Human Resource ManagementLecture 10 Administrative Processes in GovernmentKeynote: The Adventures of a Young Man as a Personnel TechnicianwRead Jay Shafritzs story.Librarian.Personnel technician.Recruitment and examination technician.Graduate assistant.Assistant professor of public administration.The Personnel FunctionwThe function of a personnel staff, or even an entire personnel agency, is service to line management.wTypical services include recruiting, selection, training, evaluation, compensation, discipline, and termination.wPersonnel is a collective term for all of the employees in an organization. Word is of military origin.The Personnel FunctionwPersonnel is also commonly used to refer to the personnel management function or the organizational unit responsible for administering personnel programs.wPersonnel administration technical aspects of maintaining a full complement of employees within an organization.wPersonnel management also concerns itself with how motivated and productive the personnel are.The Personnel FunctionwThe personnel function is currently evolving from a clerical function into an in-house consultant to management on labor relations, job redesign, EEO provisions, organization development, productivity measurement, and other pressing concerns.wIn the majority of U.S. jurisdictions this transformation is only just underway.The Personnel FunctionwThe key problem for personnel management is the balancing of several contradictory values.Merit or neutral competence, executive leadership, political accountability, managerial flexibility, representativeness.wMaximizing some of these values requires arrangements poorly suited for other values.wThese matters are further complicated by the rise of public-sector collective bargaining, which emphasizes employer-employee codetermination of personnel policy.Recruitment.wRecruitment is the process of advertising job openings and encouraging candidates to apply.wDesigned to provide organizations with an adequate number of viable candidates to make a selection.wThe main objective: the generation of an adequate number of qualified candidates.wNot all positions are open to entry-level applicants.Merit selection.wSelection is the oldest function of public personnel administration.wPendleton Act mandated that all examinations for merit be practical in character.wPrimacy of practicality often breached in practice but reaffirmed in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971). “Test must measure the person for the job, not the job for the person.” wExtended to public sector in Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972.Merit selection (contd.).wJob relatedness is now the paramount consideration in developing a selection device.wThe legality of any test hinges on its capability in predicting job success.wValidation is the process of demonstrating how well the testing device actually can predict success on the job.wIn the United States, every important public issue becomes a legal problem.Position Classification and PaywExample: A large municipal hospital on the East Cost of the United States once employed a janitor to perform brain surgery. Moral: position classification systems can create much dysfunctional and sometimes silly activity.wPosition classifications are formal job descriptions that organize all jobs in a civil service merit system into classes on the basis of duties and responsibilities, for the purposes of delineating authority, establishing chains of command, and providing equitable salary scales.Position Classification and PaywPosition classification principles.Positions and not individuals should be classified.The duties and responsibilities pertaining to a position constitute the outstanding characteristics that distinguish it from, or mark its similarity to, other positions.Qualifications with respect to education, experience, knowledge, and skill necessary for the performance of certain duties are determined by the nature of those duties.Position Classification and PaywPosition classification principles.The individual characteristics of an employee occupying a position should have no bearing on the classification of the position.Persons holding positions in the same class should be considered equally qualified for any other position in that class.Position Classification and PaywPrinciples and practices of position classification go back to the scientific management movement before World War I. They have not been adapted since.wA classification plan is nothing more than a time and motion study for the governmental function.wDuties divided into positions to prevent duplication and promote efficiency.wPosition is simply a set of duties and responsibilities, not a person.Position Classification and PaywBasic doctrines established before World War II. Current management science and theory ignored.wWorkforce no longer the same.wMost of labor force are highly skilled technical and professional personnel whose duties do not fit in a classification.wEven people at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy now have enough education and training to resist being treated like interchangeable parts.Performance AppraisalwPerformance appraisal is the title usually given to the formal method by which an organization documents the work performance of its employees.wMost performance evaluation systems fail because of inherent subjectivity.Performance AppraisalwFive functions.Changing or modifying dysfunctional work behavior;Communicating to employees managerial perceptions of the quality and quantity of their work;Assessing the future potential of an employee to recommend appropriate training or developmental assignments;Assessing whether the present duties of an employees position have an appropriate compensation level; andProviding a documented record for disciplinary and separation actions.Performance AppraisalwFive basic types of appraisal.Supervisory ratings: most common, supervisor evaluates performance of subordinates.Self-ratings: individuals rate themselves using a standard form, narrative report, or work product.Peer ratings: each individual rates every