8 ms·

The reason why public sector jobs are so unproductive, imo, is because there are no real bosses. Everyone's an employee, all the way to the top. No one's remune

The reason why public sector jobs are so unproductive, imo, is because there are no real bosses. Everyone's an employee, all the way to the top. No one's remuneration is affected whether you do more or less, better or worse. The logical course for all concerned is to always take the path of least resistance. As long as the paperwork is in order there's nothing to worry about. And even if it's not, there are ways around that too. Best quote I ever heard from an government employee was an unopened letter often answers itself

Ma8ee 6y ago
The public sector isn’t in general unproductive, except maybe in the US where one major party has been working hard to sabotage it for the last 40 years or so. What might surprise some people is that remuneration isn’t what foremost motivates , e.g., teachers or nurses. Big companies are often as unproductive as the public sector, with whole departments often existing just to make some managers feel important.
- stormdennis 6y ago
  That phenomenon is the reason old established big companies get disrupted. No one disrupts the public service, they are the permanent only business in their sector.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    > No one disrupts the public service, they are the permanent only business in their sector. That's not necessarily true. Governments frequently intervene in the running of public companies. Also, many public companies compete against privately run businesses.
    - nybble41 6y ago
      I think you misread. The "public service" here is a reference to the government, not to public companies (which are still privately-run businesses despite being listed on public stock exchanges). Large private enterprises, publicly-traded or otherwise, that fall prey to inefficiency get disrupted. Governments do not get disrupted short of foreign invasion or revolution, so the inefficiency remains entrenched.
      - nicoburns 6y ago
        Actually, by "public companies" I meant "publicly owned/run companies". I can see now that this was poorly worded. > Governments do not get disrupted short of foreign invasion or revolution And also elections. This is especially true in countries that don't have a two-party system.
        nybble41 6y ago
        Hm. I can't think of any significant examples here of a company owned or run by the government. I know that such things are more common elsewhere, but at least in my mind I tend to classify them as extensions of their respective governments rather than as anything like private corporations. I suppose the real question in this context is whether that government would let them be disrupted and replaced with a competitor they perhaps have less influence over. > And also elections. Sure, in theory. I suppose if an election actually changed things enough to be considered "disruptive" then you could consider that a form of revolution, but disruption of that sort generally has exactly the opposite effect: Everything becomes much less efficient as the new party struggles to take control, and then gradually returns to baseline as they realize that it's the masses of unelected bureaucrats that really run things on a day-to-day basis. Even if they were explicitly running on a platform of improving the efficiency of public services, it's not as if there is any actual competition in the provision of those services. People aren't choosing between two or more proven service providers; at best they have the current entrenched system with its known issues and a bunch of vague promises regarding a half-cooked proposal for a replacement which the candidate may never see implemented and which probably wouldn't work as advertised even if it were.
- kashug 6y ago
  This, so much this. I have been working as a cunsultant at both large companies and the public sector. And they are often unproductive - and for the same reasons. Loads of middle management that needs to be included in every decision-making, but noone that dares to actually make a decision without first asking their managers. In my eyes, the reason much of the public sector is unproductive is not because it is not motivated by profit. But rather that it is too similar to large companies with loads different management-levels. I once worked in the public sector when they embraced real autonomous teams with leaders that could actually make decisions when the team needed it. It was just as efficient as the best agile teams I have worked at in the private sector.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    The real insight here (which you allude to) is that (all else being equal) large organisations are inherently inefficient. If you take the classic libertarian view that government is inefficient and extend the logic to apply to all large organisations (and indeed individuals who control large amounts of wealth) then you end up at a very interesting political position that can provide a unified critique of both modern capitalism and soviet style communism by explaining the failings of both as being due to concentration of power (state power in the case of communism, economic power in the case of capitalism).
    - Ma8ee 6y ago
