Performance Evaluation as a Tool for Improving Attractiveness and Competitiveness of Public Sector as Employer

Abstract

This paper focuses on the role that performance evaluation plays in increasing attractiveness and competitiveness of public sector organizations as employers, towards private sector organizations and also between different public sector organizations. Management control systems are characterized by subsystems such as planning, production, measurement, evaluation and incentive and reward. The right operating of management control systems, as tools for the achievement of organizational objectives, asks for the functioning of all subsystems and the links among them, at different levels according to the type and dimension of the organization. Management control systems have first developed in private sector organizations, but started to spread also in the public sector, even if in an embryonic way. Several objectives are assigned to evaluation systems, such as, for example, performance evaluation or the evaluation of the potential of employees and managers and the evaluation of policies and programs. One of the subsystems of management control systems is the production which, in the traditional input-output model use production factors to realize goods and services. One of the most important production factors for public sector organizations, traditionally considered labour-intensive, are human resources. Personnel recruitment and retention is, therefore, a strategic element for public sector organizations as well. The issue of recruitment and retention of human resources in public sector organizations, in many countries, has been faced without a deep concern for the arising competition in the labour market, towards both private and other public sector organizations. Setting aside recruitment procedures, in some countries more difficult and bureaucratised, in the past scarce attention has been paid to the difficulties that public sector organizations face in recruiting employees. Recent studies, however, begin to show that such belief is not longer true, at least under certain circumstances: many public sector organizations, in many countries in the world, have to compete with both private and other public sector organizations to find the most capable and qualified subjects. In this framework of increasing competition in the labour market between public and private sector organizations, and within the public sector as well, arises, for public sector organizations, the need to introduce deep changes to raise the level of competitiveness and attractiveness as employers. The assumption here presented is that the introduction and management of a performance evaluation system is a powerful management tool to foster recruitment, growth and retention of the human resources public sector organizations need.