MPPO Case 4: Performance-Based Pay in the Buildings Department (MEMO)

  

The Task

 

You are the Departmental Secretary of the Buildings Department and have been asked by Assistant Director Pang to identify three or at most four individuals that could receive a merit award so that he will be prepared for his meeting with Leung. The memo should include an introduction setting out the issues and briefly indicating the recommendations; the background; and detailed justifications for your recommendations.

  

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION CRITERIA

 

Accomplishment of job

Work relationships with co-workers

Dependability and reliability

Gathers and uses information

Job knowledge and technical competence

Punctuality

Affirmative action

Work relationships with other departments/divisions/sections, clients and public

Imagination and initiative

Oral communication

Makes decisions and/or recommendations within the scope of the position

Meets deadlines

Cost consciousness

Written communication

Quantity of work

Safety

Supervision

  

MPPO Case 4

 

PERFORMANCE-BASED PAY IN THE BUILDINGS DEPARTMENT

Ten months ago Chief Building Surveyor SK Leung became head of Section A of the Existing Buildings Division 1 of the Buildings Department. His mandate was to improve the service to owners and occupants of existing buildings in the South side of Hong Kong and in particular to ‘reduce dangers and nuisances caused by unauthorized building works and advertisement signboards; promote proper repairs and maintenance of old buildings, drainage and slopes; consider and approve alteration and addition works; improve fire safety measures in buildings and provide advice on the suitability of premises for the issue of licenses for specified commercial uses’. Section A was one of three Sections in Division 1. Other divisions looked after Kowloon and the New Territories and new buildings.

 

Leung judged most people in the Section to be competent professionals. They were a close knit group with a lot of personal loyalty to each other, but not to the work facing the Section. Part of his charge when appointed to this position was to try to raise the level of productivity and activity in the group. Previous management had been criticized for passivity and inconsistency in managing the Section.

 

It was time to determine annual merit pay rises under the Department’s personnel system. In two weeks Leung was to attend a meeting of all Section heads in the Department at which decisions regarding the distribution of merit awards would be made. His boss, TC Pang, an Assistant Director, would chair the meeting. A few days ago Pang had explained to Leung how the merit system worked.

 

‘It’s very simple and has worked very well for us over the years. Here’s how we do it: Rate your people according to the performance appraisal criteria (see below) and identify your top people. Bring up to four names of individuals you think deserve a merit increase. About three people in each Section will receive a merit increase.’ Others would receive whatever cost-of-living adjustment was approved by the government.

 

Leung had developed a management philosophy over the years that included a commitment to give employees honest and timely feedback about their job performance. In keeping with this approach, he had conducted mid-year feedback sessions with each of the 21 employees in the Section. These discussions were more or less like performance reviews, but there was a lot of give and take and money was not an issue. He purposely held those meetings outside of the normal appraisal/merit pay cycle. With a few exceptions, the sessions had gone very well and the staff responded positively both in their subsequent work performance and by their favorable comments to co-workers and to Leung regarding the sessions. Each person left the meetings with a clear idea of aspects of their work on which to concentrate on sustaining or improving. Leung was committed to help them as needed. A typical comment was, ‘No one’s ever taken that sort of interest in my work.’

 

Most employees noted that their appraisals in past years consisted of the Section head’s secretary bringing them a completed appraisal form and asking them to sign it right away since it was ‘due this afternoon in the personnel office.’ A few days later merit raises would be announced.

 

Charles Ko, a long time employee respected for his perspective and wry observations, said ‘people are always depressed around here in the three months after merit raises are announced.’

Most employees had no idea how the distribution of merit increases was determined. Leung had been unable to discern how the process worked until he pinned his boss Pang down. Now he knew and had read through the forms and regulations. He set about determining (1) how to carry out the process of rating people according to the regulations of the system; (2) how to prepare for Pang’s merit raise meeting; and (3) how to continue providing useful feedback to the staff as he had last spring. How would he decide which four people to recommend for the merit awards?

 

Leung’s greatest concerns were to avoid the post-merit-award ‘depression’ that Charles Ko referred to, continue to have productive discussions with employees about their work, and to have the merit raises send a useful signal to her staff. What steps could he take under the Department’s system to meet these goals? With 21 people, only three merit raises to give out, and four nominees, it would be difficult to both choose and explain the decision. He began to think about who might be in the running.

  

The following 10 people were left after his ‘first cut’:

 

Charles:  As a Survey Officer, Charles had been working in the Section for nine years. Lack of professional qualification in building surveying kept him out of the higher prestige Building Surveyor grade. He was extremely conscientious, has an excellent institutional memory, and paid good attention to detail. He had made good use of the relationships he’d built up all around the government in the interest of the Section. His salary was MPS 17. At the top of the Survey Officer salary range and apparently blocked from the higher paying Building Surveyor grade, he has received merit raises for the last three years.

