Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell is calling for public service reform in hopes of improving working conditions and terms of service within the system.
Minister Mitchell made the call Friday while addressing public servants attending the Human Resources Officers Meeting at the Learning Resource Centre, Mackey Street .
According to the Minister, the Public Service has been plagued with a number of vexing problems, chief among them the delivery of service to the public and the development of the human resources area.
“The present system of personnel management is not adequate,” Mr. Mitchell said. “Too much emphasis is placed on signing forms and applying rigid rules that are often outdated.
I must also confess that I have never worked in a system where it appears that every employee has some issue with the terms or conditions of their employment. And while this may only be anecdotal or impressionistic, it is of sufficient concern to me that this clearly should not be allowed to continue.
Though not an exhaustive list, Mr. Mitchell added that issues such as the lack of and review of promotions, the inability to get answers on promotions and pay, the inability to get reasonable and timely discussions on their career paths and just the feeling that there is generally no concern about the welfare of the worker remain commonplace complaints.
Equally disturbing, he further noted that the Public Service also seems to operate in the “dark ages” particularly regarding the amount of paper work required to execute decisions.
“There does not seem to be a proper tracking system,” he said. “The system is too paper intensive. It does not appear to have appropriate and open lobbying procedures for vendors to provide goods and services to it. The result…there is too much of lag time between requests for information or decisions on pay and promotions and the actual time the decision is carried out.”
Complaints have also circled that not only are human resource officers often oblivious to what takes place, but seem unconcerned about getting answers or are unable to get them.
“When persons come to me, they have either not spoken to their human resources officers, cannot identify who that person is or are been told: I keep writing about your promotion but I don’t hear myself or It’s down at the Commission,” the Minister said.
As a possible solution, Mr. Mitchell proposed introducing a system whereby human resource officers are identified to employees. Those officers, he said, would in turn give a commitment to get answers within 14 days of any enquiry, while the whole system commits to a final determination and reply within six weeks of the employee’s first request.
This along with the added suggestion to implement an appropriate appeal and review procedures prompted much response from attending officers who apparently found the proposals a far cry from actuality.
On the other hand, employees were also advised to understand that an answer will not always be favourable, and at some point, they must be willing to move on.
In the long term, the minister noted that job counseling alongside personal counseling sessions may have to become features of the public service human resources departments in an attempt to combat the added frustration of employees and their status.
“One of the recourses in a mobile economy to the problem of job dissatisfaction is simply to leave and find other work,” Mr. Mitchell said. “But the relatively static job market in The Bahamas causes even young people in this day and time to stick it out to the bitter end, taking anything that comes.”
