During an Information session on the 2020 Overall Performance Review that you were able to follow last Monday and Tuesday, HRM announced that the Reports Board would soon no longer exist; it allowed staff members to express themselves before their colleagues in case of disagreement of their rating.
ISAU had expressed in this regard, in its written comments and during a meeting with DIR/HRM last August, its total disagreement with the abolition of the Reports Board and the demise of the Review Panel. This deletion is part of HRM draft revision on Performance Management, pertaining particularly to ‘Performance Reports’, ‘Consequences of Performance Results’, and ‘Recourse Mechanisms’.
We also rejected HRM’s proposal to set up instead a “Review Board” that excluded the staff member at its hearing. In fact, in the draft revision which was submitted to ISAU, the staff member concerned does not even have the opportunity to defend himself before the ‘Review Board’; this is clearly a violation of staff rights who lose their fundamental right to defend themselves before their colleagues.
Moreover, in that version of the draft revision, nowhere is the mandate of this ‘Review Board’ specified. In other words, the Reports Board and the Review Panel would be replaced by a “body” whose powers are not even explicitly determined.
HRM has not yet submitted the finalized version to us. ISAU strongly hopes that the reservations and recommendations it expressed on the draft revision submitted by HRM, which alarmingly lacked substance and reduced the possibilities and means of appeal, will have been taken into account prior to the publication of this new policy.
If not, it would not only be a disregard to ISAU’s demands, but above all, a violation of staff rights. We hope that Member States will question the Administration on this draft revision during the current session of the Executive Board. ISAU President
