Shaping Management Practices for in Civil Service
Through large-scale international surveys of civil servants in 10 countries across four continents, Professor Christian Schuster has set international best practice in surveying public servants.

25 April 2021
Synopsis
Prof. Christian Schuster’s research has improved the civil service management practices of governments and the civil service reform assistance provided by international organisations. With Jan Meyer-Sahling (Nottingham), he led the largest cross-country and cross-regional survey of public servants to date, collaborating with national governments in ten countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. The survey has shaped international best practice in surveying public servants, with the World Bank, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Colombian government each changing their existing civil service survey instruments in response. It led three governments that had not previously used national civil service surveys to adopt them as management instruments across government institutions, and six governments to adopt surveys to understand employee needs during the Covid-19 pandemic, giving almost 250,000 public servants a new channel for voice. Moreover, the findings led governments to undertake a range of evidence-based management reforms of, for instance, recruitment practices in Chile and Kosovo and ethics training practices in Chile and Nepal.