THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND CONTRACTING FOR SENIOR MANAGERS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICE

Transcription

1 THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND CONTRACTING FOR SENIOR MANAGERS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICE Presentation to the Association of African Public Services Commissions (AAPSComs) General Assembly, Abuja, Nigeria 20 JULY 2011

2 OUTLINE OF THE PRESENTATION INTRODUCTION POLICY FRAMEWORK IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PMDS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICE CHALLENGES EXPERIENCED PMDS IN THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE PMDS IN THE WESTERN CAPE (HOD EVALUATION PROCESS) CONCLUSION 2

3 INTRODUCTION In January 2001 the South African government established a Senior Management Service (SMS) with the purpose of ensuring that competing policy considerations and mandates are managed and implemented in a seamless manner. In addition, government recognised that the success of its programmes and policies would require that the Public Service had to overhaul its recruitment strategies, training and development programmes with the purpose of, among others, retaining and appropriately rewarding competent managers for excellent performance and continuous innovation. For these reasons, the introduction of the Performance Management and Development System (PMDS) became one of the critical vehicles through which the Public Service could gauge the extent to which government priorities are realised, and where there are gaps and challenges remedial action be identified timeously. The PMDS was conceived as a compulsory accountability framework necessary for performance planning, tracking of progress and reporting on performance outcomes. Given the pivotal role played by the PMDS as an instrument of measuring performance of individual employees, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has been assessing the extent to which national and provincial departments have been implementing this important policy instrument. 3

4 POLICY FRAMEWORK The PMDS requires all senior managers (including HoDs) to enter into performance agreements (PAs) by no later than 30 April of each year. Newly appointed SMS members have to complete their PAs within the first three months of appointment. These PAs should focus on one specific financial year and should be reviewed annually. The PAs form the basis of a performance contract and accountability They also serve as the point of reference for the HoD and EA in the performance management cycle for performance evaluations against departmentally set objectives. The content of the PAs should clearly and directly devolve from the department s strategic plan. All HoDs have to include Regional Integration, Minimum Information Security Standards and Integrated Governance as mandatory Key Performance Areas. All eleven Core Management Criteria (CMCs) are compulsory for HoDs. Two half yearly performance reviews should take place during the financial year prior to the annual performance assessment. HoD Evaluations are conducted in terms of the Guidelines issued by the PSC annually. 4

5 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PMDS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICE Most senior managers and HR managers believe that PAs are continuously used to support effective management in departments. They substantiated this view by indicating that PAs ensure that departments are able to streamline deliverables and identify areas of weaknesses/concerns timeously. Managers believe that PAs are important tools for clarifying and setting individual and organisational objectives and monitoring performance. PAs can support effective staff development as PAs can provide an informed basis for the development of staff. Considering that PAs allow for clarification of performance expectations and identification of development needs and a basis for on-going employeesupervisor feedback, it should be possible to use them to direct staff development efforts. PAs formalise the operations of a unit in line with departmental performance plans in a cascading manner. They lay the foundation on which some performance management relationship between senior managers and their supervisors would be created. 5

6 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PMDS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICE (cont) Entering into a PA provides the basis for awareness of expectations and the inculcation of a culture of commitment to the delivery of performance outcomes. Furthermore, it provides a tool against which senior managers would be assessed on a continuous basis; PAs are utilised to hold SMS members accountable for success or nondelivery and be appropriately rewarded for excellent performance. It also serves as a mechanism for self-development and to deal with service delivery gaps/challenges; and It creates clear individual deliverables drawn from the department s APP. In other words, it translates departmental commitments into individual commitments and vice versa. It becomes easier for a department to track progress towards the achievement of the departmental performance plan. 6

7 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PMDS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICE(cont) The legislative framework guiding performance management has had positive effect of ensuring national norms and standards are applied in deciding on: Confirmation / non-confirmation of appointment Pay progression (within the framework determined by the MPSA Performance bonuses Non-financial rewards Staff development needs Access to career development opportunities Initiation of incapacity procedures 7

8 CHALLENGES EXPERIENCED SMS members are sometimes reluctant to enter into PAs as these are perceived as hindrances rather than enablers of improved service delivery. Once signed PAs are not always utilized as a basis for ongoing management of performance and the provision of feedback. Some senior managers believe that the PA system is cumbersome as they are expected to complete many forms during performance reviews. It has also been found that in most cases, the PA system has led to a situation where KRAs are aligned to departmental strategic and/or operational plans and that these also linked throughout the hierarchy of an organisation from higher to lower levels. Such an alignment ensures that all the employees in the department are focused towards the achievement of the same strategic goals. HR components should be capacitated to better play their role in supporting the effective implementation of the PMDS. in this regard, they should identify capacity challenges and address them accordingly. 8

