The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has launched a new performance management strategy aimed at reviving and improving the cocoa industry.

The implementation of the new performance management tool, the Balanced Scorecard, is expected to instill a new performance culture.

It is a strategic evaluation system that monitors comprehensively the attainment of the strategic objectives and goals of the COCOBOD.

The system is expected to improve the regulatory function of the board by cutting waste in the pre-harvest functions, including research, seed production, cocoa health and extension to boost production.

The system, which is to help COCOBOD to improve efficiency, will significantly improve post-harvest functions of quality assurance and marketing the beans to deliver a better and sustained revenue to maximise its outcomes to the industry.

The initiative was announced at the opening of a three-day management retreat in Kumasi, where leadership and senior staff gathered to discuss a shift from administrative-oriented systems to a performance-based culture.

The Director of Human Resource, Francis Ocran, emphasised that the Balanced Scorecard began with leadership ensuring alignment at all levels of the organisation.

He described it as a departure from the traditional appraisal system of evaluating performance, and rather position COCOBOD as a framework to embed performance into its daily culture.

Urgency

In a keynote address, the Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Finance and Administration, Ato Boateng, stressed the urgency of the transition, indicating that the current state of COCOBOD required collective effort to achieve meaningful change.

“By Friday when we will be leaving here, every staff member of COCOBOD must have a scorecard. This is not just a framework but a culture and a lifestyle,” he said.

“We must measure what matters and put value on it. The journey towards recovery starts now,” he added.

Mr Boateng outlined a three-phase implementation plan aimed at instituting a culture of performance that drove and delivered strategic objects and goals of COCOBOD to support the new policy and its sustenance for future performance.

He said after the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard as the introductory performance management tool to instill a culture of performance by establishing clear objectives under financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth perspectives to meet both shareholder and stakeholder values, the organisation would progress to the Sigma processes to enhance operational efficiency and reduce errors to achieve quality standards.

The Deputy CEO, Finance and Administration, said the final lap would be to progress onto “Systems Thinking” to encourage cross-functional collaboration and accountability to eliminate departmental or divisional silo-minded culture within the regulatory body.

Measurable performance

Mr Boateng encouraged management and all staff to reimagine activities that added value and eliminated those that did not, adding that promotions and career progressions would be strictly tied to measurable performance under the new system.

According to the Deputy Chief Executive, the Balanced Scorecard would move COCOBOD from a focus on routine administrative processes to an agile, dynamic,  learning organisation and a results-driven culture. 

He expressed management’s belief that the Balanced Scorecard would serve as a key tool for aligning staff efforts with strategic goals and fostering a culture of continuous improvement across the organisation.

The retreat marks the official start of the implementation process, with the expectation that staff will begin to adopt the Balanced Scorecard as soon as possible.