The Influence of Competence and Career Development on the Performance of Functional Officials in Position Equalization

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how competency and career development affect functional officials' performance in the wake of administrative posts within the Pariaman City Government becoming equalised. The transition to functional positions was implemented as part of bureaucratic simplification efforts. However, the performance of these officials from 2020 to 2023 has shown inconsistent patterns, prompting an investigation into contributing factors. Using a structured questionnaire distributed to 118 respondents, the data were analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS). The findings indicate that competency and career development have a positive and statistically significant effect on performance, with an influence of competence of 0.567 and career development of 0.203. Simultaneously, the model explains approximately 43,36% of the variance in performance. The results suggest that higher levels of professional competency, when paired with structured career development initiatives, contribute substantially to improving the effectiveness and productivity of functional officials. These findings underline the importance of integrated human resource strategies in sustaining public service performance post-equalization and offer empirical support for policy reinforcement in capacity building and career path clarity within the civil service system.