FG plans performance-based salary scheme for its workforce

A new performance-related pay system for employees in the federal civil service is underway, the Federal Government has announced.

The government said that with the system, workers on the same level could earn different salaries.

Persecondnews reports that performance-related pay is any form of pay system in which some component of remuneration or salary progression is contingent on performance, either individually or as a group, usually measured against a set of pre-agreed objectives.

The government said the formulation of an innovative wage system is an extremely useful tool to incentivize civil servants to work harder and faster and increase productivity, which is a key factor in the growth of the country’s economy.

The Director-General of the National Productivity Centre, Nasir Raji-Mustapha, disclosed this on Monday during a meeting with Labour correspondents.

He said: “We are in the process of developing a productivity-led wage system that will ensure that those who are productive are rewarded for their efforts, irrespective of their grade level.

“Under the proposed system, employees on the same salary scale can earn different wages.”

When asked if organized labour supported and contributed to the new proposal on a productivity-led wage system, the NPC boss emphasized that labor’s input was essential to the task.

Raji-Mustapha said: “Of course, labour, as a critical stakeholder, is being carried along in this exercise. As researchers, we don’t just do things without considering the recipient of the reports.

“When we started the project about three or four years ago, we held a stakeholders’ forum in which the labour unions participated.

“We even went further to send a memo to the NLC and TUC to ask them whether they would support the proposed wage system, and they said they would welcome it.”

Raji-Mustapha said that the report for the first phase of the study was ready, and that the next stage would be to engage various stakeholders to consider and provide input before finally presenting it to the Federal Government for consideration and possible adoption.

The NPC boss also revealed that the Centre is working with a number of international agencies and organizations to significantly increase the productivity and skills of Nigerian workers in order to boost the country’s economy.

Specifically, he said the NPC had widened its scope of collaboration between it and international agencies such as the International Labour Organization, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, the Africa Productivity Association, and the Asia Productivity Association.

He said the centre has done a lot in the area of productivity promotion and advocacy for youths, especially the youth corps members at the NYSC camps, adding the NPC had resuscitated preaching and promoting productivity at the NYSC camps.

He announced that Vice President Kashim Shettima would be the keynote speaker at the center’s two-day National Productivity Summit in Abuja on Tuesday, May 14.