By Sarah Al-Akkash
One of the insurmountable obstacles facing the Kingdom’s economy is the large number of unproductive employees in the public sector. In fact, 70 percent of the public sector workforce is unproductive.
The reason why we have this large number of such employees is because we have corrupt directors and senior officials who have failed to monitor the performance of subordinate employees. There is no doubt that the poor performance of employees who lack competence will reflect negatively on the performance of the government department where they work.
Of course, in the end it is citizens who will pay the price because they are the ones who have to go to government departments to meet those unproductive officials on a daily basis to have their transactions processed.
Nepotism and tribal loyalty have deprived competent employees of an equal chance to compete for public sector positions. The productivity level has gone down, threatening our economy. Today, the world views us, we Saudis, as lazy because of the stupidity of some senior officials who care only about hiring their own relatives and next-to-kin without having them sit for any examination or performance test.
The other day, I read a tweet written by a non-Saudi engineer. Giving advice to a businessman, he said: “If you want your business to continue and not collapse and close down, then my advice is to hire non-Saudi graduates instead of Saudis because Saudis are very stupid.”
Saudis will continue to be described as unpunctual, unproductive, unqualified and disrespectful of the work environment as long as nepotism and tribal loyalty are still practiced.
Let us look at mega companies like Aramco and SABIC and compare the productivity of Saudis there with that of public sector employees. There is a huge difference. Why have Saudis succeeded in these companies and failed in public agencies? The answer is simple. Mega companies follow strict employment measures and constantly monitor the performance of employees and attempt to improve it. Nepotism does not exist. The performance of each employee is assessed according to a set of standards and indicators, which apply to all.
The Transformation Program 2020 assesses the performance of each government agency based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The majority of advanced countries adopt KPIs in their strategies because through these indicators they can measure whether or not the sought-after goals have been achieved and can detect strengths and weaknesses.
We must eradicate corruption and intensify monitoring measures. There is no place for unqualified employees. If we want to implement our vision successfully, we need to hire competent and punctual employees.
