Powering Employee Performance for Better Service Delivery

SERVICES ARE CENTRAL to economic activity in any society.
Basically, better service delivery is the amalgamation of responsibility, connections and individuals’ relationship with different skills, talents, expertise and strengths.

In turbulent times, the government sector plays a critical role in providing a stable environment for investment and economic growth.
Services such as public education, healthcare, well maintained roads, safe drinking water and clean air, among others, are necessary for any nation’s economy to survive and people to prosper.

Economics professor David Landes discovered that an ideally productive society would be one that “chose people for jobs by competence and relative merit” and promoted and demoted on the basis of performance.

Multiple leaders in organisations, institutions and companies have diluted and misinterpreted this definition as a result of stagnant employees, whose potential remains unharnessed because of inadequately organised operations.
Certain factors need to be established for an organisation to function optimally: Structure, design, change and development, among others.

INNOVATION

In the 1800s, Egyptians grew the finest cotton in the world, but they depended on forced labour “scantily fed and housed, much abused by tyrannical superiors”.

As a result, the Egyptians simply could not compete with British factories, which paid much higher wages.
Developing countries should not copy and paste all the strategies of developed countries, but would do well to take a hard look at innovative organisations or companies.

Apple and Microsoft (US) are known for their new products, Google (US) for its customer experience, and Sony (Japan) for its new products.

These examples send a clear message that what we lack is not raw materials or resources, but empowerment to challenge people to think and act beyond their job descriptions and come up with something extraordinary.

Nineteenth century sociologist Max Weber advocated a straightforward assumption: Organisations find efficiencies when they divide the duties of labour. To what degree do people feel empowered?

Most people believe this is of paramount importance. On the flip side, while just about everyone talks about it, only a few understand it.
There is a need to take baby steps towards “hiring the right leaders”.

Transformational, visionary, and charismatic leaders commonly represent the style of leadership needed to guide organisations through chaos and to curb counter–productive behaviour in organisations.
AFRI-CARE

My plea to leaders in Namibia, as well as across Africa, is to foster a cross-pollination of ideas with employees to draw the best out of them.
Until we have what is called a giraffe’s view – “you can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending” – service delivery will remain pathetic. Another lever for motivating employees is developing talent and succession planning.
In tandem, employees need to understand that employment is also a privilege. You earn the ability to keep that privilege by performing, in a measurable way, on behalf of the organisation.

Over and above other factors, even well-established organisations can’t engineer themselves from good to great by picking only winners and deselecting so-called losers.

Africa needs Afri-care when it comes to leadership in order to boost the energy, stamina and morale of its employees.
Governments and businesses must come together to ensure that schools and universities across our continent are equipping future employees with the skills they need to make their mark in the world.

Policies, programmes and people must be placed squarely in environments that allow employees’ performance to flourish and multiply.
John Maxwell reminds us that “leaders become greater not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others”.

– Tio Erastus Nakasole is an MBA student at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, and has an honours degree in economics. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent those of his employer.

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