The monthly focus of this 43^rd issue is dedicated to public servants' compensation and more particularly to the prospects for making the rules more flexible and harmonizing. As usual, we present you the last trends in several countries on this theme and the inspiring ways in which they are implementing them.
Beyond the news, you will get acquainted with the “pro bono” work deployed by Vivendi and the challenge of winning back former civil servants in Slovakia.

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The vision RH editorial team

Although it is no longer the only basis for the appeal of public sector employment, pay rates and the prospects for increases provided by compensation rules are still the focus of attention, especially with the onset of a fresh round of inflation.

Compensation arrangements are intrinsically linked to the civil service system in place (career- or position-based) and are sometimes criticised for a lack of flexibility when addressing the demand in professions experiencing recruitment difficulties.

Faced with stiff competition from the private sector, Germany has overhauled the conditions for paying monthly bonuses to staff with technical responsibilities. The bonus can be paid in a lump sum in exchange for a commitment to remain on the government’s payroll for up to four years (the period may be renewed twice, in which case the bonus is cut by a third).

In Italy, the government has recently introduced a “high professional standards” category for professions requiring special skills and/or expertise across all hierarchical levels. It has its own pay scale, which means that  increases can be granted independently to more closely reflect the situation on the labour market.

With the exception of the senior civil service (where compensation still varies widely, by up to 2.5 times), civil servants in the United Kingdom, who are paid according to their grade level and the government department in which they work, have fairly standardised pay bands. This is due to the introduction of recognised professions to foster inter-department mobility.

Some countries are looking to promote mixed career paths. In Australia, the wage rise cap of 2% per annum has been removed to enable pay increases to match, but not exceed, rises in other sectors. The aim of the measure is to help redress the current imbalances.

With the bonus with individual choice (IKB), the Netherlands is allowing staff to decide how they use part of their income. This bonus, which totals 16.25% of the annual salary, can be converted into days of leave, contributed to a pension fund, used to finance personal training or be paid out (a mix of options is allowed, but only the first three are tax-free).

Very few systems still provide automatic inflation adjustments to keep up with the cost of living. Currently, this is the case in only Belgium and Luxembourg. A calculation formula determines a new increase coefficient if the consumer price index reaches or exceeds a certain threshold.

Collective bargaining (1) is still central to wage measures. Spain is the first European country to have indexed increases to the growth rate. As part of a labour package adopted in 2018, there are both fixed and variable portions. The variable portion (1.3%) is paid if a defined threshold is reached for each of three years.

Due to extraordinary circumstances (the COVID-19 pandemic and a fall in purchasing power), Switzerland has introduced an inflation compensation payment of 0.5%. Although it is a one-off measure, it could be renewed and has been presented as a strong message for the social partnership and a sign of recognition for staff.

¹ The most recent increases decided on are 3.2% in two stages over 28 months in Germany (October 2020) and 4.15% for three years in Italy (November 2021). Spain has just started fresh talks and is offering 2% in 2022. The United Kingdom has had a pay freeze in effect since 2018 but has granted a £250 payment to staff earning up to £24,000 per annum.

After having put a similar bilateral approach on a formal footing with Belgium last year, the French civil service has just executed two new agreements with Spain (22 February) and Italy (8 March). Cooperation will be concentrated on three objectives: greater mobility and exchanges of civil servants between the countries, bolstering partnerships between public service academies and stepping up the sharing of best practices.

The British civil service is set to introduce new initiatives to make it even more representative of British society: 50 Enterprise Advisers will be tasked with promoting careers in schools and colleges, work on the appeal of the Civil Service will be carried out with five local authority areas where there are major social problems, and 1,000 prison leavers will be recruited by the end of 2023 to give them a second chance in life.   

The Slovenian Inovativen.si team has introduced a barometer to coordinate all innovation-related initiatives. By compiling them in a monitored and structured manner, it is easier to analyse the degree of implementation and any problems encountered. To this end, a detailed questionnaire – drawn up using Copenhagen manual methodology – will be sent to all manager.

The Dutch government has chosen to refocus its employer branding on centres of interest shared by both employers and candidates. Communications now highlight the positive effects of successful integration and the societal impacts of a government job with real career prospects. Emphasis is also placed on the advice provided to handle the recruitment process in the best possible conditions.

An imperative for the Portuguese government is to remind all civil servants – irrespective of their hierarchical level – of the fundamentals of human rights. A training programme organised by the national training agency (INA) aims to highlight the importance of diversity, to flag up potential intercultural misunderstandings and to help understand the values, knowledge and behaviour required for successful communication.

