New appraisal system planned for government employees from 2022

Muscat: The Ministry is planning a new appraisal system for  employees from 2022, a senior official at the Ministry of Labour said on Tuesday.

Sayyid Salim bin Mussalam bin Ali Al Busaidi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labour for Human Resources Development said that they are planning to schedule the official launch of the individual evaluation system by the beginning of 2022 and the evaluation of the employees in 2022 would be on the basis of the new system.

He also said that the third quarter of this year has seen remarkable efforts in terms of creation of real job opportunities for the Omani youth in various sectors.

“We have real initiatives for qualifying and training and for creation of job opportunities and I expect that we would be ahead of the plan and would achieve more opportunities ahead of schedule,” he said in a statement to Times of Oman’s sister Arabic publication, Al Shabiba.

He said that “the restructuring of the administrative apparatus of the state is one of the key enablers of Oman Vision 2040 and we hope to complete restructuring of all government entities within a month as only six institutions are yet to restructured out of thirty six government institutions”

On the individual performance and institutional excellence systems, he said that some fifty seven government bodies would be subjected to the individual performance and institutional excellence system.

He said that the individual performance system would apply to all employees at all job levels and on the basis of smart goals that can be re-measured. This system is planned to be ready by next year.

The credibility of this system stems from the incentives associated with it, he added.
“We are planning to schedule the official launch of the individual evaluation system by the beginning of 2022 and the evaluation of the employees in 2022 would be on the basis of the new system” he said.

The new system is globally used and applies to ministers and undersecretaries without any human intervention as the employee’s accomplished work would be continually required to be entered in the system.

He reaffirmed that with this electronic system there would be no chance for personal intervention and no official can intervene in the performance of any employee.

Regrading the challenges expected to face the project, he said that “Any human project is faced with challenges and the system is established on partnership as there would be an agreement between the employee and the official , a written document on the targeted goals to be signed at the beginning of the year by the employee and official”. There would be flexibility in revising the targeted goals as there may arise any circumstances beyond the control of the employee which require revision of the goals, he added.

He said that the current evaluation system of employees was established on personal basis. We should not have fears in terms of the new system as we now have 15 government entities applying objective evaluation systems. The new system would ensure fairness in assignment of tasks, he added.
According to the globally followed system, amounts for incentive should be annually allocated.
In the old appraisal system, all get promoted in a certain year or years and get the same annual allowances with a few who get exceptional incentives, he said.

In the new system, there would be no group promotions and there is a category that gets annual promotions in accordance with the annual financial allocations available for each entity.
On the institutional excellence system, he said that this system is for evaluation of the performance of the ministries and institutions in accordance with international criteria including innovation among other criteria.

He also reaffirmed that the Ministry of Labour designs the system and is not concerned with the evaluation of the performance of the ministries, as there are intuitions tasked with this responsibility and role, including the Oman Vision 2040 Implementation and Follow Up Unit, as per a Royal Decree.
This role may be assigned later to State Administrative and Financial Audit Institution and the Council of Ministers (State Council & Majlis A’Shura). He also hoped that the Institutional Excellence System would be ready by 2023.