A framework to enhance productivity through human attitudes

Abstract

Government expenditure is rising yearly. Maintenance expenses of government building and their services also contributes to this expense. So, productive maintenance within the government sector is increasingly required in order to optimise the costs on maintenance and its output. Management of good attitudes within the human resource of public sector’s maintenance departments is an essential factor to enhancing productivity of building maintenance. Thus, it is necessary to develop and manage good attitudes to achieve productive maintenance. Hence, the aim of the research is proposing a suitable framework for attitude management and development in public sector organizations in Sri Lanka. The importance of the attitudes and the reasons for difficulty in developing attitudes is discussed in the paper. The attitude of an employee has been identified under four basic categories and a qualitative research approach was adopted to accomplish the research objectives through semi-structured interviews involving 15 respondents under 3 cases. Cross-case analysis was used to analyse findings and finally a framework was developed to manage good attitudes of staff. Productive maintenance refers to maximum and optimum output from minimum resources and productive human resource plays the most important role. It is made up of three key competencies; good skills, good knowledge and good attitudes. Good attitudes are important in maintaining other two competencies. Finally, a framework for attitude management and development have been developed based on reliable suggestions for proper attitude management within maintenance departments of public sector organisations and several recommendations were suggested to overcome current barriers in the industry.