Staff evaluation - still many "bottlenecks"

Staff evaluation plays a particularly important role in personnel work, being the premise and basis for selection, arrangement, use, promotion, appointment and implementation of personnel policies. Correct evaluation will promote the ability of each cadre and staff team; conversely, incorrect evaluation will lead to incorrect arrangement, use, promotion and appointment of cadres, negatively affecting the agency and unit.

Important prerequisite in personnel work

Staff assessment plays an important role and is considered the decisive opening step in personnel work. Correct assessment will be a good basis for planning, training, fostering, rotating, promoting, appointing, implementing personnel policies... accurately and appropriately, helping to promote the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of the staff. This will be good for the operation of the entire organization, in which each link maximizes its capacity to fulfill its assigned functions and tasks. In addition, correct assessment also creates a mechanism to stimulate the progress of staff, strengthening internal solidarity. On the contrary, incorrect assessment will lead to a series of other stages of personnel work that are inaccurate, causing negative consequences for the unit and the collective; the staff themselves who are incorrectly assessed can either become subjective, arrogant, or conversely become self-deprecating, discouraged from striving, causing the organization to lose good staff.

Cadre assessment plays an important role and is considered the decisive opening step in cadre work. In the photo: Delegates attending the 13th National Congress of the Party

Realizing that cadre assessment is extremely important in cadre work, in recent times, the Central Executive Committee, the Politburo, and the Secretariat have issued many resolutions, directives, and guidelines on cadre assessment work and have been codified into legal regulations of the State. Thanks to that, the work of cadre assessment has been increasingly innovated, with many changes in content and methods compared to before; gradually contributing to building a contingent of cadres of the Party to better meet the requirements and tasks of the renovation cause. The regulations on cadre and civil servant assessment issued by the 10th Politburo have gradually put cadre assessment into order, increasingly quantified clearly, closer to reality. The cadre assessment process is stricter, including: The cadre himself/herself self-examines and assesses; the collective where the cadre works assesses; the Party Committee where the cadre works and resides assesses; superiors and subordinates assess; organizations and unions of which the cadre is a member assess; soliciting public comments. That is, the work of evaluating cadres is carried out in a comprehensive and multi-dimensional manner; thanks to that, the evaluation results gradually become substantive. On January 2, 2020, the Politburo issued Regulation No. 214-QD/TW on "Framework of standards for positions and criteria for evaluating cadres under the management of the Central Executive Committee, Politburo, and Secretariat" to replace Regulation No. 90-QD/TW, dated August 4, 2017, on "Standards for positions and criteria for evaluating cadres under the management of the Central Executive Committee, Politburo, and Secretariat". Regulation No. 214-QD/TW demonstrates the inheritance, innovation, creativity and development of previous resolutions and other documents on Party organization and building and cadre work. This is an important document of the Party that serves as the basis for commenting, evaluating, planning, appointing, rotating, and recommending candidates accurately and objectively, especially strategic-level officials.

Current status of staff evaluation in our country

Evaluating cadres is an important task, but very sensitive and complicated because many contents are not easy to quantify, such as stance, political views, motivation, honesty of cadres, etc. Resolution No. 26-NQ/TW, dated May 19, 2018, of the 7th Central Conference, Session XII "On focusing on building a team of cadres at all levels, especially at the strategic level, with sufficient qualities, capacity and prestige, equal to the task", clearly stated: "Evaluating cadres is still a weak link, not reflecting the reality, not linked to specific results and products, in many cases there are still sentiments, deference, leniency or prejudice". The practice of cadre work in recent times shows that in many cases, cadre evaluation is not really fair and objective, not necessarily because of job requirements... leading to the situation of appointing cadres who do not meet the standards and conditions, even appointing "relatives" instead of appointing "talented people". There are many cases where cadres were evaluated as good, with good records, meeting the criteria for appointment, but shortly afterwards were disciplined, even criminally prosecuted. During the 12th Party Congress, Party committees and inspection committees at all levels disciplined 2,209 cadres and party members involved in corruption; including 113 cadres under the Central Government's management, both incumbent and retired. Among them, many cadres were awarded the title of hero or honored by society, but were discovered to have committed many serious violations and were criminally prosecuted; there were cases where they were considered young cadres with great potential, but only a short time later, they revealed a series of weaknesses, violated the principle of democratic centralism, Party regulations, and State laws, and were forced to be strictly disciplined... The cause of this situation is partly due to the fact that the work of evaluating cadres still has many limitations, is not close, not correct, and not substantial:

Firstly, the criteria for evaluating cadres and civil servants are still general, lacking quantitative criteria in evaluating and classifying cadres and civil servants, leading to difficulties and formalities in the implementation process, reflecting the reality. In the evaluation, in addition to qualitative contents, the contents on professional quality and task performance results have not been quantified and are difficult to measure. In practice, due to the different nature of each type of work, the requirement is that in addition to general regulations, it is necessary to specify specific standards and norms for each type of work in order to be able to quantify and measure.

