Death, taxes, and civil servants sitting on their asses are truly some of the only certainties in life. On the latter, it should come as no shock that civil servants also neglected their work during work from home (WFH) arrangements.
The National Civil Service Agency (BKN) yesterday released the results of a self-assessed survey on workload taken by civil servants (locally known by the acronym PNS) covering the period when they were all forced to WFH during the first three months of the pandemic.
Thirty percent of responders admitted to having less or zero workload compared to working from the office. Forty percent said their workload was the same for both work arrangements, while 30 percent said they worked more from home.
“But the numbers may be conservative. If we pressed them, it’s possible that 40 percent neglected their work. Maybe half didn’t do anything [during WFH],” BKN Head Bima Haria Wibisana said in his indictment of lazy PNS.
The survey also showed that some PNS’ inability to adapt to change and advancements in technology contributed to their lack of productivity.
“Some gave the excuse that they couldn’t keep up with changes towards the digital. But that’s only because they were not willing to learn,” Bima added.
The official gave one last burn for PNS, saying that employees officially categorized as “dead wood”, AKA those with low work motivation and performance, currently far outnumber driven and high-performing civil servants.
No reason for a raise, then? Well, not that this was a reward for the survey, but it just so happens that President Joko Widodo today officially raised the maximum cash incentive a PNS can earn in a bid to support the government’s bureaucratic reforms goals.
