Lessons Learnt from the Recent Pay and Grading Review of the Lebanese Public Service

1
Lessons Learnt from the Recent Pay and Grading
Review of the Lebanese Public Service

• Samer Hankir
• Public Administration/Policy Analyst
• Seminar on Pay and Grading Reform
• Amman September 20-21, 2006

2
The Salary Scale in the Lebanese Civil Service

• The ratification of a new salary scale for public
  teachers in March 1997.
• The initiative to design and adopt a new salary
  scale for civil servants was endorsed in November
  1998 and became effective as of January 1999.

3
The Objectives of the Salary Scale

• Increase wages by certain percentages
• Rectify irregularities and promote harmony in the
  pay system
• Integrate the multifarious types of allowances
  into the basic salaries
• Re-define the ranking system

4
The Grading System
Grade I Director General
Grade II Director
Grade II Head of Service
Grade III Head of Bureau
Grade III Head of Section
Grades IV V Rank-and-File
5
The Ranking System

• From a 6-rank system within each grade, to a
  22-rank system in which rank one is the lowest
  and rank 22 is the highest.
• Every two years, the civil servant climbs the
  ladder by one rank.

6
Challenges

• Retroactive payments are still on hold
• Compression of the salary scale
• The absence of a comprehensive civil service
  census and regular functional reviews
• The lack of officially adopted job descriptions
• The freezing of the administrative reform section
  (the reform provisions were eliminated)
• The controversy over the recruitment system
• Salary erosion

7
The Current Reform Initiative A Change by
retail

• The completion of a job description and position
  classification review by the OMSAR awaiting the
  action of the CSB
• The adoption of a new recruitment system for
  grade I civil servants
• The institutionalization of HRM in the civil
  service organizations
• The instillation of a performance culture.

8
Job Description and Position Classification

• Job description, evaluation and classification of
  15000 established positions in all ministries
  with few exceptions.
• The project was supported by international
  expertise (factors and point-rating)
• A new grading system was the by-product of the
  project (from 5 to 15 grades).
• Computerization of data.

9
Job Description and Position Classification

• Service Delivery (a) interaction (b) Impact
• (c ) Thinking Challenge (d) Physical Demands
• Responsibility (a) for the Work of Others
• (b) for individual care (c ) for financial
  resources
• (d) for technical resources
• Work Conditions (a) Environment (b) Health
  hazards
• Skills and Knowledge (a) Context (b) Laws
  regulations (c )Theories Principles (d)
  Techniques Practices (e) Communication (f)
  Physical dexterity

10
Stumbling Blocs

• Bureaucratic resistance
• Excessive vacancies
• Organizational impediments
• The ownership dilemma
• The lengthy methodology
• The No-distinction risk
• Budgetary constraints

11
Avoiding the Impasse

• The project is the first serious HR effort in the
  history of the Lebanese administration since 1959
  !
• The Restructuring fallout
• Updating, marketing and absorbing shocks !