Sometimes the will of government to help its people spoils the will of the people to help themselves. This may be true in relation to the help that the Labour Department provides to unemployed Bermudians who are seeking employment. Allow me to explain by way of example.Recently we advertised a vacancy on behalf of a client organisation that outsources their HR function to our firm. We received a large number of applications from Bermudians. We also received an e-mail from the Labour Department which provided the names and phone numbers of two candidates who “may meet your requirements”. The e-mail went onto say “I trust that you will interview them” and that the candidates would be asked to submit their résumé.The employer interviewed five Bermudian applicants and selected the one that best demonstrated that they were able and willing to do the job. Neither of the two Department of Labour candidates was interviewed. Why? Despite being able to do the job, neither was willing.At this point some folks will be thinking “How dare an employer eliminate qualified candidates by judging them to be unwilling to work!” If that was your reaction, please resist the urge to send me hate mail and read on.Assessing an applicant’s willingness to work is as important to employers as assessing their ability. Willingness refers to one’s acceptance of the conditions of employment such as the hours of work, rate of pay and the standards to which the work is to be performed. Willingness is work ethic demonstrated.So employers rightly eliminate applicants who fail to follow instructions during the hiring process because it is an indication that they are unlikely to be willing to comply with other conditions of employment in the future.In this case, the candidates submitted by the Department of Labour demonstrated their unwillingness by failing to submit their résumé even after the employer called them. When the employer followed up, one candidate said that he was busy and that the Department of Labour should have sent it. The other candidate said that the employer should call the Labour Department to get it.There is no question that this service of the Labour Department is extraordinarily good in its intent. But just as loving parents sometimes unintentionally raise dependent children by providing too much support, one has to wonder if the Department of Labour goes too far when it recommends interviews for individuals that are unwilling to submit their own application. No amount of support is too much when you don’t think about it. But we should think about it.Similarly we should think about the Department of Immigration’s moratorium on work permits for certain employment categories. Of course the policy will be a great success if the moratorium forces employers to hire able and willing Bermudians that they would not otherwise have hired. However, we risk a terrible consequence if the moratorium forces employers to hire able but unwilling Bermudians in place of able and willing work permit holders.To be clear, the consequence of hiring the unwilling is always sub-standard service at a high cost.Ultimately this leads to Bermuda being a less attractive tourism destination and causes global businesses to move jobs to jurisdictions overseas. So Bermuda’s very economic survival requires that every able Bermudian is willing to work every bit as hard and smart as anyone in the world. Clearly there’s much work to be done.So what’s the cure for Bermuda’s unwilling job seeker? The solution is the same as the one used by loving parents to deal with a spoiled child. Stop enabling them and allow them to suffer the natural consequences of their unwillingness to work. If that means they remain unemployed, so be it. It will not be too long before many of them join the ranks of hard-working Bermudians who have a job and perform it to a world-class standard.Doug Soares is a partner of Expertise, Bermuda’s largest management consulting and outsourcing company. He may be contacted at doug[AT]expertise.bm or via www.expertise.bm