Call to provide incentives to employees

LAHORE : There is a need of streamlining the human resource processes, make it more transparent while also providing regular opportunities for employees to augment their skill set, and provide direct and tangible incentives for high performance.

This was stated by the experts in a seminar on “Excluded Property Rights and Domestic Violence” organised by the Punjab Economic Research Institute (PERI), Planning and Development Department (P&DD) at its head office, Lahore. The academicians and public policy practitioners attended the seminar. Two topics “Excluded Property Ownership and Domestic Violence” and “Professional Development of Human Resource (HR) in the departments for Economic Growth and Development” were discussed in detail at the seminar.

In its opening remarks Chief of Research, PERI, Dr Muhammad Avais Tahir appreciated the efforts being made to conduct research on diverse areas that was equally important. The presentations scheduled were related to domestic violence among women and the influences of economic empowerment on the treatment of women across the globe.

Dr Avais was hopeful that the findings from the work presented would be useful for a developing country like Pakistan wherein the relatively new area of women development is gradually being explored.

Associate Professor of Economics, American University of Sharjah, UAE, Dr Javed Younas presented his work on determining of linkage between likelihood of domestic violence and ownership of illiquid assets by using a game-theoretical model of domestic violence where the wife’s net worth includes excludable property assets that are not part of asset division in case of divorce. The empirical findings suggest that a wife’s ownership of excludable property assets reduces domestic violence against her. Furthermore, illiquid property asset is more effective than ordinary wealth in deterring violence. Another interesting outcome of the research is that higher women employment status increases the chances of domestic violence. As liquid assets out of wage earnings are easier to take away from women during marriage.

Assistant Professor of Economics, LUMS, Dr Irfan Qureshi presented recently completed study by PERI on identifying HR gaps in the public sector by conducting a pilot study on selected public organisations of Punjab. Key findings highlighted the need of standardised processes for HR in the departments. As for many of the public institutions, no person or team is responsible for keeping track of HR vacancies, or planning future hires and HR programmes. The study stresses upon the need to streamline the HR processes, make it more transparent while also providing regular opportunities for employees to augment their skill set, and provide direct and tangible incentives for high performance. The study recommended that there is a need of structural reforms to upgrade the HR system according to international standards. It also suggested to provide performance-based incentive system to the employees for better growth and development in the province. Keeping this in view, reforms in the organisational structure are the need of the hour.

The presentations were followed by an insightful session of questions put forth by the participants. The seminar concluded with Dr Avais thanking the guests, and the presenters for sharing their work which is interesting, highly relevant and also aptly showcases academic rigour. It was unanimously agreed that there is a need to formulate a policy in light of the findings presented.