Christoph Demmke Gerhard Hammerschmid Renate Meyer 49th Meeting of the Directors General Responsible for Public Administration Lisbon, 10th December 2007 The Impact of Individual Assessments on Organizational Performance in the Public Services of EU Member States Results of the Study Christoph Demmke Gerhard Hammerschmid Renate Meyer

Method and Response Rate Innovative approach combining established form of national questionnaire first-time online-version to survey managers’ perspective Answers from 23 EU Member States plus Norway plus statement from Luxembourg Answers from 135 managers in 17 Member States Analyses: Closed and open answers of both samples Comparison of both samples By categorisations to look for similarities/differences with regard to administrative traditions, HR-systems and degree of centralisation of performance assessment system

Great Variety of Systems in Europe

Trends Towards Individualisation? Majority of countries with common system for all categories of staff Differentiated systems mostly for senior/top executive level

Relevance of Context Centralised systems only in South European, Eastern European countries resp. countries with career-based systems Traditional systems mostly in Southern/Eastern European countries, career-based countries and countries with central p.a. systems Strong dominance of common systems in Central/Eastern European countries, career-based countries and centralised p.a. systems

Leadership Challenges

A Broad Spectrum of Managers’ Objections

Managers’ Objections – National Differences

High Relevance of Leadership Challenges

How to manage poor performance?

Alignment of organisational and individual performance assessment

Alignment achieved only to a low degree

Effects of Assessment Systems and Satisfaction Levels

Effects of Performance Assessment Systems

Assessment of Effects – National Differences More positive picture in Anglo-Saxon & Scandinavian countries; position-based systems; countries with decentralised assessment systems

Differences in Managers’ Overall Satisfaction Much higher satisfaction in countries with decentralised systems No significant differences between HR-systems

Consequences and Perspectives Decentralisation trend confirmed; fragmentation/individualisation not High relevance of administrative traditions and different public service structures on design, implementation and effects of performance assessment systems in Europe Broad spectrum of challenges relevant in practice Communication, involvement & feedback as central success factors Countries with centralised and traditional assessment systems face more challenges and lower satisfaction New insights through managers’ perspective/experiences Need to also include perspective/experiences of employees „It takes time, maybe even years, for a performance system to be fully embedded in an organisation; but with good leadership and commitment from the top, this will eventually happen“ (answer from Ireland)