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Samuel Kadungure in Nyanga

THE secretarial profession is key to the day-to-day running of all Government ministries, departments and agencies, given the role executive assistants and secretaries play in managing administrative work and executing managerial decisions, Public Service Commission (PSC) Secretary Dr Tsitsi Choruma said yesterday.

A hundred secretaries attached to ministries, departments and agencies met during the Public Service Secretaries’ Day celebrations held in Nyanga, which saw awards.

Ms Helen Tandi, principal executive assistant in the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Wildlife, won the longest serving award, after serving for 43 years following her appointment in 1980.

The best personality award went to Mrs Esnath Dube, the principal executive officer in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, while the second best personality award went to Mrs Concillia Masukume, the principal executive assistant in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development.

The three received shields and hampers. The celebrations were held under the theme: “Your Hard Work and Dedication are the Foundation of our Success”.

Dr Choruma said the objective of the celebrations, inaugurated in 2017, was to show that secretaries were key to Government policy, especially the attainment of Vision 2030.

The PSC is advocating for hard work, inventiveness and collaborative efforts among all civil servants in order to provide efficient services to the public, achieve industrialisation, rapid economic growth and balanced regional development.

Dr Choruma said secretaries were indispensable because they look after administrative work and execution of decisions taken by the management. Tackling arduous development goals and tasks required a hardworking spirit and the train would not halt before reaching the promised land of prosperity and nation-building.

“You occupy the nucleus position, around which the whole machinery gravitates. You hold key positions in the administrative set up of the organisation, as the link between the top management, middle and lower management.

“You are closely connected with top management, and are responsible for managing the bosses. Due to the great dependence ratio of executive heads on secretaries, your duties have become numerous. You are the working tools needed to succeed in all ramifications.

“You play a pivotal role in the fulfilment of organisational goals and objectives, as the drivers of the day-to-day running of the business as well as management and coordination of various offices and ministries themselves. The success of Government directly reflects your contribution in the grand scheme of things. Without such contribution, the offices you represent would suffer greatly.” 

“Vision 2030 reflects the collective aspirations and determination of ourselves as a nation, towards a prosperous upper middle-income society by 2030. The realisation of this vision depends on the actions and measures we each take at individual,organisational and national levels. It is people like you, and indeed all of us,leaving no one and no place behind, that play a vital role in making sure that the implementation of the various set of programmes and polices is achieved. To achieve this envisaged success, you should be alive to the broader goals and commit to the set goals and targets, in order to ensure they are effectively and timeously fulfilled. 

“Be as informed as you can about the functions, roles and contributions of your various offices to the broader goal of nation-building and accelerated growth,” she said. 

The PSC was committed to the continued development and training of its employees so that they are abreast of changing workplace situations and technologies. 

She urged secretaries to embrace technological advances and be a step ahead of their bosses, as well as use social media for the good of the Government.

“Embrace digitalisation and immense yourselves in the rhythm of innovation. Working hard does not mean we shy away from working smart. Embrace technologies that will transform hard work into efficiently dispatched service.

“We are on the path of implementing NDS1, the critical ingredient for this transformative agenda is culture change. Culture change is catalytic to both high individual and institutional performance through mindset change. 

“As such, PSC has made a deliberate move to focus on culture change to create an employee who is intrinsically driven to perform and produce expected results. This is critical as we drive towards Vision 2030. The work culture we want as PSC is where we each are productive, are of high performance and are focused daily on results, outputs and impact,” she said.

Dr Choruma assured civil servants that the employer was alive to their plight.