The price of ignorance is costly to professional growth

By John Kariuki

Some workers have no clue where to take job-related issues, thanks to their ignorance.

But there comes a time when their presence is needed, say, during disciplinary cases or when pursuing retirement benefits. But the trauma of one not being used to queuing and knocking doors can be severe.

However, every employee must know where to take all job related issues, be it at the regional or head office.

Some employees have no idea of who is who in the hierarchy of their organisations, and they deal mostly with their immediate bosses. This is dangerous to their career development, because such employees leave obligations to the whims of their boss, and they cannot defend any allegations levelled against them.

Night function

For instance, Mary Omollo had been working at an outpost of a big hotel. For long, everything went on fine with her boss, until he developed romantic interests in her.

Matters took a turn for the worse when the man attempted to rape her after a late night function. "That was when I began writing letters to the human resources (HR) department.

But my boss beat me at it by writing backdated warning letters about my conduct," Omollo says.

But HR personnel were suspicious of why she brought up the matter then if it had been going on for some time.

She regrets not knowing where to go when the harassment started.

Here is another case. Charles Mwangi, knew something was wrong when he stagnated at one grade. Junior staffers would come and get promoted, leaving him in the same scale.

Not expecting to be reprimanded for breaching protocol, he called the head office to appeal for his delayed promotion. He was promptly summoned to the headquarters.

He learnt of the new promotion structures that the company had effected but his boss never told him.

"I was advised to apply for a manager’s job in a new branch," Mwangi says.

While employee ignorance of the bureaucratic working of their employers is widespread, it is also noticeable among teachers, especially when they visit Teachers Service Commission (TSC) offices in Nairobi .

A TSC official says because of this problem, the organisation introduced marked counters on the ground floor of its Bazaar House headquarters.