Editor,This is in reference to the story, “PSC urges employees to report injustice cases,” (The New Times, February 25).It is impossible to totally root out workplace injustice. But the Public Service Commission (PSC) can introduce a few measures to reduce their occurences. These could include questionnaires sent to all unsuccessful applicants for advertised positions in the public service and parastatals to gauge their perceptions of the fairness of the entire process. Analysis of responses would necessarily have to factor in the tendency of disappointed applicants to believe this is due to unfairness and favouritism for the successful candidates, but such questionnaires can be designed to minimise the role of disappointment in the responses. The PSC should similarly be more proactive in implementing regular workplace confidential surveys to gauge attitudes of workers, manager-subordinate relationships and overall working environment and climate. These surveys do not need to be general. They only need to cover a number of units in different ministries and other government agencies at a time on a rolling basis. The results of such surveys would provide the Commission with a valuable early warning of potential problem areas that can be dealt with before they get out of hand.Mwene Kalinda
