Staff Management and Organisational Performance in Tanzania and Uganda: Public Servant Perspectives

Ole Therkildsen & Per Tidemand together with a group of Tanzanian and Ugandan researchers/consultants

ISBN: 978-87-7605-200-3 (the report)
ISBN: 978-87-7605-201-0 (the appendices)

Download the report (pdf, 840 KB)
Download the appendices (pdf, 950 KB)

Staff management and organisational performance in Tanzania and Uganda: Public servant perspectives

How may poor countries with limited budgets improve their public sector performance through better Human Resources Management (HRM)?
How may donors assist?

The short answer to Question 1 is – generally speaking – that Public Sector Organisational Performance=Merit + Motivation + Management + Context

The short answer to Question 2 is that donors should

help governments focus more on the three M-factors.

Moreover, donors could reduce their own negative impact on organisational performance by:

not creating well funded islands of plenty inside or outside resource starved public organizations;
not contributing to ‘unfair’ pay differentials within and between public organisations;
not distorting fragile labour markets by funding significantly better conditions in embassies, NGOs, vertical funds and other ‘modern’ versions of parallel donor driven management set-ups.

These short answers are derived from a Danida funded policy study comparing relatively well and poorly performing organisations (ministries, executive agencies and local governments) in Tanzania and Uganda in 2006. The study is inspired by the fact that performance differs significantly between public organisations in these two countries (as in most other countries). This cries out for explanation.

However, most current writings on the public sector in Africa do not provide such explanations. Indeed, performance differentials are often ignored because all employees are assumed to be motivated by narrow self-interest only; current merit practices of staff management are regarded as questionable everywhere; staff is said to be poorly managed; and patrimonial norms are assumed to be pervasive.

This study presents a more differentiated picture. It is inspired by the human relations theory in organisational studies, which holds that organisational performance depends to a significant extent on the employees and the practices used to hire, promote and fire, and to motivate and manage them (as perceived by the employees themselves). Differences in these factors explain much of the performance differences between organisations.

The empirical results of the study confirm that to improve organizational performance, staff must be hired, fired, promoted, and transferred on merit principles. But employees without motivation (intrinsic and/or extrinsic) will not fulfil organisational mandates. Moreover, the organization’s management must also help to structure work appropriately and to encourage cooperation, communication and meaningful jobs. Performance also depends on the context – the ‘enabling environment’ and norms prevailing (self-interest, dedication to family and ethnic group, patronage, service to the country, donor behaviour, etc).

These factors interact. Merit based recruitment does not enhance performance if employees are unmotivated; staff management and the political and economic context may influence motivation; etc. Each factor must therefore be studied in relation to the specific organization and country in question.

Of course, there is more to the improvement of organizational performance than this: resources for investment and implementation; competitive pressure; accountability mechanisms, adequacy of budgets etc. The study does not ignore these factors, but the emphasis is on merit, motivation, staff management, and certain features of the context for HRM which, apart from pay (that is very important for motivation), are often neglected in current public sector reforms.

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