by Olivia A Chase, Senior Economist
There are recurring questions about productivity in the public sector.
Is it indeed productive enough? Does it exercise efficiency in spending public dollars? Does Barbados derive adequate return on investment in the form of development or other benefits from work carried out in the public sector?
Productivity, as you are aware, does not generate an immediate result to an immediate action or counteraction. Any effort to increase productivity takes commitment and a research methodology aimed at bringing about change; whether radical or incremental. Either result requires commitment to the task and some control over the milestones to be achieved along the way towards the goal.
Scrutiny
Productivity is often spoken about in terms of generating more output for less financial or other resources expended. This is an extremely important exercise for the public sector as great scrutiny is often placed on how much is spent on a project in financial terms, how many labour resources were used, and also what was the cost to Government in terms of time taken or time taken away from another activity.
Productivity can also be assessed as quality measure. Service and service quality are outputs which can be measured. There is often much debate on this idea, but the rationale behind it is quite simple. There are several activities which must be performed in order for that service to be provided.
These activities can be counted (which means they are measurable) but they must also be performed within an identified time frame, at a determined level of cost effectiveness and, of course, to a predetermined standard.
All these parameters can be captured in metric form which we can then use to determine whether a service fits the definition of productive or not. Service quality is an outcome measure which has a quantifiable root. For example, is it important for the service to be measured in terms of time, resources, or reliability?
Then, the company must determine which metrics will appropriately allow it to monitor these outputs as parameters within customer service. Therefore, service productivity can be measured in any sector.
Since Government is a gargantuan provider of a complex range of services, it is incumbent that it makes a determination of what element of its services it may wish to measure and then develop the appropriate metrics to capture the information in which there is an interest.
As I have interacted with the public sector over the years, I have seen several issues emerge which have negatively impacted on a productive environment/culture and productive output. Some of them are:
1. Ineffective consequences for non-performance, excessive wastage, and failure to produce even minimum results
2. Staff feeling less than engaged
3. Objectives, expectations, tasks, time frames not communicated to staff
4. Performance appraisals that are not consistent or aligned with work performed
5. Inadequate standardization of procedures across Ministries
6. Little to no formal succession planning to support proper housing of, and access to, a database of organizational knowledge.
This brings to the fore another aspect of productivity which is glaringly obvious but is often overlooked. That is, the environment in which we expect productivity to blossom and the supporting systems and procedures in place to spur workplace productivity.
There can be no productive environment if management itself is not engaged in the effort, or if the process for delivering a product or service is frustrating, wasteful and ineffective. We often promote what we, as performance specialists, call the “hard side of performance management” with the analysis and measurement, but often neglect the critical issues like vision, communication, congeniality, facilitation, workflow and teamwork.
There can be no real impact on productivity if the organization does not distill and re-define the workplace culture as the facilitator and conduit for productivity.
In another article, I want to touch on the importance of macroeconomic planning and commensurate link to strategic planning in the Barbados Public Sector.
• Olivia Chase is a senior economist at the Productivity Council
