New ways for monitoring the public workforce after the pandemic: The management and performance program in the Brazilian Federal Government

The sanitary emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a push for the adoption of teleworking in both public and private sector. In the Brazilian Federal Government, such effort was supported by a national program named Management and Performance Program – PGD (Programa de Gestão e Desempenho). The PGD enabled the country's federal civil servants from the Executive to work from home and was established with three main pillars. First, it supported new ways of contracting deliverables between management and teams. They allowed work to be monitored remotely instead of the old-fashioned procedure of controlling time sheets. Second, to unleash the possibilities of such contracting, governmental units were pushed to map their main service delivery processes and transform them into tasks that could be rationally distributed to teams. Third, new digital systems registered these agreements and monitored their execution monthly. Based on the case study of the PGD, this policy paper describes the development of the PGD within the Brazilian government and indicates challenges to progress with its implementation. We conclude that the PGD might have created the needed structure for the government to step towards new ways of managing the workforce. This policy paper presented the case study of the PGD, a transformation program within the Brazilian government that enabled remote work in public service in Brazil. The PGD study case was based on documents, websites, articles, and news from the Program's implementation process. Many of the presented discussions are ongoing and aim to support practical and academic discussions on the challenges of implementing government transformation. The PGD is the Brazilian national Program that comprises legislation, digital systems, and management practices improved during the pandemic to enable teleworking in the government. Besides remote work, it can be seen as a driver for setting new work planning and monitoring practices. The PGD demanded innovative digital systems and generated opportunities for strategic changes in the Brazilian public service.