      Neither is inherently inefficient. It’s just that both types of organisations can afford inefficiencies, while a small private company usually can’t afford it. That doesn’t mean that small companies always are more efficiently run in all aspects. I expect my local McDonalds be much more efficient than the small sushi place around the corner, which can afford being inefficient due to low rent and probably close to minimum salary for the owner.
  - mellavora 6y ago
    My brother works in HR at a fairly high level at HUD. He reminds me that most large government agencies have to expect that 1/2 of their employees have below average talent and motivation. So they design many of their processes to function under this assumption. While HUD is certainly less productive (per capita) than a small team of highly talented people, turns out that in most large organizations half the people are below average talent/motivation. And designing for this instead of pretending that all of your staff is above average allows them to have higher productivity.
- dasudasu 6y ago
  No need for the American exceptionalism here.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > The public sector isn’t in general unproductive, except maybe in the US where one major party has been working hard to sabotage it for the last 40 years or so. Do you realize that (1) half of all government spending is at the state and local levels; and (2) many states and cities have been run by “the other party” (not the bad one) for decades? Cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore, etc., have been run by Democrats for longer than many posters on HN have been alive. If there was any truth to the notion that the US public sector is poorly managed because “one major party” “sabotages” it you should see a marked difference in the states run by the other party. But you don’t. Indeed, the major population trend in the US is people leaving Democrat-run states and moving to Republican-run states.
  - tl 6y ago
    Last time I checked, more than the majority of what I pay in taxes go to the federal government, not state or local, where it is re-distributed to other parts of the country most of whom have elected representatives from "the other party" and whose disproportionate representation changed a national election.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      You're overlooking sales, property, and business taxes that folks don't see directly (e.g. property taxes built into rent), which go to the state and local governments. But overall, about half of all government spending in the U.S. is at the state and local levels: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/reg_cit_glance-2018-41-en/images/eps/g5-02.png https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/reg_cit_glance-2018-41-e.... For many of the things people complain about (transit, housing, education, policing) 90% of funding and 99% of oversight authority happens at the state and local level. Republicans in national government have pretty much zero say over say affordable housing policy in California. Trying to pin California's failures in those areas on Republicans in Kansas is specious.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      First of all, you're only talking about income taxes, which as you rightly pointed out are concentrated in the Federal government. Once you factor in property and sales taxes, the distribution is roughly 50-50. Second of all, even if you only take into account income taxes, Federal income taxes aren't re-distributed to other parts of the country in the way that you think. The biggest line items in the Federal budget is (in decreasing order) are: - Social Security - Medicare + Medicaid - Defense Social Security isn't really "distributed" to other parts of the country, it's mostly concentrated in regions where retirees happen to live. Ditto Medicare. You could argue that Medicaid is "distributed", however it is funded by both States and the Federal government[1]. The comment to which you are replying is correct: most public sector services like education, electricity, water, sewage, libraries, law enforcement, fire departments, etc are all funded predominately at the state and local level. [1] https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/federalstate-share-of-spending/ https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/federalstate-sh...
arethuza 6y ago
"Everyone's an employee, all the way to the top" A lot of established public companies are like that.
- stormdennis 6y ago
  Yes and they wither away as a result then that's when layoffs happen and hostile takeovers etc
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Neither Apple or Microsoft are managed by the original founders - and they seem to be doing OK. I've worked for public companies that are pretty old (50+ years) and they had superb management.
    - stormdennis 6y ago
      They have both had to adjust to competitors along the way and faced disruption. Apple nearly looked like going out of business at one stage before they brought Jobs back. They operate in a world where the Mac and the iPhone have to compete with a major rivals. Microsoft have had to develop their Cloud business as Windows becomes less important. The Public Sector never needs to do anything like that.
      - arethuza 6y ago
        I'm not sure that my experience of the public sector and the private sector in the UK quite aligns with the ideological position that private sector automatically means better managed, better services and better motivated people. In fact, the most insanely motivated people I've ever met were in the public sector.

