Chapter 8: Public Employees – Rights and Responsibilities
Although public personnel administration has much in common with its private sector counterpart, especially regarding management techniques associated with such functions as job evaluation, job pricing, and performance appraisal, there are also fundamental differences in practices between the two sectors. Public personnel practices are open to public scrutiny, and partisan issues and questions of political control are always on the agenda.
In the Bill of Rights there are some limitations including constraints on the government’s authority to restrict freedom of speech and association (First Amendment), limitations the government’s right to conduct searches and seizures (Fourth Amendment), and restrictions the government’s power to deny persons life, liberty, or property without due process of law (Fifth Amendment). Public employees retain important constitutional rights when they enter the public service, and as a result, the actions available to personnel managers in the public sector are limited in significant ways. In the mid-1950s the employer-employee relationship in the public sector was dominated by the employer who was free to impose many conditions on workers that they had to accept to keep their jobs. Courts had ruled that employees did not have any rights in the job that were based on the Constitution. Public employees had virtually no rights in termination proceedings.
Liberty interests are triggered when the termination of a public employee is accomplished in such a way that the employee’s reputation is damaged and his or her freedom to find future work is limited as a result. This issue can arise whenever the government employer reports negative or otherwise unflattering information regarding an employee’s conduct or behavior on the job as a reason for termination.
In the area of freedom of expression, the Court struggled to carefully balance the interests of public employees and their employers. What should be balanced in each case is the interest of public employees as citizens to comment on matters of public concern and that of the public employer in providing services to the public.
The right of public employees to associate or refrain from associating with specific organizations is also protected by the First Amendment. It is also well established that public employees may not be required to support or join a particular political party as a condition of employment or to receive beneficial consideration in various employment conditions.
Employees typically have due process rights in termination proceedings and are guaranteed freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Likewise, public workers can expect equal protection of the laws and any distinctions drawn between them along racial lines will, if challenged in court, be subjected to the most exacting judicial scrutiny. The employer can expect in return loyalty, good faith, and efficient and effective work from the public employee.
Because the Constitution restricts government action these rights do not normally accrue to employees in the private sector unless they are specifically included in contract provisions. In this sense, public employees occupy a somewhat special status among workers in the national labor force. In exchange, government may expect, and indeed may demand, a workforce that is competent, effective, and politically neutral.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Chapter 7: Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector
Chapter 7: Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector
Collective bargaining is a bilateral decision-making process in which authorized representatives of management and labor: (1) meet and negotiate such matters as wages, hours, and working conditions; (2) produce a mutually binding written contract of specified duration; and (3) agree to share responsibility for administering the provisions of that contract. Strikes, slowdowns, and political action by organized employees trying to negotiate pay raises, improved benefits, better working conditions, and the right to participate in the making of personnel policies became hallmarks of public sector relations. Across the country, established private sector labor-management practices and concepts invaded the public sector, often to the extreme discomfort of public administrators who saw them as threats to their authority and to the merit principle. Labor management relations and collective bargaining were firmly established as objects of public personnel policy, and they became administrative responsibilities as well as areas of technical expertise.
Collective bargaining stands in contrast to the traditional merit system because it makes many of the terms of the employment relationship a matter of bilateral negotiations between representatives of two organizations: the public employer and the labor union. Collective bargaining usually takes place within a highly formalized system of laws, rules, and procedures. Collective bargaining is based on statutes or ordinances except in a few cases where they have been set up by executive orders.
Most collective bargaining statutes do not specify which individual positions are to be considered supervisory. This determination is left to the administrative agency that decides bargaining units, and some of these agencies will closely examine the actual duties of positions with supervisory titles and exclude only those involving clearly supervisory duties and powers.
Management usually seeks to narrow the scope of bargaining. In the public sector, overriding laws and court rulings may effectively remove certain issues from the bargaining table. The scope of bargaining in government is generally likely to be narrower than it is in the private sector. Provisions of civil service laws, state education codes, special legislation covering the pay of blue-collar workers and other statutes make many issues nonnegotiable. A “management rights” clause often is included in collective bargaining statutes. It is designed to specify managerial powers that may not be bargained away or shared with labor organizations. Management rights clauses are usually replicated in contracts, but determining what they mean in specific cases is often a responsibility of the labor relations agency.
