A person who has been employed in the public service for some time after having spent a few years working in the private sector recently phoned up this newspaper and, in confidence, expressed dismay that he cannot work as hard as he would like to because he is finding brick walls all around.

Without going into too much detail to protect his identity, this employee said that he has been told “to take things slowly” and “to not rock the boat” because “things are done differently in the public service”. He was also accused of “taking too much initiative”, a comment which he found rather insulting but which encapsulates the general feeling that he has found ever since he became a “government employee”.

His experience is an example that people who have worked in the private sector, which is more dynamic, find it hard to adapt to working in the public service, where there is more procrastination.

Last May, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had spoken about the need to eradicate the impression that public sector employees work less hard than workers in the private sector, saying that the government wanted to improve the efficiency of the public service. Comments such as the ones received by The Malta Independent do not help to eradicate this perception.

Let’s put matters in perspective. It would be too generic to say that the public sector works less hard than the private sector. There are employees in government service who work hard, going beyond their line of duties; just as much as there are employees in the private sector who do not give their wages’ due. So it would be wrong to put everyone in the same basket.

It must also be said that the efficiency that Dr Gonzi spoke about last May has improved, and this is mostly a result of technological advances that have made things easier. The fact that queues have been drastically reduced in most government departments is already a big step in the right direction.

The perception that government employees work less hard than others is not restricted to Malta only. Those who follow foreign news often come across reports that highlight what is termed as a difference in the mentality of a worker in government employment and one who works for the private sector. What is often mentioned is that whereas a government worker has a job guaranteed for life (unless dismissed for disciplinary reasons), employees in the private sector must be productive to maintain their job, and often not even this is enough.

In a recent roundtable conference organised by the Nationalist Party as part of its Independence Day celebrations, Social Policy Minister John Dalli said that competitiveness depends on productivity, and is not related to wages.

What he said makes sense because the more a country is productive, the more it is able to generate economic activity. And the more its human resources work hard, the more productive they are.

The public sector has its role to play in the overall production of a country. Public sector employees are the ones that keep the government machinery going, and if this machinery slows down it is the whole country that has to face the consequences.

The public service and the private sector are two cogs in the same wheel, and any slowdown on one side is bound to affect the other.

It is a pity that people who want to give a greater contribution – such as the employee mentioned earlier – are bogged down by a structure that does not encourage initiative. On the other hand, such resourcefulness should be the basis of a public service that wants to move forward.