The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Director General of the Department of Tourism Dorji Dhradhul recently submitted his resignation to the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Employment (MoICE) as he not satisfied with the RCSC MaX Annual Performance Assessment where he was placed under Partially Meets Expectation (PME).
The DG was later convinced by higher officials to withdraw his resignation after which he has filed an appeal to the RCSC.
The assessment was done by the Secretaries of the economic cluster which are the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Employment, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Minister of Infrastructure and Transport and Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. The RCSC decides the final bell curve moderation to see how many needs to be in what category.
The DG did not contact this paper but a person close to the DG talked to the paper and shared the DG’s appeal.
The person said that Dorji had served the country for around 30 years and he did good work in Agriculture followed by a tenure in Gasa Dzongkhag where he did several developmental activities and brought Gasa into the focus.
The person said that rating somebody in this manner after 30 years of dedicated service is not right.
The person said that the tourism policy keeps changing and the DG has taken all the blame and brickbats from different stakeholders but everyone is aware that a DG does not decide policy.
The person said the DG has been working very hard and on weekends too to the point that he has not spent enough time with his family, and so even his eleven-year-old son was diagnosed quite late with retinal dystrophy, a hereditary eye disorder that has resulted in a 75% visual impairment and can now result in full blindness at any time.
The person said that the DG is in mental trauma having to deal with the above issues and now this rating.
In the appeal to RCSC a copy of which was shared by this person to the reporter the DG writes saying that as a dedicated civil servant, he had anticipated receiving an “Exceeding Expectations” rating for his performance in the 2022/23 fiscal year, especially given that it was the most intense and fulfilling period in his 30-year career.
‘However, the outcome has been the opposite, with me receiving a “Not Meeting Expectations” rating among a pool of 23 executives in the economic cluster. I would have accepted this rating positively if the reasons and feedback upon which it was based had been supported by concrete evidence and detailed information. However, it appears that this was not the case.”
“On the contrary, many of the PME points presented against me can be considered biased, subjective, and in some instances, lacking any foundation.”
The DG wrote there was a significant bias in the utilization of the Leadership Feedback System (LFS) for the moderation exercise, which may be interpreted as vindictive.
He wrote that out of the 31 feedback entries, the Moderation Committee (MC) has selectively referenced only 4 feedback entries that could be categorized as “need for improvement.” “Unfairly, no acknowledgment was made of the remaining 28 feedback entries, all of which contain positive or neutral remarks in my favor.”
LFS is when the staff working under an executive gives reviews on the boss anonymously.
The DG wrote saying that PME Point 3 erroneously claims that he returned a sum of Nu 12.5 million to Bhutan for Life (BFL) intended for tourism-related activities, citing a lack of capacity to develop business plans. He said this statement is not true, as they have never received any funds from Bhutan for Life (BFL) that could be returned.
‘PME Point 2 and PME Point 12 have raised questions about my integrity and falsely claimed that my integrity capability score is below 6. In reality, my integrity capability score is 6.8, and it is ethically incorrect to make such false statements.’
The DG wrote saying he has been accused of not being vigilant regarding unethical dealings within his department involving two tour operators. He said he would like to clarify that these allegations are not true, and he has actively addressed unethical issues as they arose.
On his drive he wrote saying he was generally above average, however, he acknowledged that it is possible that he could have experienced some specific periods of low personal drive due to challenging circumstances he underwent during the assessment period.
‘My physical health was not in good condition since last one year, and I had to take medical leave due to Hypertension, Gout, and Sciatic back pain. I would like to inform that I have been managing hypertension for over 15 years.’
‘In July 2022, my eleven-year-old son was diagnosed with retinal dystrophy, a hereditary eye disorder that has resulted in a 75% visual impairment. We have been informed that there is a constant risk that he may lose his vision entirely at any moment. This situation was really challenging but I believe I did not allow this to adversely affect my work.’
He wrote saying his wife and he had to make trips to Chennai in July and September 2022 for their son and daughter’s medical referrals.
‘Despite submitting written and in-person requests to the Ministry for support in our HR situation, the Department has yet to receive a response.’
He wrote saying that he has also sought the Ministry’s intervention regarding threats to his personal safety, and as of date, he has not received even a simple letter of acknowledgment.
He submitted a detailed report covering all the 13 PME points.
A RCSC official said that they will not comment on the specific case of the DG but in general those in the PME category should not take it badly as this is just the review of the annual performance of the year and they can do better next year.
In the earlier rules those who came in PME twice would be removed but that has been changed to three times.
Also the bell curve system mandates a certain number of staff comes under PME.
The official said that performance assessment is based on the performance board in the system, KPI for the year and other measurable things.
408 senior civil servants who are basically the executives and the P 1 officers were assessed for 2022-23 and of this 14% of senior civil servants are outstanding performers, 82% were meeting the expectation of the position, and remaining 4% are partially meeting the expectation (PME). This means around 16 of them are in partially meeting the expectation.
So far no other executive has appealed.
For the general pool of staff, a total of 22,230 were moderated. 7% and above are outstanding performers, 14.5% in Very Good, and 75% as Good and remaining 3.5% or 778 staff as partially meeting the expectation.
Of this general pool only nine have filed an appeal so far.
An earlier RCSC release said the revised MaX, performance Management system was implemented from FY 2022- 23 with the objective to enhance productivity through staff engagement and a good performance management culture and differentiate performers to reward, recognise and manage them.
The new features of MaX are setting of KPIs at the start of the performance cycle; Continuous review and feedback on performance; and Standard bell curve across all agencies.
It said the revamped MaX has been deliberately designed to enhance staff engagement by supervisors. For the annual performance assessment of FY 22-23, the performance evaluation with the moderation was carried out aligned to the bell curve introduced.
Teachers have been assessed separately.
2% which is 195 out of 9,445 teachers were identified as “needing improvement” for the academic year 2022.
The official said the reasons for falling under “needs improvement” need to be reviewed by the relevant supervisors and the HR services of Dzongkhag. Accordingly targeted interventions such as setting clear KPIs, close monitoring and engagement and if need be, capacity building support should be provided by the relevant supervisors since these are delegated HR functions.
