Too many on a learning curve at the same time?

Dear Editor,

There is scarcely any gainsaying the fact of how many persons have reservations (some more articulate than others) about the number of obvious newcomers to the management scene amongst the array of recently appointed ministers, a disproportionate percentage of whom has been assigned either to newly created portfolios or reconstructed ones – apparently without explicit descriptions (at least to the public) of the programmes or projects for which they have been assigned responsibility.

Following upon these peremptory organisational changes must respectively be the creation of new job descriptions and the reconfiguration of others.

It is unclear where within these agencies will be found the relevant expertise, not only to describe the newly fashioned assignments but to place a value on them that would be regarded as equitable to that of jobs identified as comparable, not only across the traditional ministries, but interestingly, amongst the very new and reconfigured activities.

The above activities are normally precedent to identifying the relevant skills and competencies to be recruited. In these circumstances experience would suggest that caution be exercised, and that initially employment should be effected on a contract basis for a specified period during which performance can be measured in terms of achieving declared goals and objectives.

All this therefore means that a structure of reporting relationships will have to be clearly delineated.

In the meantime it is not unlikely that there will be too many persons who are on a learning curve, all at the same time. Anxiety over the delivery capability of this particular grouping of decision-makers is not necessarily unjustified.

Yours faithfully,
E B John