Selfi Liu-Nange,S.Sos, M.Si, M.Pub.Pol
Purna Praja STPDN Angkt.VI
Submitted to: Regent of Kupang District, West Timor Province
BACKGROUND
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Local government employees have the responsibility to deliver services to those living in rural areas. A recent study of the World Bank highlighted that poor performance of local government employees has hindered service delivery post decentralization (World Bank 2007). Furthermore the increase in authority has not matched with the human capacity for effective service delivery.
There are few determinant factors to the poor performance of local employees in Kupang
District. First, is recruitment and promotion of public servants have been based on patronage and seniority. Incapable and unprofessional public servants get employed due to the unfairness in the recruitment process as well as nepotism. According to McCart (2004, p.4), public sector should employ capable and professional persons so that public sector can deliver best service to the public. Secondly, public servants’ salaries are very low. Ivancevch & Matteson (2002, p.9) highlighted that money is a major factor for rewarding and altering behaviour. Financial rewards have a direct link to performance if the employees are to be motivated. With low salary, the employees are discouraged to work. Lastly, some of public servants in local government have low motivation, low level of innovation and creativity. This is due to the fact that there is no clear job description and overlaps in various levels of jobs so that the employees do not pay attention to particular job. As a result, public servants just come to workplace and waste time reading newspapers and gossiping with workmates. However, this does not affect their salary because whether or not they perform their duties, in the beginning of each month, all employees get the same amount of money.
PROPOSED REFORM AND ITS OBJECTIVE
In addressing the current performance issue suffered from the local employees in Kupang District, it is recommended that performance management system be applied in the local government of Kupang for the purpose of improving local employees’ performance towards the achievement of organizational service unit objectives and goals. It can also be argued that the introduction of decentralization policy by devolving power and authority to local governments in Indonesia should be followed by the implementation of management reform in order to meet the decentralization policy objectives.
ANALYSIS
Performance management has been adopted by many countries around the world. It is an essential tool to deal with performance issue of public service agencies. For example, performance management has been applied as the main strategy by all Australian Public Service agencies through ‘linking and aligning individual, team and organizational objectives and results’ (MAC 2001, P.14). It serves as an effective means to enhance individual performance, linking to organizational performance. It also provides a means to recognize, give reward for good performance and to manage under performance.
In order to make performance management an effective tool, it requires a framework that effectively integrates organizational, business and individual planning and performance. For this reason, the performance management to be applied by the Local Government of Kupang should include three key issues, namely recruitment and promotion, periodic performance appraisal of individuals towards the achievement of organizational objectives, and recognition or reward for performance.
Figure 1. Performance Management reform stages
Recruitment and promotion of local employees
The recruitment and promotion process of local employees is crucial to ensure the capability of local government in service delivery for community. As mentioned by Tjiptoherijanto (2005, p.6) ‘human resource development for government officer is started since the recruitment stage until the end of their services as a government officer’. The process consists of identifying a particular required job, job analysis and job description, and scoring scheme or assessment based on candidates specification.
The current practice of recruitment and promotion has been associated with the abuse of power of local government. The recruitment of new local employees is characterized by nepotism, bribery, and ‘sons of the region’ (Turner and Podger 2003, p.107). In addition, local media often points out that the head of local government usually employ their followers to strategic positions or managers’ positions thus disregarding their competencies. This undermines the capacity of local government to perform its responsibilities.
Recruitment and promotion of local employees should be based on merit system and not patronage. The reason why the patronage system is bad is because it has negative impacts on performance. This system prioritizes those who have good relationship with decision makers without considering their capabilities and professionalism. McCourt (2004, p.2) says that, ‘…where officials employ friends, relatives, political supporters and so on into public jobs which, without the official’s influence, they would not obtain’. To overcome this, the merit system should be applied in recruitment process. It provides the best ability of public servants to deliver the best quality to the public. Moreover, by applying merit system, the local government will attract capable and talented persons.
In the context of merit system, the recruitment process should also be competitive. Halligan (2004, p.73) contends that, ‘The move to institute centralized personnel arrangements in the colonies derived from the lack of uniform rules and the prevalence of patronage in recruitment. New legislation provided for independent control of the public service, open competition for entrants, promotion by merit, grading and classification of all personnel, and salary based on work value. A pattern emerged for the public services, with three main features; a centralized board or commissioner, recruitment to the base grade by open competition and a career service’. The competition in recruitment may give fairness and same chance to all candidates to be a public servant. Schmidt and Hunter argue that the fair competition gives the same chance to be pubic servants and tend to control public confidence (p.19). In addition Tjiptoherijanto (2005, p.6) mentions that ‘the recruitment process has been conducted fairly and openly so that the government could get the best applicants as many as possible’.
To support the success of the merit system, this paper would suggest contracting out to be adopted in local government. Contracting out aims to increase efficiency and allows patronage to be removed (Kjaer, AM 2004. pp.25-26). Efficiency can be measured by timing and cost needed in process of recruitment. Kjaer mentioned that contracting out is one of elements in the New Public Management (NPM) reforms which enhances public service efficiency (Kjaer, AM 2004, p.24). In terms of efficiency, there are eight stages that should be applied in process of recruitment
- a job analysis; a written statement of job description and the knowledge and skills of jobholder (the person specification)
- an advertisement
- a standard application form
- a scoring scheme based on the person specification
- a short listing procedure
- a final selection procedure based on the person specification and panel interview
- an appointment procedure based on the scoring scheme
- notification of results to both successful and unsuccessful candidates (McCourt 2004, pp.10-11).
