The total budget of this two-year project funded by the European Union was 1.2 million euros.
The beneficiary institution within the project was the State Examination Center of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SEC) and project partners from Lithuania were the Office of Government, Civil Service Department and European Social Fund Agency.
The overall objective of the project was to contribute to the further development of a professional and sustainable civil service system in Azerbaijan in accordance with the best European practices. The purpose of the Project was to improve the capacity, tools and efficiency of the SEC to develop and implement the new classification of occupations and to link it to the recruitment, performance appraisal and remuneration systems.
Head of the SEC Board of Directors Maleyka Abbaszadeh, vice-chancellor of the Government Office of Lithuania Alminas Maciulis, head of EU Delegation Kestutis Jankauskas, Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to the Republic of Azerbaijan Valdas Lastauskas and several other government officials and foreign guests delivered speeches during the event.
Resident Twinning Advisor (RTA) of the project Mr. Edvardas Zukauskas made presentation about the key results of the project implemented more than two years. He stressed 4 main areas where the achievements made. Firstly, the project initiated content-based regrouping of civil service positions and development of standard job profiles and skills and abilities system which would enable unification for similar positions and facilitation of Human Resources Management (HRM) on the national level. Secondly, the project experts proposed gradual move from knowledge-based assessment to competency-based system in the recruitment. Here the main idea is to reduce the share of knowledge checking and focus more on skills and abilities of candidates. Thirdly, a new more effective performance appraisal (PA) method with elements such as self-appraisal, dialogue between subordinate and manager was developed. The importance of using PA results in promotion, motivation and training processes and linking the overall system with the institution’s activity planning was stressed. Finally the development of simplified remuneration system with clear functions for each component of wage structure and pay grade scale with a horizontal range allowing for monetary incentives rewarding the civil servant’s quality of performance was one of the key achievements of the project.
Mr. Zukauskas mentioned that in all above-mentioned areas a possible future system and its processes were described in the project expert reports and in parallel, IT solutions that interconnected new positions classification system, recruitment and performance assessment were also proposed by experts. Regarding the universal solution that would combine all 4 processes the RTA indicated the competence-based HRM model which was proposed by Twinning project and which was also reflected in the Civil Service Development Strategy of the Republic of Azerbaijan (2019-2025).
Among additional achievements Mr. Zukauskas also mentioned the importance of cooperation with people through on-job discussions, meetings, trainings and study visits which helped to build capacity of relevant staff of the SEC and other state bodies in modern HRM solutions at various EU countries.
