This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It was mainly the entrenched 'not for profit' drive behind the organisational culture that led to inefficiency. There were no incentives to cut costs (staff) and in the process make the remaining staff more efficient.
Normally every few years a new party will get in power and appoint a taskforce to cut costs in the public sector, but as an outside force it would never be able to maintain a reasonable level of efficiency. With inefficient staff, more would be required to undertake the workload so staff bloat would increase again over time.
There would probably need to be a taskforce for efficiency embedded directly within the department(s). This would include management/organisational consultants (or more cheaply, an FTE role with those skills).
Government culture can complicate these issues in other ways. The public sector is left leaning in their politics and is unionised. Due to self-regulation it is very difficult to fire government employees for laziness and incompetence. It can require multiple admonishments and a performance management process that can last years. The process of firing an employee is so draining on middle management that they arrange for transfers to other departments to make it someone else's problem. Or wait for a wave of redundancies to effectively bribe people to leave.
The refusal to weaken employment regulations around firing people makes the public service collect some of the laziest people I have ever come across. I remember one 55year old man that had spent a career at just above the entry level rank for unskilled workers. He told me stories about how he would skip work to attend environmental protests. He regularly turned up late and left early. His work turnover was less than half of the average (and the average was not that high). He had managed to coast through his career and despite his workmates despising him for his laziness, he had never been fired. This man was a union representative which I saw him exploit multiple times in the short period I knew him.
It gets worse. Government deliberately aims to hire minorities. This includes people with a disability. A small fraction of people with a disability are for want of a better word, grifters. On top of the risk of hiring some of these people, they are created through filing a false workers compensation claim for a workplace injury, PTSD or the like. The OSHA consultants strongly suspected that grifters would tell their friends about techniques to file claims and get long periods of time off work or better yet a total and permanent disability determination for money indefinitely.
But I digress and you asked for solutions. Besides the efficiency taskforce I would look at weakening regulations around the grounds for firing staff. Also for the OSHA team, assign soft KPI's for caseload clearance with rewards for completion and performance management for those that fall way below expectation. I say soft KPI's because management discretion would be required as you would prefer to reward and not punish consultants for taking difficult (and time consuming) cases.
I've really only scratched the surface about government culture. Changing it is like trying to clean an oven with only warm water and a wash cloth.
Thanks for the thought out response, I'll definitely reflect on this information.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link