To be good at workplace is sometimes not good at all for those associated with public-sector entities. It is rightly said that the reward for a task done well is that it is made your permanent duty. There are people who actually miss-perform or under-perform their duties cunningly so that their responsibility would be put on the shoulders of those who do their tasks and duties assiduously.
To run the affairs smoothly, people at the helm have no qualms about overtaxing the performers. But they forget that they are perpetrating injustice, and that serves no one’s interest in the long run.
When such practices become the norm, as is often seen at public and even private institutions, the good performers would stifle their flair and prefer to do the average. Consequently, dynamism and innovative thinking would stand suffocated because the performers are assigned tasks that fall beyond their expertise and purview.
Such an injustice in division of labour is rampant at educational institutions all the more, especially the public ones wherein teachers who curry favour with the heads of departments get their duties relegated to the dutiful employees who represent the fictional Boxer, the horse, of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
As a swatch, a teacher of English at a prestigious college is unjustifiably asked to prepare students for Urdu declamation and essay writing contests despite the presence of an in-charge of Urdu co-curricular activities, merely because the former brings laurels to the institution in English contests.
When he excuses, lo and behold, he is derided that he should translate into Urdu what he has written in English. He can kill two birds with one stone. Is this not a joke?
A competent and efficient leadership makes every cog, major or minor, work as per its position and purpose. In the words of Simon Sinek, an American author and inspirational speaker, we “become leaders the day we decide to help people grow”.
Only then, the yield meets, rather exceeds the input, enhancing the efficiency of the working unit. People must be made to deliver what they are employed for, and not to slide into being deadwood.
However, the irony is the deadwood is easier to get rid of in private institutions than in the public ones whereat multiple tiers of management and authorities make it an almost impossible task.
That being so, this cancer is continuing to play havoc with our public resources.
M NADEEM NADIR
KASUR
