We all lose if low pay drives stars from public service
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HOW should one value public service? It is not business, certainly; but it is not ethereal, like literature, either.
At one extreme, there is Mahatma Gandhi, the Virginia Woolf of politics. He owned little more than the dhotis he wore, his spectacles, his spinning wheel and a clutch of holy books.
Few if any among us would take that model seriously, but it still retains an enormous psychological attraction. Public service, we like to say, involves service; and service, we insist, should involve sacrifice. Service = sacrifice = relatively low pay: That is an equation that would win approval in any number of straw polls, even in Singapore.
In the United States, politicians take such polls seriously, and as a result, the quality of government has declined.
If there is any doubt on that score, one need only consider the 2006 Annual Report on the Federal Judiciary that Mr John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, released early this week.
CJ Roberts devoted the entire report to low judicial salaries - an issue that 'has been ignored far too long', he said 'and has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis that threatens to undermine the strength and independence of the federal judiciary'.
In 1969, 'federal district judges made 21 per cent more than the dean at a top law school and 43 per cent more than its senior law professors', he pointed out.
Today, federal district judges are paid about half what senior law academics are paid. As a result, less than 40 per cent of today's federal bench comes from the private sector, compared to 65 per cent in the 1950s.
'It changes the nature of the federal judiciary when judges are no longer drawn primarily from among the best lawyers in the practising bar,' the CJ moaned.
How could this have happened? The cause, in a nutshell, was political cowardice.
In 2000, former president Bill Clinton, who did not dare raise his own salary for fear of the political repercussions, agreed to raise that of his successor to US$400,000, plus US$50,000 for expenses, almost double what he got.
But he did not press Congress to raise salaries down the line; and congressmen were not willing to raise their own salaries so everyone else's could rise too.
This self-imposed poverty did not really matter to the politicians. Mr Clinton now earns US$250,000 per speech on the lecture circuit, and has become a multi-millionaire in his retirement, as he cheerfully admits, merely doing what he would have done in any event - talk.
Congressmen and senators, if they are not already billionaires who bought their way into political office, can easily amass millions in their retirement by joining lobby groups.
Not so civil servants or judges. By regulation, the salary of a federal district court judge is pegged to the salary of a member of Congress, now US$165,200 per annum. With that as the base, federal appeals court judges get US$175,100, Supreme Court justices US$203,000 and the CJ himself US$212,100.
The Chief's pay is less than half the President's. He earned more than US$1 million in the private sector before he joined the bench. His former law clerks would receive US$175,000 as first-year associates at top law firms - about the same as an appellate court judge's salary - not including a 'signing bonus' of US$200,000. Within a few years, they would earn many multiples of their former boss' salary.
The rest of US government service faces similar problems.
I know someone, a lawyer and an MBA, who works for an important regulatory agency which monitors the futures markets. Because civil servants cannot, by regulation, be paid more than the Vice-President, whose salary is now US$202,900, the agency may soon lose my friend.
Having regulators who aren't as smart as the regulated would not make for good governance. Similarly, having judges less able than the lawyers who appear before them would not make for a good legal system.
It is no wonder that CJ Roberts is worried.
Geniuses like Virginia Woolf are different. They march to a different drummer. They do not need or want much - just £500 a year and a room of one's own, as she famously put it. And she would have done what she did with less.
One cannot say the same of all public servants.
They serve, yes, but their service requires compensation, not punishment. It is we, not our servants, who will suffer if we lose the best and brightest among them to the private sector - or worse still, to corruption.
In the final analysis, you get what you pay for - and it is best to pay enough for what you want.
Excerpt from Janadas Devan's column in the Straits Times, 6 Jan
(http://straitstimes.asiaone.com/portal/site/STI/menuitem.7c5078e96529f8d48ace2810a06310a0/?vgnextoid=e34a3bac35429010VgnVCM1000000a35010aRCRD&vgnextfmt=vgnartid:94e9039d953ff010VgnVCM100000430a0a0aRCRD:vgnHasAuthorID:38021c805aaba010VgnVCM100000430a0a0aRCRD) -
They wan High pay... They oso must hv got standard, more motivations, more drive and benchmarked against the world class private companies...
