Human Capital Management in the United States

Because public HR management is conceptually similar around the world, researchers and administrators may try to develop and apply uniform “best practice” solutions to build global governance capacity. 1 However, these efforts are usually unsuccessful because local conditions (cultural, economic, political, and social) profoundly influence the sustainable adaptation of HR innovations from one context to another. 2 This means that while the first chapter could focus on conceptually uniform HRM functions, values, and systems, a practical textbook must focus more specifically on what HR is in context. Because those who study and practice public HRM in the United States comprise the primary audience of this book, that country will be the focus of our analysis.

Five issues dominate a contextual discussion of public HRM in the United States:

· Now and historically, how many public employees are there? Which agencies and which levels of government employ them? How has the increased use of third-party government and contingent workers affected public employment? What are the realities of public employment as opposed to the myths used to reinforce alternative values and systems?

· Personnel managers and the technical specialists they supervise do only a small part of HRM. Others share this responsibility: elected officials establish policies and fund systems; appointed officials design systems; and personnel managers develop policies and procedures. However, managers and supervisors utilizing HR policies, rules, and practices to accomplish organizational goals perform most human resources management daily. How do they work together in practice?

· Those performing the shared roles that comprise public HRM work in a variety of personnel systems. How do the patterns of law and policy that characterize each system affect HRM practice in a given organization?

· How do these shared HRM roles and functions translate into structures and administrative behavior in a given organization?

· How do the evolving values and systems described in Chapter 1 affect the roles and competencies, and therefore the experience and training, required of those who aspire to careers in public HRM as either specialists or general public administrators?

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

1. Discuss the myths and realities of public employment in the United States.

2. Explain how elected and appointed officials, managers and supervisors, and personnel directors and specialists share responsibility for public HRM functions.

3. Describe how systems affect public HRM functions in practice.

4. Describe some design dilemmas faced in public personnel systems.

5. Discuss contemporary HRM role expectations for elected and appointed officials, HR directors and specialists, and managers.

6. Understand the four key HRM roles: technician, professional, educator, and mediator.

7. Describe the technical, ethical, and professional competencies needed for a career in public HRM and tell how to get them.

While the national government predominates in many countries, state and local governments predominate (based on employment and spending) in the United States because of both state constitutional powers and a decentralized political culture. There are 3,033 counties in the United States—all states except two have county governments. In 2007, there were 36,011 subcounty, general-purpose governments in the United States, including cities, towns, and municipalities. 3 There are also 14,451 school districts and over 37,000 other special districts (e.g., hospitals, airports, and fire protection).

In the public’s view, federal employees often symbolize government bureaucracy. However, in reality this level constitutes only about 13 percent of all public employees. Federal government employment peaked at 3.4 million during World War II, receded to 2.0 million in 1947, and rose again to 2.5 million in 1951. After fifteen years of minor fluctuations, federal employment gradually rose again to 3.1 million in 1987. It began to decline again in 1990, reaching a current level of 2.7 million in 2006, 4 about the same level as in 1966. 5 Both state and local government employment have grown steadily since World War II. In 2005, there were 5.1 million state and 13.9 million local employees. 6 Table 2-1 shows these trends.

aFederal, state, and local number may not add to “Total” due to rounding.

These 21.7 million public employees work in a variety of functions. The primary federal functions are national defense, postal service, and financial management. The primary state and local functions are education, police protection, highways, corrections, welfare, and utilities. Education is by far the predominant state and local government function, comprising more than half of state and local public employment (see Table 2-2). 9

Three groups share responsibility for public HRM: elected and appointed officials, personnel directors and specialists, and other managers and supervisors. Political leaders (legislators, executives, and their political appointees) are responsible for creating agencies, establishing their program priorities, and authorizing their funding levels. Because pay and benefits constitute the largest part of agency budgets, personnel departments cannot design jobs or fill positions until elected officials do their jobs. In addition, although the same general functions (PADS) are required regardless of which systems dominate HR policy and practice, political leaders must designate and authorize the personnel system. For example, Congress passed legislation, which the President approved, permitting the then newly created Department of Homeland Security to create its own personnel system, independent of the existing federal system.

Once this happens, personnel directors and specialists design and implement personnel systems or direct and help those who do. In civil service systems, they usually work within a personnel department that functions as an administrative staff support service for managers and supervisors. These are responsible for achieving agency goals within a prescribed budget and personnel ceilings. HR directors both help administrators use human resources effectively and constrain their personnel actions within limits imposed by political leaders, laws, and policies.

Administrators and supervisors (from first-level supervisors to senior directors) are responsible for the managerial activities most directly connected with goal accomplishment. Supervisors instruct and train employees, provide informal feedback on how they are doing, and recommend pay increases (or disciplinary action and dismissal) based on their assessment of employee job performance. Thus, they implement almost all the rules, policies, and procedures that constitute personnel systems on a day-to-day basis. This is critical because the relationship between employees and their supervisors is the key influence on how effectively employees are developed and used. Effective supervision and effective human resources management go hand in hand, setting the climate, or organizational culture, that embodies the organization’s HRM policy. Table 2-3 shows how these three groups share HRM responsibilities.

While the basic HRM functions remain the same under all systems we have identified, system values dictate the relative emphasis among functions and how they are performed.

