EXPERTS AND EFFICIENCY

NZ Truth, Issue 935, 27 October 1923, Page 4

EXPERTS AND EFFICIENCY

Supervision Of State : Service* Psychology of Selection.

This is essentially , the- Era' of Efficiency. Bid not the Minister m Charge recognise this when' he^romojted Mr. Markman to- be the tieaa executive of the Postal Department? • For Mr. Markman is 100 per cent efficient. He is the System Incarnate. Also, he is not only » Mafc of ideas, but he will recognise the Idtea Merchant within and without the service. If you know how to '■ save the i ok' of a ,second m the despatch oi; anything to do with the Postal Department; take the tick-saver to the new Secretary. ' It is a great pity that every Apartment of the State Service is not headed by a 100 per center. For why. should die State departments be as" a" garden run. to seed and covered -with Weeds? Why shouldn't every arm of the sess vice be efficient? There should not be any more drones m the Civil Service hive ;than there are m, say, the hardest taskmaster m private business^ ! ' ■ Far too longthe Public Treasury has been used as a milch cow 'bjt far too many men who have been wished or pushed or engineered Into ilosts that they have all along considered 16 be sinecures. . •:. . , . . f There should be np eucfe thing aa » shiecure m the State service* Short on work and long on holidays has been the rule of the service, far,' far too long. Why shbuld that wasteful system be permitted to be perpetuated? When Mr. Massey left for Lohdoff, his last Injunction -to -his colleagues of the Cabinet was to keep on being busy m the service «f the State arid to keep on deck while he was away. That injunction was, as .necessary for every departmental - officer and clerk as for Gordon Coates. ' All over the land there are tacked upon the walls of households -the -card l that has raised the gibes of the cynlcS: "Bless Our Home!" 1 v • . / ' There are two aphorisms on invisible tickets pertaining to the Civil Service.One is over the portals of each department: "Abandon hope all !ye who enter here." The other is of a different genre: "When the Cai^s away* the Mice do play!" And don't they! Does a Minister of the Crown ever think of the value of a personal inspection of his staff. Try it. Does he ever pay a, surprise visit to the departmental office? at 11 a.m. and at 8 p.m.? Try it. Does he ever ask where So-and-so is at any old time of the day? Let him ask. / " ; Does he know that there are too many loafers m the service.? Does he know that thfy who entered tho service full of hope arid a desire to do their duty well and enthusiastically soon have the heart' tajcen- out of them because of the bad example of tht men who do little as they, can In the day, the week, the njonth. and the year — and then expedt to loaf for thp rest of their lives on fat pensions which they have riot earned? "Truth" wonders Whether even those Very Efficients, the Public Service Commissioner and his smart assistant, pay surprise visits to the various (departments over which they now have control. . : ;, . - It would be all to the good for' the taxpayer if they did so. v • ■ . ; In fact, the only fray to equip the sr.rvice with some semblance of efficiency would be for the Commissioners to appoint Surprise Supervisors, each of whom should be unknown to the P.S., and should move up and down tho Dominion, paying calls upon the offices of tho State. With Jjists of the. .men ; who. Ate on ; the, staff, these S.S.s could find out why Mr. Shinyshoes is non est outibus end where Mr. So-and-so is when he should be where . he isn't. The S.S.s would earn their salaries over and ov#r again, not only through tht greater efficiency that would resulr from only one or two visits, but also through the application of the pruning hook upon the deadheads and deadwood of the service. Loafers, loungers, and lingerers are not needed m the service, no matter what the color of their politics or of the blood, red or pale blue, of their families. . The 'dairyman who is providing the butter and the cheese that are helping to pay these drones m the P.S. has been urged these years and years toimprove his herd by the system of selection. j „. ... . .......'. That same system is urgently needed m the Public Service. There are culls therein that should be cut out from the midst of the worth-while herd. ■ ' One rotten and loafing uncivil servant spoils a department./' The force of a bad example affects the output of any office. There are no live wires where there |a a dud to show that the' salary conves just as certainly for doing nothing all tho time as when oonsotenUdus work la done for the good of the State, And it is well known that there are, I.W.W.'s and Reds and Bolshlea In the P.S. who are just as determlijeji m tfoveloping a go - slow " system as any coal miners. « There are aristocrats' of the* no-v/crk-for-lots-of-pay order all ovgr tho Dominion In the various offices and departments of the State. They need weeding out. If old Sam Oompcrs can clean the Reds out of the American Federation of Labor, why can't we clean out the Deads and Duds from our Civil. Service? And Selection should follow. Psychology, also, is needed In the doing of the Selection. Here !gi th«j great opportunity for tho P.S.C.'a to nppolnt Experts m Psychology, so <js to fit tho men for the job they are best fitted for physically, mentally, and patriotically. " For the patrlqtbsiri, like the enthusJ- , a«m, is spori knocked out of a young fellow who happens tp strike an office wherein there is a dud or a cumberer of the earth. Wlih tho Surprise Supervisors earthquaking' the dtpnrt»rinntß and the ex-pt-rt psychologists fitting the men and the jobs each to the other, there would bo hope for the service— and a service ful' of hope. What a revolution this would effect —and there would be no comeback In thf» way of rovolt. "Truth" recognises that the vast army of the State contains an over-i wholmln* majority of jolty fine &!•.• lows who lament that there m no efficient supervision of the service, anil conßequently a lack of efficiency m currying on. For Just as tho labor unions of New Zealand are dominated by the RaaJ so tho Civil Servlco'B oiHeiency ?4 crippled by it* Dead*. " cie "cy i a The lattor aro well treated — let thorn trait tho taxpsiyoi-vveH, or got out! ! ,