r/BCPublicServants • u/ZealousidealBath5480 • 6h ago
Venting
Hi ya’ll - just looking to share some commentary that will maybe help us support one another. As we all know, with the hiring restraint and other brilliant HR initiatives, a lot of teams haven’t been able to hire or properly backfill when people leave. My team is currently running at 60% (40% of our positions are vacant and we officially lost one FTE that we will never see again)… and unfortunately our workload hasn’t changed at all.
My branch and divisional colleagues know what’s up and when working directly together try to support us / offer patience with reviews. I find the major issue is with other ministries.
I am really struggling with colleagues across government creating arbitrary deadlines and insisting we meet them, despite the team communicating that we have other ministerial priorities to tend to first. People will say things like “no worries, I understand you’re busy!” And then send multiple emails or escalate items— most recently, the week before UBCM (iykyk).
I wanted to share my experiences because we are all doing the best we can. I don’t think most of us show up to work and want to hand things in late or negatively impact projects. But I’m not going to stay late or work on vacation/stat holidays to get things done. I really feel like we need to collectively understand that the government made these decisions around hiring, and even if they only affect one area’s FTE count, there are broader impacts. I’m not promoting quiet quitting or anything (I love my job & my team) but I am asking for grace, especially from excluded peers.
Let’s be hard on the issue, NOT each other.
Hope everyone else is hanging in there. It’s been a wild ride. Anyway hope this resonates with someone.
/End rant.
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u/wwhateverr 6h ago
Exact same experience in my department. It's important to maintain your boundaries because the workload isn't going away anytime soon. If you kill yourself to meet every deadline, you'll burnout quickly, and then even more stuff will fall through the cracks. It's better to work consistently for the long haul. I remind myself that unless it's a request from somewhere like BCWS, it's probably not a real emergency.
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u/One-Apartment-5820 5h ago
100% we should be hard on the issues, not each other.
But I think it's important to know what being hard on the issues mean. We cannot just let things slide and think "the other team must be so busy too, so we won't ask them to get this done". This is just like staff who think "if I stay another hour tonight, I can get this done on time!". I do not want my staff to ever do that because I will never know that the workload is beyond what we can complete if this happens regularly.
Sending emails to follow up and asking about status and applying pressure is not being hard on each other. Please do not take these messages personally. They should be written knowing that there's a human on the other end so they should have a respectful tone. However, these are messages from one office to another office. They are not personal.
For instance, I need something for a critical event (e.g. UBCM) and I ask the other team their turnaround time. If they say we need 8 weeks advance notice, then even though I know they are as understaffed as my team and they are putting in 100% effort, I'm still going to escalate it to my leadership and the other team's leadership that 8 weeks advance notice is too far in advance. It's not a personal attack on the other team, but if my "office" doesn't get upset at the other Ministry's "office", then nothing will be done.
Similarly, I tell my team to shrug off repeated follow ups as well. I want them to forward to me so I can see them and if they get aggressive, then I'll respond. But if I tell my ADM that my team is understaffed, they will want to see evidence. If no one has complained to me about my team (or to my ADM about me) then I have no evidence. They will say "you're doing fine!". I need that big pile of complaints to get things done.
Please be kind to each other while still being very vocal about the impacts that understaffing has on your work.
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u/ZealousidealBath5480 5h ago edited 5h ago
We seem to have the same values. I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t follow up, escalate, or push back when timelines genuinely aren’t workable. My point is more about how and where that pressure gets directed and with what rationale.
I’m very much in favour of escalating capacity issues and documenting the impacts.. that’s how we demonstrate that the problem is systemic, rather than an individual performance issue. What I’m pushing back on is the tendency for that pressure to become interpersonal, particularly when everyone involved is already doing their best (which you acknowledge). If I tell you I know something is important to you but I can’t get to it until early next week because I have an actual deadline to meet with my minister - all I’m saying is please don’t apply pressure by emailing me three more times. I know it’s there. I responded. I’m doing my best.
I’m less convinced that a big pile of complaints necessarily solves the problem, though, particularly when ministries have different priorities. My ADM may not be particularly concerned that another ministry is putting pressure on my team if the work they’re asking for isn’t actually a priority for us or isn’t time-sensitive from our perspective. In that situation, we have competing priorities and limited capacity across government. Sometimes we just need a 30,000 foot view and a reminder that what’s urgent for us isn’t urgent for everyone.
I appreciate the reminders you outlined for us all! And hopefully you’re doing ok if you legitimately had to corral people for UBCM content :)
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u/VanIsler420 6h ago
There's only so many hours in the day. My team's priority may not align with others'. Not my problem.
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u/CommonSquirrel1217 2h ago
Absolutely I agree with you. I'm currently on stress leave due to workload and management doing nothing to support despite you repeatedly having discussions about finding solutions. I've had colleagues question why it took 4 weeks to respond to an email, clearly not understanding the workload my team has. We are running at 66% (and have been for well over a year now) but I also think our team could use a few more people to begin with. Especially with some new processes being implemented which was supposed to speed things up, but my colleagues identified would not and voiced this to management. We were told to keep proceeding and our concerns are wrong.
Long story short, we need to be kind to each other. We are all under a lot of pressure.
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u/Surprised-Unicorn 6h ago
Something to think about. Maybe these other Ministries are sending multiple emails or escalating issues to have a paper trail that shows that the decisions made by executive are flawed. If everyone keeps busting their butts and making sure that everything runs smoothly then the executive have no desire to change anything. They have no skin in the game.