CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT WITHIN PUBLIC SECTOR
Introduction
The public sector has come been under immense pressure for the last two decades to provide efficient and effective services. This has necessitated the need to bring amendments to their systems (Waweru et al., 2007, p231). This has caused the non-profit sector to reform and develop to achieve competence, efficacy, and provide quality service to the public. Most of the administrations in the world have adopted modern methods of management like “decentralization,” taking clients feedback, offering quality service, and having flexibility (Sotirakou and Zeppou, 2006 p 123). Currently, there’s the increased application of performance measurement systems (PMS) that ensures excellence to their shareholders and customers (Karuhanga, 2010, p 56). PMS has gained prominence steadily, especially in developing countries. But, despite the gained fame in the use of PMS to evaluate public sector performance, it has become increasingly tough to undertake performance assessment, which has been contributed by several challenges. This issues among them include; multiple stakeholders, conflicting objectives, unquantifiable objectives etc. This paper seeks to explore the obstacles that hinder useful performance appraisal in the public segment.
Body
Lack of information is a significant contributor amongst the challenges that face the evaluation of public segment outcome. Most of the workers in the public sector are not aware of the Key performance indicators (KPI). The employees are not aware of how the KPIs contribute towards the organization goals. This situation leads to the organization having unclear goals with some of the objectives unquantifiable. This makes the task of measuring performance tough. When the sector has its Performance/outputs subjective ambiguous and challenging to quantify, it poses a challenge for the assessment to be done (Yap and Ferreira, 2010 P 76.). A case study carried out on the Indonesia public sector showed that 55% of the employees who worked in the public sector admitted they were “Not aware” of the organizational goals. In comparison, 76% confirmed they don’t did not their departmental KPIs (Eko, 2012, p34-36).
At another level, several studies have shown a disagreement on the application of performance assessment tools on providing services in the public sector. Research shows several restraints are related to the use of measurable tools and scales of increased effectiveness in the public sector (Lodge and Kalitowski, 2007). Furthermore, the UNDESA shows there exists a significant disagreement amongst the handling of bottom to top and the inverted feedback to customer feedback (United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, 2005). These reports show a sharp contrast that was focusing on short-range ambitions might clash with lasting targets of establishments in the public sector. Consequently, this may affect the aim of achieving measurable yields (e.g., attending to several clients) could clash to offer excellent service to the customers (e.g., attaining customer satisfaction in service delivery).
The public sector is diverse with knowledge and intangible resource that poses a significant challenge when assessment needs to be done. In the current economy, culture presents as a strategic resource and mainly in the communal division. The majority of procedures are on skills that are embedded in scholarly competence For improvement and measurement of this efficacy requires public sectors to adopt traditional methods of assessment while integrating newer means of general performance assessment (Jarrar and Schiuma, 2007 P 4-8). This will allow for the disclosure of intellectual capital that is important in the evaluation of the public sector. The assessment will lead to an evaluation of the quantitative and qualitative review of performance in the general segment. This is a new research area that needs to be explored in the assessment of the public sector (Behn, 2005, p 5-25).
Conclusion
This paper creates a sharper focus in the assessment of performance on the public sector by highlighting that management movement and evaluation in the public sector are irreversible. This is bought about by complex factors that affect the public sector. The essay has discussed some of the factors that create the challenges deterring assessment of functioning in the public sector. However, the current techniques and tools readily available for evaluation of public sector outcomes today are way far-off ready to perform the purpose of refining the public sector performance. This creates a significant gap that needs to be filled to counter the challenges of assessing the public sector performance. In conclusion, it’s essential to borrow a leaf on the methods that have been used and applied to the private sector and proved successful.
References
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