Under a patronage system, HRM heavily emphasizes recruitment and selection of applicants based on personal or political loyalty. The other three functions are irrelevant or de-emphasized. The HR specialist is therefore not a personnel director, but instead a political advisor or even a political party official. This person identifies individuals who deserve or require a political position, screens them informally to make sure their personal and political background does not include activities or associations that might embarrass or discredit their boss politically, and then recommends who to hire for which position. The elected official makes the appointment (or nominates the individual, if legislative confirmation is required) based upon the candidate’s competencies, political or personal loyalty, financial or campaign support for the elected official, or support by an influential interest group seeking access to the policy-making process. It may be important to nominate and appoint women or minorities as political symbolism, but affirmative action laws do not apply to judicial, legislative, or other patronage positions (exempt appointments). Once hired, political appointees are subject to the decisions of the elected official. Few rules govern their job duties, pay, or rights: they serve “at the pleasure of” the appointing authority. Nor is development a priority. They are hired for a current position, not for a career. In many cases, the person appointed may have little or no managerial experience relevant to the job he or she will be filling. Though they may end up serving in a series of progressively responsible political positions, there is no guarantee of that.

In a civil service system, HR is a department or office that supports the city manager, school superintendent, hospital director, or other chief administrator, and in the world of “strategic thinking” about human resources the person serves as a key advisor. Because civil service is a complete system, HRM has a balanced emphasis on each of the four major personnel functions (PADS). Contemporary HRM also means thinking strategically about how these functions fit together to support the objectives elected officials and other stakeholders (e.g., managers, employees, and interest groups) have for public agencies.

Traditionally, HR maintains the system of position management. The total number of positions, the types of jobs, and their pay levels are established and restricted legislatively by pay and personnel ceilings. Pay is usually tied to the classification system, with jobs involving similar degrees of difficulty being compensated equally. HR completes yearly pay plan updates as budget planning exercises or in anticipation of collective bargaining negotiations. HR develops and updates the agency’s retirement and benefits programs and negotiates with benefit providers. It keeps records like eligibility and use of sick leave and vacation time, enrollment and maintenance in various health insurance programs, and life insurance or savings bond purchases. It handles eligibility and processing of retirement requests (including calculation of authorized benefits), disability determinations, and monitors workers’ compensation claims for job-related injuries and illnesses. Under more contemporary models that emphasize strategic thinking, the HR department moves beyond position management to productivity measurement and improvement through strategic alignment of human resources with organizational mission and programs. For this to occur, the HR department must focus less on control of personnel inputs and more on measurement and management of HR outputs and outcomes.

HR schedules periodic tests for frequently available jobs, such as secretary and maintenance worker. It advertises vacant or new positions, reviews job applications for basic eligibility, and gives written tests. It might arrange interviews with applicants, conduct them, and evaluate test results. HR compiles a list of those eligible for employment, keeps it current as some applicants get other jobs, and gives ranked lists of eligible applicants to managers in units with vacancies. After the manager interviews and selects one applicant, HR processes the paperwork required to hire and pay the person. In addition, HR is responsible for establishing and maintaining the databases that enable online posting of positions and hosting of applications.

HR orients new employees to the organization, its work rules and benefits. It tracks and distributes notices of training or transfer opportunities. In some organizations, HR may utilize competencies to establish training programs and to work with agency managers to help design an annual training menu. It may train supervisors and employees concerning newly developed or mandated HR policies and programs. HR also tracks and processes all personnel actions—changes in employee status such as hiring, transfer, promotion, retirement, or dismissal.

HR establishes and staffs an employee grievance and appeals procedure. It tells supervisors the rules of employee conduct, establishes the steps used to discipline an employee for rule violations, and makes sure the organization follows its own procedures if an employee appeals this disciplinary action or files a grievance. Importantly, HR staff frequently serve as advisors to managers and supervisors considering disciplinary actions. Because merit systems are the only ones that incorporate all four functions, it is hard to imagine a contemporary agency or organization that does not utilize some form of this comprehensive system as its HR core around which other systems can relate.

If employees are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, the personnel department is usually responsible for negotiating the agreement (or hiring an outside negotiator who does this), bringing pay and benefit provisions into accord with contract provisions, training supervisors on how to comply with the contract, and representing the agency in internal grievance resolution or outside arbitration procedures. Because collective bargaining is a partial personnel system, civil service systems continue to provide most of the rules and procedures relating to acquisition and development.

The HR department implements rules emphasizing social equity for protected classes (minorities, women, and persons with disabilities) in recruitment, hiring, and promotion decisions. The affirmative action director shares responsibility with the personnel director in this area. Once members of the protected classes are hired, other personnel systems (civil service or collective bargaining) influence the way planning, development, and sanction functions occur.

In general, reliance on privatization and contractors reduces public employment, thereby reducing the public HR department’s direct workload. However, it increases the indirect work needed to develop, tender, and evaluate contracts. HR directors, staff, and managers work increasingly with citizen volunteers and community-based organizations, much as personnel directors for not-for-profit organizations (such as community recreation programs, hospitals, and schools) have traditionally used volunteers to supplement paid staff. In these cases, public managers need to become more skilled in recruiting, selecting, managing, and motivating volunteer workers. 10

Use of contingent or contract workers hired under NSWA generally means less emphasis on planning and employee development, at least for these employees. The organization is typically staffed for minimum workload levels, and additional employees are recruited temporarily as needed based on fluctuations in workload. Employee development is largely irrelevant. Contingent workers are hired with the skills needed to perform the job immediately. Performance evaluation is unnecessary—if they do their jobs adequately, they are paid; if not, they are let go at the end of their contract and not called back when workload once again increases.

