Experts of 8th Gaidar Forum on Motivation and Performance of State Officials

The 8th Gaidar Forum, a key political and economic event in Russia, hosted the panel discussion “Attaining Strategic Priorities: KPI and/or Personnel?” held by ACIG Group of Companies and Center for Strategic Research Foundation. Member of ACIG Group of Companies Board and Partner of Alliance Consulting Aleksey Shipov and Head of the Institutions and Society Division of the Center for Social Research Foundation Maria Shklyaruk moderated the panel.

Opening the discussion, Maria Shklyaruk stressed the relevance of the discussed topic: “The preparation of various policy instruments is underway, and many consider the public administration reform to be among the key priorities. The most relevant issues are the staff reform and implementation of strategic priorities. Today's debate will focus on these themes.”

The Presidential Decree “On the Federal Program “Reform and Development of the State Service of the Russian Federation (2009-2013)” introduced objectives of implementing effective technologies and modern personnel practices aimed at improvement of professional competence, motivation of civil servants and increase in effectiveness of their professional performance.

In the last meeting, officials from the public sector and educational community discussed the progress of execution of the decree and other similar documents. The meeting attendees highlighted current trends in effective human resources policy in the context of strategic priorities, and reviewed modern technologies in public personnel management.

Concluding the discussion, the experts showcased a roadmap of vital changes in public personnel management. They believe that modern Russia is dominated by negative perception of civil servants; also, there is a stereotype about inefficiency and poor quality of their work. The situation can be changed only by competent public workers designation, as well as building a corporate values system within the organizational structure. Along with this, the results of the panel’s work revised the civil service improvement proposal to be featured during the discussion on the national overall development strategy.

“Improving the effectiveness of the public administration system is a pillar of success of all proposed changes. At the plenary session, joined by Alexei Kudrin, the audience favored this, and the participants of our discussion agreed unanimously. The experts were asked what should be a starting point for the changes: the introduction of tools (procedures, regulations, IT, etc.) or work with people. Referring to the title of the debate, the answer followed, “Both KPI and personnel.” We managed to discuss the global context and specific management cases that helped introduce the proposed solutions to the subject area. There is no point in mentioning them all, so I will refer to one thesis, which, in my opinion, is a principal one: a civil servant must have desire to make a difference for our nation and people, “go down in history”. Once this thesis becomes a real cultural foundation for work in the public administration system, we will be able to confidently say that the changes were successful”, Aleksey Shipov summed up the discussion.

Oleg Polumordvinov

Head of Administration of Municipal Entity “The City of Astrakhan”

Having held the position of the head of Astrakhan for already one and a half years, I wish to point out that the main problem in the public administration boils down to the motivation of civil servants. Today, HR technologists are ready to bring along a public service motivation model to attract professionals to tackle any task.

Indisputably, increasing efficiency of the entire “vertical of power” deserves more attention, but, in my opinion, the most careful configuration of the government is required at the municipal level. This is because we, as are the closest officials to the people, and real life of the people and the local government are largely interconnected, so often the effectiveness of our actions arouses judgment of the competence of the whole state.

Practicing the city government, we use a unique mechanism, Astrakhan Development Fund. This is an example of strategic platform created by representatives of private and municipal organizations to attract the expert community and specialists with sought-after competencies. Such practices make it possible to pull together available resources to achieve the set goals promptly.

Andrey Chibis

Deputy Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation

I want to stress that the civil service reform is an important and necessary step towards economic breakthrough of our country. Along with colleagues from other departments, we have conducted an analysis of the HR policy and have come to the consensus: we should begin motivating civil servants by providing an internal culture and corporate values system, career opportunities based on personal success, as well as training programs aimed at developing and capitalizing of a person’s skills. It is necessary to bring about a system of regular testing to spot talents and reward them. In the case of a forthcoming downsizing, a civil servant must have an opportunity to change the professional activity by acquiring market-relevant competencies.

