CEBU CITY, Philippines - Completion of department goals, attendance and department savings are among the criteria set as the basis for computing the cash gifts to be received by Capitol employees at the end of this year.
Rewards will be given to all employees under departments which performed their goals well at least expense, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia told provincial government officials and employees in a general assembly held at the Capitol social hall on Monday.Garcia said she hopes that the new performance evaluation system will spur employees to improve services in the Capitol. The scheme was set up in a meeting with department heads last year.
I hope (we work together well) not as a company of robots who try to adhere to every rule but as a company of dedicated and honest public servants because we serve the public and we are being paid with public funds, she said. The assembly was the third held by the governor since she assumed office. The first was on her initial term in 2004 and the second was after her re-election in 2007. The evaluation scheme arose after Garcia questioned the amount of cash gifts set for appropriation last year.
The evaluation scheme for the cash gifts replaces the previous policy of approving an across-the-board cash bonus for the employees.
Last month, Garcia questioned the allocation of a P15,000 cash bonus for the workers, saying she only agreed to a P14,000 cash gift for last year in keeping with the annual P2,000 increase for cash gifts. The governor also voiced displeasure over the disappointment and insistence by some Capitol employees to increase the P14,000 cash gift. She later decided to lower the cash gift to P12,000.
On Monday, some Capitol employees grumbled over a policy to deduct points from employees taking approved leaves. A performance management team was on hand to explain the evaluation scheme to the workers and department heads.
Provincial Engineer Eulogio Pelayre said departments will be deducted points if their employees report late to work and use pass slips to leave the office for personal concerns during work hours. Departments will also be rated based on the attendance of their employees, their compliance with uniform requirements and the number of hours spent working.
Ratings will be based on the following criteria: substantial target accomplishment 60 %, department critical factors 25 % and department savings 15%. Department savings will cover energy consumption for office equipment and use of materials, among others.
Garcia said she instructed the provincial budget officer, accountant and treasurer to present to her before the anniversary week in August a computation of how much cash incentives should go to employees of a certain office.
Incentives that will be released as anniversary bonus and extra cash gifts should be computed based on their performance evaluation. Garcia said this is a more scientific and verifiable means of rating Capitol employees. The governor said she noticed last year that some department heads would ask their employees to be absent instead of reporting to work late to avoid point deductions.
It's a sad fact that some of you just try to be more clever. This is a constant challenge for me as chief executive to always try to be more clever than you, she said. This year, Garcia said that even absences will already be counted as hours lost to the delivery of public service.
She told Capitol employees that she needed their cooperation to deliver efficient service to the Cebuanos.
We have to get our acts together to achieve the exceedingly high targets that I've set...if you cannot stand the way we are running things here, then you can always walk away, she told employees and department heads. | 
