Personnel Performance System

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Permalink Reply by Arunaselam Rasappan on September 14, 2008 at 9:15am

Dear Pindai - my apologies for missing your quesion...it somehow got buried in the forum mail.

I wish more people would give serious thought to the point you are raising. Very often personnel performance is given inadequate attention or much of it focuses on work processes and outputs with limited attention to the actual substantive contribution of personnel to one or more result areas. I've seen personnel systems that are claimed to be results-based but they are a compendium of work completion measures. Even where some systems are results-based, they do not demonstrate any strategic linkages to substantive program performance and/or performance plans.

The transformational management you mention you mention is important but I do believe that it must be grounded in a sound holistic system. The RoI is an important consideration and I've raised this matter before here and in other fora. If personnel costs take up an approximate figure of 50% of national budget, then the RoI on such investment must be clearly and strategically worked out and assessed. This would of course raise questions of how personnel are being utilised for all aspects of results performance management? My contention is that each and every dollar that we spend on personnel in an organisation must be linked with results in an integrated and substantive manner.

I will leave one related question for us to ponder on (and perhaps discuss further under this component). If in a personnel performance system, we can only account for or link about 60-70% of a person's work to substantive result areas, then how do we deal with the other 40% of the person's work? What are the cost implications of this? How do we address this? I'm sure some countries are dealing with the above in many innovative ways. Country experiences on this and related aspects are most welcome.

Regards

Aru Rasappan

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Permalink Reply by Pindai M Sithole on September 19, 2008 at 9:41am

Hi Aru. Thank you for your reflection on my earlier contribution about ROI and transformational approach to personnel systems. I look forward to views from others concerning this issue. I agree with you that a w(h)olistic appraoch needs to be devised and implemented. Linking costs to performance is not an option but a must - if we are serious about measuring performance and adding value to people the services are intended.

Best regards,

Pindai Sithole

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Rosa Muraguri-Mwololo on September 17, 2008 at 6:19am

Aru, I like the drift of the conversation by Pindai - ROI does rightly disturbs our comfort zone, and it raise one concern for me. The private sector seems to understands that employees are the "geese that lay the golden eggs" and hence doesnt spare any resources in training or building staff capacity to enable them produce the results they are expected to deliver- more, results of the required quality. Now -as we deliberate on return on investment by government employees, data indicates that many government have not yet adequtely invested in capacity building for Results-Based-Management application . Whereas employees understand RBM terminology and logic, how to translate and apply this knowledge to specific situations or job requirements is still a challenge. Most people do not know with exactness what they are required to do in terms of processes to demostrate they are managing for results. Governments are largely political entities and not every decision is made with a Return of investment mode of thinking- however, staff capacities MUST be strengthened so that they are better able to link budgets to outputs and ultimately to ask whether lives of the citizens are ultimately better as a result of the investment. Training will impart new knowledge, skills and a the required results-oriented attitude among employees. When people change the ay they think, they change the way they do things -then and only then shall we talk of having a real Return on Investment from public expenditure. Governments like the private sector should invest in capacity building if they want "the goose" to lay the golden eggs!

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Permalink Reply by Pindai M Sithole on September 19, 2008 at 9:19am

Aru, Dr. Rosa Muraguri-Mwololo hit the nail by the head on this apparent reluctance by governments to 'invest' in capacity building of their personnel - the very 'geese that lay the golden eggs'! Governments need to seriously look at the whole public service delivery chain through all 'lenses'. It is not important for governments to reinvent the wheel; indeed they can adapt practices from the private sector. It remains that the most important asset in service delivery is the human being; therefore capacity building strategies that are intentionally built into the budgets should be natural behaviour of every government. To capacity build human resources is an 'investment' rather than a 'sunk cost'!!!

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Permalink Reply by Arunaselam Rasappan on September 22, 2008 at 7:21pm

Dear Pindai and Rosa - I could not agree more with your points. This is one of the biggest problems with personnel systems and appraisal processes in the public sector. This is also the reason why under the PPS of the IRBM system, there is special focus on getting these basics right. The PPS not only ensures approriate attention to the capacity-building issue but even goes a step further by laying the onus of capacity-building on the department and management as part of the performance appraisal process - exactly your point and you will be happy to note that this approach is both practical and workable. This appraoch is now being piloted in two countries and I hope to be able to share the outcomes on AfCoP at some point soon.

Aru Rasappan

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Permalink Reply by Tamirat Yacob on September 25, 2008 at 7:38am

Dear Pindai,

Would you mind to explain it more, the idea of RoI and how we are able or you suggest to measure it? Just a curiosity question.

Reagards,

Tamirat

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Permalink Reply by Pindai M Sithole on October 4, 2008 at 12:33pm

Dear Tamirat,

Thank you for your question. Return on Investment (RoI) should be derived from one's performance / productivity. This measure should be reduced to quantitative measurement. Therefore, the higher the productivity of a person in a given job the higher the RoI and vice versa.

We should avoid measuring RoI solely on employee retention or loyalty without linking this to measurable results. Based on my experience to date in Southern Africa, proper data collection, processing, and analysis is one of the major challenges to be able to arrive at personnel RoI. Efficient systems in data management and analysis is a prequisite to effecting RoI model.


