BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1941, Page 7

BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION

INITIATIVE VERSUS RED TAPE. Professional qualifications have remained the sole basis of classification throughout the British Civic Service, writes a business man in “World Review.” No one would criticise this up to a point. But it takes us such a little way. In the pre-war business world the men who really earned their salaries very often could not be classified; they had neither diplomas nor letters after their names. If they had they had earned them as youngsters in days long before the wider school of real experience had taught them where their talents lay.'These were men who could build and administrate. Men with an ego, of course. Is it really impossible to absorb such personalities into a State team and still get them to give of their best? It is really necessary to emasculate their energy and ability by painful instruction in methods suited to a more dilatory age? Frankly, the individualist has a chilling experience before him when, under current conditions, he is set to do a job of work for the State. He finds, initially, many recognised principles of organisation flouted. There is no very visible standard of achievement and no evident search for ability in the available personnel. Contact between seniors and juniors is fleeting and. superficial, and the want of creative guidance at the top curbs any development of team spirit,