The changing nature of work: time to return to performance fundamentals?

We are currently at an exciting time of change in terms of the nature of work and one being felt throughout many areas. In this chapter we focus on the nature and effect of these shifts within public services and what they mean for performance. Over the past several decades there have been significant changes to the role of governments and public services. As public services change in terms of what they do, they have seen a shift in terms of the types of skills and capabilities that individuals require. Alongside these changes we are also witnessing a number of changes to the very nature of work. Finally, the tools of work are changing as we see a rise in the use and application of fourth industrial revolution technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence. Taken together these various streams of reform potentially have significant implications for how public servants undertake work and how we think about performance at both individual and organisational levels. In this chapter we map out these developments and argue that the changing nature of work is having a profound affect across many areas of government. We highlight that because performance measurement and management is often poorly done in the public sector, our current performance challenges will intensify. We make the case that if we are to do performance measurement and management well, we need to return to some fundamentals of performance and combine these with a more holistic notion of performance. We outline these fundamentals and provide some guidance for practice which blends new and old.