The Sultanate is seeing massive development in almost all spheres of life. There are many development services available everywhere in the country for every citizens and that too free of cost. But it is unfortunate there is equal volume of discontent among these people. They express resentment as much as they appreciate these services provided by public organisations.
They complain sometimes against what they believe as wrong practices. They express their anguish against what they call as wrongful internal practices of these public organisations. At the same time, there are attempts to demean the efforts made by the government to provide development services to the people.
There is no doubt the various public services are available free of cost. However, the people term these services and the procedures to avail them as bad. The reality is the employee who provides the service has a poor style of work. It is not the service which is bad. This is what is resented by the people.
This is the work style of the employees that makes people reject valuable services provided in health, education and other public sectors. These things need to be periodically reviewed and continuously monitored.
Each person comes to a government office to avail of a service with confidence and trust. But he leaves the office with resentment and anguish and with lots of complaints. He vows never to come back again.
This is how we create discontent. We become bad in the eyes of such people. This is what is said about the services provided by the state. This is a serious issue.
Creativity or innovative instinct is not required to hire an employee who knows his job well. Creativity and innovative ideas are required to provide services to the people. The capabilities of employees and their skills should be displayed. With their good manners, they should show that they are comfortable in doing their job of providing services to the people who come to them.
Particularly in the case of people who do not understand details of services they require or cannot express their requirements accurately, employees should be polite and patient. This is where the expertise of employees is judged. The success of an employee lies in creating a good image of the government in the minds of service-seekers. He should not create people who have discontent about the services of the government.
That is what a government employee should do at the place where he is required to provide services to the people. This will be a lesson and an example for all. This is how employees should be prepared and trained to serve common people who come to the government offices to seek services.
There will be many people who will not have these qualities. Such people should be kept in back offices, away from directly dealing with people. Those who are comfortable with dealing people, have presentable personalities, are well-mannered, polite, tolerant and have required skills and qualities should be allowed to directly deal with the people.
Of course, there are those who serve people willingly and are fully aware of the fact that work is worship. They make extra efforts to please the people with their services and behaviour.
We hope the government services are provided willingly, with humility and good manners. Only broad-minded and large-hearted people with smiling faces should be given this responsibility.
The quality of packaging should match the quality of goods and services. This is the area where we sometimes fail. If we continue to fail in this, we would be promoting industry of discontent.
ali.matani2@gmail.com
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