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The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has recommended wider use of performance-related pay in the public sector while Personnel Today’s “Austerity Panel” has rejected this as a technique for improving productivity.

Yet when the government has used performance-related pay and bonuses as an incentive for public sector workers, it has faced criticism. Writers at the Tax Payers Alliance appear to consider public sector workers unworthy of reward for performance!

Personnel Today quoted Graham White, HR Director of Westminster Council and Roger Seifert, Professor of Industrial Relations and HR management at Wolverhampton Business School as contradicting the CIPD’s suggestions – highlighting the difficulties and distorting impact of performance pay.

So what evidence is there on successful use of performance pay in the public sector? Read the rest of this entry →

According to research from Knox D’Arcy, public sector organisations are falling behind the private sector because of less effective management. The research suggests local authorities are around 27% less effective in their staff utilisation than the average private sector business.

With these findings published, there has been predictable reaction from many quarters – with the some unsurprising “public sector bashing”… simply making people work more effectively will solve the financial crisis facing public services … though some voices offier stout defence of public sector institutions against private sector bias.

This has been balanced out by a range of “messenger shooting” incidents. Public sector union UNISON has said the study is “misleading, unrepresentative and unhelpful”.

While it’s difficult to come to certain conclusions from what has been published, the findings are certainly worth some exploration. Read the rest of this entry →

The Sector Skills Council for UK Healthcare – Skills for Health has recently published the results of pilot work it was undertaking over a year with seven NHS Trusts on a ‘skills passport’.

The system, built by Skillsprofile based on work it has done withing other industries, allows workers to create an online record of their skills, qualifications and experience, verified by qualified line managers, enabling prospective or existing employers to save duplicating training where it is not needed – especially stautory mandatory training if staff move between employers.

Skills for Health endorsed the work delivered by the organisations, stressing the potential to reduce administrative costs associated with taking on new staff and a range of other benefits for employers and employees.

David Foster, Deputy Chief Nursing Officer for England has spoken favourably about the pilot, suggesting it had ” …confirmed the case for a skills passport, … also highlighted a range of potential additional benefits for employers, health workers throughout the UK, universities and, most importantly, those who use health services.

There is certainly a convincing arguement to be made for effectively recording and recognising the training and skills of the employees that move between NHS employers. The full evaluation report on the pilot highlights some potentially valuable benefits identified in interviews with stakeholders, including -

• Reduction in the duplication of training
• Cost and time saving
• Verification overcomes any fraudulent professionals entering the profession
• Reminders for mandatory training and registration to professional bodies
• Potential to use as a marketing tool and recruitment function
• Potential for Training Providers to use as an APEL tool (Accreditation of Prior (Experiential) Learning)

Some of the other benefits attributed to the system, including reductions in recruitment cycles and flexible working between healthcare organisations – based simply on up to date skills profiles – look a little inflated.

Ignoring these areas though, it seems obvious the NHS would look to capitalise on these opportunities, so why might it be too late? Read the rest of this entry →

The NHS White Paper, “Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS”  represents the completion of a devolution journey the NHS has been undertaking for over a decade. Moving all service providers either to Foundation Trust status or to one of a number of social enterprise models, it effectively de-nationalises NHS organisations.

In future, NHS services would be delivered through a wide range of diverse organisations – based on different legal frameworks and working in different ways.

When it comes to workforce issues, most people are currently focusing on the impact on those involved in commissioning, planning, inspecting, monitoring and managing the NHS. Staff losing jobs, reassigning function to new GP consortia, possible TUPE transfers and skills retention challenges.

But what does all this mean for the workforce delivering care? When the dust settles, these are the people we rely on to maintain high quality patient experiences.

While it might feel a little early, it’s worth considering what the provider organisations emerging from the shake up might look like. Read the rest of this entry →

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The article Are Poor Managers the Weak Link? looked at impact of poor manager performance on organisational productivity and questioned the effect on the public sector’s capability to deliver the transformation required over the next few years.

Recent research by the Chartered Management institute (CMI) has added some interesting facts which give new context to the concerns raised earlier. Commentators have suggested the research show managers are guilty of self delusion.

Undertaking research covering more than 2000 managers in the UK, the CMI research revealed that 63% of managers had no management training before taking up a senior post and only 20%  of managers hold any type of formal management qualification.

As well as the lack of training and qualifications, CMI believes the problem reflects the fact that people have become managers “by accident”, having had no desire to become a manager when they embarked on their careers.

Promotion to higher level of authority and responsibility without training or qualifications leading to difficulties. Read the rest of this entry →

Despite what many people think, employees in public service generally work hard for the benefit of their clients. People at many levels (not just doctors, nurses and teachers) are really dedicated to providing service and improving lives and society.

Dedication and working hard may not be the same as doing the right thing or working “smart”. Many problems are obvious to anyone working inside or alongside the public sector.

As Craig Dearden Phillips has suggested, it’s difficult to reject many criticisms of public sector delivery and it seems fair to give the Coalition Government some time and a little latitude to get things right.

The aims of this Coalition, to be a radical, reforming government are more “political” than “economic” and, in that sense, criticism from the left seems wholly accurate. At present the UK has no universal consensus …. just a “political deal” which makes rapid change possible.

Even those who could support radical reform might criticise using “the financial crisis” as a screen for action going further to rein back the state than most people would have supported – had politicians been open about their plans. The arguement is made, however, things changed during the election making more radical action necessary.

