With civil servants, such flexibility is rather more difficult!
Nope. Civil service law allows far more flexibility than most collective agreements and employment contracts.
Example: can your employer simply tell you from one day to the next, without negotiations, that your weekly working hours are now 44? Without any salary compensation.
I myself worked for years in a large consulting company. Afterwards, I have been in a large government agency for several years now.
The problems and challenges are really very similar.
At first, I also walked in a bit arrogantly with some colleagues. "Clear the way... now the power guys from the private sector are here to give it some real gas" :D
We all quickly realized that quite a few gave even more gas than we did. Of course, there are always some sluggards you can’t do anything with. But you find those in every big company as well.
2-3 left the agency again within a year with the words, "Phew... I didn’t imagine it like this. I thought I’d just take it easy until retirement."
But most stay and are positively surprised by the public service.
However, I’m talking about a (relatively modern) federal agency, not a small municipal office. Unfortunately, these are the contact points most citizens have and think all civil servants are like that ;)