Broken windows of Government offices

Visiting a typical government office, whether state or central, is unlikely to be a pleasant experience. Most of them are poorly maintained, if not in completely dilapidated condition, with broken window panes, un-aesthetic furnishing, smelly toilets, corroded fittings and fixtures, peeled paintings with gutkha stained walls. Employees, many times, are likely to be cold, unwelcoming and sometimes plainly arrogant.

Overall, this is in direct contrast with the modern office complexes what private sector offers to it's employees. Perverted ideas of socialism and frugality ensured that our governments spend too little on its buildings and that too in a tasteless manner with shoddy engineering. While the government is keen on improving its quality of service, reducing corruption and removing inefficiencies, perhaps the most necessary yet neglected part are it's buildings itself.

Broken window theory was popularized and practiced by the then New York police commissioner Mr William J Bratton, in mid 90 s, where he maintained that prevention of minor crimes is an absolute must which will automatically leads to reduction in major crimes as well. The underlying idea behind this concept is that an orderly environment fosters a sense of responsibility and hence makes general public to respect the laws of the land. This will lead to increased confidence in the scheme of things and will deter any potential criminal to commit crime.

Physical environment in which we live and work, substantially alter the way in which we think, feel and act. We constantly receive and radiate signals and cues to our physical surroundings that can have major impacts on our actions and behavior. Human beings are instinctively conformists and looks towards others and surroundings to guide their actions. When we work in a pleasant and orderly environment, our behaviors and attitudes will unknowingly and automatically conform to the values that are representative of our surrounding.

Now let us pause for a moment and ask ourselves why and what it implies if we see broken windows and smelly toilets in government offices?

a)     Lack of sense of belongingness and ownership- None of us would like to have unclean toilets in our own home. If we see a bad toilet in a public office, it implies that there is no sense of ownership and belongingness for the people who are working there, and so are they keep it smelly.

b)     Sense of helplessness- Even if they genuinely feel that they have to keep their office in good shape, many times, they can’t, as necessary funds are unavailable. It is also possible that institutional constraints and financial rules discourage them to set their office in order. In any case, it shows the helplessness of the people who are working there and theirs powerlessness to manage their own affairs.

c)  Weak supervision- Above anything else, a smelly toilet is a symptom of weak or ineffective supervision. It reflects the senior officer’s apathetic attitude towards the basic necessities of people working under him. Most of the time, it is not about bad toilets as such, but is about how bad it is managed.

d)     In most of the offices, we see that senior officers keep their room impeccably clean, beautiful with well cleaned toilet and swanky furniture. Outside it, is a contrasting scene where the lower ranked officers and staff are sitting and working in not so inspiring condition.  This chasm itself is a reflection of a distrusting environment and selfish behaviour where individual officers hoards more resources resulting in a disempowered and de motivated work force.

e)     Plain indifference – Many officers and staff have conditioned and habituated to work with it and they feel no need for change. This inertia keeps people to persist with old habits and they can’t re-imagine that better alternatives are possible.

Generally, it is the combination of above 5 factors which reinforces each other results in this state of affairs. It implies that smelly toilets itself is not the problem, but is about the message that is communicated to all by having such a state of affairs.

After examining the cause and effect of this chaotic environment, let us see what are the possible pathways with which it can leads to inefficient and substandard public services. There will be multiple psychological forces at play many of which would be hidden and few will be explicit in nature.

a)     An unclean and unorganized office leads to a possible belief amongst the employees that the employer (or ‘department’ in this case) is caring less about their basic need to have a pleasant workplace. A ‘careless’ employer ends up with a de-motivated employee who in turn will game the system to his advantage. This in turn can drive them in to all kinds of dishonest activities.

b)     Priming effect – We can prime people in to certain forms of behaviour by offering simple and apparently irrelevant cues. A citizen who comes to that office for consuming a public service will be instantly repelled and de-motivated by seeing chaos there. He will be primed to think that no efficient and speedy services can be expected from this office and if officers can’t manage and organise themselves, they are least likely to address his concerns in any efficient manner.

c)     An officer working under these chaotic environment would be spending much of his time and cognitive energy to struggle against all the odds and would be left with very little bandwidth to perform his ‘core duties’ of public service.  In other words, a bad office surroundings ‘crowds out’ his inherent motivation.

Perhaps the most important reason why our government officers are infested with corruption and inefficiency is that, our public servants are not motivated and incentivised enough. Our traditional view is that enhancing salary and improving career opportunities will motivate them. Despite this being true to a large extent, our policy makers should also explore the possibility of increased motivational level through improved working environment. However, unfortunately, we have underinvested in our office buildings, with the assumption that it doesn’t have much implication in efficient delivery of public services.

Red-tapism, inefficiency, corruption can be seen as social habits that have been institutionalised in many government offices. These habits are highly persistent and can’t be ended by simple preaching and pledging. To make a serious change, some exogenous shocks have to be administered.  Renovating and beautifying our government offices are one such ‘shock. This is a low hanging fruit amongst all similar Administrative reforms which most of them  are tough to implement and perhaps politically unviable.

In conclusion, if we borrow the idea from Broken Window theory and apply it in this context, the message is simple and clear. If we want to reduce corruption and make our public services efficient, then the first step towards it is clear,- fix the broken windows and clean its toilets.