In some ways, collective bargaining may have protected the merit principle and advanced the cause of professional public management. The most important impact of collective bargaining in the public sector has been a transformation of the relationship between employer and employee. Traditional civil service merit systems are based on the proposition that management’s “rules of the workplace” set the terms of the relationship between the employer and the individual worker. Under collective bargaining, management is required to negotiate those rules with another organization, the labor union or employee association.
Collective bargaining is a bilateral decision-making process in which authorized representatives of management and labor: (1) meet and negotiate such matters as wages, hours, and working conditions; (2) produce a mutually binding written contract of specified duration; and (3) agree to share responsibility for administering the provisions of that contract. Strikes, slowdowns, and political action by organized employees trying to negotiate pay raises, improved benefits, better working conditions, and the right to participate in the making of personnel policies became hallmarks of public sector relations. Across the country, established private sector labor-management practices and concepts invaded the public sector, often to the extreme discomfort of public administrators who saw them as threats to their authority and to the merit principle. Labor management relations and collective bargaining were firmly established as objects of public personnel policy, and they became administrative responsibilities as well as areas of technical expertise.
Collective bargaining stands in contrast to the traditional merit system because it makes many of the terms of the employment relationship a matter of bilateral negotiations between representatives of two organizations: the public employer and the labor union. Collective bargaining usually takes place within a highly formalized system of laws, rules, and procedures. Collective bargaining is based on statutes or ordinances except in a few cases where they have been set up by executive orders.
Most collective bargaining statutes do not specify which individual positions are to be considered supervisory. This determination is left to the administrative agency that decides bargaining units, and some of these agencies will closely examine the actual duties of positions with supervisory titles and exclude only those involving clearly supervisory duties and powers.
Management usually seeks to narrow the scope of bargaining. In the public sector, overriding laws and court rulings may effectively remove certain issues from the bargaining table. The scope of bargaining in government is generally likely to be narrower than it is in the private sector. Provisions of civil service laws, state education codes, special legislation covering the pay of blue-collar workers and other statutes make many issues nonnegotiable. A “management rights” clause often is included in collective bargaining statutes. It is designed to specify managerial powers that may not be bargained away or shared with labor organizations. Management rights clauses are usually replicated in contracts, but determining what they mean in specific cases is often a responsibility of the labor relations agency.
In some ways, collective bargaining may have protected the merit principle and advanced the cause of professional public management. The most important impact of collective bargaining in the public sector has been a transformation of the relationship between employer and employee. Traditional civil service merit systems are based on the proposition that management’s “rules of the workplace” set the terms of the relationship between the employer and the individual worker. Under collective bargaining, management is required to negotiate those rules with another organization, the labor union or employee association.
Chapter 6: Performance Appraisal and Pay for Performance
Chapter 6: Performance Appraisal and Pay for Performance
Chapter six focuses on two very closely connected features of personnel policy in the public sector. The first is a renewed interest in creating performance appraisal systems that actively support the performance management efforts of public agencies. The second is an effort to establish “pay-for-performance” systems that have positive effects on the motivation and productivity of public employees. Pay-for-performance requires supervisors and employees have confidence in the objectivity and fairness of the performance appraisal process.
Emphasis is being placed on relating the performance objectives and accomplishments of individuals to those of the organization and its programs. The methods used to evaluate and reward employee performance on all levels should be designed to promote the goals and policy objectives of public agencies. The current emphasis is on the managerial functions of performance appraisal systems.
As merit systems were established and expanded on all levels of government, the design and operation of performance appraisal systems came to be dominated by technical specialists working for commissions or their functional equivalents. It is difficult to conceive of a genuine merit system without a credible system for appraising individual performance.
The first problem is identifying and defining the performance dimensions of civil service positions. Professional and administrative jobs are often complex and variable. Even if agreement on performance dimensions can be reached, developing administratively feasible methods for accurately measuring performance on the job is an equally difficult technical problem. Technical problems associated with the appraisal of individual employees are considerable and attempting to solve them are expensive. The second category of problems is managerial. The third set of problems is organizational.
Total Quality Management (TQM) approaches the entire organization as a complex set of system of interdependent processes. The goals of the TQM approach are to study work processes to identify barriers to quality, to satisfy internal and external customers, and to create and organizational culture that values quality and continuous improvement. The objective of TQM is to change organizational systems to improve quality, rather than changing individual workers.
