INTRODUCTION OF PERFORMANCE EVALUATION FOR EMPLOYEES IN CROATIAN PUBLIC SECTOR AND PROFESSIONAL SOLIDARITY
Newly adopted Croatian Law on salaries for employees in the civil service and public sector, which entered into force at the beginning of 2024, introduced salary bonuses linked to performance evaluation for both sectors. While civil service employees already had regular performance evaluation in place, public employees did not have such evaluation. In addition to legal provisions, in October 2024 the Government introduced Regulation on Procedure, Criteria and Method of Performance Evaluation which is to enter into force at the beginning of 2026 and caused significant public outcry, particularly in certain sectors like high education.
The primary research question of this paper is whether professional solidarity can be put to the test by introducing performance evaluation fully dependent on the internal mechanisms of performance evaluation and without a proper discourse of external appeal mechanism. Further, we will explore if proposed evaluation in institutions of higher education where work tasks are mainly independent and difficult to assess has the potential to further disintegrate professional solidarity, which is already vulnerable to ongoing weakening of the collective bargaining and professional associations.
Keywords: solidarity, performance evaluation, public employees, Croatian legislation, high education.
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