Factors Affecting Productivity In The Public Sector: An Analysis

Background

There has been significant evidence regarding the failed advancement of the productivity of the public sector or government organization as compared to the private sector. The issues in the politics have limited the success of the measurement of the productivity and the improvement in the state or the country (Long, Shao & Chen, 2016). Further attempts towards the control of the productivity and the measurement in the government sector have not proceeded any further. While there have been multiple researches and researches regarding productivity problems in the government, very few or none of the studies focused on the perception of the government workers and the factors that affects the overall productivity of the government sector. The statement problem for this particular research is to identify and focus on one of the main productivity issue of the government or the factor affecting the productivity of the public sector. The identified problem of productivity of the government is the lack of effective management and communication in the public sector.

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Productivity and the improvement are a necessity of the business and an imperative of the political structure. Productivity is one of the vital measures towards the performance of the national economies. High level of cost and the rising demand have induced a rapid increase in the core services in the public sector like the health care, education and the transport. The public services makes up around more than twenty five percent of the economy (Lazzarini, 2015). Hence the degrading productivity of the public sector raises a challenge and drag over the whole economy as well. It is thus important around the entire world for the governmental organization to deliver better outcomes in an urgent basis. The productivity of the public sector is furthermore essential for the delivery of a better experience for the citizens at a sustainable cost. The knowledge of the factors that influences that productivity of the public sector is thus prerequisite for the improvement of the performance and the productivity. All of the nations face decisions regarding the role and the productivity of the government and the private sectors in their society. The pattern of the reforms and the reorganization generated and introduced a movement in some of the countries for curtailing the authority of the government and enable replacement with great private activities. The skepticism about the governmental activities implies that there lies a major difference among the private and the governmental organizations (Aparicio, Urbano & Audretsch, 2016). A large discussion regarding the scholarship in the political science and the study of the economics highlighted on the bureaucracy of the government and the inefficiency of the public organization towards its degrading productivity (Bertrand & Capron, 2015). The research paper focuses on the inefficient management practices and the lack of proper communication as the main issue for the decreasing productivity of the governmental sector towards the benefits of the economy as a whole. The paper aims to find the different review of the literature regarding this particular topic and conduct thorough research together with the analysis off the results and the recommendations for the future scope of the improvement of the productivity in the governmental sector.

Factors affecting productivity in the public sector

According to the early researchers, there lie a limited number of factors that impacts on the productivity of the employees of the public sectors. Oswald, Proto & Sgroi (2015) highlighted the four key principles that have the possibility to dramatically improve the productivity of the workplace. The authors illustrated the principles advised towards the managers of the sector for the systematic design of each of the job and effective co-operation with the employees for a proper management inside the sector. Some of the other researches highlighted on the fact that the leadership traits and the qualities furthermore affects the productivity of the employee and the overall performance of the organization. Zehir et al. (2016) identified the two major factors of the discussion regarding the behavior of the leadership and that of the importance of communication that defines the relationship among the members of the teas, accomplishment of specific job and the direction towards the achievement of the goals of the high productivity of the organization. According to the authors the concept of the consideration involves the degree of mutual respect, the concept of trust and the warmth among the employees of the organization which is an essential factor towards the achievement of the high productivity. The authors furthermore denoted that the concept of the consideration is best illustrated as the level of tolerance among the leaders and the employees of the organization. Burke (2017) in his book highlighted the fact that poor management is one of the major and primary causes that result in low levels of productivity of the organization. As the paper or the study cited, streamlining of the procedures of the management in the organizations together with the improvement of effective communication base are the central factors toward the improvement of the productivity of the public sector organizations that are mainly responsible for the improvement of the economy of the country or the state. Singh & Twalo (2015) in their work indicated that inefficient planning procedures poor organizational structure of the management that are followed by poor leadership management are the main factor that rises as the obstacles towards the productivity of the government and the public organization. Kumar, Singh & Khan (2016) cited some of the key factors of productivity like the inadequate communication, insufficient chances for advancements, poor management skills of the organization lowers the employee motivation which furthermore hampers the clear goals that are extremely essential for the productivity of the organization. In the current era, often it has been on the notice that the governmental organizations of the economy award the contracts to the private companies rather than giving to the public sector people. This practices has raised numerous critics towards the effectiveness of the service delivery of the governmental organization towards their hold over the national resources. The dominant findings by researchers who are government focused reveal the fact that the productivity of the public sector has not been able to keep pace with that of the private sector. The studies discussed in this section develops a solid and strong foundation of the knowledge and the theory of the productivity that will recommend concrete support towards the systematic and the logical actions for the effective enhancement of the productivity of the public sector.

