The King under the subjects:
What happens if the non-administrative employees are empowered over the executive bodies? When I was in class 5 or 6, different thoughts of political science used to be studied in an easy form in the course curriculum. From then I used to read about the separate existence of 3 wings of the state: executive, judiciary, legislative.
Since then I had been studying the topics of freedom of judiciary, decentralization, local govt. and many other contemporary concepts of political science till completion of the highest degree of the academy. When I was under graduation and masters program in DU on Public Administration, I had a very silly (sorry to say this) fantasy that one day study on administration, local govt., decentralization, empowerment…….. all these will come in great work for my career (as I had a dream from the beginning to work in any administrative area).
I tried to learn those concepts seriously so that I can utilize them in my future career. Like the wings of a state, there are executive bodies in garment enterprises in the form of Administration, HR, Operation, Accounts-basically the non-production teams. On the other side, the major portion of the employees belongs to the production teams. For the core administrative and disciplinary tasks, in most of the RMG enterprises, there remains a department named “Administration”.
This department deals with all disciplinary actions in the company. In some cases the HR, Admin, Compliance-are altogether one single dept. As discipline is highly required in an organization, the role of admin/HR is very important. Now comes the question of empowerment of the admin/HR to serve their duty. In many cases, it is seen that administrative bodies are kept like a puppet in showcase. I remember a term used to indicate the condition of the nawab of Bangla during the rule of British. This Dual Government in Bengal was initiated for advantage for the British govt.
They had power without responsibility. The Nawab and his council had the responsibility of administration but not the power to discharge it. Now, what happens if the admin in a company falls in the same condition-assigned with administrative duty but kept all the power somewhere else? Beyond the complex theories of political science, it is universally accepted that the administration must be separated and free from the control of all other departments to deliver its duty as per law, rules and ethic. What does “Free” mean? It means free from all outside pressure, influence, threat.
The job of an admin official must be independent and supposed to be under the direct disposal of the top management so that they can apply their administrative power. But on the contrary, is observed that admin has been systematically made liable to production or some other sections. Actually, the so-called disciplinary actions that admin applies is mostly in the cases of the lower level.
Higher- and top-level officials usually remain beyond the reach of admin (বিচারের বানী নিরবে কাঁদে). I have also seen that top management has deliberately disposed the authority of admin under the production dept. How much can we expect from such a “so called admin”? The most common outcome of such practice will be “collapse of discipline/ethics” and beginning of “মাৎস্যন্যায়”-a term used for anarchy found during the Shashanka era.
If the job of the administration is accountable to any other department (especially production) how comes the admin official will perform his job free of fear, prejudice, pressure? The impact of good or bad performance of HR/Admin can never be realized in a short term. It has a long-term impact. But when the sour fruit of negative impact is revealed, the result is devastating.
There’s no magic for HR/Admin to do good for a company overnight. HR/Admin is the name of a culture (not merely a dept) which is established through long practice and nurtured by the vision of the management, empowerment, freedom, guidance of principal, safeguard for officials, check and balance policy etc. In my childhood, I used to enjoy a TV commercial of Olympic battery where the model Mita Noor used to say “আরে রাজার কাজ কি প্রজা দিয়ে হয়?” All other departments of the company are like the fellow subjects (proja) of admin (in terms of discipline/rules). If the admin is subjected/controlled/guided by its “proja” that would be rather a “tamed” admin body, not a real one in the true sense. (This is completely my own opinion and may not match with the readers’.)
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