For an economy long destined for progressive take off, Botswana’s work ethics remain poor.
This is despite efforts by the government, calling several Pitsos and academic symposia to address this matter. The problem continues to affect the country’s economic germination.
Botswana’s culture has been known for cooperation and unity. Historians will point out that the same spirit that our fathers had is the one that contributed to the building of University of the Botswana in 1982, which now stands as one of the biggest universities in Southern Africa.
This was a continuation of the nation’s pillars of cooperation which were born with Botswana culture. This cooperation practices were Mafisa, Letsema and Dikgafela where people of a certain society shared work and goods in the name of cooperation and unity. This is what established the nation as peaceful. The country’s values of productivity are slowly going down the drain.
Even the national anthem shows encouragement towards prosperity and productivity. There is a line that says, E mang Basadi followed by Tsogang Banna, Tsoga Tlhagafalang le Kopanele Go direla Lefatshe la rona. This roughly translates, Stand up women, Wake up men, be united to serve your nation. This shows that the foundation of this nation has been built on productivity even though this ‘now generation’ seems to be dragging it back.
Alarm bells are ringing at the Office of the President. In this year’s State of the Nation Address, President Ian Khama weighed in on the problem.
“It is the simple truth that we can never be at the top of the world if our work ethic is widely perceived, even by ourselves, as lacking,” he said.
According to the Botswana Quality Workforce (BQW) and work ethics study by the Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC), factors which contribute to poor work ethics include: poor labour practises and work conditions, poor leadership and supervision and poor attitude towards work by Batswana in general.
This means the work environment is not conducive, the leadership is below par or there is a negative attitude towards certain ‘easy’ jobs. For example most Batswana are said to have a negative attitude towards domestic work, farm labouring and heavy duty driving or operating.
In her key note speech at this year’s Competitiveness Conference held on the 30 November, BNPC Information and Research Services Manager, Dr Phumzile Magagula-Thobokwe, said there is a problem in Botswana where people seem not to want to work.
This she said is a negative mind set which might be caused by the fact that some have relatives or parents who are working so they do not feel like committing to their work. She also said the government and its poverty eradication schemes have made people not to think about working, putting their full reliance on these schemes.
New technology has received its share of the blame, being described as a double edged sword. Instead of quick service delivery, most workers in the public sector have been said to do social networking while clients queue and go back having not received help.
There is a new trend called, “the system is down” which is used by many public servants when they are ‘too busy’ to help their clients, as they are either sharing pictures or chatting through the internet.
With many recreational activities and the booming of new technology unlike in the past, Batswana are gradually becoming a ‘lazy’ nation. There is also a high number of absenteeism amongst Batswana especially after or towards month end.
One Nigerian national *Okonkwo, a garage owner in Mogoditshane, who was also a construction worker and foreman years ago, says work ethics are poor, that Batswana are lazy as they have never suffered struggle and starvation.
“Young Batswana grow up seeing that there is no starvation, so they do not take anything seriously at school, and after finishing school they do not need to work, when they find a job they just relax not working hard. They expect everything to be free in life as they went to school for free, they tend to indulge more in fun and entertainment rather that work,” said *Okonkwo.
The University of Botswana Faculty of Social Sciences 2010 Consultancy report, submitted to BNPC in October 2010 in ratings work ethics by industry of employment, shows public servants, local or central government employees scoring high on work ethics at 3.6 out of 7 marks while tourism and hotel workers and scored poorly at 3.2.
Generally, females scored 3.2 while males scored 3.4 on work ethics. On the age category, youth of 18 years were low, scoring 2.8 out of 7 while adults of 60 years or more scored higher at 3.8.
Muslims were scored better than Christians in terms of having good work ethics. Batswana scored 3.3 while Zimbabweans scored 3.4 in work ethics.
A research presented by Omphemetse Matlhape from BNPC at this year’s Competitiveness Conference shows that it is not poor work ethics alone which contributes to economic injury. It shows that Batswana are less motivated in their job and that there are poor labour relations. This goes back to Setswana notion of ‘Tsie e fofa ka moswang’ which means; for a labour to be productive there has to be complementary rewards thanking his or her labours.
Matlhape, who was using a method called Factor Analysis, presented the calculative analysis of Botswana Quality Workforce Survey.
The findings which were done on 1182 respondents, shows that not only work ethics are important for Botswana Quality Workforce (BQW) as they come after motivation and labour relations in terms of being important. The research shows that in all the three constructs of work ethic, high scores are associated with low values of motivation and slight higher ratings for labour relations.
“This means respondents who consider work ethics prevalent in the work place are generally not satisfied with employee motivation and labour relations,” it reads.
The conclusions were that “to improve work ethics improve employee motivation and labour relations as improving work ethics alone values will lead to over 50% improvements of BQW. The other conclusion was also that the most important factor of work ethics is more a function of organizational culture, values, than individual behaviours. If work ethics is detrimental to growth productivity in Botswana, there is need to address motivation and labour relations”.
Motivation of workers seems to be one of the government’s weakest points. Last year saw one of worst workers strikes in living memory. This strike emerged with the workers blaming the government for having not increased their salaries for 3 years.
They felt their rights were taken for granted as their welfare was being overlooked, according to their unions.
Through the 2010 implemented Public service Act, there was a major joint-protest through-out the year among public servants which put a huge blow on service delivery. This was a true demonstration of a nation with unhappy public service workers who are also not satisfied and less motivated to do their respective duties.
It is crystal clear fact that poor work ethics hinder economic progress as they cripple productivity and hence competitiveness becomes a difficult game to play. Poor work ethics have become an economic pandemic which has become this country’s worst enemy.