The sanction function is also less important with respect to these workers. Of course, employers are required to maintain a safe and healthy workplace; but compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act may not be required for temporary, part-time, or seasonal workers. 11 Nor is it hard, from the employer’s perspective, to maintain the terms of the employment relationship. Like political appointees, at-will employees have no right to retain their jobs. They can be discharged for any reason, or no reason, without management having to give a reason or support it.

In the real world, political leaders often disagree about which personnel system should predominate. If competing systems have developed and implemented contradictory rules, the public personnel director usually responds to, initiates conflict among, or mediates among competing systems. We have little systematic knowledge about the dynamics of trying to manage multiple personnel systems, some of which exist in contract agencies outside the focal organization. There is a nice example in Chapter 3of the challenge faced in attempting to integrate different systems—one inside and one outside the focal agency. Effective HR managers must not only be adept at using a range of techniques but also be sensitive to the competing values and systems that influence technical choices. Here are some examples:

· Civil service. Fill the position with one of the applicants who placed in the highest category of those qualified for the position.

· Civil service/political patronage appointment. Pick the candidate with the most political support from among those applicants at least minimally qualified for the position.

· Civil service/affirmative action appointment. Make sure the applicant pool has a sufficient number of women and minorities who meet the minimum qualifications for the position. Then pick either the most qualified applicant or the most qualified minority applicant, depending on the extent of pressure and legal authority to appoint a minority group member.

· Civil service/collective bargaining appointment. Fill a promotion or job assignment internally through a bidding process that emphasizes seniority, as specified by the collective bargaining agreement.

· Civil service/contract appointment. Reclassify large groups of clerical or technical positions as exempt. Fill them as needed with temporary and part-time workers hired as independent contractors. Their pay stays the same or increases slightly. They no longer get benefits like sick leave or vacations. The employer no longer has to pay payroll taxes such as worker’s compensation or Social Security because these are now the contractor’s responsibility.

· Civil service/contract professional appointment. Reclassify a vacant position as exempt (outside civil service, filled through an annual employment contract). Offer civil service employees the opportunity to compete for it. The one who takes the job gets a significantly higher salary and an attractive benefit package but no longer qualifies for civil service protection or “bumping rights” back into a classified position in the event of a layoff. Civil servants often retire from their classified positions on Friday and resume work on Monday as contractors performing the same duties in a different type of employment relationship.

Staffing an organization would become agonizingly slow and inefficient if every hiring or promotion decision involved a basic decision about competing systems or rules. While these decision choices are theoretically present in any hiring decision, groups of positions in fact fall under specific personnel systems or decision rules. When the external political context changes, exerting pressure to alter hiring criteria, then the negotiation is over the rules that apply to groups of positions (though the “trigger” event may be a specific vacancy). For example, the George W. Bush administration, through the Office of Management and Budget, asked each federal office to submit an annual report on activities with potential for outsourcing and required “competitive sourcing” wherever possible. This gave the agency the opportunity to bid in competition with private contractors. While this review process was not unique to this administration, its emphasis on the process and its inclusion as one of the core components of his management agenda was.

While personnel functions (PADS) are uniform, the system that dominates HRM functions has profound effects on their relative importance, organizational location, and method of implementation. Regardless of which system or combination of systems control policy and practice, laws establish and regulate the organizational structure and relationships within which each agency performs public HRM functions. These follow a pattern tied closely to the evolution of personnel systems described in Figures 1-3 and 1-4.

Another design dilemma is centralization versus decentralization. As central civil service agencies mature, they become larger and more specialized. This can lead to delays in providing services to other agencies if rules become more of a hindrance than of a help to service delivery. Because these agencies have developed their own internal personnel departments that assist agency managers and link with the central personnel agency on all requisite functions, these agencies tend to exert pressure for more autonomy. The argument goes, now that the civil service principles are firmly established within the political and administrative culture, it is more efficient and effective to decentralize operational control to these agencies. In addition, in periods of limited hiring where economies of scale do not apply, or tight recruitment markets where fast action on available and interested candidates is essential, pressures for decentralization increase. Under such conditions, the role of the central personnel agency tends to transform from direct responsibility for personnel functions to indirect responsibility and oversight of agencies’ HR planning, management, and evaluation efforts. Size matters. In big agencies, HRM may be staffed by hundreds of employees in separate divisions. In small local governments, HR may be only a part of the responsibilities of the chief administrative officer or an assistant.

Public HRM also parallels private sector innovations, because both are responsive to the same changes in available technology, workforce characteristics, and other contextual variables. 12 Public agencies may handle activities like training, pay and benefits administration, or recruitment and selection through “headhunters” or employment services. Or, a jurisdiction may decide to outsource all HR functions and either abolishing the public personnel agency to a system oversight and legal compliance role. 13

Transitional countries or “fragile states” face a different type of design dilemma. Their leaders may support modern HR systems and methods. However, if the country is culturally, economically, or socially unprepared to support them, matching form and substance in policy and practice can be challenging. 14

Just as changes in conditions, values, and systems influence the structure and practice of public HRM, so they affect the role expectations for the three groups who share organizational responsibility for HRM implementation.

For elected and appointed officials, political responsiveness and representation are the ultimate values in HRM and other public policy areas. Voter discontent with high taxes or inefficient agencies generates political pressure for them to adopt policies that favor privatization, service contracting, and NSWA. This pressure also drives major civil service reforms that have reduced the number of permanent employees. Voter unease at reports of cost overruns at privatized prisons or sexual harassment of inmates by private contractors’ employees are likely to make the pendulum swing the other way, resulting in increased political pressure in favor of retaining civil service standards and controls. Regardless, elected officials’ decisions reflect public attitudes toward supporting public services or allowing taxpayers to keep their own money and make their own choices as individuals in the private market.

