Improving public sector quality and productivity: a formidable challenge

A. A. Amaradasa

The need for public sector quality and productivity has been talked about very much, not just over the past few years, but over decades and even millennia. But nothing much appears to have happened and the majority of the citizens have come to realize that this topic is at best left alone, because there isn’t practically anything that could be done about it.

At the same time, everyone is equally convinced that, unless and until public sector quality and productivity, has been substantially improved, we shall continue to remain a clumsy, lethargic and graceless nation forever. So improving public sector quality and productivity, poses a formidable and onerous challenge.

The most recent attempts at focusing on the need for drastically improving public sector quality and productivity have been initiated by no less a person than the President. He spared no pains at boldly spotlighting the monumental importance of improving public sector quality and productivity as a sine-qua-non to national development, especially in the context of realizing the new and grand vision for Sri Lanka – “Making Sri Lanka the Wonder of Asia.”

This article examines the present state of public sector quality and productivity, impediments to its improvement, the dimensions of public sector quality and productivity improvement and how the improvement initiative could be structured.

The Sri Lankan Public Sector

Consider for a moment some of the “stark” facts relating to the Sri Lankan public sector in general, which have a direct bearing on the status of national quality and productivity.

* Sri Lanka enjoys the most number of holidays in the world and the public sector has many more holidays compared to the private sector.

* The number of strikes and work stoppages launched by various groups, especially those in the public sector, is enormous.

* The strongest and the most frequent protests are launched by the more powerful and well-to-do professional categories of public sector employees, such as doctors, paramedics, nurses, technicians, bank officials and university staff-both academic and non-academic.

* Tardiness and absenteeism are ways of life in the public sector.

* There is little accountability for lapses, shortcomings, negligence and lack of coordination among public agencies who undertake public services such as road construction, telephone cable laying, electric cable laying, plumbing, etc.

* Supplies of material and hardware procured by many public agencies such as medical supplies and even buses and trains have been at various times found to be of dubious quality and reliability.

* The general feeling among the public is that they are severely inconvenienced and put off by the attitude, apathy, and disposition of the majority of public servants who show the scantiest regard for their clients.

* Public dissatisfaction with public services is escalating. Transport, health, education, postal services among many others have frequently been criticized as ineffective and inefficient.

* Legal delays have become one of the most acute problems in Sri Lanka.

This is but a very small facet of life in the Sri Lankan public sector. From the above instances, it is clear that these attitudes and behaviours prevailing in the public sector go very much against the grain of good work ethics and quality and productivity, which are so vital to organisational and national progress in the context of contemporary regional and global development. Let us first consider the issue of quality.

Quality of Public Sector Services

The services provided must in the first place be effective, or meet well the needs of clients. What customers require of any service organisation, including government, are courteous and customer-friendly employees who promptly provide unblemished products and services. To provide services of such acceptable quality to the customer, the servers must ensure:

Availability (being available in person to deliver the service)
Punctuality (being available on time)
Promptness (timeliness of the service delivery)
Accuracy (faultless, error-free service)
Convenience (elimination of unnecessary red tape, ensuring comfort of customers)
Courtesy (Politeness and respect for customers)
Cleanliness and order (Well groomed personnel and neat environment) Reliability (Consistency of performance), and Responsiveness (Willingness or readiness to provide services)

Customers judge the quality of a service through the above ‘moment-of-truth’ episodes in which they come into contact with any aspect of the organisation. To manage these episodes, public sector managers must first identify these ‘moments-of truth’.

There are many complaints and accusations against the quality of public sector, ranging from transportation, healthcare, education, electricity distribution and so on. But there are a few public institutions which have taken quality seriously and who are interested in going for international certification and quality awards.

Managing ‘Moments-of-Truth’

Regarding the managing of these ‘moments-of truth’, it is a foregone conclusion that public sector organisations have a long, long way to go. How long will public services personnel – from the highest levels such as secretaries to the lowest such as clerks and office-aides- take to embrace the culture of a “quality service”? More than anything else, what is needed is a conscious, extensive and massive personal transformation countrywide. This personal transformation would require all public servants especially, front-line employees to display the following behaviours, when serving their customers – the public. Every employee must make it a point to:

* Be available to look appropriately well-groomed
* Be punctual, maintain a neat, safe and pleasant work area
* Welcome the customer and keep all areas clean and uncluttered
* Make eye contact and smile and speak clearly
* Use a pleasant tone and voice and eliminate unnecessary red tape
* Be polite and friendly to ensure accurate documents
* Show empathy and take time to listen
* Respond quickly and give the customer total attention
* Give concise explanations and instructions and on a friendly note

The first and primary responsibility of the management should be the establishing of a clear vision of superior service. This should be done by getting feedback from customers, studying customer responses and complaint data, setting customer service standards, identifying needed behaviours such as those cited above and ensuring such behaviour are displayed conscientiously by everyone.

