Costa Rica News – I am fairly certain if you did a performance review for public employees in any country about 5 to 10% would not be given positive reviews. What has your experience been when dealing with the various ministries in Costa Rica?
Would you say that 99% of employees were good at what they were doing? That’s the percentage that was awarded a raise based on good performance.
If a worker is qualified as “at least good,” they are given one step up on the pay scale each year, up to the maximum salary, according the the Law on Salaries of Public Administration. There were 22,105 people working in the public sector last year and the government has budgeted enough to pay this incentive to all of them.
One proposed solution is to force managers to select the best employees to get this raise, so that it is an incentive to excel rather than just get by in a mediocre way. Public employees and their families count on this as a pay increase for years served, however.
In the private sector, just 42% of companies have some type of wage compensation plan. Those that do offer these incentives use strict pre-established performance goals and have a way for management to measure compliance, such as the balanced scorecard.
Perhaps the reviewers are afraid that if they give honest feedback on the employees they will do the same on them.
Hail to the system! It is screwed up everywhere. But I would venture to say that through my experiences with the various Costa Rica ministries 99% of employees do not reach very high standards……but maybe that is my problem, I am setting the bar too high.
