A climate of fear is unhelpful

A climate of fear is unhelpful

It is the culture in the public sector that needs to change, and I saw no indication of this in the States’ new CEO’s proposals, which seemed to revolve around redundancies and bikeshedding. In my experience, authoritarian cultures lead to blame cultures, and for the whole of my 57 years on this planet, Jersey’s public sector has been run as a suffocating authoritarian gravy train. Authoritarian cultures lead to stress, higher sickness levels, lower job satisfaction and lower productivity. Managers will cover up any vulnerability to avoid showing weakness, and therefore will neither be authentic or make the correct decisions on behalf of the public if they are outside a comfort zone. If you make a wrong decision, as all humans do, you need a culture that allows you to reverse it rather than cover it up at all costs or plough on in the wrong direction. The history of the States is littered with ‘cunning plans’ designed to cover up something that went wrong.

Empower public-sector employees, create a culture of openness, maximise human potential, remove the barriers that suppress talent. Obviously, the demands of governance, both genuine and ‘tick-box’, will remain and provide some constraints – but it can be done. The best organisations to work for have a philosophy that it should be a great place to work for all – that every demographic group rates it highly in terms of trust, pride, and camaraderie. Every employee matters in today’s economy, which is about connectivity, innovation, and human qualities like passion, character, and collaboration. Changing some historic practices like the number of pay grades may be a step in the right direction, but without cultural change you will achieve nothing.

A redesigned public sector could beneficially impact everyone. If I were reorganising the States, redundancies would be low on my list of priorities at this time. Getting the best out of my colleagues would be number one. Change the negative, authoritarian culture and the rest will fall into place.

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