Second, the legal provisions on the evaluation of cadres, civil servants and public employees are still lacking in specificity and are not suitable for the practical situation. Currently, there is no close connection between the results of the evaluation of cadres, civil servants and public employees with salary, bonus, commendation, discipline, honor, promotion policies, etc. in a timely, objective and transparent manner. The Law on Cadres and Civil Servants, amended and supplemented in 2019, stipulates that the evaluation of cadres and civil servants is carried out according to 6 contents: 1- Compliance with the Party's guidelines and policies and the State's policies and laws, regulations of agencies, organizations and units; 2- Political qualities, ethics, lifestyle, working style and manners; 3- Capacity, professional qualifications and skills; 4- Results of performing tasks according to the provisions of law, according to the set plan or according to the specific assigned work; progress and quality of performing tasks. The assessment of task performance must be linked to the job position, demonstrated through specific work and products; 5- Sense of responsibility and coordination in performing tasks; 6- Attitude of serving people and businesses for positions that directly contact or directly handle the work of people and businesses.

For civil servants holding leadership and management positions, in addition to the above 6 contents, they are also evaluated according to the following 4 contents: a- Work plan and performance results of the agency, organization, unit assigned to lead and manage; the evaluation of the performance results of individuals must be linked to the performance results of the agency, organization, unit directly in charge. The quality rating of individuals is not higher than the quality rating of the agency, organization, unit directly in charge; b- Progress and quality of assigned work; c- Leadership and management capacity; d- Capacity to gather and unite.

The evaluation of cadres is conducted annually; evaluation before considering promotion, early salary increase, appointment, reappointment, planning, transfer; evaluation before the end of rotation period, secondment. Based on the management requirements of the agency, unit, the head of the agency with authority to manage civil servants shall prescribe the evaluation of civil servants on a quarterly, monthly or weekly basis in accordance with the specific work of the agency, organization, unit, ensuring publicity, democracy, objectivity, quantification by specific results and products.

The head of the agency, organization or unit employing civil servants shall promulgate regulations on civil servant evaluation of his/her agency, organization or unit.

However, in practice, there are still many contents that are not really clear and difficult to evaluate, such as it is very difficult to build a specific standard to evaluate the moral qualities of cadres; there are cadres who may have made mistakes in the past, but that does not mean that they are currently lacking in capacity; there are cadres who are innovative, creative, dare to think, dare to do, dare to make breakthroughs, but those breakthrough decisions do not bring immediate results...

Staff at the one-stop department of Hoai Duc district (Hanoi), completing documents for people

Third, some party organizations evaluate cadres in an unsubstantial and formal way; the state of deference, avoidance of responsibility, fear of conflict and formal democracy in evaluating cadres is still quite common; the spirit of self-criticism and criticism is not high. There are many cases where cadre evaluation is subjective, personal, local or influenced by other social relationships and does not accurately reflect the qualities and abilities of cadres. The principle of cadre evaluation is to take work efficiency as the main measure for evaluation, however, in some specific sectors and fields, the results of work performance are difficult to quantify and can only be qualitative. This easily leads to the situation of "group interests", private interests, factions, "cronies"; the situation of "running" for votes, "running" for trust; or the work of evaluating cadres is exploited and turned into a tool to suppress and defame the reputation of political "opponents". Due to the legacy of the idea that “when one person becomes an official, the whole family benefits”, some officials in positions of authority have sought to support and rely on personal feelings to “highly appreciate” the abilities of their relatives. The disease of selfishness goes hand in hand with factions, “whoever is compatible with them, even if they are bad, they consider them good, and their bad deeds are considered good, then they cover up for each other, and support each other. Whoever is not compatible with them, even if they are good, they consider them bad, and their good deeds are considered bad, then they find ways to slander, speak ill of, and find ways to bring that person down”. Criticizing this disease, President Ho Chi Minh pointed out: “This disease is very harmful to the Party. It harms unity, makes the Party lose talent, destroys the intimacy and solidarity among comrades, and causes suspicion”.

Solutions to improve the quality of staff evaluation work

Firstly, continuously supplement and perfect the set of title standards for each leadership and management level at each level. Based on existing regulations, competent authorities need to continue to supplement the set of criteria for evaluating cadres in the direction of specifically defining the work; ensuring that the quality and effectiveness of completing assigned duties and tasks are the main measures to evaluate the qualities and capacities of cadres. The evaluation method needs to be supplemented with quantitative factors on work, completion time, rate of satisfactory handling of situations and creative solutions in solving work. The content and evaluation criteria need to be unified and specific for each type of agency and unit; quantified by a scale to facilitate evaluation and classification, ensure true evaluation and encourage and motivate cadres to work with quality and efficiency. Every year, the evaluation subject needs to base on the products, the level of completion of the duties and tasks of the cadres with numbers, works, projects, programs, solutions, suggestions, awards, etc. recognized and honored by the collective, the State, and the people. Evaluation through comparison with equivalent positions is essentially to find and select outstanding factors among cadres with equivalent positions and titles to consider and appoint the most excellent people.

