How to Make Civil Servants Attractive to the Public Sector

My Sunday column  today describes a problem that both Trinidad and Jamaica are facing. How do they make civil servants more attractive to the private sector?

The inspiration came from the following billboards I could not help but notice in Trinidad – click here to see.
Both countries need to move public sector workers into the private sector, albeit for very different reasons I describe in the column. While the need is great, however, the change management execution is weak.
It’s one thing to set policy, but when lots of human being are involved, there are specific best practices that must be followed.
Witness the chaos at the passport office in Jamaica this week. Someone at PICA underestimated the demand that would be generated by the announcement that an almost 50% price increase would be put into effect in a few days. The result? A stampede in which two children were almost trampled and nine were taken to hospital with injuries.
Change management is hard and it’s easy to confuse it with politicking, which it isn’t. Novices at the highest levels of organizations mistakenly believe that “it can’t be that hard,” only to be surprised at the results they fail to accomplish.
In my article, I jump over many of the tricky steps and suggest some themes to keep in mind, but I don’t mean to downplay them. In a single column, I focus on one angle at a time.
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