9 CHALLENGES (cont) The quality content of the PAs is poor, resulting in them not being an effective management tool. In particular, it was felt that KRAs are not formulated properly and that this weakens the usefulness of PAs; PAs tend to be entered into only because they are a requirement and that once they have been concluded, there is no commitment both on the part of supervisors and subordinates to use them as management tools; There is a concern that there tends to be a lack of appreciation of the purpose of PAs in the management process and that it is evident in the tendency to use PAs for punitive rather than developmental purposes; and A number of managers indicated that there is poor implementation as a result of the current of PAs requiring some simplification. 9

10 PMDS IN THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE The Western Cape is used in this presentation to illustrate the application of the PMDS. The Office of the Premier in the Western Cape developed a computerised and web-based performance management system called Performance Management Information System (PERMIS). The system was created as a tool to conclude workplans, performance agreements (PAs) and performance reviews electronically. A template was developed on the PERMIS system which includes the mandatory elements of the performance management and development system. Each employee is provided with a user name and password. All employees are informed via a circular of the dates when the system will be opened for interaction, as well as the cut-off date for PAs to be filed. The system is opened for filing of PAs during March and April of each year in which period employees are required to electronically capture all the necessary information on the template and sign off electronically. 10

11 PMDS IN THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE (cont) In turn, each supervisor is able to log in and electronically sign off or make amendments to the PAs of subordinates. The date of signing off of the PAs is captured electronically. The system is closed after the stipulated due date and once closed, employees are unable to gain access to the system for the purpose of altering its contents, unless agreed upon with supervisors. The system enabled the PGWC to achieve its objectives in that there is proper alignment with the Annual Performance Plan at an appropriate level of abstraction in the relevant PAs. Performance agreements are linked with the strategic and business plans by integrating functions through the objectives of various salary levels. Key performance measures are captured and include the formula for calculating the performance rating which is tamper-proof. There is an automated function for generating quarterly review reports which includes the option of having the ratings attached. The PERMIS has been integrated with the Provincial training system via the individual s outputs to create a Personal Development Plan which feeds into the Workplace Skills Plan of departments. 11

12 PMDS IN THE WESTERN CAPE THE HOD EVALUATION PROCESS HoD evaluations are conducted in terms of the Framework for the Evaluations of HoDs, which was adopted by Cabinet in November 2000, which is based on the Performance Management and Development System (PMDS) for Senior Managers. The responsibility to evaluate HoDs resides with the relevant EA, but the Office of the Premier co-ordinates the process by ensuring that a date is set where all EAs must avail themselves for the evaluations, as well as a date by which the relevant documentation is submitted to the PSC as secretariat. EAs are grouped according to the cabinet clusters and must nominate a peer and client/stakeholder to be part of the evaluation panel. The PSC chairs the evaluations and acts as secretariat. As all EAs would be available for the entire day, all HoDs get evaluated in one day and the advice is generated and signed off immediately by panel members. 12

13 PMDS IN THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE THE HOD EVALUATION PROCESS (cont) The block evaluation system proved to be highly effective and manageable and achieved the following: - It introduced standardization and uniformity in approach that had not been experienced before. - Consistency in the assessment process and a common frame of reference prevailed because of the same panel evaluating all HoDs. - Transparency and improved objectivity in determining the results. With the implementation of the block evaluation approach, the province was able to evaluate all qualifying HoDs within a day or two, thus achieving a 100% compliance rate. 13

14 CONCLUSION Improvement in the management of PAs will not only strengthen service delivery initiatives but also boost the morale of senior managers. Successful implementation of the PMDS requires active participation by all SMS members within departments, and Heads of Department (HoDs) should provide the required direction and discipline to ensure its effective implementation. On-going monitoring and evaluation of departments should be provided to ensure that progress is established and that areas of weakness are identified and addressed. The PMDS framework should be effectively utilised to ensure that planning and implementation of government programmes are elevated to a higher level. The PSC is of the view that the Performance of the Public Service as an institution and that of public servants as individuals must be monitored and assessed systematically. Through its involvement in the HoD evaluations, the PSC has come to appreciate the importance of the relationship between the performance of HoDs as individuals and that of the departments they are responsible for. 14

15 CONCLUSION (cont) As part of ongoing efforts to improve performance management, the PSC developed and piloted an organisational performance assessment (OPA) instrument to collate information on the performance of departments. This instrument was a pioneering step on the part of the PSC as it was the first time that such information on the performance of departments was collated and analysed, which then enhanced the quality of the performance feedback that was provided through the HoD evaluation process. Through the experiences gained during the pilot exercise of the OPA and other research studies, the PSC developed a Founding Document on the Organisational Performance Assessment to record the lessons learnt. Currently the PSC is involved in a process with the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) in the Presidency to review organisational performance which has culminated in discussions on the possible introduction of an Institutional Performance Assessment Tool (PAT). Through the PAT process, the DPME will be taking over the process of the evaluation of HoDs, as the department has been established, among others to look at institutional performance assessment. 15

16 THANK YOU! 16