To hire and retain the young, make working for civil service attractive

The looming crisis in the public service occasioned by the large number of ageing civil servants should be a wake-up call to the country's policy makers.

More than 36,074 members of staff in the Public Service Commission (PSC) – who account for over half of the country's workforce in national government ministries and State departments – are over 46 years of age.

This means that at least 35 per cent of staff will be leaving the service in the next five years according to the policy document from the Public Service ministry. The most affected are staff in senior management levels and technical cadres with critical skills and competencies that don't get transferred.

Policy makers in Government's human resource department should therefore look for ways to cover the expected hemorrhage of critical staff. No doubt, the Government remains the biggest employer though not with the most competitive package. The barriers to entry to good Public Service jobs remains steep and those who scale up often find the top slippery.

It has remained unfriendly to the young professionals, particularly the ambitious and creative lot who would rather work from home and still get properly remunerated.

With the private sector going digital in most of their operations and with those running the show being youthful and agile, the public service with its rigid work culture and an impervious structure coupled with poor remuneration and poor work environment is largely unattractive to the educated youth. Those who enroll for jobs upon realising this, leave for greener pastures before reaching 40.

A typical Government worker is a greying old man or old woman bidding time before retirement. Never mind that the public service delivery is legendary appalling.

The law was changed in 2009 to push up the retirement age from 55-60 years because the retirement burden was already too heavy for a Government facing a cash crunch.

With that, it was anticipated that the five-year stretch would be sufficient for the State to set up a contributory scheme for its workers and that any new retirees would be paid from the kitty rather than from taxes. That now looks like a problem postponed, not solved. Hence the conundrum facing the country.

So as the Government contemplates raising the retiree benefits which is expected to hit Sh66 billion mark annually, the long-term plan should be to attract the youth who would be happy working for their Government.