A recent report sponsored by the New Local Government Network suggested that there is a looming crises in local government as a third of the workforce are set to retire over the next ten years, with authorities set to lose significantly higher proportions of senior managers.
This has a number of implications for public sector organisations as a whole. In particular, public sector organisations need to widen their talent pools and attract people from other sectors in order to ensure a more rounded pipeline of people for top team succession.
How to attract this talent is a major challenge for the public sector. How important are the differences in financial reward? Are public sector organisations doing enough to try and recruit senior talent? Are there issues of perception that public sector organisations should be doing more to address to attract the best people?
To the public sector: do ALL components of your selection process support your stated recruitment goals?
I have just read yet another advert welcoming private sector application but on the form itself, demanding public sector experience (culture, volumes etc.). So I won’t bother then. Does anyone else wish the UK government could be more effective, efficient or both?
I have spent the last 12 months trying to gain employment in the public sector, having been in a number of senior roles in the private sector for the last 20 years. In total I have applied for 35 jobs, all of which I was qualified for and got two interviews, being offered one, which I have accepted.
However, one of the latest ones summed up the whole process for me. The council asked for 32 essential skill sets, which if a person had them, would have paid about £30k more in private sector. I did show this role to several people I knew in similar private positions to gain the salary.
Somehow, I ticked all 32 boxes and 6 desirable ones. No interview. Now, I have a friend who works in this team on the inside, and gave me feedback. Why didn’t I get an interview? They were concerned you would come in and change things, despite the advert saying that’s what they wanted. Instead, for a change, and internal candidate got it.
And the role I have been offered? Fair play to the people concerned they admit they want change and are seeking to do something about it, but in my efforts during the last 12 months, I have found many in the public sector say one thing and do another. I started in work in 1979, and remember that last Tory administration; maybe this will change things in the next 24 months.
I have found in my experience of seeking to get into the public sector that a lot of these organisations say they want private sector experience and to become more commercially / customer focussed but the reality is that they still select the kinds of people they have always selected. For example (one of many) in one role I applied for I was not considered past the first sift because I do not have a degree. I am for better qualified than most people who do have degrees, usually what the degree is doesn’t matter which seems to defeat the object. I do have a wealth of commercial / customer first expereince though. It isn’t the incentives which need to change it is the attitude of those doing the hiring which needs to change. I am now working in a sector which does recognise the need to change - the charity sector.
I have worked in the “private sector” for 44 years, and joined an NHS PCT as a Non Executive Director in 2004, leaving in 2006 when the majority were disbanded and then reformed in larger structures. Since then I have been trying, very hard, to get another NED role in the “public sector”, including the NHS, with absolutely no success. I wonder why? If I was good enough to ba appointed, and to serve loyally and diligently for 2 1/2 years, what has changed? I am too old to look for a permanent full time job at 61, but want to dedicate some of my vast experience to some public service. Maybe the barriers have become higher, with “Lord this” and Lady that”, and MBE’s, CBE’s etc on the boards, but a plain, hard working, experienced nonenity like myself seems to be excluded. What a waste. I am clearly not motivated by money, but by the desire to serve.
For anyone involved in large scale programme delivery, the public sector offers opportunities to manage budgets and head counts that are relatively rare in the private sector.
The switch is all to often seen as a permanent one - changing one career for another. I think the most useful dynamic for both sectors in the future will see an increasing instance of people switchin more fluidly. We may see people in the Financial Services industry moving into organisations such as the DWP to get their hands on bigger programmes earlier in their career before switching back into the private sector with that experience under their belt.
In that light, it may be more useful to look at salary not in terms of job for job comparison but with a view to what sort of acceleration might be possible through a switch. For those in systems integrators and other service providers with large scale public sector clients there is a clear long term advantage to having worked both sides of the fence.
Richard and David - I agree that not all parts of the public sector are keen to embrace people from the private sector (the converse is also true) and sometimes this is based on a genuine and correct analysis of the precise circumstances of the role, and sometimes it’s based on a form of prejudice. Give me call (number in earlier post) if you want to discuss your own personal situation in more detail.
Until the culture of making commercial decisions rather than being an administrator generalist changes and having jobs advertisements ‘must have public sector procurement experience at a senior level ‘are withdrawn the culture and environment will not change. Please remember Sir Humphrey he was a generalist not a specialist
Some very interesting commentaries here. With some thirty years solid experience in the private sector, with the need to be seen to run at a profit being paramount and thinking that it might be good to use my transferable skills for the public service, I’ve certainly observed a distinct reluctance on the part of HR in the public sector to take us on unless we happen to have had experience as a member of some government think tank or whatever. I’d like to know what one has to do, to get someone in the public sector to open doors for the majority of us out here in private sector land.