Implementation of Single Spine Pay Policy in public sector of Ghana: Analysis and recommendations from organizational development perspective.

Abstract

With generally lower salaries in the public sector, the Government of Ghana initiated pay policy reforms in 2006 and established the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission by law in 2007. Th is pay policy is an organisational development (OD) intervention that aimed at ensuring internal and external pay equity. Th is process culminated in the design of the single spine pay policy whose implementation commenced in January 2010. Th e implementation has not been without its challenges; this resulted in a calling of a national forum on the sustainability of the new pay policy. It is against this backdrop that this paper sought to review the implementation of the single spine pay policy (SSPP) in the public sector within an OD and intervention perspective. Specifi cally, this paper pointed out that SSPP reforms constitute a re-creation, a reactive but a discontinuous change. As a result, its implementation was explored in the light of Lewinian three-stage model of organizational change; it further assessed the implementation against its main objectives whiles identifying some of its challenges. In addition, recommendations were also presented for further improvement of the pay policy. It was concluded that the implementation has been partially successful and when given the needed support it would achieve its objectives and be sustainable in the long-run.