Pay-for-performance is a hallmark of Civil Service Reform II. Using PFP to raise productivity has been a basic element of management thinking in the United States since the late 1800s. The goal was to increaser “efficiency” in the blue-collar workplace. Pay-for-performance plans come in a variety of forms, including those using one-time bonuses or variable pay, permanent increases to base salary, and group-based bonuses or ”gainsharing.” Individual bonuses and base-pay increases are by far the most common in the U.S. public sector.
A performance evaluation process that is supported by supervisors and employees is a very important component of any merit system. The appraisal systems used by public employers have been technically crude and ineffective as performance management tools. During the past 20 years, the push to create performance appraisal systems that accurately and reliably discriminate among levels of performance has been driven by the popularity of PFP as the centerpiece of all civil service reform initiatives.
Chapter six focuses on two very closely connected features of personnel policy in the public sector. The first is a renewed interest in creating performance appraisal systems that actively support the performance management efforts of public agencies. The second is an effort to establish “pay-for-performance” systems that have positive effects on the motivation and productivity of public employees. Pay-for-performance requires supervisors and employees have confidence in the objectivity and fairness of the performance appraisal process.
Emphasis is being placed on relating the performance objectives and accomplishments of individuals to those of the organization and its programs. The methods used to evaluate and reward employee performance on all levels should be designed to promote the goals and policy objectives of public agencies. The current emphasis is on the managerial functions of performance appraisal systems.
As merit systems were established and expanded on all levels of government, the design and operation of performance appraisal systems came to be dominated by technical specialists working for commissions or their functional equivalents. It is difficult to conceive of a genuine merit system without a credible system for appraising individual performance.
The first problem is identifying and defining the performance dimensions of civil service positions. Professional and administrative jobs are often complex and variable. Even if agreement on performance dimensions can be reached, developing administratively feasible methods for accurately measuring performance on the job is an equally difficult technical problem. Technical problems associated with the appraisal of individual employees are considerable and attempting to solve them are expensive. The second category of problems is managerial. The third set of problems is organizational.
Total Quality Management (TQM) approaches the entire organization as a complex set of system of interdependent processes. The goals of the TQM approach are to study work processes to identify barriers to quality, to satisfy internal and external customers, and to create and organizational culture that values quality and continuous improvement. The objective of TQM is to change organizational systems to improve quality, rather than changing individual workers.
Pay-for-performance is a hallmark of Civil Service Reform II. Using PFP to raise productivity has been a basic element of management thinking in the United States since the late 1800s. The goal was to increaser “efficiency” in the blue-collar workplace. Pay-for-performance plans come in a variety of forms, including those using one-time bonuses or variable pay, permanent increases to base salary, and group-based bonuses or ”gainsharing.” Individual bonuses and base-pay increases are by far the most common in the U.S. public sector.
A performance evaluation process that is supported by supervisors and employees is a very important component of any merit system. The appraisal systems used by public employers have been technically crude and ineffective as performance management tools. During the past 20 years, the push to create performance appraisal systems that accurately and reliably discriminate among levels of performance has been driven by the popularity of PFP as the centerpiece of all civil service reform initiatives.
Chapter 5: Issues in Job Evaluation and Pay
Chapter 5: Issues in Job Evaluation and Pay
To enhance efficiency and equity in a variety of core personnel functions such as recruitment, examination, selection, performance management, and compensation, it is useful that we understand the content of jobs and that we evaluate and group jobs that are similar in their associated tasks and responsibilities together into categories or classes. This is known as “rank in job,” where the characteristics of the job rather than the characteristics of the person holding the job determine the rank. The design, application, and maintenance of job evaluation systems is considered a major responsibility of human resource specialists, especially in government merit systems where emphasis is placed on achieving equity in selection procedures and pay administration.
