Author: Luciano Pires

Source: Correio Braziliense, 04/05/2009

With a delay, the Brazilian public administration tries to adapt to the new times. Inspired by good practices that worked in the private sector, the machine (read the federal one) begins to introduce management tools in its daily life that value individual and institutional results, reward meritocracy and professionalism. After many attempts at State reform, moving now towards full governance proves that providing quality services has to be seen as something elementary and not as a mere luxury item delivered by the civil servants to the taxpayer.

More than at other times, the server's ability to go beyond, to innovate, to learn to compete and (why not?) To be rewarded at the end of the month for everything it has achieved is at stake. At the same time, those in leadership positions have a historic chance and a moral duty to help bury the paternalism rooted in the offices from colonial Brazil. Turning a blind eye to incompetence costs the nation dearly. And not only. It serves as an elixir to the false common sense that, however big the gestures, the addicted and personalist system always wins.

The ball is with the heads, subordinates, but also with the State itself. “You need to maximize efficiency and optimize costs. Not only in the public sector. In any activity. The path to development lies in the redesign of the processes ”, says businessman Jorge Gerdau, founder of the Movimento Brasil Competitivo (MBC) and a born enthusiast who believes that all is not lost. In other words, what Gerdau proposes is to do more (or the same) with less and much better.

Calm down, unions!

Before throwing the usual stones - so worn out by time and committed to the vices of the palanquism - it is worth knowing examples that are working. See the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Inmetro). There, the employee is worth how much he weighs. And no one is ashamed or afraid to look in the mirror. Instead.

Something unprecedented in the country, the municipality has a management contract signed with the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade. The term has been renewed year after year and guarantees the organ administrative and managerial autonomy. The counterpart is performance goals. “Nobody likes to see the colleague on the side doing nothing, receiving his salary and tarnishing the name of the civil service as a whole”, sums up the president of Inmetro, professor João Jornada, with great propriety.

Embryo

The formula is simple, but it is based on the powerful tripod of effectiveness-efficiency-efficiency. The performance evaluation of Inmetro's employees begins with the presentation of individual work plans, set up by the employee and discussed / presented to the managers. In this document, the professional outlines, in a lean way, his goals and shows how he intends to fulfill them. "It's planning, stupid!", Would say the legendary marketer of former US President Bill Clinton, James Carville.

If the work plan is too audacious, the employee is charged by the boss. If, instead, the proposal is “half-assed”, it takes a tug of ears. A Performance Evaluation Committee monitors everything closely, including the progress of projects. And here is a parenthesis. This committee is formed, for the most part, by specialists from outside the organization, that is: the dreaded external evaluation of the civil servant already occurs. And the world didn't end because of that, by the way!

Judging body, the committee - formed by more or less 20 representatives - resolves the impasses, gives verdicts. The plan receives a note that, at the end of the day, will indicate the maximum or minimum to be added to the variable portion of the employee's remuneration. The proposal is monitored periodically and if the employee feels wronged for having received a low grade, he has full right to appeal to the committee. "We have cases of 100% earnings gains," says the president of Inmetro, which employs around 1,5 civil servants.

The idea has worked so well that it will be expanded to other organs of direct public administration. Throughout 2009, strategic areas of the Union will copy what was done by Inmetro. The management secretary of the Ministry of Planning, Marcelo Viana, anticipates that there are mature institutions ready to take this leap. "We want to encourage the introduction of sophisticated mechanisms like this in areas of Science and Technology, in bodies linked to the productive sector and foreign trade", he justifies. Viana believes that the moment could not be better, since 2009 is considered the national year of management. “Inmetro is our pilot project, it is at the forefront. I'm sure that with this we will be able to touch important processes ”, he completes.

Linking part of the paycheck to the performance of a professional is not a crime. Performance evaluation tools in the public sector are much less the offspring of neoliberalism. The old Public Service Administrative Department (Dasp), created in 1938, took the first steps to prevent the image of the jacket on the chair from denigrating the server. History shows that the attempt failed. In the name of the emerging bureaucracy - overqualified and committed to the country - it is time to make up for lost time.