Elected officials therefore want managers and HR professionals to achieve the advantages of each competing system while avoiding their disadvantages. However, limited resources and divided legislative and executive policy responsibilities may lead to uncoordinated policy outcomes. A legislatively approved tuition remission program for all state employees may not be accompanied by sufficient funding for state universities to offer the public administration courses most employees want. An affirmative action plan for new minority employees may be approved at the same time a state budget crisis leads the governor to impose a hiring freeze. So it goes in a democracy.

Public and political expectations of HRM directors and specialists have evolved over time.

During the transition from patronage to merit, public HR managers championed merit system principles because they generally viewed the field as a conflict between good and evil. They considered themselves “watchdogs,” responsible for guarding employees, applicants, and the public from the spoils system. This required knowledge of civil service policies and procedures, and the courage to apply them in the face of political pressure.

During Stage Four (1933–1964), through such tools as personnel ceilings and average grade-level restrictions, public personnel managers helped legislators and chief executives maintain budgetary controls and position management. In effect, they became responsible for synthesizing two distinct values (bureaucratic compliance as the operational definition of organizational efficiency and civil service protection as the embodiment of employee rights). 15 Despite inherent tensions, in time of war, the values of employee rights and organizational effectiveness supported both bureaucratic neutrality and political responsiveness.

During Stage Five (1964–1992), public managers and HRM specialists struggled to develop flexible and equitable reward allocation through such alterations to classification and pay systems as rank-in-person personnel systems, broad pay banding, and group performance evaluation and reward systems. The resultant work management system required integration of conflicting values and systems. 16 They had to work with managers to increase productivity, with elected officials to increase agencies’ political responsiveness, and with employees to maintain their rights under civil service systems.

Under the current constellation of values and systems, public HR managers must still work consultatively with agency managers and employees. Yet, the operational definition of “good management” is narrow by previous standards: They have fewer options and less discretion in balancing conflicting objectives. 17 First, more than ever, they must manage public employees and programs in compliance with legislative and public mandates for cost control. Given the common presumption that the public bureaucracy is an enemy to control rather than a tool to use to accomplish public policy objectives, they have less opportunity to exercise professional responsibilities in balancing conflicting values. Either legislative micromanagement or the predominant value of cost control may preclude concern for employee rights, organizational efficiency, or social equity. 18

Second, while “people skills” will continue to be important, they will increasingly be defined as minimizing maximum loss through risk management and contract compliance, rather than as maximizing human development and organizational performance. While civil service and collective bargaining will continue to be important, public HR managers will increasingly be responsible for developing and managing a range of public employment systems for contract, temporary, and at-will employees, and for working with volunteers and community-based NGOs. 19 In this sense, a calculating perspective tends to supplant a uniform and idealistic view of public service motivations. This represents a narrowing of the public HR perspective.

Third, even with this minimalist view of personnel management, there are countervailing pressures to develop an employment relationship characterized by commitment, teamwork, and innovation. 20 HR will develop variable pay systems that reward individual and group performance. The key to this paradox is the emerging distinction between core employees (those regarded as essential assets) and contingent workers (those regarded as replaceable costs). Success will require human resources to develop two divergent personnel systems, one for each type of worker, and to maintain both at the same time despite their conflicting objectives and assumptions.

In the Partnership Era (2002–present), public human resource increasingly operates within the framework of collective structures, processes, and people. Shaping and managing collaborative agendas will become even more difficult as frequent changes in government policy and in the organizations involved in partnership impact the roles of and job changes for public sector employees. Mobilizing resources, managing conflict, and building network capacity will be the benchmarks of collaborative success. 21 Table 2-4 shows these changing values and systems.

In a way, adapting to changing role expectations is hardest for managers and supervisors. First, value conflicts surrounding public administration have intensified. Elected officials understandably tend to pass the responsibility for achieving multiple and conflicting objectives on to managers and supervisors, without necessarily giving them the tools or resources needed to do this. When revenue shortfalls or other emergencies occur, cuts are disproportionately likely to fall on internal agency staff services—like HR, information systems, and budget management—but less likely to affect short-term productivity that cuts to direct services. All this leaves managers and supervisors responsible for achieving, or at least attempting to achieve, many activities formerly left to HRM professionals. Thus, individual managers must often choose between short-term productivity and long-term organizational effectiveness, between spending time with employee issues and letting employees fend for themselves while the manager focuses on planning, budget management, or crisis control.

The key HRM role is to be able to respond to events, be they routine or catastrophic. HR managers must play a variety of roles as they seek to help the organization remain effective and learn from its own experiences. These are technical expert, professional, management educator, and organizational entrepreneurs. 22

Entry-level specialists (in large HR departments) or generalists (in small ones) are the technical experts responsible for HR planning, acquiring, developing, and sanctioning.

· Benefits administrators enroll new employees in benefit programs, advise employees of changes in benefit programs, and ensure compliance with federal pay and benefit laws. This job requires knowledge of federal laws with respect to health, life, and disability insurance; and of pay and benefits; employment contracts; and pension systems.

· Contract specialists develop background information to support management’s positions during contract negotiations or administer contracts to ensure that labor and management comply with negotiated agreements. Under third-party government models, they develop and negotiate service contracts with vendors, or employment contracts. This requires experience with business law, policy analysis, contract negotiation, or contract compliance.

