Bonuses and promotions

Nov 11, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

When the British ran the public service, prior to 1966, they did so with hundreds of years of experience in running public services in their motherland. They understood the things that motivated staff, two of which were annual bonuses and promotions.
Civil servants – as they were called then – used to be paid an extra month’s salary as a Christmas bonus. This however eventually disappeared. The local public service therefore did not have a culture of receiving Christmas bonuses. The bonus was replaced by a system of increments which determined your pay increase at the end of the year.
Within ten years of the PNC being in office, the finances of the state became stretched by an ever-expanding public sector caused by the employment of too many incompetent party supporters. At one time, a party card was a ticket to a public service job.
The increment system which was implemented was controversial. It was rife with accusations of bias and favoritism rather than objective performance appraisals. The increment system became a causality just like bonuses.
The PPPC never paid bonuses, except to the Disciplined Services, something that the present government has discontinued since they see as it a bribe to the soldiers, policemen, prison officers and fire service workers.
The APNU+AFC did the unthinkable. They reintroduced bonuses in 2015 and 2016 at G$50,000 and G$ 25,000 respectively. The bonuses were far from satisfactory because it meant that the general manager and the sweeper each carried home the same bonus. That really, the British will tell you will undermine professionalism and morale.
The APNU+AFC has also offered annual salary increases to public servants, without going through the process of collective bargaining. Like the PPPC did in the past, the APNU+ AFC is imposing such increases on public servants.
The APNU+AFC knows that it will get away with this flagrant industrial relations violation. The government is confident that the GPSU will never call a strike against it. And the GPSU knows that the present crop of public servants will not strike against the government.
The government therefore takes advantage of the union and public servants alike. They impose increases on them in the form of sliding-scale instead of across-the board increases. In practice what this involves is offering a higher percentage increase to the lower-paid workers and smaller increases to higher paid workers. In effect, what results is that the lower-paid workers are compensated for inflation but the top level professionals enjoy increases which are eroded by inflation.
The government is likely to do the same again this year to show that it cares for the small man. But if it continues in this vein, what will result are situations in which clerks will end up receiving the same salary as their supervisors.
The public service needs a living wage. That living wage needs to be calculated and a decision taken to gradually pay increases until a living wage is achieved. With oil revenues on the horizon, there can be no excuse any longer about the unsustainability of the inflationary effects of a living wage.
The Minister of Finance has made it clear that bonuses are not likely to be paid now or in the foreseeable future. But workers will get back pay. The workers have always treated this as being like a Christmas bonus.
The other measure which the British employed to motivate staff were promotions. Public servants used to look forward to being promoted on the job. It was possible then for a person starting at the entry-level to aspire to the very top of the civil service. Not anymore.
Top positions are now reserved for political appointees. And persons from outside the organization are usually hired to fill the top posts. Many of them are retirees and are past their best while those within the organization who have the knowledge and skills are bypassed. Young people are demotivated because they know that even if they work hard, there is no guarantee that someone of reaching the top.
It used to be tradition, a long, long time ago, for promotions to be announced at the start of the New Year. It was a nice way to start the New Year. Nothing motivates a worker more than appreciation in the form of a promotion.
The British knew what they were doing when they offered bonuses and promotions. The governments which assumed control of the public service after Independence have replaced that with back pay and cronyism and this is why there are so few persons interested in long-term careers in the public service.

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