The emails from the management and heads of site have got an increasingly unpleasant and patronising tone as of late, especially regarding forcing everyone back in for 3 days a week when 99% of all work-related conversations in the building happen on Teams anyway. This job could easily be done fully remotely.
The situation and the heavy-handed monitoring measures make the place feel very oppressive at times. They're watching you.
Management seem very self-satisifed they're doing a good job and don't realise how much the rank and file talk behind their backs.
There's no pay band progression in the Civil Service as a whole, so many people are looking for higher paying jobs shortly after they've done a year or so. High churn, little institutional memory or experience.
They depend on work coming in from other parts of the service, so when that section are blocked up there's literally nothing to do for decision makers (who are still obliged to be in to sit on their behinds) and the boredom of this really kills staff morale. Management haven't handled this well.
The central training they give you to do the job is pointless. It takes a whole month but you have to actually learn it all on the job anyway, it's a waste of time (but they are paying you so that's a plus).
Very hard to actually learn who to talk to get this or that done for certain basic things (like ordering equipment or making reasonable adjustments). Baffling command structure that often seems to work more on informal arrangements.
You need to follow the news to know why certain decisions are being made or if they're coming down the pipeline, especially if they're because of political or ministerial decisions. Things can change on a dime (again, the 60% mandate is an example, I know people who were hired on a verbal promise that attendence wouldn't be required above 40% and that just changed with no staff input because of high-level politics).
