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If you can make ends meet on a lower salary (and your family are sympathetic to you prioritising health over wealth) I'd definitely recommend big public sector organisations in the UK. They will still say all rhe right things about wellbeing while acting in a way that intentionally tries to screw you over. The difference is that as long as you are professional in your conduct they can't touch you if you clock in, do your shift and leave on time at the end of your shift even if you are drowning and leave a task unfinished. As long as you have a manager you can notify of the situation at the earliest opportunity of any potential serious consequences with your workload then you are golden. . Obviously in the private sector if you do that they can make you reapply for your own job and show you the door, so you have to box clever.
So many organisations have far too many managers, the key is to find which one is accountable for your workload being done and to ensure there is an audit trail in writing of you notifying them when a workload may not be achievable or you are behind schedule. Then if something blows up in the organisations face it isn't you who is left holding the baby. A lot of people don't seem to realise that a manager-team member relationship is a two way thing in terms of responsibility. You can lean on a line manager while still showing a professional working attitude. I say all this as someone who personally is happy to bust a gut during my shift and cannot stand malingerers.
Similarly, if your department in the public sector does a restructure that screws you they typically have to consult you. So you can politely evidence your objections in an email about how this will make workloads unworkable / unachievable (same workload but less staff etc) and wheel out this email whenever your output is called into question (i.e. to show this problem was created by someone else and they should be the ones spoken to if someone has concerns).
I've got a backlog of tasks 4 years old (which I evidenced would take 10 years to clear even if my team received no new work) and I typically have a 4 week delay in responding to non-urgent emails. When inevitable complaints arise from outside my department people are incredibly understanding when you factually point out there has been a recent restructure and that you'd voiced concerns about it at the time. This is because this crap is the same everywhere so they can smell the truth in everything you say. They rarely even ask to speak to the manager because they know its probably futile.
Plus, once in these public sector organisations they often recruit on the cheap, making internally advertised movements much more achievable even if you don't quite have the skillset yet for a specific job. This is all magnified at present in a positive way by current labour shortages. Organisations can't fill posts and are terrified of losing more people.
Anyway, just some thoughts. I appreciate this isn't feasible for some folks. My first jobs were temping so I know what it's like to have almost zero rights in the workplace.
So many organisations have far too many managers, the key is to find which one is accountable for your workload being done and to ensure there is an audit trail in writing of you notifying them when a workload may not be achievable or you are behind schedule. Then if something blows up in the organisations face it isn't you who is left holding the baby. A lot of people don't seem to realise that a manager-team member relationship is a two way thing in terms of responsibility. You can lean on a line manager while still showing a professional working attitude. I say all this as someone who personally is happy to bust a gut during my shift and cannot stand malingerers.
Similarly, if your department in the public sector does a restructure that screws you they typically have to consult you. So you can politely evidence your objections in an email about how this will make workloads unworkable / unachievable (same workload but less staff etc) and wheel out this email whenever your output is called into question (i.e. to show this problem was created by someone else and they should be the ones spoken to if someone has concerns).
I've got a backlog of tasks 4 years old (which I evidenced would take 10 years to clear even if my team received no new work) and I typically have a 4 week delay in responding to non-urgent emails. When inevitable complaints arise from outside my department people are incredibly understanding when you factually point out there has been a recent restructure and that you'd voiced concerns about it at the time. This is because this crap is the same everywhere so they can smell the truth in everything you say. They rarely even ask to speak to the manager because they know its probably futile.
Plus, once in these public sector organisations they often recruit on the cheap, making internally advertised movements much more achievable even if you don't quite have the skillset yet for a specific job. This is all magnified at present in a positive way by current labour shortages. Organisations can't fill posts and are terrified of losing more people.
Anyway, just some thoughts. I appreciate this isn't feasible for some folks. My first jobs were temping so I know what it's like to have almost zero rights in the workplace.
