Puce: Public sector should judge results, not hours worked

Economist Juris Puce, leader of the party "Development/For!" (Latvijas attīstībai) and former Environmental Protection and Regional Development Minister, said on the TV24 programme "Ziņu TOP" that private companies should be free to decide how to organize their own work, while public administration urgently needs a different approach to evaluating employees.

According to Puce, in the private sector, how work time is organized is the business owners' own responsibility — if the work gets done and money is earned, the format doesn't matter. In state institutions, however, he argued a formal approach still dominates, where precise attendance at set hours matters more than actual output.

Criticism of the government

Puce expressed dissatisfaction that the government led by Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has so far limited itself to statements that the current situation is unacceptable, without taking concrete steps to change it. He noted that similar statements from the prime minister were made months ago, yet no tasks have been assigned since and nothing has actually changed. He added that a broader public discussion on ending the current practice also failed to produce tangible results.

The politician recalled that promises to change the approach have been made before: two years ago, when Raivis Kronbergs was appointed director of the State Chancellery, then-Prime Minister Evika Siliņa also pointed to the need to abandon this practice.

The role of managers

Drawing on his own experience in both public administration and the private sector, including managing employees, Puce concluded that excessive control over working hours often reflects managers' inability to properly oversee the substance of their subordinates' work. In his view, instead of checking whether an employee arrived exactly at eight and left after five, managers should assess whether assigned duties have actually been fulfilled.

Puce stressed that it is time for public administration to move away from formally counting work hours and toward evaluating work results.