Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

Personnel and Performance Management 161
By itself this may not be a big problem, but it is very difficult for public managers
if they are expected to achieve results while following the same detailed
procedures as in the bureaucratic model. Management freedom to act does
need to be meaningful, but no-one can escape verification after the fact that
results have been achieved.
Another problem has been the idea of providing incentives by means of extra
pay. Even if performance pay is a good idea in the abstract, it has been hard to
implement in a fair and reasonable way. It could be used to reward favourites
and may cause resentment in those who consider themselves worthy of extra
reward but get none.
Finally, it still remains difficult to measure the performance of personnel in
the public sector, so that problems of unfairness are not likely to be solved. On
the other hand, it could be argued that ‘fairness’ in reward structures is a peculiarly
public service view of the world, that the private sector hardly has ‘fair’
reward structures and that some unfairness may be the price to be paid for
greater flexibility.
Performance management problems
Performance management has attracted a series of criticisms. While it is no
longer tenable for there to be no performance indicators, there is the hope that
improvements can be made.
Even the bottom line measure of financial performance in the private sector
is not a perfect measure of organizational performance. Performance measurement
is not easy anywhere and it is certainly the case that private organizations
use a variety of measures other than simply profit. Competition is probably
a more effective driving force than any form of measurement. Yet public organizations
are also competitors: competitors for scarce budgetary resources.
Governments wish to have some means for deciding which parts of their
operations are using resources well.
There are problems in the implementation of performance measurement.
It is difficult to design adequate measures of performance but as the remainder
of the managerial programme depends on this, making some progress is necessary.
There have also been problems in the type of performance indicators that
have been used thus far. Measures need to be meaningful but parsimonious and
to have a direct impact on the operations of that part of the public sector. Poorly
chosen performance measures may result in management being focused on
achieving satisfactory results by the measures used instead of the best possible
performance by the organization as a whole. In addition, despite the attractions
of a rigorous system of performance appraisal of staff in identifying both good
and bad performers, it is difficult to design a system that provides reliable
comparisons and is accepted by those involved. In many parts of the public
service it is hard to compare the performance of individual people in a fair and
comprehensive way. There are problems with implementation of performance