· Diversity experts interpret and enforce laws protecting different groups in a diverse workforce. This requires knowledge of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action laws and compliance agencies, and of related personnel functions like strategic HRM, recruitment and selection, performance management, training and development, and organizational justice.

· Employee assistance program specialists coordinate programs offered by the organization or by contract providers, as a response to personal problems that affect work performance: alcohol and drug abuse, debt, domestic and workplace violence, life-threatening diseases, legal problems, and so on. They interpret federal laws protecting the rights of employees with disabilities, informally counsel supervisors and employees, and orient employees to the agency’s health benefits.

· Human resource information systems specialists design the systems needed to manage human resources strategically by integrating data about organizational needs and individuals’ competencies.

· Job analysts determine jobs’ appropriate competencies and minimum qualifications, respond to managers’ requests for reclassification, and determine whether employees can perform the essential functions of a position under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This job requires the ability to determine competencies and write job descriptions.

· Payroll specialists or compensation specialists administer the payroll system. This requires knowledge of job design, pay equity, strategic HRM, and federal and state laws concerning wages, hours, and employment contacts.

· Risk managers develop and enforce personnel policies that limit the organization’s exposure to legal or financial liability. In particular, personnel managers who function as risk managers are responsible for reducing employer liability for workers’ compensation; disability retirement; and negligent hiring, retention, or referral claims. They may share this function with an attorney and budget officer. Risk managers must know law and regulations related to occupational safety and health, workers’ compensation, and disabilities.

· Staffing specialists administer examinations, establish lists of eligible applicants, and refer eligible applicants to managers for interviews and selection. This requires knowledge of personnel law, affirmative action, and recruitment and selection procedures.

· Testing Specialists develop exams for positions and defend the reliability and validity of current tests. This job requires knowledge of testing, measurement, and validation procedures.

· Training and development specialists determine training needs, develop programs, train, and evaluate their effectiveness. They have training or experience as adult educators.

Conceptually, the issue of whether HR managers are administrative professionals seems to focus on whether an identifiable body of competencies defines the occupation, an accepted process of education and training exists for acquiring these competencies, and a standard of 4 that guides their application. Given the conflicting values and competing systems that can guide public HRM, good job performance will require that they recognize inherent role conflicts yet continue to make sound professional decisions in a climate of political and economic uncertainty. 23

In addition to professional and technical responsibilities, HR managers and specialists educate other managers by encouraging them to see HRM as a set of strategically interrelated activities that taken together give employees the ability and willingness to work together effectively. The HR director must see the “big picture” and work as a member of the management team to educate other managers to think about human resources strategically. This person is responsible for experimentation—testing personnel policies or procedures such as a new benefit or performance-evaluation method on employee turnover or productivity. However, personnel directors rarely innovate. Instead, they transfer technology by learning about, adapting, and adopting ideas that have worked elsewhere. This is organizational learning and knowledge management: passing along improved HRM policies and procedures—formally and informally—to employees and other managers. 24

Over the last ten years, there probably has been more emphasis than ever on HR strategic thinking, workforce planning, and management as keys to organizational success. Clearly, in the past, there were incredible investments in civil service systems as antidotes to the inefficiencies and inequities associated with patronage. However, today’s thinking is different. What drives contemporary strategic HRM is not moral imperatives, but the broader global imperative of administrative modernization.

In that sense, one should expect a reaction and, indeed, leadership from HR specialists and professionals. That is exactly what is happening. Traditional personnel managers have viewed the field as narrow and static. They picture it as a collection of administrative techniques applied within a structure of rules, policies, and laws that clearly define the limits of acceptable professional behavior, designed to promote both efficiency and fairness. They see themselves as continually acting within a consensus on one system—rather than many—and its underlying values. They tend to define themselves, and others tend to define them, as technical specialists working within a staff agency.

More contemporary public personnel managers view the field as emergent and dynamic. They tend to define themselves, and others define them, as interpreters or mediators among competing systems, stakeholders, and values. They see themselves as professionals whose role involves a blend of technical skills and ethical decision making, and as key players in developing corporate HRM strategy. The federal Office of Personnel Management has made a similar observation. “While HR professionals will need the traditional HR competencies that have served them well in the past they will also need new competencies to support changing roles.” 25 This Office of Personnel Management report cites a survey showing the doubling in emphasis on human resources professionals as strategic business partners (p. 8). The essence of this emergent professional public personnel management role is synergy; the exploitation of pressure points where conflicting systems compete and converge; and the reconciliation of conflicting values, changing conditions, competing stakeholders, and a diverse workforce into a coherent and dynamic whole.

The movement to identify HR professionals’ competencies and certify HR professionals symbolizes the evolution of the human resources professional’s role. Both are important elements associated with the evolving strategic role for HR professionals. The International Personnel Management Association for Human Resources sponsors a certification program for human resources professionals. Certification programs are associated with the movement of occupations to professions. An essential precursor of certification is the belief that there are unique and not readily available knowledge, skills, and abilities and an ethical approach to practice that should characterize those who call themselves human resources professionals. Specialized knowledge, not easily acquired, is the key. Moreover, as the practice of human resources moves into the strategic realm—strategic partner to agency leadership—certification signifies that there is specialized knowledge needed to make this move more than a rhetorical claim. The International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR) model reflects this view. 26 Among the competencies are:

· Assesses and balances competing values

· Knows business system thinking

· Links human resources to the organization’s mission and service outcome.

