Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 28, 2018 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
It would have been just over three decades ago when an international group was engaged to conduct what, in retrospect, can only be regarded as a preliminary job evaluation (?) exercise, which led to the current job structure in the Guyana Public Service.The investigation could not possibly have anticipated the new and changed technologies, disciplines, and methodologies that would have emerged since; and indeed continue to flood into old organisations, as they create new ones.
So many of these developments have since informed the institution of new systems and procedures, as well as the creation of unpredicted new programmes and jobs which require previously unforeseen skills. The cumulative result is that businesses, private and public, have had to adjust from an anachronistic localised environment to one that is becoming increasingly globalised.
It is this fundamental transition trend which will dictate the status and values of specific jobs in, first a regionalised, and next globalised, economy – in Guyana’s case one bombarded by the introduction of oil and gas and related spinoff activities.
In the process, not only would private sector organisations be initiating dynamic partnerships; but more critically, public sector agencies will have little choice but to engage in international relationships of varying dimensions. The latter will be bringing new management styles, differing organisational practices, with unaccustomed vocabularies in communication.
In the ensuing interactions therefore, it is not unlikely, that the newcomers will be puzzled, to a more than lesser extent, with current job categorisations and indeed ascriptors, as found in those agencies and inscribed in the approved National Budget.
The former are as follows:
i) Administrative
ii) Senior Technical
iii) Other Technical & Craft Skilled
iv) Clerical and Office Support
v) Semi-skilled Operatives and Unskilled
Obviously the category of ‘Contracted Employees’ as also listed, would be totally meaningless, as in fact it is. But exactly what do these categorisations imply?
Following are small samples of jobs of the two highest categories: Administrative and Senior Technical. They are deliberately shown alongside each other in relation to the established job grades.
Grade Administrative Senior Technical
14 Permanent SecretaryAccountant General Chief Education Officer
13 Head, Presidential GuardChief Valuation Officer Deputy Chief Education OfficerDirector, Food and Drugs
12 Deputy Cabinet SecretaryChief Personnel Officer Chief Planning OfficerInformation Technology (Specialist)
11 Principal Assistant Secretary (Finance)Chief Editor Schools InspectorHealth Economist
10 Head of SectionManagement Development Officer Education Officer ISpecial Projects Officer
9 Community Development Officer Senior Personnel Officer Systems Development OfficerInstructor (Burrowes School of Art)
8 AccountantResearch Officer Revenue OfficerEvidence Officer
7 Personal Assistant to MinisterSpecial Assistant Superintendent of WorksStatistician
6 Personnel OfficerAdministrative Assistant Budget OfficerMeteorologist
5 Registry SupervisorForeman, National Exhibition Centre Youth and Sports Officer IIInstructor Dance I & II
Who outside the Public Service would have guessed that ‘Administrative’ could extend downwards over ten of a total of fourteen Grades? But not quite; for Accounts Clerk at Grade 2 was deliberately omitted from the above listing.
The actual titles hardly distinguish been ‘Administrative’ and ‘Senior Technical’ content, albeit in comparably same grades.
Be assured, the structuring becomes more diffuse when one examines the overlap of job grades under the categorisation of ‘Other Technical and Craft Skilled’, which space does not allow to reproduce.
So that careful examination would reveal that the current documentation does not reflect any explicit hierarchical structure which would demarcate either ‘management’ or ‘supervisory’ levels, for example.
The sample is deliberately small, but arguably sufficiently representative as not to distract from the validity of the above observations.
For information, the range of generic titles include:
Director, Head, Chief, Coordinator, Manager; and there are many prefixed with ‘’Principal’ and ‘Senior’.
Interestingly what ‘Managers’ there are include such specialists as:
– Court Manager – Grade 12
– Manager, Medical Records – Grade11
– Manager, Child Abuse – Grade 10
– Manager, Materials Management Unit – Grade 9
– Manager, Telecommunications & Navigation Aids – Grade 8
Contrastingly, with but a few exceptions the actual top Manager across the board is a Permanent Secretary.
