Manama: The Mayor of Madinah in western Saudi Arabia is defending his decision to impose a five-time presence tracking policy for employees, a decision that sparked a massive outcry on social media.
Mohammad Al Amri last week introduced a new fingerprint authentication devise to track the physical presence of government employees on the premises five times a day during the working hours.
The new attendance tracking scheme was introduced after a study he had commissioned concluded that productivity was low and that the major reason was the absence of employees.
The study said that several employees signed in, but instead of staying at the workplace, they sneaked out and left the offices empty.
According to Al Amri, the study found that several transactions and paperwork requested by Saudi citizens were left pending for months and even years.
“The productivity increased by 25 per cent on the first day the new attendance tracking was applied,” Al Amri said, quoted by Saudi daily on Sunday. “On the second day, the amelioration was by 30 per cent and on the third day, it was 35 per cent. The new attendance policy is in everyone’s interest. I promise to boost productivity by 80 and even 90 per cent by the end of the first month.”
Under the new policy, the more than 2,000 employees needed to prove their attendance throughout the seven working hours by using the fingerprint reader when they arrive, then at 9.30am, at 10.30am, at 11.45am and upon leaving.
If an employee does not use the reader on the three designated times between his arrival and departure, he will be considered absent for three hours and his salary will be deducted accordingly, and if he does not sign in or sign off, he will be considered absent the full day.
The employees said they were angered and frustrated by the decision and charged that Al Amri who was appointed mayor in May was imposing a policy that was not specified in the civil service regulations and called for its repeal.
But Al Amri promised the move would ensure citizens needs are met and their requests attended to in a timely matter, he explained.
“We want to slash bureaucracy.”
Absenteeism has been one of the most formidable challenges facing the public sector and schools in Gulf countries, often prompting official action to tackle the phenomenon.
In August, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, went on surprise visits to some local government departments to witness how these departments were doing and to ensure that government services were up to Dubai’s globally-admired standards.
In a video tweeted by Dubai Media Office, Shaikh Mohammad was the only person seen in the office at that hour.
Dubai Media Office tweeted that the inspections began at 7.30am.
In Saudi Arabia, school principals were warned in 2014 that they would be dismissed if they failed to address the issue of absenteeism of students immediately before and after school holidays.
Several teachers and students, particularly in high schools, tended to extend school holidays in the absence of strong action from schools.
However, under the new education ministry’s zero-tolerance policy, all cases of absent students and school personnel will have to be carefully scrutinised to ensure they are genuine and in line with the attendance requirements.
In Kuwait, an official report said that absenteeism in the country’s public sector reached alarming levels with only half of all employees showing up at work.
Kuwait’s Annual Leave Report, covering the period between January and March 2011, revealed that half of the state’s employees were absent from work under various excuses, costing the country’s treasury more than KD10.5 million (Dh139.2 million).
The report, released by the Information System Centre, said statistics showed that 46 per cent of the total number of employees who did not show up for work cited illness as the cause.
In 2013, Kuwait decided to use students’ class attendance to determine their grades.
Under the decision, students who do not present valid excuses for missing classes will have their lack of attendance counted against their grades.
The decision was made following reports that students tended not to show up for classes just before or after holidays and prolonged their days off.
The move was part of the ministry’s attempt to curb the phenomenon of student absenteeism after it reached alarming levels.
In Qatar, the education authorities in December 2011, warned schools against relaxing students’ attendance rules.
Allowing students to break the regulations about not attending classes amounts to wasting valuable time and education resources and instilling in them negative traditions that include laziness, reliance on others, mismanagement of time and lack of readiness to learn and move forward, the authorities said.
Under new education rules, students who do not show up for class for two consecutive weeks or for 30 days over the full academic year are not allowed to sit for the final exams.
