Public Sector Human Resource Practices to Drive Performance
Many Governments wrestle with the issue of designing an appropriate set of human resource practices to motivate public servants to perform. Identifying the right set of practices for the public sector is a source of some controversy, and passions r...
Main Authors: | , , |
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Format: | Brief |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/930881467998212918/Public-sector-human-resource-practices-to-drive-performance http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25489 |
Summary: | Many Governments wrestle with the issue
of designing an appropriate set of human resource practices
to motivate public servants to perform. Identifying the
right set of practices for the public sector is a source of
some controversy, and passions run high particularly in
relation to the use of monetary incentives, often referred
to as performance-related pay or performance based pay. This
GET note reviews recent research on a range of practices
Governments utilize to drive employee performance, which
rest on the assumptions that public servants are motivated
in two ways: (i) ‘intrinsically’ (i.e. internal factors
motivated by ‘the right thing to do’), and (ii)
‘extrinsically’ (i.e., external validation from rewards
offered by others). Generally, a Human Resource Management
(HRM) system designed to motivate employee performance will
utilize practices in two broad categories related to: (i)
‘external incentives’ (e.g., financial incentives), and (ii)
‘opportunities to perform’ focusing on ‘intrinsic’ factors
(i.e. self-directed work). Within ‘external incentives,’ a
financial incentive may either act over the long term (e.g.,
deferred compensation) or in the short term (e.g.,
performance-related pay). This note applies this conceptual
framework to more clearly understand the range of practices
Governments are using to improve staff performance, as well
as the pre-conditions for their success. Given the recent
attention on performance-related pay, we take a deeper look
at the evidence underlying the shorter term
performance-related pay, reviewing evidence from both OECD
and middle income countries. Annex one provides a brief
overview on the theories of motivation for those interested
in the theoretical underpinnings of the work, and annex two
presents’ experiences of performance pay in practice. This
Note draws heavily from performance-related pay in the
public sector: A review of theory and evidence (Hasnain and
others 2012), a recent review of the literature in fields
including political science, public administration, business
management, and psychology. |
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