Research Methodology

Research philosophy is generally considered for the analysis and the development of the study in detail basis. For this particular research study, philosophy of positivism research has been utilized for initiating effective investigation of the issues identified in the productivity of the governmental sector in a critical and logical manner.

Exploratory, descriptive and explanatory are the three categories of the design of the research. Of these, the descriptive research design is most effective for this research paper.

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This research included qualitative descriptive base of study for the analysis of the factor disrupting the productivity of the public organizations operating in the economy. Data or the information for this particular qualitative and descriptive study was gathered by the means of survey that is totally web based and from the secondary sources of information like the peer reviewed journals, articles, books and governmental web pages (Quinn, 2018). The survey factors for the demonstration of the general categories included question, statistics and the analysis of the factors that enabled enhanced positive identification together with the productivity of the public sector workplace. The structure of the questions for the survey analysis was as follows.

This particular study will rely on the collection of both the primary and the secondary sources of data. The primary data will be gathered by the web based survey among the government employees and the secondary data will include the relevant pieces of information that are mostly available in the online platform in the form of e-journals, books and governmental reports.

The open ended queries on the questionnaire were made to list some of the key factors that are mostly relevant to the workers of the government (Bullock, Stritch  & Rainey, 2015). The survey was offered to 25 government workers of both state and the central government each and their answers were evaluated by the categorizing the responses on the basis of the factors that affects the productivity of the governmental organization. The sampling techniques that is used for this research includes both the probability and non probability sampling techniques (Berman, 2015). The process of simple random sampling has been used for this particular study for the gain of better knowledge regarding the issues in the productivity in the public sector organization.

  1. What are operating procedures, the policy, the situation and the situation that mostly limits the ability of the employees of the public organization towards enabling high productivity?
  2. What is the irritating aspect of the job and the responsibilities at work in the public organization in general?
  3. What are the possible changes that needs to done for the improvement in the overall quality, productivity and the performance of the government of the state of the country?

Strict ethical guidelines have been followed while conducting the entire research study. In case of the collection of the primary data none of the participants of the web based survey were forced to give their details or participate in the survey (Olubusayo, 2016). A form of consent was there after signed by each of the participants in the terms of their willing support towards the survey regarding their job satisfaction and performance in their employment sector that is the public sector.

Results and Analysis

The web based surveys that were utilized in the survey analysis were subject to the potential limitations. This is because the respondents to the survey did not mostly have access to the availability of the internet and computer.

All research valid responses were gathered from the respondents, the government employees.  The section details the relevant findings and the analysis of the interviews conducted over the government employees for analyzing the productivity of the government towards the wellness of the economy concerned (Kim et al., 2016). With effective transcription of the responses of the participants on an electronic basis, the responses from the web based survey was recorded and it was furthermore noted that which participants replies to which of the responses. With the following of the responses, the researcher prepared the information or the data collected for further analysis by developing and organizing each and every response by the participants of the survey.

Responses to the situation, management, procedure of the operation that limits the ability of the performance in the public sector were as follows:

Factors Noted by the participants

% of responses

Poor management

Poor communication

Lack of training

Poor technology

35.7

69

20

25

The majority of the respondents of the web survey revealed that poor management practices and lack of proper communication in the organization serves as the factor of barrier towards the productivity of the public sector or the government.

Responses to the suggestions for change required for the improvement of the overall productivity of the government includes the following:

Factors

% of responses

Improved supervision and the practices of management

Better communication

Team building

Setting of the objectives the goals on a clear basis

Elimination of bureaucracy

35.8

78.3

33

56.9

7.3

The majority of the respondents targeted the factor of poor and inefficient management practices and the lack of proper communication among the staff members of the public organization is the major factor towards the problem and the degrading productivity of the government (Cohen, Blake & Goodman, 2016). Evidences from the secondary resources and the above stated literature review furthermore highlights the factor that gauges and represents how the government works for the economy as a whole.

