Productivity-linked compensation is diversionary

The announcement by the federal government that it would adopt a productivity-linked salary structure in the country is, at best, a diversionary tactic. It is meant to divert attention from the real issues in the country. Curiously, such an idea is popping up amid a long-drawn labour dispute between the government and the organised private sector. The government intends to divert attention from the real issues or cause confusion among the workers and scuttle efforts to arrive at amicable solutions to the ongoing dispute. 

Daily Trust has no problem with matching workers’ remunerations with their productivity. Its benefits are numerous, including curbing losses and inefficiency in the civil service. But we are opposed to this administration’s penchant to rush into policies without fully thinking through them. This is what has led to the quagmire in which the country has found itself one year into the life of the new government.

The core issue in all of these discussions is that the current remuneration for workers in the public service is too low. You cannot talk about low productivity when the workers are not being adequately remunerated. In many cases, they are not provided with the right tools and environment to function optimally. The reality in the Nigerian workplace today, especially in the civil service, is that workers face several hurdles in their efforts to offer their best because of factors beyond their control. Sometimes there is no power in public-sector offices, and there could be a standing order for the generator not to be switched on until a certain time of the day. In many places, workers are given archaic, dilapidated equipment to work with. So, in such situations, how can staff performances or productivity be objectively assessed or measured?

So, the government must first talk about revamping the work environment, including the low wages prevalent in the economy, before raising the issue of productivity-based compensation. The fundamental issue at the moment is that the government is not paying its workers well.

The government should learn from the standard practice in the private sector where key performance indicators are set at the start of the year for an organisaiton or department. These are further broken down into achievable goals for the year and scaled down to quarterly goals, and if possible monthly targets. They are also distilled into measurable goals for each staff.

With this, each worker can be held accountable based on known metrics. The ways and means by which these are measured must be clear and transparent. In technical fields, these methods are being used to hold workers responsible for the achievement of certain levels of production in a given year.

So, we believe that where people’s job specifications are clearly defined, it is possible to identify and remove workers who are falling below expectations. This system is lacking in Nigeria’s civil service. There is, therefore, the need for a comprehensive evaluation of the civil service.

We know that there is a high degree of redundancy in the civil service.  Many workers report to offices when they like and go out at will. Even simple jobs are split into ridiculous bits such as one person writing the receipt for payment, another receiving the money and putting it into an envelope, etc. They exist because of the decadence in the system.

Adopting a performance-linked wage system in the public service sector now could become counterproductive, given the Nigerian system. Some people could so easily convert this into an opportunity to witch-hunt others or pander to ethnic or religious cleavages.

Our position is that the government should discard this productivity-based wage system. We do not see its practicability in our unique environment with all its defects. There are pertinent questions that must be answered before this new system is adopted; who will perform the workers’ assessment? Will they come from outside or from within the system? There is a possibility of issues arising from these factors further complicating the system. Someone may just sit down and assess the workers and subjectivity could pervade the whole exercise.

The government should first reform the civil service to rid it of the challenges it faces. The current civil service cannot be used to implement the system that the government is thinking about. This whole idea is just a diversionary tactic by the government. It must stop and face the real issues.