Ghana to consider linking productivity to salaries

The Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffuor Awuah, has stated that, the current government is trying to find innovative means of linking the labour output with the salaries of all public and civil servants in the country.

While speaking at a symposium arranged to be a part of the current ongoing 69th Annual New Year School and Conference (ANYSC) in Accra, with the theme “Enhancing Labour Productivity Through Skills Development For Industry”, Mr Awuah said “Currently I have constituted some experts in that field to advise the Ministry about the possibility and how it can be implemented to ensure that government gets the best output,”.

“As the country adopts new technology, invests in infrastructure and improves the skills of her workforce, we lay the foundations for our enterprises to become more efficient and effective thus, we move into activities with a higher added value per worker,” he added.

He spoke on time management and also the poor attitude the workers show towards work, saying it affects the productivity level.

“Often we do not measure the man hours we lose when we attend events late, we report to work late and leave office early before closing time. All this is a form of stealing and does not enhance productivity,” he indicated.

The Human Resource Manager for Barclays, Bank Mr William Easmon had said at the event that most employers preferred prospective workers with rich experience, creativity, team players, cognitive flexibility, complex problem solving and self-motivated to work.

He further stressed on the need for the development programmes to showcase the skills employees are required to have and hands-on experience through, training, education and skills to improve upon productivity.

He also said employers are on the outlook at the labour productivity and capital productivity, which serves as the most important and essential to the policy maker, the academicians as well as the practitioners enabling the entrepreneurs to improve their businesses.

Also speaking at the symposium was Professor William Baah-Boateng, a lecturer from University of Ghana Economics Department who stated that health was one of the most important endeavours of specialization that had trainees who got easily employed after school and rating humanities and the engineering disciplines as areas where graduates struggled to get employment.

“You hardly find a doctor who is unemployed. After the health the next is education and this is because undertaking practical work is part of their training,” he specified.

The Former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies, Accra, (UPSA), the chairman for the event stressed on why the employers should give good leadership, innovation and welfare to the employees to help them in achieving the neede productivity.

“Employers should not dwell too much on getting the best out of our workers if they do not provide the necessary direction, support, and tools to work,” he indicated.