To understand and ultimately describe the content of jobs, an analysis of the required tasks and the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) associated with them is necessary. Jobs change over time as technology, organizational structure, and demands placed on jobs change. Therefore, it is important to have other sources of information. One such source is the incumbent employee. An analyst can ask employees about the content of their jobs by administering a survey consisting of a job analysis questionnaire that provides information about the variety of tasks associated with specific jobs. The survey is an efficient way to collect a substantial amount of information. It is also useful to ask employees about their jobs in direct personal interviews. The third common source of information about job content is the supervisor who has responsibility to oversee work performed in the job under analysis. Four specific techniques of job analysis are used in both the public and private sectors. The first whole-job method in which jobs are compared to each other is known as “ranking” and is the simplest of all the approaches. A personnel specialist is to read job descriptions and place them in rank from the most important to the least. The second whole-job approach is known as “grade description” or “job classification.” It provides a modest improvement over the ranking techniques. Jobs are compared with evaluation standards. The factor –comparison approach is the most difficult technique to explain. First, the identification of “benchmark” jobs are determined to be appropriately compensated. Next, job factors or characteristics that justify compensation are identified. A determination is made of how much of the pay of each benchmark job is attributable to each of the selected factors. Each job evaluated becomes an additional benchmark. The final approach to job evaluation is the factor/point technique. This requires that jobs be broken down into compensable factors for purposes of evaluation, and that the presence of those factors be compared with predetermined standards.
Job evaluation is a key target of Civil Service Reform II initiatives because it is at the heart of conventional merit systems. The federal government is in the process of fragmenting into a wide variety of pay plans, many of which are intended to address the needs of individual agencies to attract and retain certain categories of workers, most importantly skilled professionals and occupations that are in high demand.
To enhance efficiency and equity in a variety of core personnel functions such as recruitment, examination, selection, performance management, and compensation, it is useful that we understand the content of jobs and that we evaluate and group jobs that are similar in their associated tasks and responsibilities together into categories or classes. This is known as “rank in job,” where the characteristics of the job rather than the characteristics of the person holding the job determine the rank. The design, application, and maintenance of job evaluation systems is considered a major responsibility of human resource specialists, especially in government merit systems where emphasis is placed on achieving equity in selection procedures and pay administration.
To understand and ultimately describe the content of jobs, an analysis of the required tasks and the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) associated with them is necessary. Jobs change over time as technology, organizational structure, and demands placed on jobs change. Therefore, it is important to have other sources of information. One such source is the incumbent employee. An analyst can ask employees about the content of their jobs by administering a survey consisting of a job analysis questionnaire that provides information about the variety of tasks associated with specific jobs. The survey is an efficient way to collect a substantial amount of information. It is also useful to ask employees about their jobs in direct personal interviews. The third common source of information about job content is the supervisor who has responsibility to oversee work performed in the job under analysis. Four specific techniques of job analysis are used in both the public and private sectors. The first whole-job method in which jobs are compared to each other is known as “ranking” and is the simplest of all the approaches. A personnel specialist is to read job descriptions and place them in rank from the most important to the least. The second whole-job approach is known as “grade description” or “job classification.” It provides a modest improvement over the ranking techniques. Jobs are compared with evaluation standards. The factor –comparison approach is the most difficult technique to explain. First, the identification of “benchmark” jobs are determined to be appropriately compensated. Next, job factors or characteristics that justify compensation are identified. A determination is made of how much of the pay of each benchmark job is attributable to each of the selected factors. Each job evaluated becomes an additional benchmark. The final approach to job evaluation is the factor/point technique. This requires that jobs be broken down into compensable factors for purposes of evaluation, and that the presence of those factors be compared with predetermined standards.
Job evaluation is a key target of Civil Service Reform II initiatives because it is at the heart of conventional merit systems. The federal government is in the process of fragmenting into a wide variety of pay plans, many of which are intended to address the needs of individual agencies to attract and retain certain categories of workers, most importantly skilled professionals and occupations that are in high demand.
Chapter 4: Recruitment and Selection
Chapter 4: Recruitment and Selection
To be effective, an agency’s human resources program must be able to identify, recruit, and acquire people who are well qualified at entry, responsive to available incentives, and able to develop new skills and abilities. Highly qualified candidates are more often than not willing to accept lower pay than they could get in the private sector because of the status and authority that comes with public service careers.
There are methods, issues and problems with selecting people for public service jobs. Its intensive concentration on both initial selection and promotion was a direct result of the movement’s effort to eliminate patronage or spoils as an organizing principle of public personnel administration. Thus, traditional merit systems emphasize political neutrality and objectivity at every stage of the selection process. To achieve this goal, the selection process had to be designed and controlled by personnel specialists housed in central personnel agencies or independent commissions.
