User:Hckukreti

Why government and PSU employees are unable to perform with excellence?

When we go inside a private company and a government organisation/PSU in India, we see a basic difference of work atmosphere. Do you know why same people work differently in different organisations? Why government organisations and their people do not perform with best of their efficiency? The book "To BE or not to BE" reveals some Human Resource Management (HRM) related shortfalls and their remedies. Let us see from different perspectives.

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES- If you have visited a private company and a government organisation or PSU in India, you must have observed the difference; the difference in work, quality, efficiency, speed, resource utilisation, productivity, employee motivation and satisfaction etc. And you might have thought that; what is the root cause of this difference? If we go towards the hidden root cause from visible effects, we can reach at conclusion that it is due to the lacuna of good HR policies & practices in government organisations.

There are similar questions; why leaders of these organisation are not keen to change the unrealistic and old policies, why government is not able to force them to implement best policies & practices, why trade unions do not convince management/ government to update these policies according to the human need, behaviour and nature, why an engineering graduate become manager after five year of service but not other graduate or post graduate, why most of the engineers in government organization don’t do any engineering work in their whole life when government expends lots of tax payers money on their engineering education, why do they work like a postman or  merely a signing authority on papers? Let us see from the different perspective.

A. Government: State run organisations have government control on some of their policies. And government has different perspective to make policies, which are hued with their political and so called social needs. Mandatory recruitment of engineers (required or not) to avoid brain drain and cast/religion based reservation in recruitment, selection, promotion etc for social upliftment are few examples of such policies. Due to having hidden political motive, such policies on one side are not able to solve their obvious purpose; they badly affect organization’s competitive environment and motivational level of talented employees.

There is a saying, “A team of sheep led by a lion is stronger than a team of lions led by a sheep.” Similarly good leaders can make the company/country and bad leaders can break the company/country. It is very unfortunate that sometime we elect corrupt and less qualified leaders for nation, and expect good governance from them. Apart from being a part of national policies and practices makers, these leaders command and control qualified and honest persons too.

Such environment cherishes bad policies and practices everywhere and thereby reduces confidence of citizens. And, sometimes non competent people reach at the higher rung, and they will never encourage healthy environment, competency and professionalism in the organization. This badly affects the national growth and morale of honest, dedicated and competent citizens. We have more than 300 management colleges in country but unable to produce 300 good national leaders for parliament. We need qualified and honest leaders more than politicians for the nation.

B. Organisational leadership: Now, let us see from the perspective of top leaders of government organization. The policymakers of a government organization are their Board of Directors. If we observe, we will find almost all the directors of government organizations are near their superannuation. Also, at this juncture they are seasoned and comfortable with such old and non-productive obsolete policies. It means when they reach at the leadership level, their personal goals are not linked with the organisational goals. So, most of them are not very much concerned with the organizational performance and growth. In such dismal conditions we can not expect any bold step to bring change.

It will not be exaggerated to say “beauty parlour” to some of the PSUs. They are expert in hiding their ugliness with the help of cosmetics (in data, information and performance). For instance they do employee satisfaction survey, not for improvement but to show that we do this and to achieve awards. Similarly they produce data of employee participation in management on papers only.

Some of the organisational leaders land there from outside because of their political influence and not because of their ability or specialisation. Such leaders neither have willingness nor have a will power to bring out the professionalism. If we take professionals from our premier colleges like IIT and IIM it will in fact be useful to stop brain drain and to utilize their as well as government organisation’s capability more efficiently. Presently professionals from these colleges are not interested to join any government organisations or PSUs. It is because of bad HR policies to attract and retain the talent. For this also we need good HR policies.

C. Junior and Senior Officers: We often see an authoritarian type of management in government organisation. They are taught to keep distance from juniors since induction, rather than being empathetic and co-operative. Hence the environment of “respecting boss and caring self concern in place of respecting work and caring people” takes place.

In many engineering organisations most of the engineers never do any engineering work. They are the paper signing authority. After few years of service they become a part of management and/or administration. So, at this stage they neither remain a good engineer nor become a good manager. After a certain period they reach at the top and become the policy maker, but remain unable to understand the sentiments of their employees. They use their post merely to command and control the juniors. And it is a human nature that as a junior, one expects more skill, talent, understanding and care from their seniors to solve their technical and organizational needs and problems.

