Aijaz A Hingorjo
NOBODY can deny the fact that an individual by medical profession can not run the affairs of engineering profession and vice-versa. Same approach is applicable to the rest of the professionals of other disciplines having variant nature of expertise and skills. This fact further endorses the point of ‘Right person for right job’ that matters a lot for efficiency and effectiveness of the both-human resource and organization.
In addition, the personal and professional growth of human resource is also aligned and directly proportional to other factors such as; capacity building trainings, job rotations, timely promotions, rewards, appreciations, incentivizing and so on so forth. In any organization, whether public or private, if the said practices are executed in true spirit then it not only produces efficient manpower but also paves way for vertical and horizontal progression.
Numerically looking, the organizations having larger number of staff can also manage the manpower as per the organizational demand. The journey from recruitment to placement of operational and technical staff is carried out as per need-assessment technique. On contrary, the things get worst and misfit when the manpower is not utilized properly in organizations. In other words, bypassing the basic principle of ‘right person for right job’ in any organization creates troublesome situation. It is as like to expect from the captain of a bus to fly an aircraft.
Let’s not go far beyond to observe the timely promotions of employees, just have a look over the structural formatting of Pakistani mainstream civil bureaucracy (Civil Services) where the recruitment is carried out through competitive process and after one year of lengthy common training program (CTP) and Specialized Training Program (STP) the officers are placed as under trainee (UT) during first posting and they render their services in specific groups ranging from administrative services, policing, custom to income tax, commerce, audit, secretariat group and so on so forth.
Comparatively, let us imagine if there are some other government attached departments and autonomous bodies where the mandate and discretion of working remain high but promotion and training aspect seems invisible and non-significant. What will happen there? No logic is needed to answer it, the simple fact is that the workforce get demotivation and demoralized. In turn, the ripple effect will be witnessed and it will negatively affect the efficiency and efficacy of public servant, organization and general stakeholders as a whole.
Suggestively, there is a need of clear career path for the recruited manpower. This factor motivates the employees to work in an organization with clarity of mind and it improves retention of employees and diminishes the uncertain factor amongst employees in any organization whether public or private.
Second, the dynamics of service delivery and implementation of policies varies from organization to organization due to variant nature of stakeholders and beneficiaries. In this connection, there should be flexibility in rules and principles so as to mould and practise it as per the requirements of modern times. Third, the impression of elite civil servants and ultra-poor public servants, which is quite visible and physically exist, should be discouraged and all the public office holders should be made accountable and transparent.
Fourth, there should be frequent trainings of employees as per their working requirements keeping service delivery and promotional needs in view. In order to water this approach, the relevant division focusing the official manpower should come on forefront and its focus should be on pre-designing of trainings, modules and outsource the trainers or services of training institutions for the said purpose.
Last, but not the least, the adhocisim-based and short-term policies are not the solution of any problem. There should be research based and long-term and sustained policies for retention of manpower in any organization and placing ‘the right person at right place’ will be proved useful and efficient factor in order to produce productive and desirous results in any organization.
—The writer is Assistant Director (Research and Development), Higher Education Commission, Islamabad