Clear criteria, capability and specification, and transparency are critical requirements of recruitment of public servant. At this point, competition becomes more important since each candidate has their own capability and skills. Halligan (2004, p.73) contended that competition for entrants may create fairness between of candidates. Willy (2004, p.4) also highlighted that most capable person will be employed through competition. In addition, local government should spread the information of recruitment of public servant in local media. This is part of transparency in the recruitment. By advertising, people will have same access and chance to apply and compete.
In dealing with promotion, the local government of Kupang should adopt merit based promotion then patronage or seniority base. Seniority based promotion is inefficiency and there are no incentives for self-improvement and effort (Schiavo-campo & Sundaran 2000, p.5). Those who serve longer will be the first to be promoted than other employees. Martinez J & Martineau T (2001, p.6) mentioned that in merit system, there is clear promotion criteria and mechanisms. This system stimulates motivation of employees and their work commitment. Not only senior but also junior staff will do their best based on their own capability. Furthermore, fair competition and professionalism will take place amongst employees. Utilising this system will see the local government benefiting from improvements in knowledge and skill, motivation and commitment of employees.
Periodic Performance Assessment (Monitoring and Evaluation)
Periodic performance assessment is an essential part in measuring the performance of public servants. For example, performance management in New Zealand emphasizes the importance of conducting periodic performance assessment in measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of public servant in delivering service to the public (Richard & Robert 2003, p.43). The most important thing is to have a clear understanding of the objectives of a program in certain jobs (Behn 2003, pp. 588-589). In broad sense, these activities aim to assess the progress toward organizational goals.
Martinez J & Martineau T (2001, p.23) contended that monitoring and evaluation need to be conducted once a year to measure the performance of public servants based on certain objectives. This is due to the fact that performance or program objectives sometimes change because of the changes in the overall government policy. Therefore, monitoring and evaluation is recommended to be conducted regularly or once in three months. Another important point that was mentioned by Martinez and Martineau is that a leader or manager responsible for assessing the performance of staff has to involve various elements such as community, NGO, and academia. The main reason for including these organisations is for transparency reasons and avoiding unfairness in performance due to political interest and nepotism.
The most efficient way in doing assessment is to spread questionnaire forms to all elements, such as members of community, NGOs, academics from universities. The questions should be made as simple as possible so that the assessor can easily understand and also avoid time consuming, that is, not so difficult that the assessors will take a long time to deliberate on. These forms need be collected in no more than one week.
Getting feedback from people who assess employees’ performances is significant in that it can improve progression and performance. Regarding this, the government could invite a small member of customers to get information about their experiences with certain service, how they would rate the service on various characteristics, and what are their suggestions for improvement (Anwar 2000, p.26). In addition, Anwar has mentioned that, ‘customer surveys can provide various types of information of outcome measurement, including; rating from citizens of overall satisfaction with individual public services and timeliness of delivery’ (2000, p.27).This method, that is, getting feedback, is important as far as the performance assessment is concerned. Without appropriate feedback, the employees cannot adjust their weaknesses to better achieve organisation’s objectives. Therefore, assessor professionalism becomes a main factor in adjusting and enhancing performance itself in which feedback should refer to the success of achieving outcomes.
In response to poor performance, local government should conduct training. Training and development will be designed and linked to certain functions relating to their strategic plans for regional development and service delivery. For instance, training for computerisation, leadership, communication, performance based budget and so forth. The training can enhance employees’ capacity and skills. An improvement on individual capacity indirectly improves an organizational performance. In other words, training can provide local employees the knowledge and skills which are needed in local government institutions.
Another way to improve the poor performance is to deal with under performance. The local government of Kupang can conduct counseling to manage under performance. The local government should build a counseling centre in the office which consists of those who have capability in psychology. It is the fact that most of causes of poor performance are high workload at workplace, under pressure of demands of family. These problems are related to employees themselves who cannot control and manage their stress. Therefore, consultation and sharing with other people will reduce stress and problems will be solved so that employees can work effectively.
Reward or recognition for performance (Performance Related Pay)
Performance related pay should be applied in the Local Government of Kupang for these reasons; first, performance related pay recognizes and rewards local government employees by improving their performance; second, performance related pay will generate motivation and commitment for employees to do their best and achieve organization’s objectives. Indeed, few studies on OECD Countries confirm that the introduction of performance related pay in public sector has resulted in improving employees’ motivation and signaling employees’ commitment to organizations (OECD 1997).
In applying performance related pay, the local government should establish clear performance indicators which link individual performance to organizational service unit objectives. The indicators should meet several criteria, namely, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reliable and Timely. By developing clear indicators, the local government can easily conduct evaluation of employees’ performance in a formal manner.
In relation to developing indicators of performance assessment, it is highly recommended that the local government should outsource it to private sectors including local universities and Non Government Organizations. The outsourcing of performance assessment will bring benefits to local governments. These include cost reduction in public services provision, introducing competition into system of delivering services and the government being the facilitator rather than a providing system (Minogue, M 1998, p.19-29).
A pay related promotion (PRD) system should be implemented (Martinez J & Martineau T, 2001, p.7). This motivates employees, increase accountability and recognises effort and achievement (p.13). It maybe is difficult to measure accountability. However, (Martinez J & Martineau T, 2001, p.14) argued that accountability can be measured by conducting surveys to know customer satisfactory. Regarding the efficiency, this method is easy and simple to be conducted and low cost.
Conclusion
In addressing poor performance of local employees in Kupang Regency, this paper recommends the head of Kupang Regency to apply performance management. This will serve as a means to an end. It has proved to be an effective tool which links employees to meet organization objectives. Performance management includes three critical issues, namely, recruitment and promotion based on merit, conducting monitoring and evaluation on regular basis and performance related pay.
In applying those issues above, it is recommended that the local government of Kupang should involve private sectors through outsourcing or contracting out. For example, developing performance assessment indicator and conducting monitoring and evaluation is best conducted by private sectors.
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