New job - how to politely tell my manager the company is incompetent

[bringthecactusin]

Hi All,

I'm looking for advice on how to politely word an awkward conversation I'll likely end up having tomorrow evening.

I've done nearly 30 years in the NHS and have left to go back to college and retrain in a completely different area. To bring a bit of money in while I'm retraining I've got a little job doing ad-hoc hours in evenings and weekends for a healthcare call centre, the nearest I can explain is like an offshoot of NHS 111. So I've gone from a clinician to admin, and I'm overjoyed with less responsibility. I love the actual work that I'm doing.

But I've quickly realised that what I initially thought was laid back is in fact a complete lack of purpose and drive in the organisation. There's a serious lack of leadership. Manager No.1 had a morning off last week, then decided not to come in for the afternoon either (not an issue) but then someone went looking for Manager No.2, and couldn't find them. It turns out they'd just decided to skive and meet up with Manager No.1 for an hour in a pub down the road. There are NO training policies, NO competency statements, NO training records, NO list of responsibilities. When I get stuck on something I'll ask a colleague for help (a relation of the manager whos supposed to be training me as they're a 'supervisor', which just means they've worked there a long time and so have been given a title and higher salary 🙄) and they'll say "Oh I'll do it for you"..... DOING IT FOR ME ISN'T TRAINING ME!!

Saturdays we're REALLY busy as all the local surgeries are shut so we're taking so many calls. But the attitude of staff (including the 'supervisors') seems to be that it's a weekend so they're not putting themselves out too much to answer the phones. So often they're chatting for a good 20 minutes while there's calls going unanswered or a call queue building up. I know we're allowed breaks, and everyone needs a 5 minute breather after a complex or upsetting call, but it's far beyond that. Staff are frequently "I'm just popping to Tesco, does anyone want anything?" or "Frank has just picked us a takeaway up so take your headset off while we eat so it doesn't go cold". It's just poles apart from what I'm used to.

Tomorrow is my last training session and my manager will be coming in to assess me. What this will consist of without any training documents I have no idea, but she's lovely, and very chatty and will ask me how i think I'm doing, with a view to me working lone shifts. So how do I politely phrase it that I'm already very demoralised, and the lack of organisational....erm....dedication to the cause(?) and commitment is a struggle for me. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've worked in various different teams in 5 or 6 different NHS Trusts across the country and I'm stunned by how completely lacking it is. You know in job specs and blurb it will say "We aspire to provide the highest level of Patient care".....well as cheesy as that always sounds I've now realised that's EXACTLY what's missing. It frustrates me that there's worried ill Patients out there and we're just providing a half arsed service. It's NHS money being spent on a service that just feels inadequately run.

Or do I just keep quiet? 🫤 I've spent nearly 30 years being dedicated to Patient care and it's my whole ethos. I don't think I could let myself slip in standards to not being arsed to answer the phone and just chatting so much. It doesn't help that there's so many relatives and family members of managers here. I just keep reminding myself that this isn't my career, this is just a bit of money to keep me ticking over alongside my studies. If I'm successful in my retraining I'll only be doing this for a couple of years. Maybe I should just keep quiet and NOT aspire to provide the best Patient care.

"I think it'll take a while to adjust to how informal everything is here. I'm struggling to pace myself as sometimes its clear I feel pressure more than others to answer the phone"........"It's difficult for me to feel confident in my work when there's no training competencies so I don't know how much I've covered"......Can any of you lovely lot think up what to say or how I can say it?

I just want to scream "my god this place is shite, don't you want to be PROUD of the service we're supposed to provide?" 😩

Yeah I’ve worked places like that.

they won’t take it well.

if you need the money keep your trap shut, do your job and get out asap.

if you don’t just leave.

Basically sounds good but I think rather than mentioning ‘others’ I would ask what the performance indicators are eg for answering the phone and other metrics. Also emphasise that you’re keen to learn at this stage. I wouldn’t try to fix everything on this first meeting - get a clear statement of what the expects are supposed to be, and then start working to them as soon as you can get the actual training you need! Even one person in a team working to a high standard can start to make a difference.