Irrespective of nomenclatures, however, there appears to be no institution at which all the top ranking ‘Officers’ in the respective public service agencies can share information –of lessons learnt (from successes and/or failures), and how to upgrade the performance of their respective organisations, and consequently the service as a whole.
There appears to be neither a management culture nor management camaraderie – in this 21st century.
More critically therefore, there is reason for them now to voluntarily take the initiative to compose an agenda for a series of strategic discussions on how to reconstitute identifiable jobs and their accountabilities, to better relate to, and communicate with, both local and foreign counterparts. It is not a role for a static Public Service Department, but an imperative for a dynamic response vision to be developed by the identifiable senior players in the Public Service.
One of the questions they must ask (and address) concerns the justification for maintaining such a large corps of ‘Semi-skilled Operatives and Unskilled’ in the Public Service. There needs to be a serious investigation into what value they bring to productivity, if any.
Excluding the Commissions, Public Utilities, and other Public Sector entities the National Budget reveals some 4116 ‘Semi-skilled Operatives & Unskilled’. Is none of them considered potential for development?
This is perhaps one reason why the highest priority should be given to upgrading the outdated practice of Personnel Administration to the dynamic level of Human Resources Management within the Public Service. The former descriptor would simply not be recognisable in the new dispensation.
Nor should anyone be overly impressed by the purported categorisation ‘Contracted Employees’, for rather than its denoting hierarchical status, contract employment is applicable to all jobs including, once again, ‘Semi-skilled Operatives & Unskilled’.
Their comparable budgeted number is 3712; exclusive of Commissions, Public Utilities and other Public Sector entities.
The above, hopefully will not contradict any of the related observations (and recommendations) made in the Commission of Inquiry Report into the Public (which implementation is overdue) – making for an unpromising prospect for any major reconstruction of job gradings and values in the Public Service, and for improving its overall delivery capability.
Intricated in the envisaged developmental process must be that of a substantive training capacity, to which all identified leaders must commit themselves. A comprehensive human resources development programme will have to be designed, even in the absence of any preceding formal performance evaluation exercises.
Classroom exercises there will be; but it is critical that each leader recognises the need to create, and maintain, a continuous learning environment in the work place. Indeed time should be allocated to adopt this as a daily routine.
In the process followers would appreciate how they can function better as teams, and also why their individual contributions need to be formally evaluated.
But there is no easy conversion of current Personnel Officers into Human Resources Managers, certainly not in the same static working environment in which, incidentally, promotion is based largely on years of service, as contrasted with the achievement of targets demanded of teachers; and the rehabilitative results expected from medical personnel. Nor are they known for the sapiential authority that must clearly be displayed in the judicial system.
It is in the face of this state of retardation that those who know better, regret the discontinuance of the very laudable Cadet Scheme both in the Public and Police Services in which high quality potential was carefully fast-tracked for leadership through programmed exposure at relevant institutions locally and overseas – a privilege, which appears now to be restricted to the military.
So that in the interim, it is quite conceivable that other ‘Officers’, ‘Directors’, ‘Coordinators’ could be cross-fertilised to become more authoritative performers than the former Personnel Clerks.
None of the above is pretending to be the most comprehensive answer to the ongoing performance deficits. Quite the contrary, it is merely intended to ‘stir the pot’, so to speak, for other more lucid and constructive ideas.
For it is time that we all move from a playing field overgrown with infertile differentiations, onto a pitch on which we can practise playing forward as a team.
PERSONNEL
But, however, diligent would be the process of structuring the new organisation, an inherent problem is the very fact of the personnel involved being virtual strangers to one another.
It would therefore be critical for the identified CEO to be in place well in advance, charged up to coordinate a team that would create a vision, and a mission to which the new organisation must aspire.
“Teamsmanship” will be critical, especially on a playing field to which several of the players may be unaccustomed.
It will be a serious test of leadership, for which the journey ahead must start with a very positive first step.
E.B. John
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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