‘Harmonisation of salaries should be consultative’

Malawi Government is today launching the Public Service Reforms Agenda. One of the sticky recommendations of the service commission is the harmonisation of salaries in the public service. ALBERT SHARRA caught up with Chancellor College public administration professor Lewis Dzimbiri to unpack what this change would entail.

Q: How should we understand harmonisation of salaries?          

A: Pay is a key factor affecting relationships at work. The level and distribution of pay and benefits can have a considerable effect on the efficiency of any organisation, and on the morale and productivity of the workforce. It is, therefore, vital that organisations develop pay systems that are appropriate for them, that provide value for money, and that reward workers fairly for the work they perform.

Harmonisation offers opportunities to organisations to evaluate and harmonise their pay systems. Harmonisation is an attempt to give the same terms and conditions to all workers in the organisation. They often include integrated job evaluation schemes and may have elements of competency/skill-based incentives. Done well, harmonisation can help to break down barriers, increase flexibility, and help the organisation realise equality in pay issues and therefore, gain higher levels of motivation, positive psychological contract, employee engagement and increased worker productivity than is the case where deep inequalities exist.

Q

: Is government’s proposal to harmonise salaries in the public service justified?

A

:  As an employer of people working in various institutions like ministries, government departments, commissions and oversight bodies, let alone parastatals, the Malawi Government is indeed justified to undertake a salary harmonisation exercise to ensure equity, efficiency, and to increase opportunities for staff motivation and retention and enhance its credibility by demonstrating qualities of an employer of first choice. Organisations, including the wider public service, require constant review of its human resource management systems, including reward management policies and practices to ensure that these contribute to the attraction, retention and productivity of a competent labour force to achieve national development. After all, the human resource is the most valuable of all resource in any organisation.

Q

: Harmonisation of salaries for government employees has happened in many countries before. What lessons can be drawn for Malawi and what advice can you give to the government?

A

:  Yes, while new in Malawi, harmonisation has been and continues to be implemented in other countries, including the UK, Kenya and Tanzania, just to mention a few. There are a lot of lessons Malawi can draw from these countries.

To begin with, salary harmonisation is easier when dealing with employees covered by the same conditions of employment, but have different grades, benefits and salary bands. It is an uphill task when harmonisation involves employees in different occupational groupings with their own service commissions and use different terms and conditions of employment relating to recruitment, appointments, promotion, reward system and discipline.

Another important point to note is that without an effective job evaluation to grade jobs in terms of relative worth regarding the demand for a job in relation to skills variety, intellectual rigour and the nature of exercise of levels of intellectual capital involved, degree of severity of impact of decisions made, responsibility over people and assets, task significance, among others in a systematic manner, harmonisation will be adhoc, often without merit, and can be a potential source of deepening hostility between the employer and the employee, thereby affecting industrial peace, worker productivity; hence, national development.

Q

: What would government have to do to make the process a success?

A

:  A successful harmonisation system is one in which workers and their representatives are involved in its design and implementation. Every opportunity should be made for participation and contribution. This is often through joint working parties, steering groups, or already existing trade unions, joint consultative committee or works council. A good system is the joint responsibility of management, workers and trade unions/representatives.

I find the guidelines documented by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Services (ACAS, 2006) of the United Kingdom, extremely useful in this context: a) Avoid most potential problems with a systematic, well timed and carefully planned approach. b) Involve the workforce, or its representatives, as much as possible. c) Re-examine the reasons for change and take advice both inside and outside the organisation. d) Do not just discard the existing system- take stock through discussions to enable the organisation to keep the good and change the less good. e) Identify what the new system is required to do and how it relates to the organisation’s overall objectives. f) Look at the possible new systems and consider which might best suit the particular organisation, with or without alteration. g) Changes to pay make people anxious, and so the new system should be kept simple and agreed with the workforce and their representatives. h) Prepare the way carefully with briefings to the workforce and management. Look out for any changes to differentials and relativities. Document the system and if possible run it for a trial period.

Q

: Any additional comment?

A

:  I would suggest that issues surrounding harmonisation be highly consultative and carefully handled to avoid breeding dissatisfaction and morale problems which are not good for effective service delivery. A careful cost-benefit analysis be done to come up with benefits to be had and costs to be incurred, then compare with the current system of reward management before proceeding with the harmonisation. Furthermore, harmonisation across service commissions needs even more careful handling since the persons affected are outside the main stream civil service and they have independent mandates of their own much as they are government creatures surviving on public funds.