Civil servants are the same. From councils to HMRC to the NHS, I can’t think of one government “service” that would survive in the commercial world. The NHS survives because of the dedication of its nurses and doctors, but the administrators and managers are generally of a very low standard and inefficient, mainly because they micro manage everything.
A couple of companies I’ve worked for won’t even consider civil servants and council workers for jobs.
What a load of bollocks! I've worked in both public and private sectors and know that you get good, bad and meh staff in both.
In my last job in the public sector I worked very closely on joint projects with different sizes of private sector companies. Some of the companies and their staff were very good; others were not so good, and some I couldn't trust to be competent and/or 100% honest.
The reality is that there are good and bad staff in both sectors, and plenty more who can be both good and bad depending on the day of the week or whatever.
I wonder if some private sector firms aversion to employing former public sector staff is that they come from a unionised workplace background.