SINCE the start of the reformist movement in the 1960s, the public service has instituted a number of reforms anchored on Key Performance Indicators and performance targets.
These reforms not only assessed organisational performance but also that of individuals. These include performance-based budgeting, total quality management, auditor general’s financial-management star-rating system, Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit’s general management star-rating system, plus a couple of other KPI initiatives, such as the balanced scorecard, that agencies have instituted on their own.
The annual performance appraisal is the mainstay. It requires the immediate supervisor to undertake the first evaluation based on a set of criteria and agreed-upon work targets. A higher-level supervisor will then review the superior’s assessment and either endorse or alter the supervisor’s assessment. These assessments are then scrutinised by a higher-level review committee.
To minimise the element of subjectivity prevailing in the system, a 360-degree assessment of public servants was introduced 20 years ago. Paper-based and elaborate, the system did not work well. This was mainly because officers who were asked, either as subordinates or peers, to evaluate others were sometimes not the appropriate ones.
The system was soon discarded.
Ten years ago, as a further refinement of the performance appraisal system, the Public Service Department (PSD) introduced a scorecard comprising weighted KPIs-cum-performance targets for ministry secretaries-general and central-agency heads. Jointly negotiated between the PSD and the heads, the performance targets were to account for their service-delivery performance. A 360-degree evaluation determined the score for the head’s leadership capability.
The Chief Secretary to the Government’s announcement last week, that a 360-degree performance evaluation is a strong contender for a revised system of performance appraisal for public servants, suggests that the public service wants to minimise subjectivity in the exercise. KPI reforms that have been introduced since the last 360-degree system, and technological advancements now offer the government better confidence of success this time around.
Of itself, the 360-degree evaluation is a good thing. It finds favour in human resource management literature. It is surely more comprehensive as it accounts for the judgments of not just superiors but also peers and subordinates over an officer’s performance.
However, too much of a good thing can be bad. So, before the public service drowns itself in a plethora of KPI initiatives, it behoves the PSD to institute a fundamental study of all existing KPI systems with the view of consolidating them. This consolidation exercise should offer a way forward as to how best to replace or complement the current system of performance review.
Any system is as good as its enforcement. And enforcement depends on an effective system of rewards and punishment. Such a system has been work-in-progress. In the public service, as elsewhere, good performance reviews merit promotions while poor performance threatens an officer with exit.
While rewards are aplenty, the punishment part of the incentive system is troublesome. This is partly due to the culture of compassion that pervades the public service. As a microcosm of the larger society, the public service mirrors this societal value. Also, subjectivity in performance assessment cannot be avoided despite the tight evaluation criteria.
Hence, the trepidation in meting out punishment for poor performance.
Human resource reforms that were aborted in the past, such as the competency-level assessment and past remuneration systems, failed because they were introduced without substantive consultation with public servants and unions.
A performance appraisal system that determines the career progression of officers should rightly be developed in collaboration with the reforms. This is to ensure buy-in and the avoidance of any disgruntlement over the system later on.
Leaders have a critical role to play to develop the next leadership bench. Any proposed reform to the performance appraisal system should load a greater weight for leadership grooming. Big multinationals, such as General Electric and Unilever, give as much as 40 per cent weight to the KPI on developing other leaders.
While performance appraisal is worthy in itself, the public service should also be mindful of other determinants of performance.
Greater diversity in recruitment and merit in promotion are among the factors that will augur well for performance. It is debatable if merit corresponds to seniority. It may not be motivating of better performance if public servants were to bide their time for promotions.
Performance also depends not so much on challenging performance targets as on the conversations around them that superiors have with their subordinates. The current system of appraisal mandates joint consultations in determining annual work targets and a mid-term review. However, mid-term reviews may not be inadequate for a subordinate to obtain timely feedback. Performance reviews should be, as far as possible, weekly where, at the end of a week, a superior tells where the subordinate has done well and where he should buck up. If done consistently and honestly, then year-end appraisals will become merely academic, confirming the outcomes of these conversations.
We are on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution. A digital public service is the way forward.
Any performance evaluation system must dovetail into the digital fabric of the public service. The platform for this could be the PSD Human Resource Management Information System.
If there is one KPI that will ensure the satisfaction of all others, then that KPI must stand for “kerja perlu ikhlas” or work must be sincere. It is sincerity in service delivery that is the mother of all KPIs.
Datuk Dr John Anthony Xavier, a former public servant, is a principal fellow at the Graduate School of Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
