Private, public sector representatives share ideas on excellence

AMMAN — The King Abdullah II Centre for Excellence (KACE) scientific day on Monday highlighted experiences and best practices followed by private and public institutions striving for excellence.

Public Sector Development Minister Khleef Al Khawaldeh, deputising for HRH Prince Feisal, chairman of KACE’s board of trustees, attended the event, dubbed “Excellence in Practice Day”. 

The centre seeks to promote a culture of excellence by encouraging private and public institutions in all sectors to compete for nine awards, KACE Executive Director Yasera Ghosheh said.

Ghosheh noted that Jordan has been keen on boosting excellence since 1999, in line with His Majesty King Abdullah’s directives to elevate the performance of the private and public sectors and restructure the public administration to adopt best practices.

“The centre has put Jordan on the Arab map of excellence as it has become a national and regional house of expertise that works to spread knowledge and share experiences with similar institutions in Arab countries,” she said.

Ghosheh added that the scientific day is an “outstanding” opportunity to share experiences that can generate ideas on excellence.   

Jordan is playing “a significant role” in sharing its experiences in excellence and service quality as well as learning from the experiences of other countries, said Marc Amblard, CEO of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM).

He noted that EFQM supports some 300,000 organisations and institutions across the globe in improving their performance through its excellence model, highlighting the foundation’s partnership with KACE.

Several representatives of private and public institutions shared their implementation of excellence measures, including Public Security Department (PSD) Director General Lt. Gen. Tawfiq Tawalbeh and Jordan Ahli Bank (JAB) Chairman Omar Razzaz.

Tawalbeh said the PSD is keen on achieving excellence in its security services, therefore, it drafted a strategy in 2013 resulting in establishing a quality unit that supervises excellence measures, as well as developing the department’s human and logistic resources.

“We have recently created a transparency and human rights office, which monitors the department’s commitment to international practices,” he noted, adding that the PSD strategy, which will be implemented over three years, will include evaluating the department’s performance. 

Several PSD departments have participated in the KACE awards, achieving “advanced” places and introducing improvements on the ground, according to Tawalbeh, who added that during the first year of the strategy, up to 70 per cent of PSD personnel received training to enable them to provide better services.

Meanwhile, Razzaz highlighted the interconnectedness between the performance of the private and public sectors, noting that factors that lead to the success of private, public and not-for-profit institutions are the same.

He stressed the importance of studying indicators and using them to predict developments ahead of time as one of the major factors to boost excellence. 

It took Jordan over 15 years to overcome the economic recession that it witnessed in 1989, Razzaz noted.

Furthermore, he warned against depleting natural resources, especially by consuming them without investing in them. 

Most of Jordan’s strategies, Razzaz argued, lack proper evaluation and analysis of data as well as dialogue.

“Successful countries” are those who build participatory institutions that protect the country from political, economic and social instability, he concluded.