Other agencies, associations, consulting firms, and governments are also working to define HR competencies. 27

Historical traditions emphasize the technical side of personnel management, with less emphasis on policy-related analytical work, relationships with outside organizations, and conflicting values. These traditions view both employees and management as clients served through the merit system. A more contemporary view emphasizes different activities and relationships. Modern HR professionals work closely with other officials within their own agency (budget directors, attorneys, collective bargaining negotiators, affirmative action compliance officers, and supervisors) and outside it (legislative staff, union officials, affirmative action agencies, civil service boards, health and life insurance benefit representatives, pension boards, ethics commissions, and employee assistance programs). By performing effectively in a climate of change and uncertainty, they assert their central role in agency management, developing not only their own professional status but also that of their profession. 28 Because of this conflict and instability, there is a high demand for HRM professionals in public and private organizations, whether they work as HR directors or as managers with specific HRM competencies. Three issues are relevant: (1) what competencies do HRM professionals need, (2) how can they get them, and (3) how can they maintain their skills in a complex and changing environment?29

Traditional public HRM requires technical competencies. Personnel specialists must know the extensive body of techniques needed to recruit, select, train, evaluate, and motivate employees under a range of personnel systems. For managers, this means learning how to work within the limits of law and policy to reward good employees and get rid of bad ones: rewriting job descriptions to increase an employee’s pay level, reaching quality applicants on a list of eligibles, or giving outstanding performance evaluations to high-quality employees.

Public managers in general and HR directors in particular must apply the professional standards and judgment needed to responded adequately to the conflicting demands and expectations of advocates for competing values and systems. They must be sensitive to the need for administrative systems to be responsive to legitimate political values and public participation, especially in local government. These amorphous expectations challenge the shield that the rhetoric of merit has provided the traditional manager. Trends such as privatization and service contracting blur distinctions between public and private. Given complex and conflicting laws (e.g., affirmative action, labor relations, professional liability, employee privacy, due process, and pay equity), “merit” can mean different things under different circumstances. HR professionals should welcome the opportunity to move from a traditional, technical view of the field to a modern, professional view involving interpretation of and mediation among conflicting interests.

This transition includes ethical competencies: the ability to balance conflicting expectations like employee rights and organizational effectiveness, to reconcile competing systems and values, to make complex decisions quickly, and to communicate them effectively. Today’s public HR professional must have a humanistic orientation toward employees, a positive orientation to managerial objectives, and close working relationships with other professionals inside and outside the organization. No one manager can possess expertise in all these areas, but no complex public agency can overlook them in their complement of competencies.

While all public managers need to know something about HRM because it is an important part of the field, many students have a more specific interest—they want a job. Their interest leads to two questions: As a student, what courses should I be taking to qualify myself for an HR position? As applicant, how do I get a job?

People enter HRM through varied career paths. Some start as entry-level specialists. University training (a BPA, a master’s degree, or even a graduate professional certificate) can impart added knowledge that can enhance their performance and career options. Because public personnel functions also involve others besides personnel specialists (such as managers, supervisors, and appointed officials), many human resource management courses have more general usefulness for anyone considering a career in public policy or management. The National Association for Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) is the accrediting agency for schools offering graduate-level public HRM and public administration programs. 30 In addition, many degree programs also offer related specialization courses:

· Administrative law: impact of rules and regulations on public administration, including HRM.

· Collective bargaining: impact of unions on public personnel management, legal and political antecedents, contract negotiation, and administration procedures.

· Test development: development and validation of devices for selection, promotion, and placement (sometimes offered by the psychology department).

· Pay and benefits: job analysis, classification, and evaluation; setting wages and salaries through job evaluation and/or market surveys; mandatory employee benefits (workers’ compensation and Social Security), and optional ones (health insurance, pensions, etc.).

· Training and employee development: design, implementation, and evaluation of orientation, and training and development programs (sometimes taught in an adult education department)

· Affirmative action compliance: work force diversity; equal employment opportunity; affirmative action; and employment equity without respect to gender, race, national origin, age, religion, disability, or other nonmerit factors.

· Organizational development and change: assessing organizational performance and changing structure and culture to make it more effective.

· Role of women and minorities: changing organizational culture to make it more equitable for women and minorities.

· Vocational rehabilitation: career counseling and placement, particularly in response to issues involving disability, ADA accommodation, and other medical conditions (sometimes offered through a program in health services or public health).

· Productivity improvement: How to make organizations more efficient and effective through the application of policy-analytic techniques.

· Comparative or development administration: offered through public administration, business administration, economics, or international relations programs.

· Third-party government: Use of alternative mechanisms such as privatization and service contracting to accomplish public program objectives.

Those without significant HRM experience may have a harder time breaking into the field. Worldwide changes in labor markets, plus the changing political conditions under which public administrators work today, mean that there is more competition for professional jobs in many fields, including public personnel management. Often, recent college graduates without significant public personnel management experience are competing against experienced professionals. How do you “get your foot in the door” under these conditions?

· Take courses that offer the competencies HR managers need. Earn a minor, a concentration, or even a professional certificate.

· Include an internship as part of your university curriculum. Make sure it is with an organization that is looking for employees—one that uses internship programs as a recruitment mechanism rather than just a source of temporary, free labor. Your best gauge of this is by asking your university’s internship placement coordinator, your professors, or current employees who started work there as interns. While a formal internship option may not be feasible for a mid-career student, expressing interest and aptitude on-the-job may help with a lateral transfer into personnel work. With some creative thinking and job design, it may be possible to share some time in the personnel office or to gain experience by seeking out personnel-related tasks in your own office.

