This article is written by Shainaz Firfiray, associate professor in the organisation and human resource management group at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Working in government isn’t like working in the private sector — and it shouldn’t be. As such, it is widely acknowledged that the public sector should avoid adopting the commercially driven imperatives that businesses apply in their day-to-day operations.

Given the constant tussle between the public sector ethos and commercialism, public servants often deal with challenges that can stop them from becoming highly productive.

It is important that public servants cultivate long-term, high trust relationships to commit effectively to policy objectives, understand each other’s goals and bring about critical service improvements.

Nonetheless, there are considerable difficulties in building and sustaining trust in public services. And effective collaboration may require political competences that go beyond a public servant’s leadership skills. They involve sound judgement on when to mobilise different stakeholders to invest their knowledge, energy and resources to ensure effective policy outcomes.

Adopting flexible approaches may help public servants achieve higher productivity in an environment characterised by complexity and disorderliness

Government action can be slow and cumbersome, often because governments want to protect people and the environment from quick decisions and their unintended consequences. Adopting flexible approaches can help public servants achieve higher productivity in an environment characterised by complexity and disorderliness.

Here are four areas every public servant can and should invest time in to raise their productivity:

Identifying areas that need change. Finding meaning in the job is a natural precursor to efficiency and high performance. Evidence suggests that public servants generally derive meaning from their work by bringing positive change into the lives of the people they serve. However, many public servants find they're engagement with citizens very limited, which makes achieving this meaning harder. Someone who works with a community's social care services at City Hall, for instance, may not see all the good their work does. To address this, we need procedures that identify the issues public servants want to change and to institute methods that can bring those changes about. Productivity ultimately follows from satisfaction with a job well done.

Prioritising tasks. Public servants often have competing work commitments that divide their attention. Making the right choices when setting priorities can therefore be critical to a public servant’s overall productivity. One way for public servants to do this is to identify the areas of their work that they feel most passionately about, because these are the areas where they are likely to make a true impact. Prioritising tasks noticeably improves peoples’ focus and reduces the stresses that come with being preoccupied. This doesn’t mean neglecting monotonous tasks, but rather ranking tasks according to what the public servant knows will maintain their energy over time.

Building soft skills. There's a growing acknowledgement of the importance of emotional regulation and compassion in public services. This calls for investment in soft skills: interpersonal, analytical and collaborative. Compassion can seem difficult to align with the values of neutrality and objectivity characteristic of public administration. Current reforms in the field require public servants to show greater responsiveness to political superiors and to identify emotionally with certain policies. While technical skills are still valued, public servants’ are also expected to use reflective questioning, facilitation and teamwork to engage with people. When these things are absent, productivity can suffer. Better levels of productivity will increasingly depend on public servants’ interpersonal skills and the relationships they build with others.

Dealing with emotions. Public servants should also be mindful that their work can be emotionally taxing. Interacting with people to resolve complex problems can cause emotional exhaustion and burnout, so in order for their performance and productivity to improve, it is importance that public servants be given the opportunity to reflect on the long-term emotional impact of their work.

Preserving distance and restraint are also an important part of a public servant’s self-care and can help avoid burnout

Building a genuine connection between the users and providers of services is valuable, but preserving distance and restraint are also an important part of a public servant’s self-care and can help avoid burnout. Having a strong attachment to a role can exacerbate the psychological impact of work-related stress, especially in cases of performance failure. The more public servants internalise their organisational roles, the more distressed they feel when they fail to meet their obligations.

In fact, a healthily detached public servant may be better placed to distance themselves from the emotional pitfalls associated with their work. Mentally disengaging after work hours can help public servants restore the emotional and cognitive resources lost due to work demands. It is important to remember that your self-identity does not consist solely of of your job. By turning from work and embracing other roles and relationships enhance your ability to take charge of your well-being. — Shainaz Firfiray

(Picture Credit: Unsplash)

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