Transforming Workplace Landscapes
With Common Assessment Framework & a Community Committed to Excellence to Improved Public Services
The Labour & Human Resource Department (LHRD) Punjab has made a monumental leap in organisational excellence by embracing the Common Assessment Framework (CAF). Discover LHRD’s CAF journey and the establishment of a CAF Community of Practice.
The Labour & Human Resource Department (LHRD) in Punjab is responsible for promoting healthy labour management and industrial relations for greater socio-economic development. With the aim to improve the organisational foundation and promote the rights of workers, the German Development Cooperation experts from GIZ advised the LHRD to adopt the Common Assessment Framework (CAF). The journey commenced with the initiation of the first CAF cycle in 2022, and to date, two cycles have been successfully completed.
What is the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)?
The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a self-evaluation quality tool to assist public sector organisations in using quality management techniques in public administration. It provides a general, simple, easy-to-use self-assessment framework: in other words, it offers a way to check what is working well, and what is not working and helps institutions to come up with a smart plan to make things better. CAF not only guides the self-assessment process but also assists organisations in collecting data essential for developing action plans, thus facilitating evidence-based decision-making and an overall enhancement in performance.
LHRD Punjab’s journey with CAF (2021-2023)
In December 2021, LHRD Punjab embarked on its CAF journey with the first cycle. During this phase, participants filled in self-assessment questionnaires to pinpoint their strengths and areas in need of improvement. Later in the year, CAF participants got together again to review the results of the self-assessment and finalize improvement measures. As the journey continued, participants formulated action plans for their respective departments. With the successful completion of Cycle 1 in 2022, Cycle 2 was initiated and concluded on October 10, 2023.
Both cycles allowed LHRD to undergo comprehensive self-assessments on CAF criteria, including leadership, strategy and planning, resources, partnerships, processes, and social responsibility results. Through the self-assessment results, LHRD initiated improvement projects in various areas such as digitalisation, agility, sustainability, diversity, and innovation that have and will continue to bring about meaningful change.
Achieving organisational excellence in public service delivery
LHRD and its associated institutions displayed exceptional commitment in their CAF implementation, yielding significant improvements in public service delivery. Notably, it resulted in improved hospital performance metrics and patient health outcomes at the Punjab Employees Social Security Institution (PESSI), an autonomous body under LHRD. CAF played a crucial role in driving the successful development of a comprehensive post-training performance analysis for trainees at the Industrial Relations Institute (IRI). Additionally, it played a key role in supporting the Punjab Workers Welfare Fund (PWWF) in successfully transitioning to a paperless office, fostering digitalisation and efficiency.
According to Mr. Mubeen Ali Khan, Assistant Director of PWWF, these initiatives, that materialized during CAF implementation, will enable workers to submit their complaints and feedback online, eliminating the need for them to physically visit the PWWF office. While these are only a handful of examples, CAF has led to a sustainable change at LHRD and has laid the groundwork for organisational excellence.
Sustaining CAF through CAF Community of Practice
On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), GIZ Pakistan has been actively working to improve working conditions, foster greener production and boost industrial competitiveness in Pakistan. Supported by GIZ, LHRD has not only pioneered CAF adoption in Pakistan but has also taken another groundbreaking step by establishing a CAF Community of Practice (CoP). This platform aims to foster collaborative learning and knowledge sharing by bringing together quality management practitioners and initiating a dialogue on organisational excellence.