· Tailor your résumé so it highlights the education, experience, skills, and knowledge needed for a job in personnel management. Identify related courses in management, computer sciences, statistics, psychology, law or other fields.

· Practice applying and interviewing so you can respond to questions interviewers ask. Why do you want this job? What work experience have you had that shows your aptitude or ability for personnel work? If you lack related experience, what skills and abilities do you have that would make it easy to learn? Why are you the best candidate for the position? Good luck!

Training begins to become obsolete the moment the course is over. Clearly, HR professionals—whether specialists or supervisors—need to take charge of their own career development. Suggested methods are professional associations, research libraries, and the Internet.

Professional associations offer the opportunity to network with other professionals locally, to attend national and regional conferences, and to receive member services such as newsletters or professional journals. All offer continued education and career advancement options for working professionals.

· The American Management Association (AMA) 31

· The American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) 32

· The American Planning Association (APA) 33

· The Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM) 34

· The American Political Science Association (APSA) 35

· The Association for Research in Non-Profit and Volunteer Associations (ARNOVA) 36

· The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) 37

· The International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR) 38

· The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 39

Research libraries are indispensable for keeping your competencies current. They do still as repositories for paper books and periodicals, including reference books 40 and loose-leaf services (serial publications providing current information on specific areas of personnel practice and procedure). 41 While it is possible to do research in the library using paper-based materials, they are in fact gateways to electronic information available on the Internet using a computer, an internet service provider (ISP), and communications software. Individuals, organizations, or agencies create a home page, a website identified with their Internet address (URL). These include:

· Periodical indexes. Electronic compilations of professional and popular periodical literature, arranged so that author, publication, key word, and so on may locate references 42

· Professional journals. Generally, periodicals in the human resource management area are found in the HF5549.5 area (Library of Congress cataloging system). 43

· State and local Web resources. Many professional associations and other organizations maintain websites with useful information about state, local, and regional governments. 44

· Federal and comprehensive Web resources. The federal government and other institutions maintain websites with information about the federal government, or U.S. jurisdictions in general. 45

· Legal research. If you wish to research specific legislation, check publicly accessible sources for information on federal and state laws. 46 Private companies also provide this service—for a fee—to law firms. 47

· Other publications and public documents. Available online or in paper from general sources, 48 or from individual agencies. 49

Internet browsers like Google.com are automated retrieval services used to locate materials on a particular subject, using branching logic trees and keyword addresses. Many government agencies, the Library of Congress, and universities maintain browsers to help scholars find their way around the Web. 50 However, while trained librarians have carefully chosen journals and books for library purchase, Internet-based information has no hierarchical quality control or editorial process. Just because information is available “on the Web” does not mean it is current or accurate. Use only library-recommended sites if you want to find documented information for academic or professional research purposes.

Initially, civil service reformers sought to establish public HRM’s professional credibility by emphasizing its political neutrality and contributions to administrative efficiency. Ironically, however, this emphasis on nonpartisan and “scientific” rationality isolated public personnel managers from the value conflicts that characterized other professions, minimized ethical dilemmas, and created the illusion among public officials (and among personnel directors and specialists themselves) that the field was value-free. By focusing personnel management on administrative techniques instead of broad human resource policy questions, it had exactly the opposite effect desired—devaluing the status of the profession rather than affirming it. As a vestige of this tradition, many public personnel managers are either impatient or complacent with ethical choices. They view civil service as a moral ideal superior to other systems, whose competing claims to legitimacy are always suspect. 51 They are inclined to consider ethicsunnecessary, because it is easier to think of administrative actions as purely technical, rational, and morally superior; or impractical because competing claims require pragmatic compromise.

However, contemporary HR managers are more likely to find ethical dilemmas challenging and inevitable. They arise out of the scarcity of public jobs and legitimate, conflicting expectations over how to fill them. To succeed, HRM professionals must not only do things right, they must do the right things. 52 They are fated to wrestle with choices imposed by external conflicts among competing systems and to derive from these choices the existential satisfaction of each day coming closer to unattainable objectives under conditions of ethical uncertainty. 53

There are about 21 million public employees in the United States. While it is widely believed that most work for the national government in social welfare programs, the fact is that most work for state and local governments, primarily in education.

Political leaders, managers and supervisors, and personnel directors and specialists share the functions needed to manage human resources in public agencies. Civil service systems are the predominant public personnel system because they have articulated rules and procedures for performing the whole range of personnel functions. Other systems, though incomplete, are nonetheless legitimate and effective influences over one or more personnel functions. While personnel functions remain the same across different systems, their organizational location and method of performance differ depending upon the system and on the values that underlie it.

Public personnel managers have distinct role expectations as technicians, professionals, educators, and ethical mediators. Traditional HR managers and specialists (those who operate within a consensus on one system and its underlying values) tend to see themselves as technical specialists. Contemporary HR managers (those who work as educators and mediators among competing systems and values) tend to see themselves as professionals whose role involves a blend of technical, professional, and ethical competencies.

HR managers normally receive specialized undergraduate or graduate training. It may take a combination of specialized experience and education to advance into the profession. Rapid changes in the field require lifelong learning and career development through such mechanisms as professional associations, research libraries, and the Internet.