The purpose of selection tests is to provide the employer with a reasonably accurate prediction of how applicants are likely to perfume in specific jobs.
Validation methods generally accepted by specialists in testing
Criterion-related validity
Requires that test scores be correlated with a criterion accepted as a reasonable indicator of job ability
Construct validity
Requires that tests be designed to measure certain general traits or constructs, such as intelligence or creativity, that are presumed or demonstrated to be associated with satisfactory job performance
Content validity
Established when the content of a test closely matches the content of a job
The most recent developments in the area of electronic recruitment and examination are becoming increasingly important. They may make it possible to maximize efficiency while ensuring adequate levels of centralized oversight and control.
To be effective, an agency’s human resources program must be able to identify, recruit, and acquire people who are well qualified at entry, responsive to available incentives, and able to develop new skills and abilities. Highly qualified candidates are more often than not willing to accept lower pay than they could get in the private sector because of the status and authority that comes with public service careers.
There are methods, issues and problems with selecting people for public service jobs. Its intensive concentration on both initial selection and promotion was a direct result of the movement’s effort to eliminate patronage or spoils as an organizing principle of public personnel administration. Thus, traditional merit systems emphasize political neutrality and objectivity at every stage of the selection process. To achieve this goal, the selection process had to be designed and controlled by personnel specialists housed in central personnel agencies or independent commissions.
The purpose of selection tests is to provide the employer with a reasonably accurate prediction of how applicants are likely to perfume in specific jobs.
Validation methods generally accepted by specialists in testing
Criterion-related validity
Requires that test scores be correlated with a criterion accepted as a reasonable indicator of job ability
Construct validity
Requires that tests be designed to measure certain general traits or constructs, such as intelligence or creativity, that are presumed or demonstrated to be associated with satisfactory job performance
Content validity
Established when the content of a test closely matches the content of a job
The most recent developments in the area of electronic recruitment and examination are becoming increasingly important. They may make it possible to maximize efficiency while ensuring adequate levels of centralized oversight and control.
Chapter 3: Human Resources and Organizational Performance
Chapter 3: Human Resources and Organizational Performance
Human Capital Standards
Strategic alignment standard
Workforce planning and deployment standard
Leadership and knowledge management standard
Results-oriented performance culture standard
Talent standard
Accountability standard
Competitive approaches stress acquiring human resources by doing better than other organizations in the relevant labor markets. However, even if it’s possible to offer competitive pay and benefits, and have a reasonably good public image, public agencies may have difficulty locating and attracting enough candidates having skills and other qualities that are in high demand.
Three strategies for obtaining reliable access to human resources:
The Competitive Strategy
Doing better than the other organizations in the relevant labor markets
The Cooperative Strategy
Designed to maintain organizational access to essential human resources
The Incorporation Strategy
Creating an internal source in an organization where an agency faces an economy or labor market that is unpredictable or is chronically incapable of supplying appropriately trained and educated people in sufficient numbers
Managing Work Force Performance
Low absenteeism
Low turnover of high-skill employees
Reliably good performance
A cooperative workforce
The human resource management perspective requires above all that personnel specialists assume an organizational and performance-driven point of view. Four areas of activity that will better utilize human resources:
Help in the design, administration, and evaluation of incentives plans that reflect current knowledge about human motivation and behavior in organizations
Play an important role in the design of systems to attract, select, and place employees who are most likely to respond favorably to the range of inducements an organization is able to offer
Take the lead in developing ways of monitoring employee perceptions and attitudes
Play an important analytic or evaluation role by conducting rigorous evaluations of the human resources management programs of the organization
Chapter 2: Public Personnel Administration: An Historical Overview
Chapter 2: Public Personnel Administration: An Historical Overview
The organizational functions now associated with public personnel administration have been around for many thousands of years.
The Era of Political Responsiveness: Patronage and Spoils
The initial public service on all levels of government in the United States was political or partisan – public employees were expected to actively work for and in many cases financially support candidates for elective office on all levels of government. There was no separation between partisan politics and administration in practice.
“Fitness of Character” as described by President Washington meant that the person was of good character, was able to do the work involved, and was in conformity with the political views and policy objectives of the chief executive and his associates.