Second, it is necessary to develop a method of measuring and evaluating cadres in a consistent, continuous, and multi-dimensional manner. This is a scientific method, a comprehensive and accurate measurement tool to contribute to the correct assessment and evaluation of the talent and ethics of cadres. If there is a scientific method and it is seriously implemented, the assessment of cadres will be guaranteed to be accurate. Consistent and continuous assessment aims to recognize the entire journey of training, striving, and dedication of cadres from low to high positions. Multi-dimensional assessment aims to have a comprehensive and comprehensive view of cadres, through combining internal and external assessments, top-down and bottom-up assessments, in which it is necessary to attach importance to the opinions of the people's assessments and supervision. Promote the democratization of cadre assessment, clearly define the responsibilities and authorities of each organization and each level in building the cadre team; There should be a form of public announcement of the results of the assessment and evaluation of cadres to the person being assessed and cadres and party members in the agency or unit, so that the masses can monitor, supervise and continue to participate in the process of assessing cadres; at the same time, keep and add to the cadre file, as a basis for implementing the next steps in cadre work. Build a mechanism to encourage and protect cadres who dare to think, dare to do, dare to speak, dare to criticize and evaluate superiors and the organization; avoid the situation of avoidance, fear of conflict, fear of giving opinions.

Third, improve the capacity of the staff agency on personnel work, improve the quality of the staff team doing personnel work. First of all, those doing personnel work need to firmly grasp the Party's viewpoint on personnel standards. Evaluate cadres based on standardizing each cadre title, seeing through the nature and actual capacity, not just through words, ability to draft documents, superficial agility or based on degrees, academic titles, etc. In the article "Some issues that need special attention in the work of preparing personnel for the 13th National Party Congress", General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong emphasized the requirement that the staff team doing staff work on building and organizing the personnel introduction process must be absolutely loyal, honest, transparent, impartial, objective, especially must be very alert and clear-headed ("don't see a chicken as a crow", "don't see red and think it's ripe", don't just see "the appearance on the outside, it covers up the sloppiness inside"). The person who evaluates cadres must have a firm grasp of the political line, viewpoint, and tasks in order to be able to judge whether the cadres' thoughts and actions are right or wrong. The person doing cadre work must have a correct, objective, fair, and impartial attitude. When the leader and the person doing cadre work have a pure heart, wholeheartedly and wholeheartedly for the common interests of the collective, the Party, the Fatherland, and the people, then they will see people clearly; otherwise, the standards and methods for evaluating cadres cannot be properly applied, and even become distorted, turning black into white. Individualism, localism, factionalism, and factionalism are the most dangerous diseases in cadre work, and must be severely condemned. Once the person in authority evaluates cadres through the prism of individualism, localism, and factionalism, the perception will be distorted, love becomes good, hate becomes bad; Those who are good at flattery, ingratiation, and factionalism are favored and respected, while virtuous, talented, upright, and straightforward officials may be prejudiced and persecuted. Wherever such phenomena occur, opportunists and degenerates will have the conditions to act recklessly, internal solidarity will be lost, the people will lose confidence, and all political tasks will be delayed.

Fourth, the evaluation of cadres must be objective, comprehensive, and based on a historical-specific perspective. The above principle requires that when considering people, one must not be one-sided, superficial, subjective, or biased. If a person doing cadre work only evaluates cadres through their performance at conferences, through reports, and speeches without closely following their actual work, the evaluation will inevitably be one-sided and subjective. When considering people, it is necessary to distinguish between phenomena and essence, to look from many sides, from many specific events to analyze and find out what is the essence of a cadre, and cannot stop at specific, separate, and temporary phenomena. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate cadres comprehensively, analyze specifically to find out the main and secondary points to properly utilize the strengths and limit the weaknesses of cadres. The current strengths and weaknesses of cadres are formed through a long-term process of operation. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully review the staff's background and learn about their historical process, but it is not possible to judge only through a dry background, thereby having prejudices about the past. More importantly, it is necessary to evaluate the staff's current work performance, as well as their future development prospects.

Fifth, leaders, organizers, and cadres must have strategic vision, innovative and creative thinking, to sympathize, understand, and correctly evaluate and assess the innovative and creative ideas of cadres and party members. Normally, innovative and creative ideas always belong to the minority and may not bring immediate results. Therefore, only leaders with high professional capacity, strategic vision, and innovative and creative thinking can perceive and assess correctly and objectively; if only relying on the majority, it can destroy ideas and discourage cadres.

According to Communist magazine