ENTRY FORM. Organization Name: Public Service Commission of Kenya. Address: Tel: 020) FaxNo:

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1 ENTRY FORM ANNEXTURE 3 Organization Name: Public Service Commission of Kenya Address: Tel: 020) FaxNo: Physical address: P.O.BOX G.P.O Commission House, Harambee Avenue, Nairobi, Kenya Website: Section: ICT UNIT Name of the project: Online Recruitment and Selection Database System Contact person: Mrs. Bernandette M. Nzioki,EBS The Secretary, Public Service Commission of Kenya, secretary@publicservice.go.ke Tel: 020) Fax No: Introduction The Public Commission of Kenya is a body created under chapter VIII of the Constitution of Kenya. The functions of the Commission are broadly stipulated in Section 107 of the constitution. They include all powers to appoint persons to hold or act in offices in the public service, including local authorities, the power to exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in such offices and the power to remove such officers from office. K is an autonomous, independent and executive state organ which does not fall under the Executive, Legislature or Judiciary. Consequently, the Commission is supported by a secretariat that is headed by a Secretary, and organized into the following department:- Administration; Recruitment and Selection; 1

2 Agenda; Human Resources Audit; and Discipline. All the above departments maintain paper-based systems in their day to day operations to meet their set mandate respectively. However, these systems have been a source of inefficiencies that is inherent in all the departments due to the manual nature of these systems. To this end, and in the awake of the reforms in government to enhance, efficiency, accountability and transparency in service delivery to the people, the Commission recommended the need to embrace information technology, as a key enabler and a proven tool to catapult the desired outputs in the process of recruitment and selection. This was inline with the Strategy for Economic Recovery, Wealth and Employment Creation ( ), the E-Government strategy, the K strategic plan ( ) and in the context of vision Automation of the recruitment and selection information function The Recruitment and Selection (R&S) information processes was for many years manual and paper-based in all respects. As such, the Commission s methods of managing the process remained un-economical and a source of dissatisfaction to customers and stakeholders with regard to information timeliness, accuracy, and quality of service delivery to the stakeholders and the general public. The computerization initiative was a solution towards dealing with overwhelming number of applications, to address delays in service delivery inherent in paperbased systems, processes duplication and issues of information not reaching the targeted audience on time and conveniently. This was further going to drastically reduce on time taken between the requests by ministries to recruit and the actual appointments to the vacant posts. 3.0 The Online recruitment and selection system Due to the challenges outlined above, the Commission ardently embarked on an online recruitment and selection database system. The system solution was designed to enable clients and stakeholders to access Job vacancies advertised by the Commission and apply online. Ultimately the system provides a central databank for all job applications and appointments. Consequently, the monitoring, analysis and tracking function of the recruitment process has been improved. The system supports a wide variety of feedback mechanism that ensures instantaneous responses on the progress of individual applications and the respective status. These are as follows 2

3 The print and electronic media The Mobile phones The postal office The Commission website ( System online help services 4.0 System Development process The team developed a system model that demonstrated how the online interface would interact, share resources with the off-line system that would cater for the legacy manual system. The model represented the problem definition a detailed user requirements analysis exercise. This was followed by a system requirements analysis that included benchmarking of best practices with other public service organizations similar to the Commission both local and international. INTEGRATED (K) ONLINE RECRUITMET AND SELECTION DATABASE SYSTEM (IRSDS) MODEL Submit Indents to DPM Application reception Counters R&S Department K Data Center MINISTRY/DEPT. Commission (K) (K) Website Website /Internet /Internet Browse: Adverts Agenda department Exchange Server/web Fire wall Fire wall routers Submit Indents to Router Database server switch Browse: Adverts, apply & submit applications online,, Track application progress, Receive feedback on Commission decision client LOCAL AUTHORITIES HRM Audit Application server client K HOUSE APPLICANTS Source: (K online system documentation manual 2006) 5.0 Benchmarking tours Upon the approval of the proposed system model, the Commission constituted a ICT team. The team led by the deputy chairman undertook benchmarking tours to India, Malaysia, and Singapore whose public service institutions have advanced in web-based online recruitment and selection with a view to examine the applicability, functionality and affordability of the proposed technologies and 3

4 examine the extent to which the Commission could adapt from their computerized processes and implement a better solution The insights gained from these experiences contributed greatly to achieving our home-grown web-based system that was customized to address the Commission challenges and friendly to use. 6.0 System development team The system development team comprised of ICT officers from the Commission and other government ministries and departments who were identified with the necessary skills to develop the web-based database system. 7.0 System Steering Committee The system steering committee was set up to oversee the entire system development process and implementation. It was charged with project planning, costing, monitoring and evaluation of the system and feedback process between top management, the development team and the system users. 8.0 System Fund The funding of the project was purely under recurrent expenditure and other savings from the development expenditure. 9.0 Top management support The Online system initiative was a priority project for the Commission championed by the Commission Chairman and Coordinated by the Commission Secretary and hence the system enjoyed top executive support. This worked perfectly well in matters of institutionalizing the project, funding and all critical decisions therefore, made in favor of the progress and success of the project 10.0 Stakeholders participation The team held sensitization workshops to sensitize all the stakeholders of the system at ministry and department level and also at Public service Commission level in order to capture their views that made the system acquire ownership and support Results Achieved To date The online recruitment and selection database system is built on an Enterprise Resource Planning perspective that has been implemented in phases. 4

5 The system is the first of its kind to achieve user ownership from the on set of the initiative and also the first to be successful in government hence highly supported and cherished by users across the board. The system was the first of its magnitude and scope to be finalized and launch on time according to the initial project duration projection in the government. Through the utilization of officers within government, the initiative costed thirty one million and saved the government over three hundred million (300m) if the services of consultants were sourced to deliver the same Since the implementation of the system, the time eight months that the Commission used to fill a vacant post was reduced drastically to three months and is expected to reduce further to one (1) month. This is the grand achievement registered by the Commission. The customers and stakeholders of the Commission are impressed by the implementation of the online system that is accessed globally hence promoting customer satisfaction. The Commission jobs are now completive at international level. Enhanced prompt decision making by management 12.0 Outlook for the future Cascade the system to all ministries/departments who have been given delegated powers to promote serving officers from Job Group L and below Potential implications for other Organizations Other organizations have to rise to the occasion and embrace information and communication technologies to enable them improve service delivery. They also need to build capacity in ICT at all levels of academic and professional qualifications. Signature: Date: 5