The survey analysis revealed the percentage of the employees supporting the factors that are considered as the research objectives of this particular study. The web based survey response generally noted that some of the strategies that can create successful changes in the public sector (Margaretha & Supartika, 2016). According to the responses from the survey most of the employees reported and triggered factors like effective supervision, management, communication with clear objectives as some of the effective moves towards that can change the productivity pattern of the government organization.

Figure 1; The table of responses

Recommendations for the Future Scope of Improvement

Source: (created by the author)

Factors noted as the irritant by the respondents by the survey together with the analysis of the secondary data research appears to be the notion that limits the productivity of the governmental organization as a whole. Poor supervisions, inappropriate working conditions are the factors that has been reported and listed from the data collected from the secondary researches of the survey (Chong et al., 2014). The overall analysis of the survey can furthermore be illustrated with the favorable factors affecting the productivity of the employees of the public organization that furthermore results in hampering of the overall productivity of the government by the Maslow’s hierarchy and the two factor theory of Herzberg regarding employee motivation (Güss, Burger & Dörner, 2017). This is because the factors for the limitation related closely to the factors illustrated in the model of Herzberg. These include organizational supervision, policies of the organization, the conditions of the conditions and the overall process of management. Besides this, the two of the major elements of leadership as defined by the researchers in their book and the work highlights the key elements of the leadership including the structure initiation and the level of tolerance by the employees over each other (Means, 2017). The relevant or the major issues relating to the poor level of supervision, ineffective and poor management, lack of proper and effective communication among the employees of the public organization and the government followed by lower level of recognition, pay scale, facilities and advanced trainings as compared to that of the employees of the private organization relates directly to their level of engagement towards the organization they are involved and the productivity they are willing to give (Rubery, Keizer & Grimshaw, 2016). Furthermore these factors coincide with some of the broader concepts of the traits of leadership that has been emphasized and highlighted in the literature.

The research study was designed and conducted for the proper determination of the factors that directly influence the productivity of the government of the state or the nation (Raman, Sambasivan & Kumar, 2016). The congruence of the result of this research study as compared to the results from the private sector illustrates the potential towards the basic applicability if the findings of the web based survey. Some of the key factors for the recommendations are the introduction and the development of effective leadership traits among the organization so that the government employees get motivated to work and have specific targets and goals to achieve (La Porta & Shleifer, 2014). The government or the public service organization will clearly benefit from the increased employee engagements, attentions, settings of the clear goals , effective leadership and the proper establishment of the training programs for the employees of the public organization Improvement of the supervision and the management skills, building of the team work among the employees of the organization ad recognition and rewards of the governmental employees just like that of the private employees are essential. Organizations serving the public sector must furthermore develop on job training scheduled for the employees so that the government employees do not get backed out as compared to the polished employees of the private organization since these reflects in the overall productivity of the organizations. Besides this, enhancement of the effectiveness of the front line supervisory can also be a critical initiate for the improvement of the productivity of the government organization (Estiarte et al., 2016). Recommendation such as support of the human resource management and the continuing initiatives over the supervision and the training together with the leadership traits for the existing employees and the new comers of the public organization must be initiated.

Conclusion

It is furthermore recommended to conduct follow on studies for the determination of the results of the implication of the recommendations. Development of the skill set together with verification of the productivity factors in the government organization are some of the useful recommendations for the increase in the productivity of the governmental workforce.

Conclusion

It has thus been seen that just like the employees of the private sector organization, the employees of the government sector responds productively towards the effective communication and proper management process and the team work facilities so that they can initiate high productivity of the government towards the economy as a whole. The results of the study can furthermore be used for the validation of the critical factor that is affecting the productivity of the government and taking a toll of the engagement of employees of the organization. It is important to realize that in the current era, it is important for the government organization to advance and update the level of knowledge, skills and the facilities of the employees of the organization who serves as the catalyst towards the overall productivity of the government just like the employees of the private organization. This is because positive environment and motivation can improvement the achievement of the government regarding its productivity.

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