“IT doesn’t matter to me if my book doesn’t sell a lot of copies; all I want is that five wise men read it and try to implement what I have suggested,” says Hasmukh Adhia, author of Reinventing Government through HRM Strategies. A man who wears many hats, Adhia is an IAS officer and currently Principal Secretary to the Gujarat government. In a distinguished 25 year career, he has held several prominent positions in the government. He holds a postgraduate degree in accountancy with a postgraduate diploma in public policy and management from IIM-B, where he was awarded a gold medal for academic excellence in 2004.
In his latest avatar as an author, Adhia dwells on the principles of human resource management (HRM) and how they can be implemented in the government to achieve better governance. He says, “The Government delivery mechanism needs to be sharpened and the key to the same is HRM. India has a large bureaucracy and it is this bureaucracy that can accelerate or derail the country’s growth. Hence, how well the Government performs is directly relative to how well its human resources are employed.”
In this well researched book, the author cites different cases and surveys (some of them carried out by himself) to accentuate his observations and suggestions. He dwells upon the subjects of job satisfaction and motivation of government employees, what they want and innovations in governance carried out by the Gujarat government in the form of the acclaimed Karmayogi Maha Abhiyan. Other landmark innovations of the Gujarat government Such as One Day Governance, and a study from the United States make the book an interesting as well as informative thesis on HRM in the government.
In the final chapter, Adhia explains how any government can be reinvented through human resource management. He says, “Even the top-level bureaucrats, the Class-I officers, lack awareness about the need to communicate with their staff. Most government employees have no clue as to what they are supposed to be doing and consequently don’t consider their roles to be important enough in the bureaucracy. The only way to motivate these employees is by communicating with them and making them feel that they are important to the Government and its objectives.” Referring to the example of Russi Modi who turned around the fortunes of TISCO, Adhia says, “Shri Russi Modi was able to make TISCO a success again only because he made every single TISCO employee feel special. He would call a meeting of all the soft-core employees and just the fact that they were being called for a meeting, made them feel important and boosted their morale. The same needs to be done in the Government.”
The book is a testimony to the experiences of its author. “I didn’t choose HRM as the way to reinvent the government without any reason; I chose HRM because of what I experienced over my career with the government. People are after all the running force behind a government,” he says.
Adhia, who is currently doing a PhD in yoga, says, “In my book, I have put forward hardcore facts to support my suggestions. There is no speculation, only data-supported reasoning. I have put forward what I have learnt; it is now up to the readers to act on it.”
