Guyana’s development undermined by a culture of workplace tardiness

Jul 18, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
A long held labour practice stereo-type of Caribbean and in general un-industrialised countries is our tardy approach to work, which I suppose has become a self-fulfilling prophecy in Guyana.

Arrive at most public sector agencies and many locally-owned private sector entities at 08:00 hours and one finds employees now straggling into office (it takes about 30 minutes to settle into one’s day) or waiting for the opening supervisor to arrive and open up shop.

This scene, although relevant to the public space, is also observed in the private space. I use the 30-minute rule for my appointments and give myself an extra half-hour because more likely than not, the other attendees will turn up late.

It has become common place in the Diaspora to hear persons set appointments and use the phrase “not Guyanese time” to reinforce timeliness.

Travel along Regent Street, which I think we should rename Waiting Street, and observe this culture of tardiness which negates the growth of our GDP, industrial productivity and our respect for timeliness, especially in our 24-hour days. One can readily observe the depth to which we have become a nation of late-comers.

A highly suspicious example of this practice occurred just recently when the personnel responsible for finalising Oliver Hinckson’s bail release was absent and/or tardy from their post long after the start of the work day.

Coupled with the significant number of holidays we enjoy, the relative high electricity cost, low-wages, working conditions, emigration pattern and the red tape tactics employed by many workers, particularly in the public sector, it’s no wonder that our socio-economic bases are proving unfavourable to competitive drive and corruption passes as an integrated element of the service delivery profile and job-description of instruments of delivery.

Empirical data are available to correlate all the aforementioned and more causations of Guyana’s relatively weak competitiveness and wider unfavourable economic status, when we are strategically placed (geographically) and endowed with perhaps more natural resources (type and abundance) than any one single CARICOM.

However, at this junction my aim is to simply raise awareness of this atrocity which passes under the radar as a normal feature of our collective workplace and national culture and to encourage all levels of managers, supervisors, decision-makers, and mid and junior level workers to emphasise timeliness and its consequences and to be practitioners of timeliness.
R. Small

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Guyana’s development undermined by a culture of workplace tardiness

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