Civil Service Agency Asks Institutions To Start Reducing Staff

The Civil Service Agency (CSA) is advising all institutions of government to immediately begin to reduce the size of their workforce as measures to minimize physical contacts and the possibility of transmitting the Corina Virus. The CSA’s measure is contingent upon the information provided the public by the Liberian leader, George Weah that the country has registered a confirmed case of the coronavirus on Monday, March 18 and therefore declared that to effectively moved from the prevention stage to one of containment, the must be implementation of equal measures by everyone to match this new reality.
President Weah then specifically instructed the CSA to essentially introduce the appropriate advisory to all entities to reduce staffing to only those considered as “essential” under the current circumstances.
Therefore, the CSA on yesterday announced, “We advise that in general, you should target maintaining at most 25% of your total workforce as “essential” while the rest be sent home on “Paid Corona Leave”. “Non-Essential Staff” should be defined as those whose services you can continue to function somewhat effectively without.”
The CSA named the “essential” staff category as some drivers, secretaries, filing clerks and stated that to declare the categories of staff and others as “non-essential” would mean that the “essential staff” staying on will have to multi-task and work twice as hard, realizing that the sacrifice they will be making is for the purpose of ensuring social distancing to prevent the spread of the Corona Virus.
The CSA also said in implementing entity’s emergency staffing arrangement others that must be considered as “essential staff are heads of entities and their deputies, Assistant Ministers (in the case of Ministries) as well as Directors and Deputy/Assistant Directors.
Meanwhile, the CSA is encouraging all ministries and agencies of government to submit via email at seandexter.mlk@gmail.com and rdkallon@gmail.com by close of business on Friday, March 20, the names of essential and non-essential staff so that each employee is accounted and warned that those not on the ‘Paid Corona Leave’ should not intentionally absent themselves from work while those on the ‘Paid Corona Leave’ should not report to work during this period.
The CSA further stated that those on the Paid Corona Leave are equally important employees but that the measures are only intended to encourage social distancing, which is recommended by health experts for preventing the spread of the Corona Virus Disease and could be called upon to either return to work or work from home, if and when the need arises.
To encourage social distancing among “essential staff” at workplaces, the CSA urged the use of modern technology to interact and conduct business and stated that this can be accomplished through the increased use of phone calls, emails, and social media, rather than face-to-face contact.