Nothing wrong with rightsizing
“ In the private sector, improper rightsizing leads to labor cases filed by retrenched employees.
Efficiency is key in running institutions. President Bongbong Marcos Jr. hit it right on the nail in his decision to abolish certain officers held to be crucial and important in previous administrations. The usual trend is for government to get bigger to accommodate more personnel. What happens are several redundancies, giving you the unsavory sight of government employees sleeping on the job in the middle of the day at certain offices. The lead directive done in Malacañang, hopefully, should also be done in other offices, but it would not be a walk in the park, and it would be costly.
The fear of being retrenched should not be an issue. You would be surprised how many people in government are willing to be retired early for the right price. For some officers, the thought of being free from work and being able to enjoy their savings without anything to hold them back, is priceless, as compared to working yourself off until the day of your retirement.
Implemented correctly, this will free up billions of pesos in government funds. But if done incorrectly, we can anticipate disgruntled employees who may not receive what was promised, or, worse, a dysfunctional government office. In the private sector, improper rightsizing leads to labor cases filed by retrenched employees. The labor arbiter would be more open to hearing out the employee, who has all the reasons to complain just by citing the pandemic.
Signs point to “rightsizing” being mentioned in the President’s first State of the Nation Address (SoNA) on Monday. There is indeed a need for the government to retool its own workforce to determine whether the entire gamut of offices is properly equipped to quickly answer the needs of the people. Instead of forming new departments, it must instead evaluate the existing ones, and to either abolish or merge them with other offices.
The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), for instance, is an office that was established to answer the needs of our migrant workers. Now led by Secretary Susan “Toots” Ople, it is the main office for our migrant workers for all their needs, efficiently separating the relevant offices from the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
Yesterday, I was able to visit DMW and see first-hand how it responds to our OFW and their families. As an insurer of OFW, our company, Cocogen Insurance, together with partner life insurance company, Cocolife, and our OFW insurance agent, PAMICO, handed a check to the family of an OFW who passed away while working abroad in Riyadh. I saw how Philippine Overseas Employment Adminstration Administrator Bernard Olalia was able to speak with the bereaved’s spouse and family. The DMW is indeed working for our OFW.
Unresolved from the previous administration is the creation of two other departments — the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR) and the Department of
Water Resources (DWR)
– subjected to extensive legislative discussions in both houses of Congress.
As a country often hit by calamities, the DDR will be the first responder and coordinator of all government offices in case one hits. The DWR, on the other hand, would be the counterpart of the Department of Energy (DOE) in administrating the distribution, cleanliness and availability of our basic need — water.
With the policy to rightsize, we will see if this administration has the will to “upsize” and continue the efforts for the creation of these agencies, whose existence can be succinctly justified.
“You would be surprised how many people in government are willing to be retired early for the right price.