Right now... I dun see Y they are getting that kinda pay all across kinda civil servants... -
then we lose the crappy pointless BS which the "stars" keep making us do.. like SQ awards, People De-eloper awards.. the useless, pointless crap which takes up a lot of time, effort, sweat and tears for no added value whatsoever...
they seem to be in love with that crap -
Unfortunately investors do look at all that crap when they decide whether or not to put their money down..Originally posted by the Bear:then we lose the crappy pointless BS which the "stars" keep making us do.. like SQ awards, People De-eloper awards.. the useless, pointless crap which takes up a lot of time, effort, sweat and tears for no added value whatsoever...
they seem to be in love with that crap -
the country wun be safe anymore if u made the pple's life too cheap...Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Unfortunately investors do look at all that crap when they decide whether or not to put their money down.. -
shows you how much you know
these things are detrimental to any organisation, not an asset
people who look more than the surface, know...
seriously!
ahhh... how shallow those who think these awards give you anything other than committing a lot of time and resources for absolutely nothingOriginally posted by oxford mushroom:Unfortunately investors do look at all that crap when they decide whether or not to put their money down.. -
You are entitled to your opinion. Now ask the MNCs who put their headquarters in Singapore....Originally posted by the Bear:shows you how much you know
these things are detrimental to any organisation, not an asset
people who look more than the surface, know...
seriously!
ahhh... how shallow those who think these awards give you anything other than committing a lot of time and resources for absolutely nothing -
Less of that BS for them, actually. Times have changed.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:You are entitled to your opinion. Now ask the MNCs who put their headquarters in Singapore.... -
Nope...everyone is looking for objective measurements of quality. American hospitals can send patients to Singapore public hospitals for treatment under their medical insurance policies but only if we have JCI accreditation. Similarly, if you are a lab technician, you are not allowed to sit the examinations of the American society of clinical pathology unless the lab you work in is accredited with the Collage of American Pathologists.
Accreditation schemes instill confidence in foreigners who do not know our standards otherwise. -
Professional accreditation for skilled vocations is one thing we must advocate, however, overkill of SQAs and mumbojumbo corporate schemes for "productivity" and the misuse of balanced scorecard is another issue altogether.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Nope...everyone is looking for objective measurements of quality. American hospitals can send patients to Singapore public hospitals for treatment under their medical insurance policies but only if we have JCI accreditation. Similarly, if you are a lab technician, you are not allowed to sit the examinations of the American society of clinical pathology unless the lab you work in is accredited with the Collage of American Pathologists.
Accreditation schemes instill confidence in foreigners who do not know our standards otherwise.
There are firms who blindly seek certification for themselves without a corresponding change in their internal work culture. -
Any good thing can be abused and overkill must be avoided...that's a fact, but it is wrong to dismiss all management tools and quality standards with a single stroke of the brush.Originally posted by LazerLordz:Professional accreditation for skilled vocations is one thing we must advocate, however, overkill of SQAs and mumbojumbo corporate schemes for "productivity" and the misuse of balanced scorecard is another issue altogether.
There are firms who blindly seek certification for themselves without a corresponding change in their internal work culture. -
ask the MNCs who are fooled by the accreditation?
i asked the people who went through putting the stuff together to get the accreditation, it was all a farce and those who gave the awards knew next to nothing about the organisation, know nothing about proper work, and will probably never know anything about doing the necessary to make that organisation work..
their "recommendations" were "accepted", tried out with much swearing, found not to work and quietly swept under the carpet
most of accreditation processes locked an organisation into documenting and sticking to the documented processes... and if there was a flaw or anything found, the organisation will have to jump through hoops to get it changed...
frankly, cutting edge companies and organisations know better and do not get these accreditations because they are seen for the BS they are.. and they know better than to throw resources to get something worthless..
instead of hanging around the "top people", go ask the people who actually do the work to get these accreditationsOriginally posted by oxford mushroom:You are entitled to your opinion. Now ask the MNCs who put their headquarters in Singapore.... -
That's because your organization is not implementing it right...the best systems in the world are useless if they are not handled by the right stuff..Originally posted by the Bear:most of accreditation processes locked an organisation into documenting and sticking to the documented processes... and if there was a flaw or anything found, the organisation will have to jump through hoops to get it changed...
Giving a latop to a monkey will not churn out a software. The fault is with the operators..
Read this about how to implement the BSC successfully: http://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/view_article.asp?intArticle_ID=527 -
this is baloney....some of the so called stars are now facing prospect of being out of work once their tenure ends....there are more 'stars' hanging around than actual positions available...even if these stars are drawn to the private sector by money, you still don't have enough places for them....the private sector does not always consider scholastic excellence...i've worked with some top mnc previously and the stars they want are those from their home country.....exceptional cases like ibm and hp where they actively use local talents extensively....there is only so much money you can throw at civil servants and you cannot always use the lag of wage scale compared to the private sector as a reason...the private sector will always pay whatever monies at their whims and fancy so must the civial service follow suit? hell no...recent examples of private money paying insane wages and golden handshakes proves that point....
