U9A1-24 - Contrast equity theory with expectancy theory and apply these concepts to your own organization. See Details Below.

Heather Getha-Taylor University of Kansas

Introduction

Local government workforces are experiencing rapid and unprecedented change. Some of the most prominent challenges include managing reductions in force, succession planning for an increasingly aging workforce, addressing pressures for outsourcing, and responding to ever growing demands for services. Further, the gap between expected performance and available resources continues to grow. Local government employees are responsible for critical public service commitments, including public health and safety, and are at the same time dealt the deepest personnel management cuts. This chapter considers this stark situation by examining the need to strategically balance enduring commitments and emerging needs.

In 2012, Ann Arbor council member Christopher Taylor wrote about the difficulty of managing such challenges. While writing specifically about governance in Michigan, his statement could certainly be applied more broadly:

We live in an economically and politically challenged state. Michigan’s political culture has for years now driven us to become a low-service state that cabins cities’ ability to solve local problems and provide exemplary municipal services; systematically diminishes support of public and higher education; and deemphasizes and underresources long-standing infrastructure needs. (Taylor 2012)

Many local governments across the United States are facing similar circumstances. A key question is how to maintain a strong public workforce amid these constraints. Despite difficulties, trade-offs are not mandatory. For instance, the city of Albany, Oregon, has successfully balanced effective management with emerging local trends such as an unemployment rate that exceeds the national average and poverty rates (especially among disabled citizens) that exceed state averages. While service gaps may be expected in this context if growing needs outstrip public resources, the city’s performance was recognized four years in a row by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), and in 2011 and 2012, the city received the ICMA Certificate of Excellence Award. Albany’s city manager, Wes Hare, cites strategic planning as key to the city’s success during what has been an otherwise trying time.

A well run city, in the end, is a place where people want to live. Albany’s Strategic Plan calls for us to achieve that goal by maintaining safety, a healthy economy, great neighborhoods, and effective government services. By most measures, the community has been successful over the past decade, although many challenges remain. I believe we will overcome those challenges by maintaining a commitment to rigorously analyze our weaknesses, measure our performance, and take corrective action when we know there is a need to do so. (Hare 2012)

Scholarship and practice together advocate for strategic management approaches. When applied to workforce issues, strategic human resources management (HRM) moves an organization toward a specific vision via practices aimed to meet key objectives (Daley 2002). SHRM offers a road map to guide organizations from their current realities to expected end goals. Yet it is difficult to maintain a strategic map when boundaries shift. Understanding how to effectively manage the local government workforce when budgets shrink, demands increase, and goals change is a priority. Given the impact of external forces on internal planning practices, it is important to consider ways in which local governments can maintain a strategic focus during times of turbulence.

There are a number of key dimensions impacting the practice of strategic HRM, including planning, structure, process, values and culture, organizational context, leadership and management, labor-management relations, environmental elements, and technological considerations (Farazmand 2007). This chapter considers local government HRM from a systems perspective by examining the external and internal forces that together impact the ability to bridge organizational, employee, and societal expectations. This chapter presents illustrations of ways in which local governments have successfully sustained a strategic workforce management emphasis during turbulent times. Finally, while this chapter highlights some of the most pressing workforce management issues facing local government, it also provides recommendations for engaging in strategic practices at the local level.

Learning from the Past

Historical foundations shed light on current challenges and illustrate previous efforts to reform, reshape, or revitalize the public service. Emergent forces call attention to the ongoing value tensions between patronage and merit, neutrality and responsiveness, and efficiency and effectiveness (Ingraham 1995). These long-standing tensions are well rooted in the Jacksonian or spoils era, which was marked by political partisanship, regular turnover, and overt corruption. While originally framed as an opportunity to return government employment to “the common man,” patronage hurt the image of public employment at all levels. Yet it served political purposes, including responsiveness and party loyalty (Loverd and Pavlak 1983). Freedman (1994) summarizes both sides of the coin: “While there have been periods when patronage achieved widespread acceptance and the practice has at all times had its defenders, for much of our history patronage has been considered undemocratic and unsavory if not downright corrupt and immoral” (pp. 8–9).

