In both government and business circles the rising stars avoid working in Personnel. They consider it a dead end. Yet in my view it is the most important area in order to achieve human flourishing and marginal productivity. In Afghanistan, Human Resources staff are strong willed and resilient: what can their Australian counterparts learn from them?
Watching endless finance segments on the news, with updates on GST, commentators and politicians repeatedly say they don’t understand why productivity is not increasing, as what their models show is that their strategies should be effective. They are so blinkered by the messages of tech lords that automation of data, surveillance of workers, stripping jobs down to micro-parts, and replacing humans with machines, will result in productivity.
In my working career I was lucky to have the opportunity when on the Executive Development Scheme to run the Personnel Section in PM&C, to develop a workforce agreement when heading the Alcohol and other Drugs Council, and being on many recruitment selection committees. However, being asked by the EU Technical Cooperation Programme to the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan to undertake human resource management and transparency/integrity was one of the most important and worthwhile tasks I have ever undertaken.
Whereas in developed countries managers and politicians are able to pull the wool over people’s eyes about vested interests and corruption, in developing countries the prevalence of problems is more overt.
Politicians, senior bureaucrats and warlords repeatedly tried to get their relatives into high level jobs in Ministries. It did not matter that they had no qualifications for the job, they doctored certificates from eminent universities and made up an impressive CV. One of my amazing Afghan colleagues became a master at checking with universities and finding errors in the documentation. He prevented many people with no qualifications becoming doctors, dentists and pharmacists. Also he and his team implemented an examination system combined with re-training to upskill those already in the system so that harm would be reduced. It was very hard work.
To ensure that doctors were professionally competent and updated their skills, we worked hard to establish a Medical Council. This met with some considerable opposition from some quarters, but eventually was established in my last year in Afghanistan (after 7 years).
Due to conflict and insecurity in a number of provinces it was not possible to travel to many areas to undertake workforce planning, so in order to establish whether there were qualified and competent doctors, dentists and pharmacists in provinces a phone Delphi survey was conducted with 3 people considered knowledgeable about practitioners in each area, and then reviewing and adjusting results to arrive at an estimate of skill and numbers and training required. The follow-on from this is uncertain due to the escalating conflict and then the Taliban takeover, but hopefully one day it will be a useful report, or the method can be re-done so as to update it.
There was so much corruption, from brown paper bags of money for doctors, to corrupt procurement practices. Although this was throughout the system it was understandable that it was linked with HR, as if you are going to change practices you need to persuade people to see the advantages of transparent management, so our focus was on developing simple methods of monitoring processes so it would be harder to do anything corrupt. To attack or criticise individuals results in cover-up, driving it underground, or removing the messenger, so developing performance audit systems was the priority.
A key focus was also to train women as health professionals. This ranged from midwives to obstetricians/gynaecologists, from nurses to aid post workers. A range of approaches were used. Regarding midwives, the Midwives Association negotiated with the Education Ministry so that wives and daughters of officials in provinces who did not have adequate education, but were bright, could train and then be apprenticed for two or so years afterwards until they met the Year 12 requirement. This ensured the midwives stayed in the rural provinces rather than moving to cities. Similarly, wives of male Aid Post workers were trained so they could work as a team. Although in Kabul and Kandahar and some other areas women are in many cases not allowed to work under the Taliban, midwives are still working. In some provinces in the north, with more liberal Taliban, girls are able to go to school segregated with female teachers, and female Aid Post workers and nurses still operate. In other areas many female health professionals work underground. When I was there we had many women attending training with a male relative accompanying them as that was the only way they could be upskilled. In Kabul under the Taliban many girls are being educated by computer in homes. They are resilient.
So what are the implications for Australia? Workers need to identify beneficial changes required in their workplaces. In many places Unions are inactive or ineffective, but organising through collaborating with similar people in workplaces can be very effective. Community development has always been effective in rural areas due to the mix-up of people. In urban areas it is less effective, as kitchen table discussions do not have diversity. However, workplace or organisational community development can be very effective in getting consensus about directions required. The anger about robodebt and the treatment of whistleblowers is providing greater opportunity for the voice of the workers to be heard. Afghan HR people and workers are strong willed and resilient. Can Australian HR people and workers learn from them? The HR areas in Australian workplaces can be re-energised so they are no longer the stooges of senior management but the voice of the workers.
Caroline Fitzwarryne
Caroline Fitzwarryne has a background in public health and community development. She has worked at all three levels of government (from fieldworker to senior executive), as CEO of a national NGO, as Adjunct Associate Professor, and as development aid worker in 13 countries.