Civil Service Reform I: Neutral Competence in Government
By advancing “neutral competence” as the core value of public service, the civil service reformers sought to undermine a critical element of the machine’s base of electoral power and administrative control – the patronage.
Implementing Neutral Competence with Merit Systems
The merit principle dictates that appointments, promotions, and other personnel actions should be made exclusively on the basis of relative ability and job performance. This idea has usually meant the administration of competitive examinations to measure qualifications. Scores on these “objective” tests are then used to rank applicants. For other personnel actions such as pay raises, reduction-in-force, and dismissals, the assumption has also been that the employee’s “merit” could be determined through performance appraisals and that he or she should be treated accordingly. Government personnel systems based on these values and assumptions are called merit systems.
The law called for a merit system based on three interrelated concepts:
o Open competitive examinations as the basis for selection
o Political neutrality by employees
o Relative security of tenure – employees would be removed only for reasons having to do with malfeasance in office
o They were not to be removed for political reasons
For the most part, administrators of merit systems concentrated on “keeping the rascals out” by severely constraining line management’s role in personnel matters.
Positive Personnel Administration
Insights of human relations could be applied to the personnel function in the following ways:
o Attending to social and psychological factors in productivity such as supervisory leadership, incentives, and the design of jobs and work settings
o Focusing attention on the behavioral as well as technical skills and conditions people need to develop their potential and to function effectively in the workplace.
o Recognizing the importance of effective supervision on the social and psychological levels.
o Increasing the knowledge base of personnel administration.
o Requiring personnel workers themselves to have sufficiently broad backgrounds of training and experience to understand human behavior.
Collective Bargaining in Government
Is a process by which employer and employee representatives negotiate a contract governing specified terms and conditions of employment. For many personnel administrators, public employee unionization and collective bargaining were in the same category as spoils: something to be vigorously resisted on the legal, legislative, and organizational levels.
Expanding the Constitutional Rights of Public Employees
Historically, the courts had ruled that employees did not have any rights in the job that were based on the Constitution. Thus, I fixing the terms of employment, the public employer could and often did deny workers civil and political rights universally enjoyed by those in the private sector.
From Exclusive to Inclusive Personnel Policies and Practices
There has been a long and well-known history of discrimination directied against minorities and women both the private and the public sectors. Social norms, unequal educational opportunities, the exclusion of minorities from the political process, and intentional discrimination by personnel administrators played major roles in the exclusion of minorities and women from all but the lowest levels of the public service.
Civil Service Reform II: Effective and Responsive Government Administration
Management possessed the capacity to reward good performers and to discipline and remove poor performers who did not improve the quality of their work. Merit plans were instilled and were very helpful in getting legislative approval of civil service reform packages on the federal and state levels, but they proved to be very difficult to implement and evaluations of their effects on performance were discouraging.
The Higher Civil Service
Responsible for the administration of federal agencies and for the coordinated policy direction of the federal agencies and for the coordinated policy direction of the federal establishment. The higher civil service provides much of the day-to-day expertise and leadership necessary for successful governance.
Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel
Recruiting talented people with needed technical and professional skills had become difficult in an increasingly competitive labor market. Similarly, turnover and early retirements were undermining the foundation of experiencing and skill federal agencies needed to function effectively.
Performance and Productivity
Ability of the federal personnel management system to promote and sustain a “culture of performance.”
The organizational functions now associated with public personnel administration have been around for many thousands of years.
The Era of Political Responsiveness: Patronage and Spoils
The initial public service on all levels of government in the United States was political or partisan – public employees were expected to actively work for and in many cases financially support candidates for elective office on all levels of government. There was no separation between partisan politics and administration in practice.
“Fitness of Character” as described by President Washington meant that the person was of good character, was able to do the work involved, and was in conformity with the political views and policy objectives of the chief executive and his associates.
Civil Service Reform I: Neutral Competence in Government
By advancing “neutral competence” as the core value of public service, the civil service reformers sought to undermine a critical element of the machine’s base of electoral power and administrative control – the patronage.
Implementing Neutral Competence with Merit Systems
The merit principle dictates that appointments, promotions, and other personnel actions should be made exclusively on the basis of relative ability and job performance. This idea has usually meant the administration of competitive examinations to measure qualifications. Scores on these “objective” tests are then used to rank applicants. For other personnel actions such as pay raises, reduction-in-force, and dismissals, the assumption has also been that the employee’s “merit” could be determined through performance appraisals and that he or she should be treated accordingly. Government personnel systems based on these values and assumptions are called merit systems.
