Salaries Commission begins job evaluation in parastatals

NAIROBI: The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has embarked on a job evaluation exercise involving all personnel employed in commercial state corporations. This is part of an exercise that will cover all levels of the public service and sectors including teaching service, security organs, disciplined forces and civil servants.

 

"The intent of the public service job evaluation, just like in the case of the State officers, is to reduce the compression ratio between the highest and lowest paid public officers. The exercise will help us entrench the principle of equal pay for work of equal value," the SRC Chairperson Sarah Serem said Thursday.

She made the remarks during a breakfast meeting for principal secretaries, chairpersons, chief executives and human resource representatives of State corporations at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC).

The commission held the meeting for the officers to apprise themselves of the ongoing job evaluation exercise within the public service. During the session, SRC allayed fears that the ongoing exercise would render existing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) null and void.

"Job evaluation will add value to employer-employee CBA negotiations since these will be based on factual and accurate worth of the jobs. We are envisaging better industrial relations where CBA will continue to play a very important role in improving the terms and conditions of service for the employees," Ms Serem (pictured) said.

The job evaluation exercise is expected to eliminate wage inequalities in the public sector and facilitate the formation of a balanced wage structure. It will also assist in recruitment of suitable employees due to properly defined job requirements, performance appraisals and evaluation.

Owing to the size and complexity of the public service, the SRC has sectioned public institutions into seven clusters. The Civil Service with 18 institutions; Service and Regulatory State Corporations with 55 institutions; Commercial State Corporations with 87 institutions and Research Institutions, Public Universities and Tertiary Education Institutions with 45 institutions.

SKILLS MIX

Others include Constitutional Commissions, Independent Offices and the Teaching Service with 17 institutions; Disciplined Services with 7 institutions and the County Government with 47 counties. "This will drastically reduce the time taken to complete the exercise as well as tap into the skills mix from the different consultants. An overall Project Manager has been appointed for the project," said Serem.

SRC Commissioner James Muhoro said the purpose of job evaluation is to determine the worth of each public sector job and come up with institutional grading structures.

"Job evaluation enables enhanced productivity and strengthens our capacity to implement development programmes and ensure we achieve a sustainable public wage bill," he said.