Employee Management in the Civil Service in Post-Covid-19 Ghana: The Need to Move Away from the Mechanistic to Humanistic Management Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth the importance of re-thinking how public employees are managed globally. Ghana, like many developing countries, continues to undertake administrative reforms with the view of improving the performance of its civil service. Despite this, the performance of the civil service continues to be problematic. Part of the reason for this has been attributed to the focus on structural changes, rather than the needs of employees. This chapter examines why reformers should pay more attention to employee management. How can Ghana’s civil service, once considered as the engineer of development and the envy of other countries, be rebuilt to ensure that it meets the national aspiration? From the perspective of humanistic management, it is argued that the fundamental goal to reform the civil service is making a concerted effort on focusing more on the wellbeing of employees and developing and enhancing a healthy workplace environment, where equity, inclusion, respect, engagement, etc., will become the norm. Doing so will motivate employees to give of their best. The chapter is part of a larger study on reforms and employee management and wellbeing.