Does this sound like a ‘lime’ to you?

First the CoP who dared to state that he was running a 24/7 business which could not accommodate the distractions of Divali celebrations in his police stations. If I may paraphrase him, he talked about having to serve "customers" at any time of day or night and that he needed to be on the alert at all times. This was music to my ears because it was a rare occasion when a public official and the Commissioner of Police at that, seemed to have put the customer at the centre of his universe. WOW! Would it then be too much to expect that the police will become customer focused and treat with Jane Public in an appropriate manner? Yes, it might be too much to expect but it’s a start. The fact that the CoP is even thinking customer service indicates that there is a germ of an idea with the potential to become an avalanche.

If we have enough persons in different parts of our society changing their mind set then there is a good chance that attitudes will be impacted and a new day dawn.

My second "jaw-dropper" came from MP Dr Keith Rowley earlier in the year, when he questioned whether TT is getting even a fraction of the value for the amount of money being spent on education. He also said, "We’re spending more and more and getting less and less in virtually every area. And that tells me there’s something wrong with the way we’re doing business." To me, it is really revolutionary for a MP to make these remarks. It means he is really grappling with some of our daunting problems. They say that recognition of the problem is half the solution.

LACK OF PRODUCTIVITY

At the root of both of these statements is a comment on the lack of productivity that pervades our entire society. I reckon that even in hard nosed private sector organisations with enthusiastic workers, we are getting just about five hours of productivity per day out of our workers. My observations are that few organisations start business at the time they advertise and desks are often unmanned with people feeling no remorse in saying Mr or Ms So and So is not in today, would you please call back tomorrow? You generally have to press them to get any information or assistance.

Officially we have 13 public holidays and that excludes Carnival. Each public holiday requires extensive preparation which takes away from productivity and employers carry the burden. When we factor in Carnival days as lost days, we can easily count this as three days, taking the total to 16. Let’s also factor in Bomb threat days and hurricane days, the total can easily reach 20.

DE LIME FACTOR

On top of this we have to factor in things like preparation for Carnival fetes, Emancipation celebrations, Divali celebrations, sports and family says and the death of family members and national heroes. After all of this, we can easily total about 30 man days of lost productivity. Multiply 30 man days by an average rate per day and you’ll arrive at a huge figure which represents lost opportunity which employers or the state must pay for annually and this is not accounted for in the business plan.

It means that we are working for 11 months each year. When we allow for an average of 20 days vacation we are now down to 10 man months per year.

One "silver bullet" solution jumps out at me. Unless it is your "core business" organizations should abandon the following celebrations: Carnival Fetes like Army Fete,Police Fete, Customs Boys Fete, Soca by the Silo, Soca flowing like water, Emancipation Day celebrations including the Queen Shows, Divali and Eid Celebrations and Sports and Family Days. Despite the claim that these are run by the Sports Club or some other group, they negatively impact productivity since employees are involved in both the organization and patronage.

These are not the only factors impacting our lack of productivity but they play a great role in negatively shaping our work ethic.

I began this piece focusing on the comments made by the COP and Minister Rowley. The fact that these gentlemen are thinking of productivity, value for money and customer service is a great start. We need to continue with an aggressive focus on the systemic and structural pillars which impact productivity. For T&T to survive there must be a radical change in our work ethic. T&T Inc. cannot be competitive on a 10 month work year.

Dennise Demming is a Public Relations and Training Consultant

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Guardian Life.

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