There is a lackadaisical attitude towards work by a large segment of our population in that we generally do not like work and, if we can produce the minimal to get by, we will do so. This is the view of Angela Lee Loy, Keston Nancoo and Richard Young as they examined the issue of productivity in T&T.
"There is an absence of “hunger” to work. We do not understand that we should work for a minimum of eight hours a day. We do not understand that it is not proper to be paid for eight hours a day but work less."
They said there is a segment of people who believe the State must provide. "Government after government perpetuates the dependency culture. One just has to look at the “Job Vacancies” section to confirm this point."
Jeremy Francis, managing director/Principal Consultant Beyond Consulting Ltd, responded to the issue of poor work ethic and low productivity.
"This has been an area of personal interest to me for nearly 20 years. When I first entered the workforce in the year 2000, I was astounded by what I can only refer to as the inconsistent manner in which employees that I interacted with at the time employed themselves at their daily tasks—myself included.
"Secondly, in my years as a consultant, I am always confronted with this issue on an almost daily basis, as I conduct my work on behalf of my clients.
Employers blame the employees and the employees (and their representatives) blame the employer.
"One of the main points of the employer argument is the issue of absenteeism. This remains a serious factor in the current productivity debate. However, the problem of presenteeism—where employees do show up to work and put in a reduced effort, was not mentioned at all. When you link these two issues together, the productivity issue is a lot worse than people imagine. We can all give many examples of employees we know (hopefully not us), that can stretch a task that would typically take an hour to two days—for no other reason than they can. Added to this is the problem of a lack of adequate resources—the blame for which falls squarely with the employer."
We need to consider the following as well:
1. Poor job design. It must be understood that some jobs have been poorly constructed, which can lead to ineffective use of time and labour. Not to mention the fact that the job itself may be uninteresting, overly laborious, and just plain dull. I fully understand that some tasks will be monotonous, repetitive and may not require excessive mental engagement, but some people can excel in such roles and others will not. This brings me nicely to the next point.
2. Ineffective hiring practices. In many cases, an organisation’s hiring procedures are flawed. Apart from the fact that the job description may be outdated (if it does in fact exist), there is sometimes little or no link between that document and the job that the employee is being asked to do. More to the point, because the organisation does not focus on behavioural competencies when hiring, they may hire someone who is technically competent but has the wrong attitude or work ethic. Many a hiring manager leaves it up to ‘vibes’ when deciding whether an employee is a good fit when tools such as psychometric assessments were created many years ago to help with this problem. But for this to work, the employer has to know the type of employee that will excel in their particular environment. For this to work, they must understand their culture. And as with the previous point, this leads to the next area of concern.
3. Poor leadership. There is a saying that goes, ‘People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers'. Even worse, they may stay and work at their own pace (presenteeism). I cannot emphasise enough the impact that poor management styles have on how employees approach their tasks. And the obvious passive-aggressive response is both absenteeism and presenteeism. Some mention was made of this in the article, but it is a major cause of the culture of low productivity locally.
4. Inadequate performance management. This one is, unfortunately, the cream of the crop. There are too many examples of little to no performance standards in organisations—and even where they are, it is sometimes inequitably distributed and rewarded. We all know the story of Jane, who works twice as hard as Bob, but is paid less, and receives a smaller bonus (if any at all) every year. Apart from the rampant sexism contained in this example, there is also the issue that because Bob is boisterous, has a good relationship with the boss and has perfected the art of taking the credit for the work of others; he is seen by the decision makers to being more productive. Why should Jane work harder, if her efforts will not be recognised? Why should she speak up, if she will be labelled as a troublemaker? So she may get ‘sick’ a little more often, and withdraw the enthusiasm from her work. It happens.
When taken together, these issues highlight that the problem of productivity goes a lot deeper than ‘is part of we culture’. In fact, Trinbagonians are very productive around Carnival—in their feteing and masquerading activities. I have always maintained that if we could harness the energy and focus that our people show on Carnival Monday and Tuesday and unleash it in the workplace, we would be one of the most productive counties in the World.