1. Christoph Demmke Gerhard Hammerschmid Renate Meyer
49th Meeting of the Directors General Responsible for Public Administration Lisbon, 10th December 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

2. 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

3. Great Variety of Systems in Europe

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

5. 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

6. Leadership Challenges

7. A Broad Spectrum of Managers’ Objections

8. Managers’ Objections – National Differences

9. High Relevance of Leadership Challenges

10. How to manage poor performance?

11. Alignment of organisational and individual performance assessment

12. Alignment achieved only to a low degree

13. Effects of Assessment Systems and Satisfaction Levels

14. Effects of Performance Assessment Systems

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

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

17. 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)