PERFORMANCE-RELATED PAY AND PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL IN CROATIAN CIVIL SERVICE: LEGAL REGULATION AND POSSIBLE OUTCOMES

Abstract

In 2024, important changes to the legal regulation of human potential
management in Croatian civil service occurred. Specifically, the new Civil Servants
Act was enacted, replacing the previous Act in force for almost 20 years. Parallelly,
the new Law on Salaries in the Civil Service and Public Services was enacted,
introducing performance-related pay in Croatian civil and public service. The paper
aims to analyse the new regulations regulating civil service, including the bylaws,
and discuss possible outcomes. Methodologically, the paper relies on the legal
analysis of the existing regulations, but empirical data from the survey conducted
in December 2023 among civil servants are also presented. These data show that
civil servants in Croatia want the introduction of PRP, but challenges such as the
limitation to the number of civil servants receiving the highest performance
appraisal grades, the lack of training on the new performance appraisal system and
the lack of the developmental usage of performance appraisal, can jeopardise the
outcomes of the reform.