The government is gradually activating the incentive and reward system for civil servants (productivity bonus) after the relevant discussion in the last Cabinet last Tuesday.

The implementation of the measure is a pilot and concerns approximately 50,000 employees. Then if it is judged that it yields the expected results, which is the increase in the productivity of employees in critical areas, such as the implementation of budgetary objectives and the absorption of community resources, there is an intention to consolidate and extend it to additional strategic objectives.

According to the provisions of Law 4942 passed in the summer of 2022, the following categories of civil servants are eligible for the bonus:

a. civil servants and uniformed personnel to achieve the predetermined target location in the implementation of the Annual Action Plans of the ministries and their supervised entities. The annual expenditure on rewards reaches 20 million euros.

b. employees directly involved in the implementation of projects of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”. This category includes approximately 6,000 employees, to whom up to 10 million euros will be allocated annually.

c. court officials, who, within the framework of the implementation of the provisions of the National Recovery and Resiliency Plan “Greece 2.0” for the acceleration of the administration of justice, implement specific objectives of the courts, prosecutor’s offices and other services in which they are employed. The annual expenditure of the reward reaches 11 million euros.

In the same philosophy, the granting of Incentives for the Achievement of Fiscal Goals (K.E.D.S.) to the employees of the General Directorates of Financial Services of the ministries, the Financial Services of the Presidency of the Republic and the Presidency of the Government, the General Accounting Office of the State ( G.L.K.), based on the achievement of specific quantitative targets determined by decision of the Minister of Finance for each service. Quantitative objectives are indicatively related to fiscal and cash management, control and results on income and expenses, financial and fiscal planning, liquidation of overdue obligations, processing of a significant number of legislative and regulatory acts of a budgetary nature, processing of requests for state guarantees and in general quantitative targets linked to the exercise of fiscal policy. The total annual amount in this particular case reaches 5 million euros.

Statement by the Minister of the Interior M. Voridis to APE-MPE: “The productivity bonus is a factor in the radical reform of the State”

The Minister of the Interior, Makis Voridis, in his statement to the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency, says: “The establishment of the reward process in the State is a milestone in our effort to overturn the mentality of egalitarianism, a mentality that was imposed by the Left and dominated for years in the Public administration. “Whether you work a little or work a lot, you will be paid the same, you will develop the same”. This dogma kept the entire State fixed for decades and contributed the most to the creation of the entanglements and pathologies that we are confronted with every day.

It is precisely this mentality that we are coming to change with the productivity bonus which is now being implemented, just as we had planned. We thus give an important administrative tool to the heads of the organic units, whom we empower in order to motivate those employees who will go the extra mile, will travel an extra distance in their daily working life to realize the goals set.

I am convinced that this specific administrative tool, combined with the new evaluation system, which we have already started to implement in the State, will radically reform the image of the Public Administration”.

The amount of the reward

The reward is granted to the beneficiaries, once per year, and cannot exceed 15% of the sum of the annual basic salary and the allowance of the position of responsibility of each employee. The bonus will not be offset against any “personal difference” that is built into the beneficiary’s total earnings, and is subject to insurance contributions and other deductions from additional earnings.

Especially for employees who achieve the objectives of the ministries, the amount of the reward is paid, within the first quarter of each year by the respective body for the objectives set for the previous calendar year, if of course they meet the criteria. For the year 2022, in a joint decision recently signed by Mr. Voridis and Finance Minister Christos Staikouras, it is foreseen that the process of calculating and paying the reward will begin 30 days after the issuance of the relevant act of the cabinet. The ministry and/or its supervised body receives the amount corresponding to the remuneration of the employees, if it has achieved, up to December 31 of each year, at least the completion of 12 of the 20 projects defined in the relevant act of the cabinet.

The amount of the premium is determined by a mathematical equation, in which the degree of difficulty of the achieved projects is taken into account compared to the degree of difficulty of the achieved projects of all ministries, according to a relevant grouping by the General Secretariat of Coordination.

Regarding the calculation of the reward of employees involved in projects of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”, four weighting factors are taken into account, the sum of which is multiplied by the annual available expenditure for the rewards. Specifically, the degree of difficulty of the project has a weight of 30%, the rate of absorption of the project, with a weight of 50%, the additional factor of “rewarding” the agencies, has a weight of 10%, while the remaining 10% results from the quotient of the amount of the approved of project credits to the total sum of credits of all eligible projects.

The body receives the reward amount if it has achieved, among other things, an absorption rate of at least 50%. The relevant minister, by his decision, distributes the amount of reward based on the degree of difficulty of each project achieved.

In any case, the head of the relevant Directorate, designates by February 10 of each year the employees who are directly involved in the implementation of the objectives and are eligible for the payment of the additional reward. The selection is subject to the approval of the relevant immediately superior hierarchically competent body. 40% of the resulting reward amount is distributed equally among the employees and the remaining 60% is distributed by decision of the supervisor, in a non-horizontal way but in relation to the contribution of each employee to the operation and work of the service.