Raising Living Standards

Looks like we're all headed for harder times ahead. Cost of living is going up, and the global economy looks like it's putting its brakes on.

In our country we've been relatively insulated from the ups and downs of the global market. I fear those days are coming to an end.

The common refrain we hear from the man-on-the-street is "harga minyak naik, barang makan naik, tapi gaji tak naik!" - which is true, since the inflation spiral will simply get worse if salaries are raised to keep up with cost of living.

I'd like to suggest though that salaries are raised via increase in productivity. It can be kick-started by the biggest employer in the country - the Government. Take a hard look at the existing productivity of its employees, sector by sector, agency by agency.

Focus on the high-value processes and functions and figure out what are the outcomes that can be measured (which can be terribly hard to do, but not impossible) and set targets for improvement (e.g. how long does it take to approve a building plan, end-to-end?) on an annual or even half-yearly basis. Monitor constantly to avoid "gaming" the numbers.

These high-value processes should be examined critically to reduce mistakes, "idle-time" when it's sitting, waiting for someone to continue the processing, and most importantly, be automated by technology wherever possible. By automating processes, mistakes are reduced and leaves the staff available to do higher-value activities, improving morale and enabling them to deliver more value and hence earn that higher salary.

Because the Government is also involved in a lot of activities in the private sector (through regulatory or facilitative activities) these efficiency gains would inevitably spill over to the private sector and overall economy, enabling us to do more with less, generating more value with the same or even less amount of effort. Then only gaji can naik, lah!

Public Transport

Much has been said about the baffling condition of our public transportation system in Malaysia. Issues such as

• Integrated links between the various different providers (e.g. PUTRA, STAR-LRT, KTM) that's not so integrated
• Inexplicable lack of parking spaces at key stations
• No increase in capacity in PUTRA lines even though people are packed like sardines at rush hour (yes, planned, but how come it takes 4 years to add car to the trains - can't we just buy the darn carriages from the manufacturers and install them? Kena ada local company partner ka?)

And much has also been said about why it's this way

• 13 Government Agencies regulating, managing and monitoring the public transport in this country (the more, the merrier?)
• Lack of planning (generic excuse for everything that's not right)

 

There's actually some relatively simple things that can be done to sort out this mess. Make someone (not an agency, nor a ministry, nor a committee!!) accountable for the outcomes of an effective public transport system for the whole country. It's crucial that this person's rewards (think CEO of an organization) such as bonuses and salaries are directly linked to the success of the public transport system:

1. Accessibility (e.g. stations need efficient and easily used feeder systems)
2. Quality (clean, on schedule, etc)
3. Utilization (people actually use it because it's convenient, and more effective than other alternatives)

These outcomes must be measured independently - perhaps by a regulatory commission that also helps the Government decide on fares, bus routes, etc.

The CEO should also be given the capability and mandate to affect change - have all the 13 agencies report to her (maybe in a PEMUDAH-like construct, with our intrepid CEO as Chairman?) on a regular basis and wide ranging powers of carrots & sticks to persuade, chide and cajole the various little Napoleons into doing what's right for the people.

Fundamentally - everyone up and down an organization needs to be rewarded fairly for their contribution. If the leader lacks the wherewithal to reward the high-performers, everyone will give a mediocre performance since that's the safe thing to do ("why risk it lah, I still get paid my bonus what..."). On top of this, the high-performers are being unfairly treated - and they will leave for organizations that are able to reward them to their abilities.

And that's a topic for another post...

Variable teacher quality?

According to The Star today, the Education Ministry is going to "tighten up selection rules for teacher training" in view of the "large number of applications from school leavers".

Aiya.. does this mean that all this time the MoE has put quantity above quality? If there are fewer applicants then the standards would be relaxed?

Energy Austerity Drive

Apparently our Astro decoders don't really turn off when they go on "standby" as advised by Astro. That just shuts down the video output but the rest of the circuits are "live" and ready to receive software updates. Wonder how much power it consumes in this mode.

Seeing as consumers don't have a choice in the matter - maybe the MCMC can consider getting Astro to label each decoder with how much power they consume when "on" and on "standby" so that consumers can make the decision to unplug the decoders or not - to save on their rising electricity bills. Probably SIRIM can help certify that the energy consumption numbers are correct!

Financial Austerity Drive

Everyone's being told to tighten their financial belts, from the Ministers (10% cut in entertainment allowances! How cruel!) to the average man in the street. It's actually quite interesting to note some of the comments from people interviewed in The Star recently.

One key missing ingredient, I think, in our education system is basic financial planning. How to budget and adhere to the monthly spending budget, calculate credit card interest rates, loan rates, etc. A lot of young adults (yours truly, included, to be honest) go crazy with their first credit cards and find themselves in a financial hole very early in their working lives and spend way beyond their means.

Would it make sense to have a curriculum designed jointly by AKPK and the MoE to be taught in secondary schools in this area? Then at least we can help inculcate good spending habits early.

PS - this download is pretty good - you can use it on Excel or anything that can open .xls files (like OpenOffice)

Those (un)helpful ITIS LED signboards..

I've always wondered who controls what gets put up on those signs, you know, the ones that are put up on all the major arteries/highways in the Klang Valley. I am a frequent user of the KL-Putrajaya highway - very interesting that the signs continue to advertise such important traffic information as "Gerai Makanan sudah dibuka" and my all time favorite "Sila pandu dengan cermat" on the LDP.

I suppose these signs are supposed to help with KL's traffic congestion but I seriously doubt its effectiveness - most drivers don't bother looking at the signs since they're either out of date ("trafik perlahan" when the road is clear as far as the eye can see) or contain non-relevant information (see above).

Maybe what's missing is the link between ITIS rewards and actual traffic congestion. What happens to ITIS if traffic in KL gets better? Worse? It would be interesting to see the consequences if the person in charge of ITIS gets a 6-month bonus for improving the average travel times in KL by, let's say, 30% over a period of time. Maybe we'll start to see:

1. More useful, timely information on the Variable Message Signs (the technical term for those LED signs)
2. VMSes that are located some ways before a strategic turnoff so that drivers don't get stuck with no other turn off when traffic is slow ahead

The trick is to be able to quantify the travel time improvements - should be possible given all the cameras available to ITIS. I am sure someone, somewhere would have implemented this successfully before. Maybe a "lawatan sambil belajar" is in order?