· administrative professional 50

· contingent workers 47

· core employees 47

· elected and appointed officials 40

· ethics 56

· exempt appointments 42

· home page 55

· HRM directors and specialists 46

· Internet 55

· Internet browser 55

· internship 54

· knowledge management 51

· loose-leaf services 55

· management educator 51

· managers and supervisors 48

· organizational culture 41

· organizational learning 51

· personnel actions 43

· professional associations 55

· professional journals 55

· reference books 55

· stakeholders 42

· technician 56

· URL 55

· “watchdogs” 46

A south Florida city needed a new HR director. It advertised in the local newspaper and in the Recruiter section of the IPMA Newsletter

The city of Sunny Skies is a city of 60,000 with 650 employees. It has a mayor-council form of government. It is primarily residential, with population shifting from older Anglo retirees to a broader mix of working-class families from a range of racial and ethnic groups. The city police department’s officers are covered by a collective bargaining agreement with the PBA; a three-year contract was negotiated last year. The city’s civil service system covers 400 employees. Others, including all managers, are in exempt positions filled through performance contracts.

The City seeks an HR director with proven ability to manage the department responsible for testing, selection, affirmative action, job analysis, salary and benefits, performance evaluation, and collective bargaining. Excellent benefits, including an employer-funded 457 pension program. Salary range $95,000–$145,000, dependent upon qualifications. Proof of citizenship required. We are a drug-free workplace and an AA/EEO employer. Two hundred persons applied from all over the United States. An outside consultant firm, looking for the following minimum qualifications, conducted initial screening based on the following criteria:

· Experience: Ten to fifteen years of progressively responsible personnel experience, including at least three years as a personnel director. Public sector and municipal experience preferred.

· Education: BA/BS degree in human resource management or a related field (public administration, business administration, organizational psychology). MA/MS in public administration, human resource administration, or related field preferred.

An interview panel was formed, headed by the assistant city manager. It included the assistant director of the public works department, a police epartment major, two personnel managers from other nearby cities, and an outside expert. The panel was representative of the City’s employees and labor market, with respect to gender, ethnicity, and race. After the outside consultant firm had selected the 12 most qualified applicants, the interview panel scheduled appointments with eight of them. Four were interviewed in their local communities through videotape. The interview panel (or the videotape operator) asked the following questions of each applicant:

First, tell us something about your career:

1. What is your most innovative accomplishment in your present position? Why is it so significant?

2. Describe the most difficult personnel problem you have encountered in recent years. How did it arise? How did you resolve it? How did you communicate your decision to employees and/or other managers? How did they respond? If you encountered the problem now, how would you handle it differently?

3. What has been your greatest professional disappointment or setback? How did you respond to it? What did you learn from the experience?

4. Where do you see yourself working in five years? Next, please tell us something about your human resource management style:

5. What kinds of supervisors do you like, and why?

6. What factors are most important in evaluating the performance of your subordinates?

7. What methods do you use to keep informed of personnel issues or problems coming up in your organization? How have these methods worked for you?

8. What do you perceive affirmative action to be? What general policies do you establish to achieve it?

Briefly describe your work experience with each of these specific personnel issues:

9. collective bargaining contract negotiations

10. workers’ compensation issues or claims

11. termination of civil service employees

12. sexual harassment issues and policies

13. disciplinary action and grievances If you were personnel director, how would you deal with each of the following issues?

14. What is your understanding of the drug and alcohol testing and related requirements of the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991?

15. What is the best balance between flexibility and uniformity of personnel policies and procedures? If you had to, how would you increase uniformity and structure? How would you “sell” these changes to the city manager, the department directors, and employees?

16. The City hires contract attorneys to handle some personnel-related legal issues and handles others in-house through the city attorney. In your view, which issues should be handled which way? If it is determined that the City’s reliance on contract attorneys’ services is excessive, what would you do to reduce this reliance? What in-house resources (financial and personnel) would you need to do this? How long would it take?

17. As a representative of the City in contract negotiations, you may be required to conduct collective bargaining negotiations when you do not have authorization to offer a COLA increase or any other increase in benefits to the union. Have you ever been in such a situation? How would you conduct the negotiation?

18. The city manager has asked you to evaluate the City’s classification and pay plan. It appears that the shrinking tax base could result in civil service layoffs due to possible budget shortfalls. If cuts could not be met through attrition or by not filling vacant positions, what alternatives to layoffs are there? If layoffs were unavoidable, how would you do them?

19. Bringing employees on the job after their interviews sometimes takes several months. What timetable is reasonable? What possible methods would you consider to expedite the hiring process?

20. A promotional exam was administered, and an eligibility list established and published, for a contractually covered position. A person on that list approaches you and claims that the employee at the top of the list is believed to have been given answers to the questions by the department head of the unit in which the promotional position exists. What would you do?

21. A female employee tells you in confidence that she feels a male co-worker is sexually harassing her. The harassment involves unwanted and unsolicited sexual remarks, and some nonsexual touching. She has not mentioned this problem to anyone else. She insists that she wants no action taken against the offending employee and that she can handle the situation on her own. What do you do?

22. Same as above, except now the offending party is her immediate supervisor. Would you handle the issue any differently?

23. The City has several different types of employees (civil service, contract, no benefits, etc.). Performance evaluation and reward systems differ for each group, which causes frustration for employees and equity issues for the personnel department. What would you do about this, if anything?

In closing:

24. What knowledge, skills, and abilities make you the most qualified candidate for this position?

25. If you were offered the job today, when would you be able to start?

26. What questions, if any, do you want to ask us about the job or the City?

After reading this case study, answer the following questions:

1Kettl, D. (1997). The global revolution in public management: Driving themes, missing links. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 16 (3): 446–462.

2Klingner, D., and L. Jones (April 2004). Smart practice development administration in Iraq and other high security risk nations: Lessons from colonial experience. International Public Management Review, 5 (1): 41–57.