Best regards,

Pindai

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Permalink Reply by Bimerew Alemu on September 29, 2008 at 6:23am

Dear Pindai !
Human capital-education and skills is a critical weapon in the war against poverty. This implies that better educated and intelligent workforce is important to bring about better rate of return on investment. Studies in low income countries show that one can reap higher returns on investment in human investment than in physical investment. This is a more general approach on yields of high returns.
Returns on intelligence obviously are based on labour productivity. As the skill of personnel increases output per unit of time increases or labour cost is reduced. Conscious management (leadership) determines each parts function or activity with the workers deployed at grass roots level. This makes individuals part of the whole and show interest to contribute to the maximum of their capabilities.
Therefore, in my opinion if a relationship of oneness is created achieving the goal will be to the benefit of both sides and the interest of performing the common goal will be maximized. This shows that different from valuation of return on physical investment special attention has to be taken to personnel efficiency or return, because behavioral factors and relationship handlings affect more in return on intelligence.

Best regards
Bimerew Alemu

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Permalink Reply by Pindai M Sithole on October 4, 2008 at 12:49pm

Dear Bimerew,

I agree with you that RoI requires a paradigm shift in that investment has been traditionally associated with non-human resources (real estate, physical assets, money, etc). From your contribution, I see that the subject of personnel Return on Investment can easily be misunderstood and reduced to a moral issue like, 'is it morally right to invest other human beings? Of course yes, because whatever we do in life, we are investing our knowledge, skills, wisdom and attitudes. Whether people use the word 'invest' or not, the point remains, that our job descriptions require that the proper use of people's knowledge, skills, wisdom, and attitudes should result in higher productivity otherwise we should not have been given that job in the first place.

Best regards,

Pindai

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Permalink Reply by Sithole Humbe on September 29, 2008 at 7:35am

The whole process of attempting to produce a competent, skilled workforce has been wrong from the onset in developing countries. The concept of Return on Intelligent could be of necessity where labour productivity(efficiency) is measured based on the principle of education type relevance provided to the results attained in comparison with other sectors/ or countries provided with the same skills.

The education curriculum provided in African Developing and Least Developed Countries is way afar from equiping personnel with necessary human capital intelligent. Again , the generality of labour force has no control over inputs required to produce results so anticipated unlike the physical assets .

Transformational management works where the whole process of educational curriculum setting, recruitment of staff , behaviour modelling and reward systems are co-opted . IRBM-PPS is strongly resisted by many Governments in Africa due mainly to my opinion "lack of appreciation for accountability, transparency, corporate governance and value-for money aspects."

Human capital effeciency should be used as a scale measure on performance issues when the relevant education/skills/competency has been provided to possible labour force by the relevant country's Education Department. In the meantime, i doubt if Human Intelligent concept can be applied anywhere in Africa due to our failure to account 30% of labour productivity but being paid fully by employers as a Direct cost.

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Permalink Reply by Arunaselam Rasappan on October 3, 2008 at 9:20pm

You mention, "IRBM-PPS is strongly resisted by many Governments in Africa due mainly to my opinion "lack of appreciation for accountability, transparency, corporate governance and value-for money aspects."

This is actually quite interesting...in my work with various countries in Africa, I found that in most cases everyone appreciates the value of the PPS (and other related components of the IRBM system). In fact, stakeholders get quite excited and enthusiastic about the IRBM system! But when it comes to implementation, we typically find that implementation is slow and gets mired in petty politics, "territorial" squabbles, and other organizational issues. In one country, it was interesting to note that the IRBM system was endorsed and approved 100% by the President, the Cabinet, and the Chief Secretary etc. But when it came to implementation, there were a number of senior officials (who were deeply entrenched in the old way of doing things), who simply "refused" to budge...and were throwing spanners in the works - but when the Chief Secretary wanted to "remove" these "obstacles" (he was daring enough!), the Minister in charge was non-commital and in fact blocked the move...this despite all key stakeholders having approved the IRBM System without reservation from the highest level!

This is why I would say that one important ingredient for the success of IRBM (as with other reform initiatives) is the commitment, seriousness, and will power (among others) of the political leadership/ top management to see through the reforms they approve or support and not just give it lip service.

In this respect, I quite like the way reforms get done in a number of countries - once the leadership/management approves a reform initiative, it gets done!

Just thought that I'd share some interesting experiences with IRBM and the issues you raised....am sure there are many more such interesting stories from other countries and it would be useful if other members of this forum can share such experiences....you do not necessarily have to name the country, person, or institution if confidentility or sensitiveness is an issue.

Aru Rasappan

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Permalink Reply by Pindai M Sithole on October 4, 2008 at 1:05pm

Hi Aru,

Thank you for sharing your experiences - highlighting the dynamics of approving and implementing. I concur with you that lack of ccountability, transparency, governance and value-for-money are factors that compromise the success of IRBM-PPS in Africa. You need to appreciate some of the underlying cultural values that play out in this which has made these terms to be understood differently in the context of Africa. For example, to show that a person of authority or elder has done something wrong and go ahead to demand that he/she should explain and take responsibilty - required by the notion of accountability and transparency; may not be culturally correct in Africa. The question is, 'how do we deal with such a situation." Perhaps IRBM - PPS implementation framework should consider these cultural issues.

I will think and read more about the issue of cultural consideration in the context of IRBM in general and contribute in my next discussion.

Best regards,

Pindai

Best regards,

Pindai

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