To promote the programme and supplement its website, the French civil service’s Mentor programme is publishing a quarterly newsletter. It enables subscribers to stay in touch and receive information on the latest training courses, changes to the platform, upcoming events and observations from the stakeholder community, including interviews.

The international organization has published the first edition of a new annual publication on public employment and management issues, with a vision of the future. The document provides insights to help governments through comparative data and analysis, with illustrative case studies and expert commentary. Public service leadership and recruitment systems are highlighted and illustrated in the report.  

A step forward in improving women’s access to the German senior civil service should be reached by 2025. Although the current rate is 36%, the new Equal Opportunities Act, which was passed in late 2021, provides that equal participation must be achieved by 2025 in all federal government ministries or departments under federal supervision. The measure also covers all companies in which the government holds a majority stake.

As it is a profession the public sector has difficulty recruiting for, the Norwegian government is exclusively offering its future tech specialists the opportunity of working full-time from home. Once hired, they have to take a two-week onboarding course at one of two sites (Oslo or Trondheim). The initiative has already proved to be very popular with candidates.

For disabled persons, working from home can mean needing extra equipment to match their office setup. In Belgium a budget has been approved in the form of co-financing up to 80% of the purchase price for such equipment. This measure has helped employers to buy equipment and software and to adapt employees’ homeworking environments.

A government-mandated task force has submitted recommendations on labour-management relations within the US federal government. The authors acknowledge the need to change the model compared to the previous administration. A total of 70 measures aim to do everything possible to promote employees’ ability to fully exercise their union rights through labour organisations.

Mainstreaming mental health first aid is set to become a priority. According to a recently published circular, a three-pronged strategy will be rolled out in France: awareness-raising initiatives to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness, training for civil servants who volunteer and share their motivation for doing so, and hiring trainers who are conversant with psychosocial risks and have training experience.

What’s the best way to get all your employees on board with a new practice? At media and communications group Vivendi, trialling a new initiative is how they hope to move things forward. And who better than the HR department to conduct this experiment?

The company is looking to gradually roll out the concept of pro bono work (1) within its entities. Although the practice was initially limited to paralegals, it is set to be extended to a broader range of professions. 

Representatives of all the group’s subsidiaries recently came together to take part in a pro bono “marathon” with the aim of helping three non-profits (which often have limited resources) find a solution to a tangible issue.

According to the strategy’s initiator, it has two advantages:

• By rallying people who do not often have the opportunity to work together around an inspiring cause, a creative and productive spirit of competition is quickly established

• The chosen beneficiaries receive a solution in which the assessment, advice and recommendations are designed to ensure real time savings and effective implementation

Collective commitment in the public interest bolsters values of solidarity and mutual aid, which inevitably has an influence on employee motivation and well-being.

¹ Work carried out free of charge by a professional for an organisation which is unable to cover the cost.

According to a study conducted in 2018, Slovakia, along with four other countries (1), has one of Europe’s highest employee turnover rates (due to other reasons than retirement). It is an issue that the country’s newly formed Civil Service Council, an independent coordinating and monitoring body, decided to address in its first year of existence.

It carried out an in-depth survey to pinpoint the timelines for employee departures and the reasons behind them. Receiving a more appealing job offer was by far the leading reason and, in almost two-thirds of cases, resignations were handed in during the first year of employment.

Next, there were sundry reasons related to dissatisfaction (with the job, with the team and/or manager or, more broadly, with the employer’s strategy).

Reasoning that a failed onboarding experience is something they should be able to rectify, it was decided to compile a list of civil servants who had resigned and could be offered a new position as a priority.

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It's a way of giving the government a second chance to win over the recruits it was unable to retain when they were first hired.

Former employees must expressly agree to be registered in this database, which contains only basic personal data (marital status, diplomas and qualifications) and details of the position held and the grounds for leaving, which are important to mitigate the risks of failure.

There are now three venues for posting vacancies, with one of them (internal +) focusing on this target group. This means that they can apply on an equal footing with incumbent staff.

Although it’s easy to imagine these former employees would have turned the page, the gamble seems to be paying off. Many of them have already responded to the offer to return to the public sector, whose image has been improved.

Recruiting departments also see real advantages in the fact that these employees are already familiar with the basics and hierarchical structures, and can integrate and find their feet more quickly.

A task force has been assigned to assess the system on an annual basis and make recommendations to improve it, with the aim of potentially extending it to a wider range of civil servants.

¹ Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Sweden (EUPACK study).