Sounds absolutely shite. I like to try to provide the very best service I can manage for my nhs job but will admit I make some dumb mistakes sometimes, a bad one last week and it’s stayed with me. If I were working in a team like that I’d be completely demoralised

@PermanentTemporary Yeah, we all make mistakes, I've made some corkers over the years! I know you'll appreciate though that there's a massive difference between letting yourself down with a mistake, and just not being arsed in the first place.

Good idea to ask about performance indicators. Nice phrase. Although I'm not sure Manager No.1 will even know what they are 🤦🏻‍♀️.

Cheers!!

It’s temporary, so do the best you can do and leave the others to it, don’t mention there is a lack of anything, as nothing will change. You will only have a ball ache trying to find a new job so do this one and then once your finished find a better job that’s more aligned to your good work ethic.

Im in a similar profession, we provide specialised equipment into the nhs and the amount of money wasted because someone in admin/procurement can’t pull their finger out and do their job makes my heart hurt, especially as it’s tax payers money and it’s tens of thousands wasted because of laziness. When it comes to public services money should be scrutinised harder and wasted money should be penalised with the person responsible having consequences.

Find a new job

You will not change the culture of the organisation

You know its a bad fit and you will end up 'doing your head in' if you try to fixed it.
Even if its just a stopgap job you should feel happy to go to work the day can fall appart but you need to be happy to turn up again the next day I suspect that you will not manage that with that job.

And while you want a career change you should not risk your professional reputation past and future with an organisation which could end as a feature article or even front page news🤷‍♀️

You can hold higher standards yourself & you might inspire them, but you can’t be critical, they’ll just get defensive. It sounds v annoying but sometimes it just takes 1 person to change it from the inside out

I’m in education and have just moved schools because it was clear my last one had organisational problems that leadership weren’t going to fix. It’s just horrible when you’re trying to do your best and others around you are incompetent and have no desire to improve. I would keep your head down and start looking for a job that’s a better fit. I don’t think you’ve a hope of making more than minor improvements.

Government/NHS contractors doing very little for a lot of money, nothing new there!

If you don't care about staying there, you could consider gathering evidence and reporting to the NHS procurement manager that deals with them. Maybe see if you can get access to data, e.g. the actual number of calls answered may be much lower than they report/what they are contracted to do. Or see if e.g. The Guardian might be interested. But whistleblowing is hard in the private sector.

FWIW re "they're a 'supervisor', which just means they've worked there a long time and so have been given a title and higher salary" I've come across the exact same situation in charities taking on long term local government contracts. It's pathetic, isn't it! They don't even want to manage anyone or take on more responsibility, they just want to earn more 🙄 I left because they had serious cultural/organisational problems, they hadn't changed in 20 years and I wasn't going to improve that.

@AnSolas I'm giving up my professional registration completely so cannot be held 'responsible' in any way for what goes on here, and new career is completely unrelated.....along the lines of a Pharmacist retraining as a mechanic type of career change. But yes, I don't want any reputation sullied.

I was very fortunate to get a small inheritance recently, and thats whats allowing me to retrain. I'm using that to pay my mortgage and bills etc for 2 years of college, and this job is just a bit of extra cash so I don't plough through it too quickly. Its great for flexibility as it's literally just putting my name down for shifts I fancy working. I'll definitely be looking for something else, but I'm not sure if I'd find anything quite so flexible. It's just going to be 2 years of mainly opting for nightshifts where I'm working alone, and biting my tongue on other shifts when everyone disappears off to Asda or the pub. Heaven help me, I have a face that constantly betrays me and gives away my true feelings so I can't see me lasting 2 years 🤣

This is what I'm aiming for. I'm happy to be the geek who doesn't join in all the chats and just cracks on with answering the calls and sticks out as being different. I've not worked shifts with every single member of staff yet, so hopefully there might be just ONE person there who also shares my strong work ethic!!

I know there's another 2 members of staff starting in the next few weeks, so I might see if I could write a training checklist on the pretence of "this is what I found helpful to know" so overtime that could be developed into a formal training competency portfolio.