All about attitude

Chile’s Civil Registry became a star by asking employees to define what they value the most

By Paul Constance

In 1990, when Alejandra Sepúlveda began working in Chile’s Civil Registry, it was considered one of the country’s worst public services. Practically every Chilean could provide a personal reason why. The Civil Registry controls all vital records, such as birth, marriage and death certificates, plus vehicle registrations, professional licenses and national identification cards. In short, it has a near-monopoly on the official documents that all citizens must acquire or renew at some point.

Largely neglected during the Pinochet regime, the Civil Registry was in a shambles in 1990. Its computer system was obsolete and barely functional. The typical transaction took between 15 and 45 days to complete. Offices were crumbling and devoid of signs or information. People often wandered for hours trying to find the right official. Training was almost nonexistent and salaries, as in most of the public sector, were very low. Not surprisingly, morale among the service’s staff was dismal. The work ethic could be summarized as, “He who does nothing, fears nothing,” according to Sepúlveda, who started out in the operations department. “People had been programmed to work mechanically, without any sense of the results of their work and its connection to the bigger issues that concern citizens. Their professional self-esteem was very low,” she says.

But during the 1990s, the Civil Registry became an improbable star among Chile’s public services. Today customer service workers at each of the registry’s 500 nationwide offices (including one, serving Chile’s remote southern fjords, that is housed on a boat) have access to a single data network that allows them to print birth, marriage and death certificates on demand. Long lines are virtually unheard of, and the Civil Registry is now routinely ranked as one of the country’s best services in public opinion polls.

According to Sepúlveda, this turnaround began with a thorough reorganization that gave the service’s 500 offices much of the power that had been previously centralized at headquarters in Santiago. (In the past, for example, data could only be added to the service’s database at the central office.) Next came a successful request for funds to upgrade the service’s data networks and computer systems, purchase much-needed office equipment, and increase staff training.

But the most important change, according to Sepúlveda, involved a radically different approach to human resources. In 1997, when she was named director of the Civil Registry, Sepúlveda invited 300 employees from all levels of the organization to a series of meetings where they could air their grievances and help define a new institutional mission statement. What she heard was not exactly what she expected. “When we asked staff to rank what they would most like to have on the job, they listed training opportunities as number one, dignity and respect as number two, and better pay as number three,” Sepúlveda says.

Sepúlveda and her colleagues have tried to address all three. The service’s annual training budget has grown from a trivial 4 million pesos in 1990 to around 120 million today. Sepúlveda has breakfast every Monday with rotating groups of staffers and bosses. The gatherings are a chance for rank-and-file workers to discuss frustrations, submit ideas and hash out compromises with senior management. Women employees outnumber men at the Civil Registry, and the service has installed on-site daycare facilities that are considered among the best in the nation. Although pay remains a nagging concern for many employees, it has improved steadily since 1998, when Chile introduced performance-based pay incentives at the individual and institutional level (see articles May the best bureaucrat win! and The carrot vs. the stick, at right).

The result, according to Sepúlveda, has been a profound change in the “work culture” of the service’s staff. In 1997 employees adopted “calidad, calidez y colaboración” (quality, cordiality and collaboration) as their new institutional goals, and the service is now recognized for friendly and efficient service. “We’ve tried to discover the latent talent in our employees and see how their personal goals can dovetail with our institutional goals. As a result, we have a team of very enthusiastic people with an extraordinary dedication to service,” Sepúlveda says.

Date posted: March 2002