These customer service behaviours are of vital importance and these behaviours must be taught to all employees as part of their introductory training. This would lead to a massive cultural transformation.

Installing Total Quality Management (TQM)

Having decided on the superior service vision, each organisation should consolidate its efforts and go through the following steps to provide a superior quality public service to customers.

* Set up a Quality Steering Committee consisting of senior managers to provide direction to quality improvement.

* Decide on key opportunities and priorities for service quality improvement through appropriate project selection. This should be done by the steering committee based on data from customer surveys and complaints.

* Educate and train every employee, including managers on quality. This includes basic concepts of quality and tools and techniques for control and improvement of quality.

* Appoint suitable project teams to work on earmarked projects and to provide diagnosis

* Evaluate results of project work. This should be done by the steering committee.

* Standardise best practices for implementation (institutionalization)

* Continue the process endlessly identifying new projects (Continuous improvement)

The above activities involving all departments, divisions and personnel constitute what is known as Total Quality Management (TQM). Ensuring quality to both internal and external customers at all times should be considered the prime and sacred responsibility by every employee.

Public Sector Productivity

In general terms, “productivity” is a measure of efficiency. It tells how well resources have been used to accomplish the work. The higher the volume of work produced with a given set of resources, the higher the productivity. Productivity is usually defined as output per unit of resource input. Public sector productivity focuses on the efficiency of governmental (that is publicly authorized and funded) agencies and their sub-units.

Public sector productivity as a field is different from private sector productivity, because these agencies operate under significantly different conditions. Private sector output can be measured in terms of their monetary value. In contrast public agencies generally produce services that are not for sale. Actually the major difference is in the method of measuring productivity.

The general feeling among the public is that the public sector is not at all concerned about productivity. Wasting time, material and money is not much of a problem for the public sector. Worse still, is the fact that public sector employees waste not only their time, but the precious time and money of their customers engrossed in bureaucracy – unnecessary administrative tasks, approvals and paper tasks.

Productivity Measurement is vital

Productivity measurement is applicable to any kind of work: purchasing, processing applications for bank loans, road construction, providing healthcare, teaching, issuing motor vehicle licenses, electricity distribution, waste disposal and the entire spectrum of activities. It applies to work units of any size, to agencies at every level of government and every kind of jurisdiction.

Public sector productivity measurement involves computing of the amount of effective (quality) work done by an agency or sub-unit per unit of resource input. Some examples of productivity indicators are the Number of vehicle licenses issued per man-month, number of kilometers of roadway constructed per million rupee investment, etc.

Concerned about the perennial problem of low and unsatisfactory public sector productivity, the President has emphasized the importance of introducing a scheme of productivity/performance evaluation in the public sector. The impending change would not have been welcomed very much by many in the public sector as it would involve a rude awakening from the deep slumber they had been in, but the scheme is now being implemented at least in some sectors of public service. How productivity improvement can be structured is detailed elsewhere in the article.

Improvement

Certain barriers do exist in reality, which hinders quality and productivity improvement in the public sector. Some of these are:

a) Laws, statutes, pieces of legislation and administrative and financial regulations and procedures which are outdated and bureaucratic bungling.

b) Natural human resistance to change as quality/productivity improvement is a far-reaching change process.

c) The current political system in which power is divided among several authorities, sometimes with overlapping duties and frequent changes in the incumbents or elected representatives.

d) High degree of politicization of the public service sector over the years – recruitments, promotions and perks are determined more by political patronage than by the suitability of candidates.

e) The relative newness of the field of public sector quality and productivity and the vagueness, ambiguity and cynicism attached to it.

f) The virtual non-existence of recognition and reward schemes in public service, exceptin may be those in the defence services.

g) The non-existence of a systematic and structured quality assessment and productivity measurement system in most public sector organiasations.

h) The absence of a strong work ethic in Sri Lanka in general and in the public sector in particular.

i) Somewhat hostile labour management relations, eg healthcare and nutrition areas.

j) Inadequate education and training provided to manager and employees.