The patronage system thrived in the years leading up to the assassination of President Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker in 1881. Corruption and inefficiencies affected all levels of government. Kickbacks, overpayments, and work stoppages led to pushes for reform, but entrenched bosses didn’t see the potential of politics without patronage and vocally criticized the “snivel service” reform efforts (Van Riper 1958: 62, in Freedman 1994). High-profile, publicized cases of opportunistic grift helped turn the tide, including examples like the New York County clerk who retained up to $80,000 in fees as part of his salary (Hoogenboom 1961: 256 in Freedman 1994).

The landmark Pendleton Act of 1883 ushered in merit reform at the federal level but did not include city provisions. It was not long, however, before local reforms were underway. The National Municipal League wrote the model legislation to introduce municipal merit provisions. The original draft served to counter mayoral power; the law was amended in 1916 to city manager form (Martin 1989). Civil service reform and the introduction of merit system tenets at the local level served to insulate personnel from political influence and also “rationalize” administration (Tolbert and Zucker 1983). The effort spread quickly: By 1935, merit legislation was enacted in over 450 U.S. cities (Van Riper 1951). Tolbert and Zucker (1983) summarized the local level reform efforts: “Local government structure became clearly patterned by the wider culture over time; civil service procedures became ubiquitous” (25).

The intervening years have witnessed an ebb and flow of reform initiatives aimed to enhance such aspects as responsiveness and performance in the bureaucracy. Yet, beginning with the effort to replace patronage in large scale, Martin (1989) notes: “Civil service and other reformers were destroying party power without replacing it with democratic alternatives. Once their reforms caused abuses, having no fresh ideas, they continued to call for even more unsuccessful reforms” (324). These reform efforts, however, focused on the extrinsic push for change without consideration of implementation or internal management factors. Freedman (1994) notes: “Many of the merit systems are incomplete and/or riddled with loopholes. Even when a civil service law looks good on paper, it is often evaded. . . . In the real world, there are no foolproof systems” (25).

According to Ingraham (1995), reform alone is not the answer. “All the management techniques in the world will falter in the public sector if the environment in which they are implemented is one of distrust and constant challenge” (13). It is difficult to learn the lesson that recognizes the interplay that exists among external forces, organizational performance, and individual investment. For instance, Arthur Proctor’s 1921 text on public personnel administration (among the first of its kind) also complained of similar concerns, including resource constraints and high public employee turnover. Further, Fred Telford’s pioneering 1927 and 1929 publications on the topic also identified underfunding and external forces as major contributors to government’s inability to meet personnel management goals. When we fast-forward to present day, we find that contemporary approaches to HRM still present difficulties in balancing external forces and internal needs. Dominant societal and political values determine the ways in which organizations set goals and conceptualize the role (and priority) of HRM now and for the future (Condrey 2012).

Current Context

The challenge of balancing multiple expectations is exacerbated by contemporary economic forces, which reshaped the local government workforce in dramatic ways (Government Accountability Office 2010; Martin, Levey, and Cawley 2012). Namely, in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007–2008, local government employment was at its lowest level in over 30 years (Greenstone and Looney 2012), and all but nine states experienced reductions in their local government workforces (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). Cuts in local government jobs, including the critical areas of public safety and education, have both short-term and long-term implications for service delivery and societal outcomes. When the goal is saving money, personnel costs are generally considered first as they constitute the greatest portion of local government spending.

In addition to adding more part-time workers (Maciag 2012), some localities responded by suggesting solutions such as mass privatization in an effort to cut costs. Perhaps one of the most dramatic recent examples is the case of Costa Mesa, California. In March 2011, the city faced a projected $15 million deficit in the city’s $114 million budget. The city council voted 4–1 to layoff nearly half of the city’s 450 employees and outsource jobs in order to cut costs (Medina 2011). The ensuing battle made national headlines as it highlighted a variety of contentious issues that divided employees, citizens, and elected officials, including public employee collective bargaining provisions, growing retirement costs, and the potential of contracting out government services. Following the layoff announcement, 29-year-old Costa Mesa maintenance worker, Huy Pham, committed suicide at city hall (Marinucci 2011). Accounts indicate that Pham was affected by the “demonizing” of public employees, which may have contributed to taking his life (Washburn, Santana, and Elmahrek 2011).