The “Big Society” sounds fine (like motherhood and apple pie) and there is a more thought-through arguement for localism and decentralisation which Liberal Democrats have campaigned for over many years. But, while looking to reform public service delivery, the government is facing strong criticsm directed on how it is taking things forward -

• Polly Toynbee, perhaps unsurprisingly, views the whole programme as “a big fat lie” with disastrous consequences to follow,
• The coalition attempt at crowdsourcing ended with no changes to government departments’ policy,
• Research by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) highlights the serious challenges facing charities, indicating there are dangers in relying on them to pick up responsibilities from government,
• The Centre for Social Justice criticises the Treasury for failing to identify the benefits to society that public expenditure is seeking to achieve, suggesting Ministers are “flying blind” with confused guidance about objectives and how to choose between options. 

So is it just delivery that is flawed? Having agreed a programme of decentralisation, have the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats done enough to turn it into a compelling vision? Read the rest of this entry →

When the coalition government came to power it was given credit for the protection it offered to health services by ringfencing NHS budgets. The Coalition Government has come under pressure to reverse its pledge to ring-fence health spending in order to protect other services but as yet has not backed down.

It was also assumed, from the Conservative Party manifesto, the NHS would experience a period of stability. Even with known financial pressures, it was anticipated the same level of difficult choices facing other public services would not be required in healthcare organisations.

The publication of the NHS White Paper turned all this on it’s head.  With many national health agencies and the regional infrastructure being dismantled, plus the commissioning arrangements being fundamaentally re-drawn, the NHS is now anticipating the most turbulent period in living memory.

It should come as no surprise the NHS is under pressure to be more productive – after more than a decade of significant investment in both facilities and staff.

But delivering this improvement will be hard at a time when the NHS is being asked to plan savings totalling £20bn to be able to live within its means, the entire structure of the health service is being shuffled.

So what progress is being made? Read the rest of this entry →

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In July 2010, Anthony Dance asks on the HRZone website why poor manager performance was not seen as a key issue for HR practitioners. It’s absolutely the case that many organisations see gaps in management capability as a  serious problem.

A quick trawl through Personnel Today sees poor managers blamed for provoking conflict, increasing the levels of sickness absence, causing under-performance and creating a culture which allows poor customer service.

These concerns certainly aren’t surprising. In its 2005 Workplace Productivity Survey, the US-based Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) examined workplace factors which impacted on worker productivity. The survey gained responses from 478 HR professionals and 613 employees and 58% of respondents reported the most important factor holding employee productivity back was poor management.

Susan R. Meisinger, the SHRM’s CEO said -

“When employees tell us that managers are hampering their productivity, HR professionals need to respond by providing manager training, evaluating organizational structure, and focusing on ways to address poor management practices”

The 2007 Hay Group report “Corporate Souffle: Is the Middle Giving Way?”  suggested 40% of executives thought ineffective middle managers through their impact on the rest of the workforce, were the single greatest barrier to achieving strategic objectives, representing a 29% productivity loss equivalent to £220bn per year for UK industry. The report found new managers took more than seven months to perform effectively, compared with a target of three months.In particular the concern was raised that -

1. Middle managers were not addressing poor performing line managers, and
2. Line managers were not addressing poor performing employees because middle managers were not encouraging them to do so!

Even taking a figure of 15% productivity loss due to poor management, this represents three quarters of a day lost per team member each week, a team of 10 losing 330 days productivity each year. These figures demonstrate poor management is a far more significant problem than sickness absence.

Systems thinkers would argue it’s the performance of organisational systems that need attention rather than individual poor performance. Even so, it is managers at all levels who are accountable for planning and managing productive working arrangements.

Manager performance is coming to the fore once more as people consider how the public sector can address the need for radical reconfiguration under the efficiency and reform programme. Read the rest of this entry →

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The NHS White Paper allows individual employers the freedom to determine pay for their own staff. While this is a relatively small provision in the paper, it has potentially serious implications.

Quickly spotting this and commenting in the Public Finance blog, Duncan Brown has expressed serious reservations about the potential for a major deconstruction of the national pay framework Agenda for Change.

The Tax Payers Alliance recently criticised the treatment of bonuses by the Home Office, which had set aside 8.6% of its pay bill for such payments but was planning to use only 4.4%.

TPA argued cutting the pot for bonuses was not the same as cutting pay, suggesting that civil servants were being paid bonuses they had not earned.

It also commented bonuses would have been paid if there had been enough money to pay for them. Clearly it thinks bonuses shouldn’t apply to public servants.

MP for Cannock Chase, Aidan Burley, TPA said “Surely a bonus is not compulsory…If you’re not performing and therefore not entitled to a bonus, that doesn’t count as a pay cut.” “Quite right.” said TPA and it must be correct that bonuses shouldn’t be taken for granted – period!

But it’s hard to accept suggestions the civil service has an inappropriate bonus culture in the face of practice elsewhere. Paying enormous bonuses to company CEOs and bankers remains commonplace – irrespective of the global performance of their organisations. To be fair, TPA did report these cases but didn’t comment with the same degree of disdain …. despite many bankers bonuses being underpinned by taxpayers financial support.

In the private sector it is argued bonuses reflect success in parts of the business and for personal contributions that have been strong. Reward and recognition are needed to retain the best people it is said. Isn’t it equally important to keep the best public servants so we have positive outcomes and good value for money for taxpayers?

While the Telegraph reported the story in the context of David Cameron’s vow to crack down on ‘crazy’ bonuses, for the majority of public servants, and all low paid employees in both public and private sectors, the annual bonus can be really significant – though it probably doesn’t stretch to pay for “yet another sports car”. Distinguishing “pay” from “bonus” is pretty meaningless when it comes to employers’ costs or people’s spending power and anyone taking home less this year than last experiences a real terms cut in earnings.

Is it fair to suggest bonuses in the civil service are different from those in the private sector? Read the rest of this entry →