employee in his or her division or office at a parallel level in the organization.Subordinate ratings: subordinates rate the performance of a supervisor.Group ratings: an independent rater, usually an expert, rates the performance of the entire work unit based on selected interviews or on-the-job visitations.Performance AppraisalwThe problem arises in the varying standards of supervisors. The good ones will do their subordinates a disservice by being honest.wSeldom an adequate incentive in a public system for supervisor to be honest.wResult: inflated ratings.TrainingwTraining has frequently been the victim of organizational neglect.In a budget squeeze, training funds are cut in favor of mandated examination and training functions.wGovernment Employees Training Act not passed until 1958.wMost training programs skimp on evaluation. To properly evaluate, standards for performance have to be set prior to training.TrainingwThe essential question is whether or not a training effort has met its objective.wTraining system.Training needs assessment.Training program design.Training program delivery.Training program evaluation.TrainingwTraining formats.Skills training.Coaching.Formal or informal classroom instruction.Sensitivity or “T-group” training.Job rotation.Special conferences and seminars.Modeling, games, and seminars.Exchange and sabbatical programs.TrainingwAll forms of training are limited by the availability of funding.wRemember, no statement of training accomplishment in an annual report can honestly be made unless it is supported by a sophisticated measure of evaluation.Management DevelopmentwManagement development is a hybrid of training and selection.wAny conscious effort on the part of an organization to provide a manager with the skills needed for future duties such as rotational assignments or formal education experiences constitute management development.Management DevelopmentwThe secondary focus of management development is selection.wThe range of experiences, both on or off the job, that managers are expose to over the years leaves records in terms of specific scores or subjective evaluations upon which future advancements may be based.Management DevelopmentwHow does an organization establish criteria for selected inexperienced managers for development?wAssessment centers. Management simulations and stress situations.The Bittersweet Heritage of Civil Service ReformwThe perversion of most civil service merit systems for private, administrative, and partisan ends is one of the worst kept, yet least written about, secrets in government.wOddly, the perversion of merit systems is a normal, even healthy, condition. The perversion may be essential if actual merit is to be rewarded.Netherworld of Public Personnel AdministrationwPublic personnel merit systems operate at three levels.Formal system where most employees enter, perform, and advance on the basis of merit and the design of the system.Political rewards system.Scrupulous abuse to increase managerial flexibility.From Spoils to MeritwCivil service reform movement.Jefferson and philosophically hostile bureaucracy. Generally refused to remove appointees except for “malconduct”.Jackson and the spoils system.Advent of modern merit systems at once, a political, economic, and moral development.The Pendleton ActwPassage of the Act aided by assassination of Garfield and Republican losses in 1882 election.wThe Act created the Civil Service Commission as the personnel management arm of the U.S. government. Subject to the administrative discretion of the president.wOpen competitive exams, probationary periods, and protection from political pressures.wNot a total victory for reformers. Initially only covered 10 percent of positions. Gradual incremental increase in coverage.The Pendleton ActState and Local ReformwInfluenced by Pendleton Act, state and local governments began to institute merit systems.wBut, a very slow process. First two adoptions (New York and Massachusetts occurred) within two years, but it was 20 years before another state did it.wIt was not until well after World War II that most states installed merit systems.State and Local ReformwCity adoption also gradual. Now covers 88 percent of cities, 90 percent of counties. wBut on the books does not necessarily mean effective implementation.Rise and Fall of the Civil Service CommissionwBipartisan commissions became common.wAt local level, commission became politically and administratively independent of the executive.Goal: defeating influence of partisan spoils.wCity manager movement challenged rationale for the commission.wBut not all cities adopted city manager form of government.Rise and Fall of the Civil Service CommissionwMerit system has taken hold in most jurisdictions because:Complexity of modern local government increased requirements for greater technical training.Federal government threw its weight behind the development of forceful merit systems.wProblem: Modern elected executives and public managers need more flexibility than is provided by an independent civil service commission.Civil Service Reform Act of 1978wJimmy Carter.Office of Personnel Management.Merit Systems Protection Board.Senior Executive Service.wChanges more cosmetic than real.Civil Service Reform Act of 1978Reinventing Public Personnel AdministrationwReinventing government.Deregulated personnel policy by eliminating the Federal Personnel Manual.Given all departments and agencies authority to conduct their own recruiting and examinations.Dramatically simplified classification system.Allowed agencies to design own performance management and reward systems.Sought to reduce by half the time required to terminate federal managers and employees for cause.Patronage AppointmentswThe Plum Book.Presidential appointments at his or her discretion. 40,000 resumes every four years. Most thrown out. Positions require “patron.”Patronage AppointmentswConstitutionality of patronage.Patronage unconstitutional (Rutan v. the Republican Party 1990). Reality: Still exists.wVeterans preferences.First Act 1865, disability.Superceded in 1919, honorably discharged.1944, five point bonus on exams.