Structuring Quality/Productivity Improvement.

A Strong work ethic essential.

Out of all, the non-existence of a strong Sri Lankan work ethic, may be considered the biggest roadblock to national quality and productivity improvement. As a result, far too many holidays are enjoyed by Sri Lankans than by other citizens of the world strewn across the globe and we keep yearning for more.

It is also known that the public sector clearly again, has many more holidays compared to the private sector.

To top it all, absenteeism is rampant and tardiness is the rule more than the exception in Sri Lanka. No one cares about waste in the public sector – waste of time, money, resources, talent and skill. Waste is the very anathema of productivity.

Thus it calls for strong leadership of the government, to set matters right once and for all, though it may be an uphill and trying task, to change the national attitude towards work. It may need a great deal of education, publicity, persuasion, regulation, legislation, and motivation to bring about the desired change and it will not happen overnight. Persistent will and action on the part of the political leadership, and more than anything else, the ability of the leadership to become perfect role models, will certainly pave the way for building a strong work ethic in Sri Lanka in general, and in the public sector in particular.

Approaches to be adopted:

All techniques which are employed to improve quality and productivity, whether in the private sector or the public sector, could be thought of as falling into three groups or approaches. These are:

1. Changes in the work process (work process improvement)

2. Change in the employee attitudes and skills ( education, training and motivation)

3. Changes in management actions (new management options)

The first approach work-process improvement involves attention to operations and the way how the work is structured and processed. It involves collecting data, charting, analyzing and improving processes to minimize waste and improve efficiency. Mapping the processes, re-designing jobs and automating tedious manual operations come under this category.

The second approach involves attention to improving the contribution of employees through education, training and motivation. The objective is in general, to energise the major public sector input namely labour. This approach focuses on extensive education and training, appropriate incentive systems and broad employee involvement and participation. Recognition and reward schemes, employee suggestions, schemes, quality circles, project teams come under this category.

The third approach involves focusing on exploring new management options for meeting client needs in the new era of severe competition and globalisation. This approach involves activities such as those given below:

Customer/User surveys
Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Implementing International Quality System Standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001.
Complying with National Quality Award Criteria
Establishing Total Quality Management (TQM)
Using the Business Excellence Model
Instituting Productivity measurements
Implementing Just In Time/lean systems

Many of these approaches have not been even thought of by the public sector administration, although private sector management is constantly in search of such techniques to improve their quality productivity and the bottom-line.

In conclusion, it can be stated that quality/productivity improvement, though not considered seriously by the public sector, is possible in every field and at every level of government. First of all, it is important to be aware of whatever impediments there are now to quality/productivity improvement and then institute action – both short term and long term – to eliminate these. A high degree of labour management cooperation would be indispensable for achieving higher levels of quality and productivity.

Improving effectiveness (quality) of public sector services, involves carefull understanding and managing the moments of truth. For this to happen, it is important that the public sector personnel, en masse, personally transform their lifestyles at work to embrace a strong work ethic.

Timeliness of service, accuracy, reliability and courtesy are the prime determinants of a quality service.

Absenteeism and tardiness which plagues the public sector life, will have to be totally eradicated. All these aspects will be taken care of in the implementation of organisation wide quality management or Total Quality Management (TQM).

Improving efficiency of public service (productivity) involves continuously improving all work and business processes; educating, training and motivation of all levels of public sector employees and adopting new management approaches such as Lean Systems in the public sector. Productivity measurements will be an indispensable element of the performance improvement initiative.

With the head of state showing unwavering personal commitment to national quality and productivity improvement and driving personally, the national development initiative, it seems likely that the way is open for a paradigm shift in public sector quality and productivity improvement in the years ahead to make the new and grand vision for Sri Lanka namely, “Making Sri Lanka the Wonder of Asia,” a reality. A total cultural transformation of the public sector is an urgent necessity.

About the Writer

A A Amaradasa, Quality and Productivity Consultant, is an Honorary Fellow of the Sri Lanka Association for Quality.

He is a Past President of the Sri Lanka Association for Quality, a Past President of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity and formerly Director, Consultancy & Training at the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.