Leonid Vakhnin

Deputy Director of the Department of the State Policy in the Public and Municipal Services, Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation

The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection has done much work to implement requirements to civil servants in order to enhance the public service delivery. Above all, the ministry has developed and introduced a guidance to performance requirements that allows civil officials to navigate in their professional environment accurately. The document is an important component of the system of professional standards intended to assess and motivate our specialists.

Oleg Fomichev

Secretary of State - Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation

The transition to a new stage of economic development of modern-day Russia is only attainable if there are competent public servants who can perform this transition correctly. Functional actors are possible to be involved in forming a comprehensive image of the desired result that would ultimately correspond to the contemporary state of the national economy and social system.

Andrey Murga

Deputy Chairman of the Government of Stavropol Krai – Minister of Economic Development of Stavropol Krai

To enforce an effective HR management system, an applied approach must define inherent restrictions in order to successfully meet the set goals. Only a detailed analysis, management decisions addressing systemic barriers, programs for career growth and incentives, along with a clear understanding of industry specifics will help us optimize the process and achieve the desired in the shortest possible time.

The krai’s governor Vladimir Vladimirov pays special attention to building human resource capacity. The project “New Energy. Professional Team of Stavropol Krai”, initiated by the head of the region, has been successfully working in Stavropol Krai. This is a serious, multi-step selection of qualified personnel. The project leaders attend coaching sessions to develop management skills. The winners get priority employment in government institutions or receive assistance in project activities addressing the development of the krai.

Savva Shipov

Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation

Thinking over finding the people who are willing to work in the public service it is most necessary to clearly define what skills and competencies we look for in an expert. A human resource database is necessary to be founded based on preliminary analysis of the profiles of the candidates who wish to assert themselves in the field of public administration. Along with this, it is crucial to build a proper portrait of the government to illustrate esteem and relevance of such employment.

Aleksey Potapkin

Advisor to the Rector of Moscow State University of Management under the Government of Moscow

Learning from the university’s experience of introducing advanced human resource technologies in the public sector, I shall highlight a few general solutions to their successful implementation. Firstly, reduce excessive regulatory burdens at the federal level, simultaneously provide HR training and methodological support for staff professional activities. Secondly, establish a progressive HR department capable to improve personnel policy. Thirdly, expand the freedom of federal bodies in implementing personnel procedures as a response to demand. The use of progressive HR technologies can solve a number of key tasks, without prejudice to a leader’s inherent rights to assign decisions to subordinates.

Vladimir Kompaneyshikov

Chief of Governer’s Office of the Omsk Oblast

If you study the issue from the perspective of the characteristics of existing public sector specialists, I can note a number of issues that are relevant to each region. However many professional ambitions we have, we are too instrumental and keen to adopt procedures, rather then thinking and laying the thought in the basis of a communicative system. Leadership competencies and their expansion remain relevant to us. Until a public servant knows all his strengths and weaknesses, the situation will remain unchanged. I urge each of us to change ourselves in anticipation of global change.

Dmitry Yalov

Vice Governor of the Leningrad Oblast for Economy and Finance

Today, when introducing a system of project management at the regional and federal level, we often face the fact that there is no way to automate chaos. Tight project management fails in the absence of a working strategy. In this case, it is necessary to generate a system that will enable management of strategy implementation tools, help reset public programs and change budgeting policy at the municipal level. It is essential to embed into the system a complex for introduction of management technologies and increasing the efficiency of process management. The way to changes in the public administration is through an HR revolution, clear description of priorities and establishment of a system for bringing the strategy to life.

Timur Atnashev

Senior Researcher at the Center for Public Policy and Public Administration of RANEPA

Today, we note the diversity of practices and public service tasks, and this stimulates widespread fragmentation and phasing of processes locally. These changes cannot be predicted and regulated. However, along with the restrictions there exist actual working practices for the development of workforce policies in the public sector. One of such solutions is the “soft filter” method that suggests implementing staffing technologies in small bits where they are in demand.