But during my career in a PSU, I rarely observed any senior who is concerned about the career growth of his juniors and is having empathetic approach towards them. There is a need to understand ‘organisational behaviour’, before making any policy for human being. At the top level also there is a need of injecting new blood to make more energetic, dynamic and vital leadership. And in place of authoritarian technocrats and boss, we need democratic leaders with higher EQ (emotional intelligence) in government organisations and PSUs. I remember a mentor’s comment on PSU people, “These people are very intelligent in one thing; how to make simple things, more complicated.”

D. Trade Union: Most of the trade union leaders are not much qualified and are unable to view the long term benefit of employees. They normally prefer rise in short term benefits like perks and allowance rather than viewing long term career growth of employees. Here also politics play the vital role, whether due to affiliation with political parties or due to inter-union rivalries and politics within the organization.

Union leaders are also more concerned about their member numbers than the benefits of all employees. They are not interested in policies, related to employee’s career growth. Its primary reason is they think they will not get benefit of it, because of their union activities and their work performance. Secondarily, they think if any member of their union gets promotion, he will leave the membership which will affect their headcount. So they think career growth is not their cup of tea.

There are certain organisations who educate their trade union leaders. Trade unions whether affiliated or non-affiliated to political parties, have to play a positive and growth oriented role in the organisation for their co-existence. They need to encourage growth oriented career path and a realistic worker participation in management.

E. Employee: An employee when joins the organization is full of enthusiasm, dedications and expectations. He performs excellent during his first few years. But after that he sees that there is no policy to recognize and motivate him to perform better, he loses his faith on the system in organization. At this stage he has different types of needs which are not understood and fulfilled by the organisation. His performance reduces slightly and so the interest in work. He indulges in some kind of other parallel business activities which he thinks can satisfy his needs. It is like a product life cycle. If attention is not paid in due course, his performance will gradually deteriorate. It is a human tendency; he subconsciously does the things which gives him pleasant result and avoid the things which give bad results. And, due to the bad experience of good deeds, goodness is decreasing.

It is not only pay & package, which can motivate them but something less costly but more important, and that is “care and to be understood”. It has been proved in the survey of India’s best employer, where some private organization’s pay packages are less than these PSUs but the employees are more satisfied.

Neither there is any positive reinforcement to motivate them for performing better, nor is there any significant negative reinforcement for bad performers. As a human being everyone resist to change and to come out of comfort zone. Also, there is protectionism from trade unions and political leaders which oppose any such changes which are useful for better performance of employee as well as of organization. Whenever someone tries to privatize such organisation trade unions and political leaders come forward to oppose such changes.

In such cases most victimised person is a good performing employee who becomes overloaded by work thrown to his court by peers and seniors. There is a need of good HR policies to encourage his talent, skill and experience. Also we need more career opportunities at each level for each employee. Rather than being qualification oriented, these organisations must have to be performance and work oriented, especially after recruitment.

In most of the government organizations there is no such motivational policy. This is the main reason of corruption and slow-downs.

Due to such conditions most of the PSUs are working like refineries; people come, sharp their skill and talent, and thereafter they switchover to multinational or professional companies. And those with lack of talent remain there. There may be few exceptional cases of talented persons who can not leave because of their personal problems. These organisations are now a major pool of non-performing assets of engineers and officers. Condition of purely government organisations is more disastrous. The behaviour of government employees, who are in public dealing, shows that there is a lack of professionalism. Lack of professionalism and availability of protectionism are two main factors to deteriorate their condition. And this needs HR professionals to workout on.

If a talented, hardworking and honest employee feels uneasiness and suffocation in an organisation, certainly there may be a missing link of HRM. We need to make a suitable relation of human needs and career growth for motivating performance. Identifying the skill and talent during induction and placing him at the best suitable area is a must. Also there is a significant role of training and development. Human Resource Management must not be treated as a department, section or a subject, but a philosophy, concept and a road to excellence. Human being is different from a machine, so you have to treat them differently. A machine has logic, but a human being has logic, feelings and emotions.