When it comes to avoiding work, it’s fair to say I have been exposed to the masters at this. Having worked in large organizations, I learned everything there was to know about looking busy without actually being busy. One of the early tricks was to get into work before your boss and then leave after them; regardless of your productivity, one got very high marks.
There are two sides to this issue of working. Many work hard regardless of the compensation, and I have a few like that, on the other hand, some may appear to be productive and look more contented with their job, but actually do nothing. Many are busy but are they doing the right things and in an efficient manner.
Many of our staff agencies in Guyana, including many government ministries, have many workers that do not even try to appear busy. Many take a few hours in the morning to read the newspapers. Once I visited a Minister of the Government and while waiting in the reception area for about thirty minutes to see him, I observed three of his front office staff were doing nothing but chatting or reading the papers. In other agencies, I notice that many staff take an enormous amount of time to review a simple document, like in Customs. They act like it is the most important document and then take quite a while to review it.
In the private sector we find the cumbersome process of purchasing that I have written about many times, where staff are made to be busy, but really are inefficient in their tasks based on directions from their managers.
Progressive companies and managers need to be able to determine those workers that are productive based on past performance. Many times, we ask for references and may get them but not everyone checks the details of the references because many are from known names in society. But for the most part such persons fail to provide adequate references on work performance as distinct from character. One way to determine a non-productive person is the amount of jobs they may have had in a short period of time. Those individuals realize that the longer they stay in one job, the more work they may be asked to do. I have had a few leave my company as soon as the workload increased.
On the other hand, we as managers must ensure we have a fair compensation system for our employees and a safe working environment. I am still shocked at the abuse by some of our retail companies when it comes to pay and working hours. We need some form of regulatory process that ensures we don’t take advantage of the workforce because of our nation’s high unemployment rate.
We must look at both our pay and tax structures for the average workers. Because of such a high tax system with the personal income tax and also the new VAT, many employees feel that their take-home pay is not worth it, especially for those in the Public and Retail Sector. This may be a major cause of productivity issues.
So as companies review their profit and loss for 2006, they should also measure employee productivity and develop ways to improve operations through a process improvement method that will create efficiency and is more rewarding for their employees. Companies should strive to be known as the best place to work for in Guyana. Until next week “Roop”