Ma8ee 6y ago

The public sector isn’t in general unproductive, except maybe in the US where one major party has been working hard to sabotage it for the last 40 years or so. What might surprise some people is that remuneration isn’t what foremost motivates , e.g., teachers or nurses. Big companies are often as unproductive as the public sector, with whole departments often existing just to make some managers feel important.

stormdennis 6y ago
That phenomenon is the reason old established big companies get disrupted. No one disrupts the public service, they are the permanent only business in their sector.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > No one disrupts the public service, they are the permanent only business in their sector. That's not necessarily true. Governments frequently intervene in the running of public companies. Also, many public companies compete against privately run businesses.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    I think you misread. The "public service" here is a reference to the government, not to public companies (which are still privately-run businesses despite being listed on public stock exchanges). Large private enterprises, publicly-traded or otherwise, that fall prey to inefficiency get disrupted. Governments do not get disrupted short of foreign invasion or revolution, so the inefficiency remains entrenched.
    - nicoburns 6y ago
      Actually, by "public companies" I meant "publicly owned/run companies". I can see now that this was poorly worded. > Governments do not get disrupted short of foreign invasion or revolution And also elections. This is especially true in countries that don't have a two-party system.
      - nybble41 6y ago
        Hm. I can't think of any significant examples here of a company owned or run by the government. I know that such things are more common elsewhere, but at least in my mind I tend to classify them as extensions of their respective governments rather than as anything like private corporations. I suppose the real question in this context is whether that government would let them be disrupted and replaced with a competitor they perhaps have less influence over. > And also elections. Sure, in theory. I suppose if an election actually changed things enough to be considered "disruptive" then you could consider that a form of revolution, but disruption of that sort generally has exactly the opposite effect: Everything becomes much less efficient as the new party struggles to take control, and then gradually returns to baseline as they realize that it's the masses of unelected bureaucrats that really run things on a day-to-day basis. Even if they were explicitly running on a platform of improving the efficiency of public services, it's not as if there is any actual competition in the provision of those services. People aren't choosing between two or more proven service providers; at best they have the current entrenched system with its known issues and a bunch of vague promises regarding a half-cooked proposal for a replacement which the candidate may never see implemented and which probably wouldn't work as advertised even if it were.
kashug 6y ago
This, so much this. I have been working as a cunsultant at both large companies and the public sector. And they are often unproductive - and for the same reasons. Loads of middle management that needs to be included in every decision-making, but noone that dares to actually make a decision without first asking their managers. In my eyes, the reason much of the public sector is unproductive is not because it is not motivated by profit. But rather that it is too similar to large companies with loads different management-levels. I once worked in the public sector when they embraced real autonomous teams with leaders that could actually make decisions when the team needed it. It was just as efficient as the best agile teams I have worked at in the private sector.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  The real insight here (which you allude to) is that (all else being equal) large organisations are inherently inefficient. If you take the classic libertarian view that government is inefficient and extend the logic to apply to all large organisations (and indeed individuals who control large amounts of wealth) then you end up at a very interesting political position that can provide a unified critique of both modern capitalism and soviet style communism by explaining the failings of both as being due to concentration of power (state power in the case of communism, economic power in the case of capitalism).
  - Ma8ee 6y ago
    Neither is inherently inefficient. It’s just that both types of organisations can afford inefficiencies, while a small private company usually can’t afford it. That doesn’t mean that small companies always are more efficiently run in all aspects. I expect my local McDonalds be much more efficient than the small sushi place around the corner, which can afford being inefficient due to low rent and probably close to minimum salary for the owner.
- mellavora 6y ago
  My brother works in HR at a fairly high level at HUD. He reminds me that most large government agencies have to expect that 1/2 of their employees have below average talent and motivation. So they design many of their processes to function under this assumption. While HUD is certainly less productive (per capita) than a small team of highly talented people, turns out that in most large organizations half the people are below average talent/motivation. And designing for this instead of pretending that all of your staff is above average allows them to have higher productivity.
dasudasu 6y ago
No need for the American exceptionalism here.
rayiner 6y ago
> The public sector isn’t in general unproductive, except maybe in the US where one major party has been working hard to sabotage it for the last 40 years or so. Do you realize that (1) half of all government spending is at the state and local levels; and (2) many states and cities have been run by “the other party” (not the bad one) for decades? Cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore, etc., have been run by Democrats for longer than many posters on HN have been alive. If there was any truth to the notion that the US public sector is poorly managed because “one major party” “sabotages” it you should see a marked difference in the states run by the other party. But you don’t. Indeed, the major population trend in the US is people leaving Democrat-run states and moving to Republican-run states.
- tl 6y ago
  Last time I checked, more than the majority of what I pay in taxes go to the federal government, not state or local, where it is re-distributed to other parts of the country most of whom have elected representatives from "the other party" and whose disproportionate representation changed a national election.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    You're overlooking sales, property, and business taxes that folks don't see directly (e.g. property taxes built into rent), which go to the state and local governments. But overall, about half of all government spending in the U.S. is at the state and local levels: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/reg_cit_glance-2018-41-en/images/eps/g5-02.png https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/reg_cit_glance-2018-41-e.... For many of the things people complain about (transit, housing, education, policing) 90% of funding and 99% of oversight authority happens at the state and local level. Republicans in national government have pretty much zero say over say affordable housing policy in California. Trying to pin California's failures in those areas on Republicans in Kansas is specious.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    First of all, you're only talking about income taxes, which as you rightly pointed out are concentrated in the Federal government. Once you factor in property and sales taxes, the distribution is roughly 50-50. Second of all, even if you only take into account income taxes, Federal income taxes aren't re-distributed to other parts of the country in the way that you think. The biggest line items in the Federal budget is (in decreasing order) are: - Social Security - Medicare + Medicaid - Defense Social Security isn't really "distributed" to other parts of the country, it's mostly concentrated in regions where retirees happen to live. Ditto Medicare. You could argue that Medicaid is "distributed", however it is funded by both States and the Federal government[1]. The comment to which you are replying is correct: most public sector services like education, electricity, water, sewage, libraries, law enforcement, fire departments, etc are all funded predominately at the state and local level. [1] https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/federalstate-share-of-spending/ https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/federalstate-sh...

arethuza 6y ago

"Everyone's an employee, all the way to the top" A lot of established public companies are like that.

stormdennis 6y ago
Yes and they wither away as a result then that's when layoffs happen and hostile takeovers etc
- arethuza 6y ago
  Neither Apple or Microsoft are managed by the original founders - and they seem to be doing OK. I've worked for public companies that are pretty old (50+ years) and they had superb management.
  - stormdennis 6y ago
    They have both had to adjust to competitors along the way and faced disruption. Apple nearly looked like going out of business at one stage before they brought Jobs back. They operate in a world where the Mac and the iPhone have to compete with a major rivals. Microsoft have had to develop their Cloud business as Windows becomes less important. The Public Sector never needs to do anything like that.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      I'm not sure that my experience of the public sector and the private sector in the UK quite aligns with the ideological position that private sector automatically means better managed, better services and better motivated people. In fact, the most insanely motivated people I've ever met were in the public sector.