THE GOVERNMENT is moving towards a system of pay increases based on job performance. From July 1, civil servants in six pilot ministries and departments will be assessed under a new Performance and Appraisal System that will link salary increases and incentives to job performance.
Over the years, the civil service has been allowed to become an employment provider with little regard for actual performance. In a no-growth economy, the Government has sought to take up some employment slack by providing jobs in the service with little reference to real need or output. In fact, when output targets are not realised the typical response has been to create parallel agencies and recruit more people. The result has been a bloated, low-productivity civil service and numerous parallel statutory bodies.
The pressures of globalisation and the internal budgetary crisis are pushing the new demand of value for money. There is no fat in the system to go around or to cushion waste. The public sector unions now understand this, as their private sector counterparts have. The new system challenges the old industrial relations order of collective bargaining for across the board salary increases without due consideration of individual performance.
As the president of the Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA), Wayne Jones, has advised members, "we are moving in the direction of output rather than just compliance with roles - it's more about what you do rather than how much time you spend at the job." The Prime Minister, at the launch of Labour Day projects last Wednesday, stridently made it clear that performance-based pay increases for teachers was a non-negotiable position but the Government remained open to discussing the method.
The development of fair and measurable performance indicators is absolutely necessary for an equitable Performance and Appraisal System. This cannot be the unilateral prerogative of the employer; workers and their unions, and clients of the various services, must be active partners in designing the system. The Government's decade-long experiment with citizens' charters should provide some experience on how to proceed. Citizens' charters are based on performance objectives in terms of service delivery to clients. Individual worker output is clearly tied to service delivery by the agency.
Input requirements of resources can also now be better quantified as a basis for achieving desired outputs in both quantity and quality. It is too often the case that workers in the civil service are given baskets to carry water and must absorb the blame for failure to deliver. And on the other hand, waste occurs from the improper allocation of resources.
The Performance and Appraisal System, properly structured and managed, can work to the benefit of all concerned: employer, employee, and customer, and, of course greatly assist the balancing of the Budget. The payment by performance system is long overdue in both the public and the private sectors.
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