Business News of Friday, 20 February 2015
Source: Graphic Online
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has expressed optimism that the next phase of the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) would also be undertaken with consensus and collaboration among all social partners.
The second implementation phase of the SSPP begins this year, with the institution of productivity measures and indicators to enhance the creation of economic value and the equitable sharing of the value created among workers.
The Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, Dr Yaw Baah, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, conceded that just as there had been challenges with the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), there was bound to be challenges with the implementation of productivity measures and indicators in the public service. But he was optimistic that just as the challenges had been surmounted with the implementation of the SSSS and achievement of 100 per cent migration of all public sector workers onto the SSSS, challenges pertaining to making productivity measures and indicators part of the SSSS were also surmountable.
Dr Baah explained that productivity was all about the efficiency of production, while performance management was the measuring of the performance of workers engaged in production.
He said there were standards of measuring performance, which began with the job description of a worker.
However, he indicated that the challenge was that most Ghanaian workers did not know what their job descriptions were. For this reason, Dr Baah said there was the need for the appraisal of workers as well as the tools and resources at their disposal for the production of value or a resource.
He also said measuring productivity in industry and manufacturing companies was easy, but measuring productivity in the public sector posed a challenge.
That was particularly so when one considered problems such as the lack of resources for workers to work with, the current energy crisis resulting in workers having no power in their offices to work, and also when one considered the dearth of skilled workers in the public service.
Nonetheless, Dr Baah said, other jurisdictions had shown the way with the measuring of performance in the public service.
He said in Ghana doctors and police personnel, for instance, overstretched themselves to attend to teeming clients, for which reason one could conclude that they were very productive.
With regard to the police, he noted that even though the country had not achieved the United Nations’ prescribed ratio for police personnel to citizens, which was one police man to 500 people, it could be concluded that the police in the country were productive, given the resource constraints and the enormity of their work, particularly since the country’s ratio for police personnel to citizens was one police man to about 1’000 people.
Dr Baah said the TUC was ready to contribute to the institution of productivity indicators for the country, as it did during the five-year implementation period of the SSSS.
He said doing that would be in its own interest, as it would ensure that workers would no longer be blamed for being the cause of the country’s economic woes because of the SSSS.
Already, the TUC has prepared a document on productivity which discusses not only the output of workers, but also work ethics, he said.