from my previous operational role leave over the last 5 years. And in that job there was no flexibility nor consideration for work life balance. We were all dispensable and reminded of that daily. Hence the strikes for low pay but even lower than that was morale.

It can be great. It can also be awful 😞

Depends on the department, my team is really good we WFH 3 or more days a week and do school runs etc with working our hours to suit. I know there are some teams which have to be in the office more per week but that would be discussed when offering a role.

Have people in my street who work for CS. Both always seem to have time off during school holidays, do school runs.

Not sure how much work they actually do, as they just always seem to be there for school runs, every school event, etc.

I wouldn't call it full time work, but I used to work NHS which is the polar opposite with no flexibility at all 🤷

Not sure what amount of work they can squeeze in during 9 til 3. It's a very short window of time compared to other jobs if you include one hour lunch break.

I didn't think there were any negatives to working in CS.

I didn't think there were any negatives to working in CS.

It’s just like any other employer. Bad management, toxic culture, awful
colleagues etc still exist. Experiences can vary wildly between departments.

Not sure what amount of work they can squeeze in during 9 til 3. It's a very short window of time compared to other jobs if you include one hour lunch break.

I haven't taken a one hour lunch break since before I had kids. I log on at 9, take a half hour lunch, take half hour to do school run (although usually after school club) then log back on for an hour or 2 depending what time pick up was. It's still very much 37 hours a week full time work! Mine are old enough to let me crack on when we get back, but many others will log on in an evening after getting them to bed.

The key word is flexible working.
We do our hours but maybe at different times. We actually have to record what we do every hour.
I often finish early as kids come in and log back layer,

Notplayingball as I said I guess it depends on what department you work for and of course after 20 years as I am getting on a bit I have to take the pension into consideration. But there certainly can be downsides!

An example of my day wfh yesterday. I started at 7, popped out for 20 minutes at 9, had a 30 minute lunch break (to prep dinner and do some housework) and logged off at 5. So a lot more than the 6 hour window you speak of.

We are accountable and have caseloads/targets to meet. Often part-timers are having to work lots more hours to manage their workload than they are actually paid for.

Depends on the department and the role. Did one role were I needed to be in the office and could only ish do the job from home and did another which was 100% from home (thank you Covid!). Current role is most from home but does help to go into the office for other things

Are there parts of the Civil Service known to be MORE amenable to wfh ?
I'm looking to rejoin the workforce and am keen to avoid a long commute. But the regional office nearest me has long gone!

HQ roles are, in my experience, very flexible. I’ve spent 6 years overall in a HQ role - I work compressed hours currently, I don’t know anyone whose compressed hours request has been turned down (although you may not get the day or days you want depending on business needs and others in your team). As well as compressed hours and flexitime, some colleagues work term-time only to fit around kids.

Overtime is a thing of the past, but flexitime is quite commonly used and allows you to ‘get back’ extra hours you work. For example I worked in a finance role for a while and worked very long hours and weekends around the end of the financial year - I could then take those extra days / hours I had ‘earned’ and translate them into extra holiday. I’

Roles outside of HQs can be less flexible. Operational roles tend to have set hours and may also have limitations on eg phone use, which makes them less flexible. I’ve spent four years in total in non-HQ roles and would still say they have a good level of flexibility in general.

There is a lot of managerial discretion. So - probably the same as anywhere - if you work hard and earn your manager’s trust, they’re more likely to agree to requests for flexible working. Some roles will never be suitable for it - private offices for example - but in general the flexible working is a big perk. It makes up for slightly rubbish pay.

By phone use I should explain before any Civil Service bashers suggest we’re all just playing Candy Crush - I mean some operational roles will require you to lock away your phones until the start and end of the day. Eg if you’re working in a secure area.

I’d say not really - and it changes with Ministerial changes anyway (eg my department had a minister who insisted that everyone came in at least four days a week). But Civil Service National means that there is much more variety of places you can work now across the country - it is much less London centric than it was ten years ago.

Id suggest you contact a few hiring managers for jobs you’re interested in and ask about their policies.

Getting constantly slagged off by the press and politicians when you’re working very hard is actually incredibly shit and really gets you down.

Working for ministers who don’t adhere to basic professionalism is also really shit.