IT is abhorrent as well as malicious when employees’ entire craving lies only in their fortnight pay, giving little thought to sharing and integrating the core values of the organisation that pays for their bread and butter.
Although this occurs with most organisations, the public sector is the worst affected.
The public sector does not underscore the significance of value consideration for its employees.
The abrupt conclusion we can draw is that the human resource of the State was never driven by any value consideration.
Furthermore, the widespread inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the public workforce means there is lack of sharing common values guiding the Government’s delivery arm.
One cannot deny the boredom and the mechanical way things are done in the public workplace and public servants have little to look forward to than the arrival of their salaries.
Indeed, apathy towards work involves not only the type of activity employees engaged in, but rather with the attitude they develop towards their duties.
The Government does not believe that workplace incentives motivate people to work well.
It sees them as temporary gimmicks which do little to raise the level of performance and productivity.
Motivation deals with human energy and power, and not with emotional boost.
Motivation is the soul to any human performance output.
Without the proper device for work motivation, performance can be arid which may result in low standards of performance output.
The public sector is known for increasing salaries of employees as an incentive, in the likes of domestic market allowance, gratuity, leave entitlements and a host of other allowances.
Unfortunately, all do not even play a part in changing the work commitment of the public employees as a recent spate of pay increases show.
Salary increases can be a simple and narrow-minded way of looking at motivating employees for positive results in workplace.
In order for the public workforce to be efficient and effective, value consideration is of utmost importance.
Successful organisations persistently demand three things from employees; that they possess the right kind of knowledge, acquire the necessary skills for the work entrusted, and motivation.
However, in many recruitment processes, only knowledge and skills are given prominence, while consideration for motivation can be lacking. This can be the greatest mistake.
Motivation of the employee is part and parcel of value-driven consideration. Thus, if no organisational values are imbued in the employees, personal greed and ambition will most certainly override the consideration for corporate (group) values.
Since employees of the public sector place less commitment to the State, they are either driven by ethnic, family or personal needs.
The State, considered as the monster-paying machine, should cater for those needs.
Perhaps, it is a common perception that the State is a valueless entity that does not deserve any respect.
Does singing of the national anthem and professing the national pledge have any bearing on our public servants?
What about the saying “render to Caesar, what is Caesar’s” means for government employees?
Thus, service and remuneration are both sides of the same coin and public employees should be kept a delicate balance.
An imbalance would bring about the collapse of the public sector.
And again, how many public servants are on payroll without work? A proper figure would be an eye-opener for the taxpayers.
The public sector is where the idea of sharing value is uncommon.
In order to get employed in the public sector, one has to know somebody in the system.
After that, one has to bribe his way around to get a position in the public sector.
There are no real proper selection criteria for appointments despite the rhetoric of “merit-based appointment”.
The public sector will remain to be an “idle monster of the state” if value consideration is not given serious thought by the Department of Personnel Management.
The first thing the Government should do for the public sector is to get away from the management gimmick of “rightsizing” and other vile bureaucratic jargon to developing some core values for the public sector.
The values should be given some creedal formula and develop short catch phases such as “public before private” or “service brings satisfaction”.
Only after that the whole series of professional conduct, recruitment process, work reappraisal, and any work related activity must evolve around this set of values.
Those who do not fit into such value prescriptions, should vacate their positions and enter the private sector or work for themselves.
And all public service positions must not be tenure positions, but contracted for a certain number of years. This then would allow for stringent competition as well as an easy means of removing misfits.
I would like to mention one more issue in relation to last week’s articles on personality predicaments.
In the recruitment process of appointment, a probationary period is necessary to screen candidates, if his personality does match the values of the public sector.
The probationary period would involve a set of screenings, such as rigorous character-endurance test, probes for work motivations, early work creativity and independence to test knowledge and skills competencies, among others.
To make the public sector a value-driven organisation is to make it an efficient and effective arm of government.
People in the rural and remote areas are insisting on the tangible presence and activity of the Government.
Hanmak bilong Gavman i stap we?
Most of the recent topics dealt with in Talking Point were to encourage and stimulate ideas as well as to offer directions to the Department of Personnel Management to ameliorate government service delivery.
They were also meant as reflective reading for public servants regarding workplace behaviour, and for them to become agents of change rather than be hurdles to development.