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implementing??
you want us to implement stupidities of their recommendations??
here's one: you should not have more than one supplier.. you must go into partnership with your supplier so that you can build a relationship with that one supplier...
here's another: you should channel your resources into delighting your customers and making sure that things that he has not thought of are met...
btw.. i work for an enforcement agency... our "customers" are always wrong
and.. the "consultants" who were going to give us accreditation dared to come and utter this to us "we do assume that we know what your organisation does and after this exercise is over, we will probably not know much too" and they dared to give us recommendations??
like i said... those who look from the outside..Originally posted by oxford mushroom:That's because your organization is not implementing it right...the best systems in the world are useless if they are not handled by the right stuff..
Giving a latop to a monkey will not churn out a software. The fault is with the operators.. -
oh.. btw... if they are so mercenary as to go away because of pay, it speak volumes...
they would not really be "Civil Servants" would they?
i know for sure that this concept has driven the politicians to distraction -
If they are really stars, I would say pay them well and keep them. However, how many of them are really stars? It is well known that most government jobs are ''iron rice bowls''... applicable to non-performing ''stars'' too.
Are we able to judge whether they are stars or not? If yes, how? -
you go and ask the ground people..
but the ground people are people the really high ups don't want to associate themselves withOriginally posted by bangkokboy:If they are really stars, I would say pay them well and keep them. However, how many of them are really stars? It is well known that most government jobs are ''iron rice bowls''... applicable to non-performing ''stars'' too.
Are we able to judge whether they are stars or not? If yes, how? -
Yeah so end of the day we can't really judge.Originally posted by the Bear:you go and ask the ground people..
but the ground people are people the really high ups don't want to associate themselves with
Anyway I am sure they have some kind of peer evaluation at government agencies, however who judges those at the top? And based on what criteria?
BTW, out of curiousity, Temasek Holding is not considered a government owned body is it? If it is, any heads rolling at the moment? Sorry, long time in Bangkok, rusty about Singapore...
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Civil servants do not mean they and their family have to sacrifice monetary rewards to provide good service. You want the best talent, you have to pay for them. You might disagree that your superiors are indeed talented, but if you think you can do better, prove it.Originally posted by the Bear:oh.. btw... if they are so mercenary as to go away because of pay, it speak volumes...
they would not really be "Civil Servants" would they?
i know for sure that this concept has driven the politicians to distraction
I was a civil servant once, but if industry is prepared to buy out my bond and increase my pay, it will be silly not to go. Even my ex-superiors agree
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civil servants do not deserve to be paid minimum wages. i agree with you on that.
however neither do they need to be paid unrealistically high wages. especially when many of them are not deserving of it. -
in Jim Collins' book "Good to Great", he stated that contrary to popular perception, there is no correlation between the salary of the CEOs and the performance of a company. it doesn't mean that the higher the salary of the CEO, the better the company will perform. because the right people hired for the right job will be motivated primarily by their personal high standards of excellence and monetary rewards really are secondary.
although Collins' research is on the corporate world, i think we can draw good parallels of the public service, because the fundamentals lie in human nature - regardless of the system we are talking about.
the only reason our gahment thinks that pay should be the primary carrot to draw "stars" into public service is, because the stars are not really passionate in the job for which they are courted. hence if not for the slightest wish of wanting to contribute to our nation, they wld at least stay and not lose out due to a non-competitive salary compensation package.
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http://besimplebefree.wordpress.com -
You are also entitled to your opinions. Now ask the MNCs who left Singapore to put their headquarters out of Sinagpore.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:You are entitled to your opinion. Now ask the MNCs who put their headquarters in Singapore.... -
Originally posted by tehconi:
Dream on! This is the real world...you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Do you know how much the CEO of Goldman-Sachs got recently? 60 million USD
in Jim Collins' book "Good to Great", he stated that contrary to popular perception, there is no correlation between the salary of the CEOs and the performance of a company. it doesn't mean that the higher the salary of the CEO, the better the company will perform. because the right people hired for the right job will be motivated primarily by their personal high standards of excellence and monetary rewards really are secondary. -
What is unrealistic? Ng Eng Hen was earning more than a million a year as a breast surgeon (he himself admitted taking a big salary cut by going into politics). Do you think we can get him to work as a cabinet minister if we pay him 8k a month? A small salary cut may be acceptable by appealing to his sense of public service, but not when you have to cut your salary by 10 times.Originally posted by nismoS132:civil servants do not deserve to be paid minimum wages. i agree with you on that.
however neither do they need to be paid unrealistically high wages. especially when many of them are not deserving of it.