Especially in times of economic strain, public employees, and their associated benefits, can become targets for attack (Befort 2012). Negative sentiment toward public workers generally, and public unions specifically, is a palpable force (McDermott 2011). Yet the reasons for such animosity, namely concerns surrounding unfair public pay plans, are largely unfounded (Buntin 2010; Keefe 2012). Dramatic reforms, then, must be considered carefully. In the case of Costa Mesa, in August 2012, a ruling by a panel of appellate court justices prevented the layoffs and outsourcing, but proponents of the actions planned to pursue charter city status. This change would allow them to privatize city services, thereby saving money on pensions and other employee benefits (Appellate Court: No Costa Mesa Layoffs 2012). The expected savings would support capital improvement projects, but the plan violated the city’s collective bargaining agreement with employees (Dobruck and Zint 2014). At the time of this writing, the legal battle between Costa Mesa and the Costa Mesa Employees Association continues. In an interesting juxtaposition, the city has withdrawn the pink slips but remains committed to outsourcing. In this case and others, the challenges of balancing external forces, such as the need to meet revenue shortfalls, with internal forces, such as the need to protect employee rights, are painfully apparent.

The postrecession economic constraints were felt most strongly at the local government level. Local revenues dropped for six years in a row (Greenblatt 2012), and this was illustrated in a shrinking municipal and county workforce. The 2011 Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll reported a total of 10.7 million full-time employees working at the local government level and 3.3 million part-time employees, which represented an overall reduction of 3% from peak pre-recession local government employment levels (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). Pay and hiring freezes, layoffs, and furloughs were expected to constrain the local government workforce for years (Center for State and Local Government Excellence 2012). These practices are still occurring but are now accompanied by other promising trends, including the move to hire employees. Still, the size of the local workforce remains smaller than it was pre-recession (Center for State and Local Government Excellence 2014).

Further, in the most recent report of state and local government workforce trends, survey respondents indicated that recruiting and retaining qualified public servants is a top priority for the future (Center for State and Local Government Excellence 2014). And at the same time, managing the workload is a concern as well. Together, these factors can create a volatile mix. For example, a report revealed that some government staffing shortfalls resulted in caseload backlogs of over a year for teacher misconduct investigations in California, backlogs of over six months for child protective service visits in Arizona, and elevator inspections that may be nine years overdue in Iowa (Maynard 2011). Simply put, public safety can be seriously threatened as a result of HRM gaps at the local level.

External Focus: Aligning Constraints and Expectations

Perlman and Benton (2012) consider the variety of adaptations taking place at the local government level in response to these “new normal” expectations. The authors conclude that cost-cutting measures that rely on staffing cuts alone illustrate a preference for addressing “low hanging fruit that can be snatched without great exertion” (10), but such decisions do not transform organizations and improve outcomes. Rather, the authors argue that instead of focusing only on labor costs/inputs, policy makers and reformers should broaden the focus to include the demand side of the equation. In such high-profile cases as teacher misconduct investigation, child protective services, and public safety, the demand side is clear. Yet it will take systematic change to address broader issues.

A systems perspective helps highlight the contemporary local government HRM challenges. Local governments are interconnected with (and dependent on) their external environment, including the variety of societal and political stakeholders that contribute resources and determine direction. As a result of this structure, external forces permeate internal processes and actions. This holistic perspective provides a framework for understanding complexity. Effective internal adaptation is difficult in systems marked by conflict, ambiguity, and uncertainty. This represents a chaotic reality in any system and especially for local government human resource managers.

Recent events demonstrate these tensions. Debates surrounding public employee rights, including merit systems protections and collective bargaining provisions, have been hotly contested across the United States and specifically in Wisconsin and Ohio in 2011. In the Wisconsin case, Governor Scott Walker worked to curb public employee unions, which spurred thousands of protestors to descend on the steps of the state capitol. It also led to a gubernatorial recall initiative. The recall was unsuccessful and Walker’s restrictions on public unions were overturned in September 2012 as violations of union members’ freedom of speech and association and equal protection of the laws (Greenhouse 2012). In 2013, a federal court ruling upheld Walker’s initiative, known as Act 10, which restricts unions from bargaining about employee benefits and employment conditions aside from base pay. Union membership has withered as Wisconsin’s public employees “have little reason to pay dues to a union that can no longer do much for them” (Greenhouse 2014). In Ohio, voters rejected Governor John Kasich’s efforts to curb public employee unions. While most state-level civil service reforms do not apply to municipal workers, some local governments are also considering reforms that center on streamlining regulations and enhancing flexibility on such matters as dismissal (Cuda 2012).