The law called for a merit system based on three interrelated concepts:
o Open competitive examinations as the basis for selection
o Political neutrality by employees
o Relative security of tenure – employees would be removed only for reasons having to do with malfeasance in office
o They were not to be removed for political reasons
For the most part, administrators of merit systems concentrated on “keeping the rascals out” by severely constraining line management’s role in personnel matters.
Positive Personnel Administration
Insights of human relations could be applied to the personnel function in the following ways:
o Attending to social and psychological factors in productivity such as supervisory leadership, incentives, and the design of jobs and work settings
o Focusing attention on the behavioral as well as technical skills and conditions people need to develop their potential and to function effectively in the workplace.
o Recognizing the importance of effective supervision on the social and psychological levels.
o Increasing the knowledge base of personnel administration.
o Requiring personnel workers themselves to have sufficiently broad backgrounds of training and experience to understand human behavior.
Collective Bargaining in Government
Is a process by which employer and employee representatives negotiate a contract governing specified terms and conditions of employment. For many personnel administrators, public employee unionization and collective bargaining were in the same category as spoils: something to be vigorously resisted on the legal, legislative, and organizational levels.
Expanding the Constitutional Rights of Public Employees
Historically, the courts had ruled that employees did not have any rights in the job that were based on the Constitution. Thus, I fixing the terms of employment, the public employer could and often did deny workers civil and political rights universally enjoyed by those in the private sector.
From Exclusive to Inclusive Personnel Policies and Practices
There has been a long and well-known history of discrimination directied against minorities and women both the private and the public sectors. Social norms, unequal educational opportunities, the exclusion of minorities from the political process, and intentional discrimination by personnel administrators played major roles in the exclusion of minorities and women from all but the lowest levels of the public service.
Civil Service Reform II: Effective and Responsive Government Administration
Management possessed the capacity to reward good performers and to discipline and remove poor performers who did not improve the quality of their work. Merit plans were instilled and were very helpful in getting legislative approval of civil service reform packages on the federal and state levels, but they proved to be very difficult to implement and evaluations of their effects on performance were discouraging.
The Higher Civil Service
Responsible for the administration of federal agencies and for the coordinated policy direction of the federal agencies and for the coordinated policy direction of the federal establishment. The higher civil service provides much of the day-to-day expertise and leadership necessary for successful governance.
Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel
Recruiting talented people with needed technical and professional skills had become difficult in an increasingly competitive labor market. Similarly, turnover and early retirements were undermining the foundation of experiencing and skill federal agencies needed to function effectively.
Performance and Productivity
Ability of the federal personnel management system to promote and sustain a “culture of performance.”
Chapter 1: The American Public Service
Chapter 1: The American Public Service
Personnel administration involves the implementation of public laws and the enforcement of regulatory policies. In order to be a successful organization, these functions must be carried out in an efficient and timely manner.
Public personnel administration focuses on helping public managers on all levels to meet the challenges of attracting, retaining, motivation, and developing the large and diverse pool of highly qualified people needed to staff modern government agencies of all kinds.
It is important to note that demographic, technological, and other trends in the social and economic environment of government have powerful effects on the size, composition, and administrative organization of the public service.
Not all public service organizations encompass similar employee make-ups. In fact, local governments have employment profiles different from those of the states because they usually provide different services. It may be concluded that the size and composition of the public service reflects the policy priorities of governments.
Personnel administration involves the implementation of public laws and the enforcement of regulatory policies. In order to be a successful organization, these functions must be carried out in an efficient and timely manner.
Public personnel administration focuses on helping public managers on all levels to meet the challenges of attracting, retaining, motivation, and developing the large and diverse pool of highly qualified people needed to staff modern government agencies of all kinds.
It is important to note that demographic, technological, and other trends in the social and economic environment of government have powerful effects on the size, composition, and administrative organization of the public service.
Not all public service organizations encompass similar employee make-ups. In fact, local governments have employment profiles different from those of the states because they usually provide different services. It may be concluded that the size and composition of the public service reflects the policy priorities of governments.
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