Managing for high performance in the public sector

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Managing for high performance in the public sector

• Dr. Richard Boyle
• Senior Research Officer
• Institute of Public Administration
• Dublin
• Presentation at HKEU seminar 11th December 2008

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Introduction

• Organisations that adopt high performance work
  practices have greater employee performance and
  are more effective in motivating staff and
  managing change

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What do we mean by high performance?

• Good management practices which, when applied in
  combination, produce more than the sum of their
  parts
• How the organisations leaders relate to their
  staff from the day they join to the day they
  leave
• Good work practices based on strong leadership
  and a motivated workforce that generates higher
  levels of performance is an option for all
  government organisations.

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Challenges to high performance in the public
sector

• Maintaining public service standards
• Politicisation of the public service
• Joined-up government versus individualised
  incentives

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Challenges to high performance in the public
sector

• the fundamental purpose of the public sector is
  government, not management. Government requires
  that a great deal of attention be paid to
  fundamental values like fairness, equity,
  justice, and social cohesion to maintain
  confidence in the governmental and political
  system as a whole, and managerial considerations
  while important must be considered secondary
• Matheson, OECD, 2003

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Despite the challenges, much can be done

• Organisations which support their
• employees by developing effective
• policies based on ability, motivation and
• opportunity will create higher levels of
• organisational commitment, productivity
• and job satisfaction

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Six key policies

• Career development and opportunities for
  enhancement
• Training opportunities
• Job influence and challenge
• Involvement and communication
• Performance management and appraisal processes
• Work-life balance
• Research for the Chartered Institute of Personnel
  and Development (Purcell et al 2003)

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Career development and opportunities for
advancement

• Not simply moving up the organisational ladder
  more about a persons work experience over time.
• Two vital considerations
• Developing an appropriate and honest message
• Providing career development opportunities for
  all staff

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Career development and opportunities for
advancement

• Developing an appropriate and honest message
• What message is being communicated by leaders to
  staff?
• Clearly communicating the objectives and benefits
  of the career development approach

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Career development and opportunities for
advancement

• Opportunities for all staff
• People who are most dissatisfied at work are
  those whose jobs have remained the same for two
  years
• People whose jobs had grown, even at the same
  level, generally happy to stay
• A majority of employees have expectations of
  something beyond just doing the job

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Training opportunities

• Business case for providing training and
  development opportunities
• The importance of effective training needs
  analysis
• The importance of on-the-job stretch
  assignments as well as formal training

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Job influence and challenge

• Where people have some influence over how they
  do their job, and where they find their job
  demanding and challenging, they are much more
  likely to have job satisfaction, be motivated and
  be more committed to the organisation in the
  sense of wanting to stay
• But little evidence that leaders take this
  seriously.

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Job influence and challenge

• Characteristics of effective job design
• Interest and challenge
• Variety
• Autonomy
• Task identity
• Task significance

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Job influence and challenge

• Job design mechanisms
• Job rotation
• Job enlargement
• Job enrichment
• Self-managed teams
• Smart working

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Involvement and communication

• Involvement employees playing a greater role in
  the decision-making process
• Avoid off the shelf systems
• Range of mechanisms available from management
  initiated (suggestion schemes, attitude surveys)
  to representative participation (partnership
  schemes, work councils)

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Involvement and communication

• Communication enhances confidence, trust and
  commitment
• Not simply passing information down the line
  sharing information, listening to what people
  have to say, responding appropriately
• Managers have a central role in any
  communications strategy

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Performance management and appraisal processes

• Challenges associated with performance management
  in the public sector
• Unclear objectives
• Limited performance indicators
• Lack of benchmark information
• Subjective evaluation
• Rating influenced by halo effect and
  convergence on the mean

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Performance management and appraisal processes

• Dealing with poor performance
• Identify and assess the problem what do we mean
  by poor performance?
• Consider the reasons what are the causes?
• Decide on an approach
• Take action dealing with issues early

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Performance management and appraisal processes

• Performance related pay
• Schemes tend to absorb vast amounts of management
  time and resources and leave everyone unhappy
• Then why do it?
• A catalyst for improvements
• Sending a message on the need for a performance
  culture
• Equity and fairness
• Group performance schemes and moving to pay bands

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Work-life balance

• The business case arguments
• Lower staff turnover
• Reduced casual sickness absence
• Improved morale and productivity
• Employer of choice
• Key role for line managers

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Leadership the critical success factor
underpinning high performance

• Characteristics of good leaders in the public
  sector
• Catalyst for change
• Commitment to mission
• Determine the path to the vision
• Walk the talk
• Keeper of the values
• Accept personal responsibility