 

Mary: As a contract employee, a year ago a successful grievance gave Mary an incremental salary increase to Master Pay Scale (MPS) 23 after four years in post. She was an outspoken critic of the personnel system, citing what she saw as its discrimination against professional contract employees, most of whom were women. Although she could be creative and insightful, she had been worn down by the fight for a promotion and her anger and low morale had been affecting others in the Section for years prior to and since the resolution of the grievance. In talking about merit raises, Doreen thought that ‘fairness’ should be an important criterion for the merit raise decision.

 

Bob: With the Section for six years, Bob had held other jobs previously in the Department. He was a Building Surveyor and was paid at MPS 38. Bob was generally not very happy lately since he recently came in second for a promotion to Senior Building Surveyor in another Section. He is well regarded in the Section, but is unhappy about being passed over for promotion and this has affected his work.

 

Edward: New to the Section as a transfer 6 months ago from another Section. Edward was the lowest paid employee at MPS 18. He was considered by his peers to have been really badly treated prior to Leung’s arrival by being assigned to lead a very politically sensitive and technically complicated project with high stress, loneliness, and a lot of conflict. Although he worked diligently during his seven hours, he consistently refused to coordinate with co-workers or with the Lands Department, often resulting in confusion and a lot of rewriting of policies. His salary concerned him since he and his wife had to raise three small daughters.

 

Frank: He has been living year-to-year for five years in the Section as Building Safety Officer, a non-civil service contract post. His wife was employed with a local firm as a secretary, but was considering taking some time to have a family. Because he was not a ‘regular’ employee, he was ineligible for the fringe benefits that most of the other employees enjoyed, but was eligible under the system for a merit raise. Frank frequently handled sensitive matters related to the inspection of illegal structures and was consistent in his ‘can-do’ attitude and willingness to spend long hours solving problems. He was generally well regarded for his judgment on intertwined political and technical issues. His interdepartmental approach to his assignment was a skill that would be a useful characteristic to develop in other staff, many of whom viewed issues in strictly technical terms. Most perceived that good work ‘came naturally’ to him. His was paid at MPS 22.

 

Andrew: He was employed by the Section for nine years as Assistant Building Surveyor and then Building Surveyor and had no merit raises in five years. His was paid at MPS 34. He served largely as a liaison person, a complex and thankless task. His view of the process was: ‘The high paid people have been passed-over for years on this merit raise stuff.’ That is, in his view the highest paid people wouldn’t get a merit raise no matter how good they were.

 

James: An independent, reliable, top-notch building surveyor, James was paid at MPS 38. The last merit raise he received was four years ago, a year after being hired into the Section. He was bored with his work after years of poor supervision and not feeling appreciated. James had been discreetly job-hunting for about a year. Leung had talked with him about task reassignments to bring him new challenges, and he had shown interest in that. Leung hoped he wouldn’t quit before a challenging reassignment could be found.

 

Fred: The ‘old-timer’ of the group, Fred was paid at MPS 44 at the top of the Building Surveyor rank. His work showed inattention to detail, little interest in parallel issues, and laziness with respect to deadlines, procedures and inter-agency relations. Despite his disinterest, with two children in university and three others growing up, Fred wasn’t about to seek a new job. On the other hand, Fred felt that: ‘Personality clashes have kept me from getting top-notch assignments, but I do the best I can with what I’ve got. Yet it seems that merit raises always go to Pang’s pets. If there was something in it, maybe some of the rest of us could get motivated.’

 

Mark: A transferee from another Section one and a half years ago, Mark had not been eligible for a merit raise the last two years as his tenure in each position was too short. His current salary was at MPS 20. Mark worked quietly without a lot of fresh ideas or political sensitivity, but with a great attention to accuracy and a real willingness to learn. Recently Mark had taken to staying after hours to talk with Leung about the Section’s mission and his ideas on working more closely with other Sections in order to avoid duplication of efforts and encourage more coherent policy. Those conversations seemed to often translate into results.

 

Sophie: Self-effacing and with low self-esteem, Sophie worked harder for longer hours than anyone – and with good results. She had been promoted to Building Surveyor (MPS 30) during the past year on the coattails of Mary’s grievance. Sophie had taken on larger and larger responsibilities at a fast rate over the past year and was generally respected by all those within and outside the division with whom she had contact. But Sophie had little idea of her value to the Section.

 

Source: Adapted from the Electronic Hallway.

 

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