CREATING INCENTIVES FOR FIELD STAFF
This practice established incentives for utility staff to keep their job and enhance their productivity. Staff morale was low due to delayed salary payments as a result of the lower revenues due to the ongoing conflict. A crucial group of employees are the bill collectors as their job directly relates to the revenues of the utility. Al-Baydha LC, Sana’a LC and several other utilities adopted a performance based motivation for field bill collectors by paying them 3% of the amount of the bills they collect. Ibb LC adopted a wider approach, by establishing an entity to support employees with practical matters such as health insurance and social solidarity in certain situations such as death, birth, wedding, and accidents. Employees pay a small amount every month to this entity, whereas Ibb LC also provides support by contracting this entity for small projects. This practice strongly motivates staff, especially bill collectors, and improves revenue collection and overall performance of the water utility.
Description of the problem
Bill collection dropped significantly in many water utilities during the ongoing conflict and became worse after 2015. The reduced revenues caused utilities to delay payment of salaries causing demotivation of staff. Some employees started to look for additional sources of income and other job opportunities. To increase revenues and keep up the regular payment of salaries, water utilities tried to implement different activities but these were not very successful. Demotivated front-line staff does not work well on building rapport and trust with customers. This is very unfortunate as precisely the bill collectors know their customers and are in a better position to judge whether adding pressure on a customer would be useful. It is also relevant in this context to take into account that disconnecting non-payers is not a good option under normal circumstances, and can be even dangerous under the given conflict conditions where customers may react quit violently.
Description of the good practice
Several utilities have introduced an incentive for their water bill collectors (who are also reading the meters) of 3% of the collected water bills. Payment of the incentive can be done on a monthly basis and in the case of Sana’a LC is decentralized to the six operational zones. The incentive motivates bill collectors to encourage customers to pay focusing in the first place on larger (commercial) customers who have higher water bills. Ibb LC adopted a wider approach that also benefitted other staff. They established an independent entity to support its employees in certain situations such as death, birth, wedding, accidents and also established a health care insurance for LC staff. Employees pay a small monthly fee to this entity and in addition the utility provides support by contracting this entity to implement small projects and interventions such as construction of a pipeline (Figure 4).
Impact and sustainability of the good practice
This practice is effective in increasing revenues which, in turn, strengthens the resilience of the water utility and its financial standing. It is also a good approach to secure income to bill collectors, a group of water utility staff that is crucial for revenue collection. This approach is sustainable as it involves low cost and generates revenues needed to ensure the performance of the utility. The approach of Ibb LC to develop an entity for practical staff support (financial support in cases of emergencies, obtaining a health insurance (which is not very common in Yemen) is very interesting as it may contribute significantly to a positive work environment and in maintaining qualified staff. Having a good incentive system for the employees is even more pressing in war time.
Required resources
The main requirement for this practice is that management takes the decision to motivate staff by providing incentives to do a better job. In addition the bill collectors will need training and learn about techniques on communicating with customers. Sharing experiences and horizontal learning among bill collectors can help improving their performance. In addition, the utility needs to allocate some of its resources (e.g. 3%) for incentives.
Figure 4 Pipeline implemented by employee entity of Ibb water utility
