INTRODUCING VALUE BASED RECRUITMENT IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE OF KENYA

Transcription

1 INTRODUCING VALUE BASED RECRUITMENT IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE OF KENYA Florence N. Wachira Director, Recruitment & Selection Public Service Commission Kenya mobile: July,

2 1.0 Introduction One of the core functions of Government is to develop and manage a people friendly, patriotic and professional Public Service. This is a key imperative for national development since the ability to deliver on National Goals and Objectives is vested in the capacity of the Public Service. The quality of Public Services delivered is partly dependent on the quality and performance of those recruited into the service and is a factor of the knowledge and skills they possess. Recruitment and selection is a crucial aspect of Strategic Human Resource Management. It is a purposeful process of seeking and identifying the right people with the right skills and attributes in right numbers to fill identified jobs at the right locations at the right time. The Public Service Commission is an independent corporate body created under Chapter 13, Part 2 of the Constitution of Kenya (2010) and draws its mandate from article 234 of the Constitution. Section 234 (2) (a) gives the Public Service Commission power to establish and abolish offices in the Public Service and power to appoint persons to hold or act in those offices and to confirm appointments. Section 234 (5) allows the Commission to delegate in writing any of its functions and powers to any one or more of its members or to any officer, body or authority in the Public Service with or without conditions. The power to appoint people to hold offices in Public Service is not exclusive to Public Service Commission. The Constitution has also created 47 county governments with Public Service Boards with similar powers as the Public Service Commission. Various pieces of legislation have also proposed recruitment through specific selection panels whose composition has been defined therein. This means that the function of recruitment 2

3 has been opened up to be exercised at different levels and by a multiplicity of independent players. This paper highlights the past recruitment process by the Public Service Commission and the anticipated shift to value based recruitment of civil servants in the National Government in compliance with constitutional requirements. It also describes how the system has been applied to-date in the country and a critique labeled challenges (author s view) 2.0 Past recruitment practices by the Public Service Commission Recruitment and promotion in the civil service has always been based on the merit principle that entailed the appointment of the best person for any given job made through a collection of processes, practices, procedures based on explicit rules publicly understood and which could be challenged if a breach was suspected. The merit based recruitment had key elements to guide it including: job analysis to determine job description and person specification; advertisement based on summarized job analyses; a standard application form; Scoring criteria based on person specification; short-listing criteria and procedures to reduce applications if necessary to manageable numbers; a final selection procedure usually an interview; appointment and notification of results. 3.0 The anticipated shift towards value based recruitment 3.1 Legal Provisions Article 232 of the Constitution of Kenya (2010) provides the values and principles of Public Service. These are: high standards of professional ethics; efficient, effective and economic use of resources, responsive, prompt, effective, impartial and equitable 3

4 provision of services; accountability for administrative actions; involvement of people in policy making and transparency and provision to the public of timely, accurate information. Article 232(g),(h),(i) provides that fair competition and merit shall be the basis of appointments and promotions in the Public Service. Article 73(2) (a) provides that selection of State officers should be on the basis of personal integrity, competence and suitability. The constitution also provides that there should be representation of Kenya s diverse communities and that men and women, members of all ethnic groups and persons with disability will be afforded adequate and equal opportunities for appointment, training and advancement at all levels of Public Service. Article 27 (5) on equality and freedom from discrimination provides that not more than two-thirds of members of appointive bodies shall be of the same gender. 3.2 Implications for recruitment An effective recruitment system should be easy to manage, economical to operate and sufficiently flexible to meet changing operational needs. The new legal dispensation requires that Public Service values be integrated in recruitment, evaluation and promotion. The guiding values of fairness, transparency, access and representativeness should be brought to bear in the appointment process. While the merit policy should continue to provide for appointment to and career advancement within the Public Service, it should be considered along the requirements of other principles as identified in the constitution. Every recruitment decision should take into account: that the person appointed meets the essential qualifications for the work to be performed; any additional qualifications required for future performance of the work at that position. Selection of 4

5 the person to appoint should be done while considering representativeness, gender and people with disability. Appointment decision must also be made on the basis of the person s ability to do the job and should be objective, fair, devoid of patronage, favoritism and unjustified discrimination. 4.0 Application of value based recruitment in Kenya to date Value based recruitment has so far been applied in the recruitment of state officers for Constitutional Commissions and holders of independent offices identified in the Constitution. Recruitment is often done by the Public Service Commission or by specially appointed selection panels. All vacancies are advertised widely and those intending to apply are required to get clearances on integrity from the Ethics and Anticorruption Commission (EACC), tax clearance from Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and clearance from Criminal Investigations Department and the Higher Education Loans Boards. They are often asked to attach these clearances to their application forms. All applicants are also expected to state their districts/counties of origin. Short-listing involves analyzing applications to determine who meets requirements of the post but the final short-list must involve considerations on gender, ethnic group, regional balancing and people with disability and marginalized communities. The same applies to the proposals for appointment after interviewing. In many cases, appointment is done by the President after his nominees are vetted by Parliament for suitability to hold Public office. 5

6 5.0 Challenges While the proposed shift in recruitment is good on paper, the Public Service Commission is alive to the existing complicated tensions between merit and representativeness, merit and equity and equality and the net effect on efficiency and effectiveness of Public Service. There is need to separate best practice HR practice and the Law. Unfortunately, drafters of the constitution included issues that would have been best handled at HR policy level into law. The selection of recruitment panels is done through law with no regard to panelists capacity to interview or select for employment. There is so much focus on ethnic balancing in Public Service jobs without any empirical evidence of the current status of ethnic disparity in employment. If not handled well, this has potential of heightening ethnic sensitivity in a country crying for unity and development in a way that overshadows the obvious benefits of inclusiveness in national development. There are no National Policies on affirmative action, employment equity and considerations of under-represented and marginalized groups required to harmonize standards of recruitment in the Public Service. 6.0 Conclusion The Values and Principle in Public Service are indeed very good in enhancing the quality of service delivery to citizens and sharing of the national cake. Successful implementation however, need not be hurried for the sake of appearing to implement the Constitution. Systems and policies should be put in place to harmonize and facilitate the shift from rules based approach to staffing towards one that stresses the values underlying the recruitment function. 6