Preserving employee protections during calls for more responsive and cost-effective processes can be daunting, especially when local governments must address looming, competing needs for the future. In addition to investments that will ensure a strong municipal workforce for the future, cities face imminent physical infrastructure investments as well (Abels 2012). This requires tough choices, especially given the confounding impact of a depressed labor market (Bivens 2014). The question, it seems, is whether employee protections and cost-effective public value creation are two mutually exclusive concepts. What we do know is the importance of the professional local government workforce in achieving outcomes of interest. Folz and Abdelrazek (2009) found that the presence of professional managers at the local level translates into higher levels of services and community value. Simply finding a cheaper alternative does not make it a better one in the short term or the long run.

These and other dilemmas challenge municipalities in their ability to recruit and retain their best employees. Specifically, external forces threaten the core underlying principles that characterized government work and the people who have chosen a public service career. For instance, Liff (2007) notes that government employees were traditionally drawn to the public workplace by better job security, developmental and advancement opportunities, and the chance to make a difference. Those and other expectations are tempered in the contemporary environment: Local governments risk both broken formal agreements and unsubstantiated psychological contracts (Berman et al. 2013). The latter, “unwritten understanding about mutual needs, goals, expectations and procedures” (228), are important motivational tools: They help managers understand employee interests and align individual expectations with organizational needs. In absence of resources to meet shared expectations, organizations risk alienating employees.

On the one hand, it seems that local employees and their organizations face external forces that present potentially insurmountable odds for success. Yet there are resources that may not be fully acknowledged. For instance, polls show that citizens attribute the highest level of trust to local government employees (Conley 2012). Local government employees represent the clearest link between the people and democracy. It is expected that mutual trust developed between local employees and citizens will contribute to social capital creation. It is also expected that trust will induce reciprocal capacity building that will help both citizens and employees jointly respond to shared challenges (Mathie and Cunningham 2002).

Internal Focus: Engaging in Strategic Initiatives Amid Change and Constraints

While the role of human resource managers could be reactionary and short-sighted in response to external forces, a focus on strategic management counters that risk. The contemporary strategic emphasis reflects the evolution of the role of HRM within public organizations. This process transformed human resource managers from a technical role to working alongside organizational leaders to jointly design a strategic focus that aligns human resources with organizational goals (Ban and Gossett 2010; Pynes 2013). Further, the contemporary public management values of performance and partnership undergird this transformation (Klingner 2012).

Given that external forces impact internal decisions, translating external pressures for performance into internal mechanisms that support performance can be a challenge. For instance, in absence of an environment that could provide sufficient financial incentives for performance, one particularly promising development is related to the developing work on employee engagement. High levels of individual-organizational engagement are expected to contribute to improved performance as well as employee motivation. A 2012 Governing Institute survey of state and local government workers revealed that while over half of public employees were actively engaged in their jobs, nearly 40% said they would be likely to leave if working conditions do not improve. This attitude is more prominent among those 34 years of age or younger (also known as Generation Y and the millennial generation). The survey revealed the value of engagement in employee retention, satisfaction, and the employees’ willingness to recommend their workplace to others.

An important question follows: how to enhance engagement? Bilmes and Gould (2009) press this question further by highlighting the distance separating typical government agencies from what they refer to as “people-focused” private companies. According to the authors, “people-focused” companies offer flexibility, promotions, and perks and align individual development with strategic goals. By comparison, typical government agencies are inflexible, focus more on mission than on people, and provide few meaningful avenues for recognition (63). Engagement is strained in contexts where people are not prioritized. Yet, a decade before Bilmes and Gould’s work, Hays and Kearney (2001) surveyed HRM professionals who predicted that recognition, in the way of performance appraisals and merit pay, would be top concerns for the future. A follow-up study by French and Goodman (2012) offered additional support for those findings. Further, according to their study, French and Goodman found that the broader employee benefit of “employee recognition” is expected to take on even greater priority in the years ahead (69). Given expected retirements and the need for the next generation of public employees, it is important to give this benefit additional attention, even in an environment of constrained resources.

Learning from Successful Examples