Making it Work in Government Sector: Issues ... - 3rd SAICON 2011

The original model of the public sector has inherent structure of Weber’s Bureaucracy (1978), inwhich bureaucracies were considered to be capable of highest degree of organizationalefficiency. According to Lane (1998), Weber’s idea is maintained by the confidence thatdedication to particular job leads to dedication and therefore as a result competence. Accordingto Cole (1988), the ―Public Choice Theory‖ suggests that political concern instead of Publicinterest prevails under the acts of community service provision to the nation, which has causedthe flourished government Sector in post war era. However this development is adjunct to theinefficiencies augmented by the absence of market competition (Cole, 1988). This logic prevailsunder the necessity for adoption of new managerial practices from private sector in the publicsector.Lower Level of Autonomy and Communication GapThe employees are given lower level of autonomy and are appreciated for the self reliance tolearn new things. Also there is a wide communication gap between the management andemployees (Khilji, 2003). Usually the HR Policies are made in seclusion; feedback fromemployees during policy formulation and action phase is not taken to measure the effectivenessof decisions and problem solutions. Most of the time the employees are unaware of the decisionsmade in the HR and Personnel Departments as the communication between the two isdeliberately kept minimal (Khilji, 2003).Wage DifferentialsAnother important factor in the poor performance of the Government employees is the markedlydifference in the recruitment and promotion process as compared to private sector. The process7