Organization

Visayas State University

Best Practice Focus Area/s

Human Resource

Year Implemented

2012

This is a Recognized Best Practice

Summary

The VSU SPMS is an organized, systematic, and standardized system for evaluating delivery units and their employees within the department concerned. It is administered to continuously foster organizational effectiveness; and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the faculty and staff in their instruction, research, extension, production, and other functions assigned to them by the University President. The system is administered by the university’s Performance Management Team (PMT) following the rules, regulations, and standards established by the Civil Service Commission per CSC Memorandum Circular No. 6, series of 2012, and other policies issued by the commission.

With the guidelines issued by CSC, the university immediately crafted its own (BCLIBC)SPMS and conducted a 3-day workshop to prepare the list of Major Final Outputs (MFOs) and Success Indicators. The VSU SPMS, the required forms, Table of MFOs, and Success Indicators were submitted to the Civil Service Commission and were approved on 8 October 2012. The VSU SPMS improved university performance and its employees with a series of orientations and target-setting workshops.

Background and Problem

In 2010-11, the university used the Performance Management-Office Performance Evaluation System (PMS-OPES) of the CSC, which assigns a points system per activity of one (1) hour spent in one training equivalent to 1 point. However, the university met the following challenges using the PMS-OPES:

  1. Time-consuming and tedious system. Calibrating and computing points was a time-consuming and tedious process. The system promoted an activity-oriented mindset because tangible outputs that required greater points mattered the most. It failed to account for the service that was not delivered or demands could not be satisfied, as these concerns were overshadowed by the goal to acquire points simply. The original goal of showing the connection between individual and organizational performance was not met. While drawing objective measures effectively, the points system approach was not widely implemented.
  2. Discouragement. A performance appraisal needs encouragement, positive reinforcement, and celebrating a year’s worth of accomplishments. PMS-OPES did not show how an employee’s performance has contributed to or hindered organization effectiveness. The employees were also rarely given feedback on their performance. It emphasizes more on activities and does not focus on the desired effect of activity. Employees tend to focus on counting the number of activities per time they perform. The employees become concerned about performing more activities and, in most cases, no longer care if it impacts the university.
  3. Inconsistent message. As a performance evaluation system, employees did not care about organizational effectiveness in PMS-OPES. Employees became concerned that they had plenty of activities to get a higher performance rating. Supervisors tend to require employees to design and implement actions to make their unit more relevant with so much work without considering whether these activities are appropriate to the university.

Solution and Impact

The HR department then prepared the write-up of the system and the required forms based on the CSC guidelines. What was lacking was the standard of performance. To ensure that there will be ownership of the system, the university conducted a 3-day workshop on 4-6 September 2012 to craft the standard of performance officials of the university who will be involved in making the system operational. The Table of Major Final Outputs and Success Indicators as performance standards was finalized. Because they were involved in crafting the performance standard, everybody welcomed the SPMS as an improved version of the PMS-OPES and because they felt ownership of the system.

VSU immediately implemented the SPMS in 2012, a few months after the Civil Service Commission approved it. Reasons for its fast acceptance instead of resistance to change from all sectors. Thus, it was a relief shifting to the outputs/outcomes-oriented SPMS. In addition, to ensure its acceptability, we involved everybody by conducting a three-day university-wide workshop just to prepare the table of success indicators with SPMS, units, and its people were told to review their mandate. Standards of performance per unit/sector were agreed upon and approved. Delivery units were required to prepare office targets on what they were expected to do. In addition, a percentage weight in ranking units was designed and approved. Specifically, the percentage weight is incorporated in the OPCR target template for academic departments and research centers for academic teams. The percentage weight per function is as follows:

Academic departments

  • Instruction functions –70% (20% of which is for graduate degree program offering and the remaining 50% for undergraduate degree offering)
  • Research functions –10%
  • Extension functions –10%
  • Other initiatives such as accreditations, etc. 10%

Research centers

  • Research functions and extension functions –70%
  • Instruction functions –20%
  • Other industries such as accreditations, etc. 10%

Administrative units

  • Doing mandated procedures –70%
  • Customer-friendly services –10%
  • Innovations/changes for improved effectiveness & efficiency –10%
  • Best practices/manuals –10%

With those percentage weights, departments and faculty members who refuse to conduct research become pressured or motivated. In contrast, faculty members in research centers become interested in having at least two class sections per semester. Administrative units will avoid having dissatisfied clients and introduce innovations in the workplace and the procedures.

Milestones/Next Steps

  • CY 2010 -11 – Use of PMS-OPES
  • CY 2012 – April-September- Crafting of VSU’s SPMS through workshops
  • CY 2012 – Approval of VSU SPMS by CSC Reg. VIII, 12 October 2020
  • Certificate of Recognition for having met the Maturity Level 2 indicators in Performance Management under the CSC’s PRIME-HRM Inclusion of VSU’s SPMS as one of the Model SPMS in the Compendium of Agency
  • SPMS, which was published on the CSC website
  • CY 2013 – Full Implementation
  • CY 2014 onward – The gains
  • One of the first few agencies that qualified for the PBB in 2012 and yearly until 2015
  • Produced yearly Presidential Lingkod Bayan/Pag-asa Awardees at Heroes Hall of Malacanang from 2014 until 2019 and is hoping to have another awardee this September
  • The only agency in Region 8 and possibly in the Visayas, if not in the entire country, to give two (2) steps increment yearly based on merit since 2016 (based on 2015 performance)
  • Benchmarked by SUCs