January - June 2008 - Kenya Agricultural Research Institute

KARI Initiates Performance Based Evaluation
of Research Scientists for 2008 Promotions
By Festus M. Murithi and Mercy W. Kamau, KARI Headquarters
Performance based evaluation is considered the best
and most objective method of evaluating staff in an
organisation for purposes of rewarding good
performers and sanctioning the poor ones. The KARI
Human Resources Strategy and the Scheme of Service
recommends the institutionalisation and regularisation of
performance based evaluation for all cadre of staff in the
Institute. Towards this end, KARI has adopted the annual
appraisal for all staff, the mandatory signing of a
Performance Contracts (PC) for all staff in Job group “J”
and above, and the Performance based Evaluation of the
research scientists.
Since research scientists play a critical role in
accomplishing the mission of a research organisation such
as KARI, their evaluation should be elaborate, objective
and impartial. Any rewards or sanctions for research
scientists should therefore be based on an objective
performance based evaluation.
The KARI Management initiated performance based
evaluation of its research scientists in 1997 and
implemented the first performance based promotions in
2001. The second evaluation exercise was carried out in
2002 but the results were not implemented. The Institute
has however continued to promote scientists upon
attainment of higher degree qualifications. The
management plans to evaluate and promote research
scientists based on their performance this year.
The management considers that qualitative attributes
are important when considering staff for higher levels of
management/leadership responsibilities. The Institute is
therefore in the process of institutionalising the annual
appraisal of its entire staff through some qualitative
assessment criteria. The appraisal considers 10 qualitative
attributes which the immediate supervisor uses to assess
staff working under him/her on a scale of 1-5. The ten
criteria considered are: quality of work; quantity of work;
cooperation; knowledge of the job; dependability;
attendance and punctuality to duty; knowledge of the
Institute’s policy and objectives; initiative and judgment;
KARI scientists in a planning session in one of the programmes
supervisory, leadership and technical potential; and work
ethics. The annual appraisal will be considered as part of
the overall evaluation and will contribute 20% of the final
score.
All officers designated as research scientists in their
letter of appointments, including those on approved leave
of absence and study leave, will be expected to complete
the evaluation forms and provide scores for the various
outputs as given in the criteria form and then return to the
Centre Director within a specified period. Scores for the
Annual Appraisal will be obtained from the Centres and
appended to the scientist’s evaluation form. Officers in
managerial positions (Centre Directors and Programme
Officers) have the option to be evaluated as research
scientists if they so wish or wait to be evaluated as
managers.
Each Centre Director will constitute a Centre Scientists’
Evaluation Committee (CSEC) of five members (Centre
Director, Deputy Centre Director, Centre Personnel officer
and two senior scientists) to verify the outputs and scores
for each scientist in their respective Centres. The verified
forms will be sent to KARI Headquarters to be further
verified by the Headquarters Research Scientists
Evaluation Committee (RSEC).
The scores from the quantitative evaluation form and
the annual appraisal will be weighted appropriately (i.e.
multiplying by 0.80, and 0.20, respectively) and a final
score for each scientist will be determined. Those
scientists to be considered for promotion will be identified
using the cut-off score for each Job Grade and then
recommended for promotion.
It is planned that the promotions would be effected
soon after the evaluation is completed. Each Research
Programme will be allocated a certain number of the senior
positions of Chief Research Officers (CROs - RI 14) and
Senior Principal Research Officers (SPRO – RI 13) after
the establishment for each programme is determined.
Those who meet the minimum qualifications for the senior
positions in every programme will be interviewed by the
Board of Management. This will ensure that each of the
major programmes will have some officers in the senior
positions of CROs and/or SPROs and those positions
will be filled only when there is a vacancy in the particular
programme. Scientists will continue to be promoted to the
other grades (below SPRO) as they qualify.
Since the last evaluation was conducted sometimes
back (about seven years ago), the current evaluation will
be taken to be a baseline upon which subsequent
evaluations will build on. This implies that in the
subsequent evaluations, researchers will only be required
to indicate the incremental outputs generated after this
evaluation. It is anticipated that the evaluation will be
institutionalised to be conducted regularly at an interval
of three years.
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