Many people put the blame for a lot of poor work performance on employees whom they accuse of being lazy and of having no imagination.
Employees, on the other hand, reject these accusations and accuse the system of being one stuck in an irrational bureaucracy without incentives.
Thus employees are powerless to change anything, and in the end the hard worker is no different from the lazy one. The employees know that they will get their salaries at the end of every month without any evaluation of their performance or accomplishments.
The system in government departments is accused of not creating a competitive environment which would lead to improved work conditions.
What causes a decrease in the level of work performance is that there are no alternatives and employees know that people are obliged to seek their help; there is no choice.
If we want to improve the performance of government workers, we must treat them like private company employees. In that situation, workers will perform with honesty and enthusiasm because they know there is a system of punishment and rewards and, most important, their performance is being evaluated.
In many countries, government employees have breathed life into systems stifled by bureaucracy and the system has become flexible, innovative and eager to serve the public.
The old English system concentrated on high-level employees making rules and giving directions to those just under them but never allowing middle-level managers the authority to make and carry out decisions. The result was poor performance.
The administration of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher separated the system into two parts: Employees who wrote policy and employees who provided service and followed up to make sure that what was needed was in fact done.
In Australia, experts in privatization and reconstruction divided the managerial service sector, which cost some A$1 billion, into 13 profitable independent projects. They did away with monopolies and forced competition.
They turned a deficit of A$100 million into a profit of A$4 million.
The absence of incentives in our workplaces creates disadvantages that may grow and produce enormous problems.
Arab News From the Local Press 12 August 2003
