Week 1 - Assignment: Assess Personnel Management Approaches in Public Administration and Week 2 - Assignment: Generate Best Practices for Recruitment and Selection

Part III: Public Organizations of the Future

David H. Rosenbloom is Chair Professor

of Public Management at City University of

Hong Kong and Distinguished Professor of

Public Administration at American University

in Washington, DC. His research focuses

on public administration and democratic

constitutionalism.

E-mail: [email protected]

Public Sector Human Resource Management in 2020 S175

David H. Rosenbloom American University and City University of Hong Kong

Public Sector Human Resource Management in 2020

Historically at the federal level in the United States, public sector human resource man-agement (HRM), traditionally called public personnel administration, has been driven largely by the ideology of the dominant political party, move- ment, or coalition. Th ese ideologies incorporate images of what federal employees should be. From the founding in 1789 until 1829, federal employees were viewed as an extension of the socioeconomic elite that dominated national politics. For the Jacksonian Democrats who followed the Federalists and Jeff erso- nian Republicans, federal employees were an arm of the political party in control of the presidency. Th e civil service reformers of the 1870s and 1880s imag- ined federal employees as nonpartisan competent gen- eralists with high moral standards. Th e Progressives, who followed, adhered to this image while seeking to transform civil servants’ competence from general to technical through science. During the New Deal of the 1930s, the desire for technical competence was augmented at the upper levels with adherence to the president’s policy objectives. In time, as the “imperial presidency” developed, the federal civil service increas- ingly was envisioned as an adjunct of the presidential administration in offi ce.

Within all of these periods, there were undercurrents that supported alternative visions. For instance, the Jeff ersonians articulated concepts that would make the federal service somewhat more representative in terms of social class background and, to some extent, partisan persuasion. With the possible exception of the elite period, each image left a lingering legacy (among others, see Mosher 1982; Riccucci and Naff 2007; Rosenbloom 1971; Van Riper 1958).

Today, however, there is no dominant image of the federal civil service, and political fac- tions seek to inform the govern- ment’s HRM with a variety of

values. Th ese values are sometimes in tension or in competition with one another, and, consequently, there cannot be a coherent image, but at best a blurry one. As with many aspects of U.S. public administra- tion, these values fall into clusters associated with management, politics, and law. Th e future of federal HRM will depend on whether a dominant political ideology arises and, if so, how it modifi es, rejects, augments, and prioritizes these values. In the absence of such an ideology, federal HRM will remain an ag- glomeration of values temporarily elevated by one set of political interests or another. In other words, future HRM’s path dependency will be missing a path.

Managerial Values Th e chief value of the managerial cluster is cost- eff ectiveness, which rolls the civil service reformers’ and the Progressives’ emphasis on economy, effi ciency, and eff ectiveness into one. Unsurprisingly, diff erent political factions seek cost-eff ectiveness in diff erent ways. Th ough President Ronald Reagan was unsuc- cessful in doing so, Reagan Republicans would down- size the federal civil service, thereby making cutback management a central facet of federal HRM. Many across the spectrum would follow President Jimmy Carter’s eff ort to center federal HRM on performance, as promoted in pay-for-performance and performance management schemes. As reinventers, New Demo- crats sought cost-eff ectiveness through business values and techniques, including customer orientation, entrepreneurship, creating value, and better fi nancial management. Th ey decentralized and deregulated federal HRM, arguing that a one-size-fi ts-all model

essentially fi ts nothing and certainly fails to link personnel functions to agency missions.

President George W. Bush viewed competitive sourcing as the key to cost-eff ectiveness. Like downsizing, this would put an emphasis on cutback management, but also would

Today . . . there is no dominant image of the federal civil service

and political factions seek to inform the government’s

[human resource management (HRM)] with a variety of values.

S176 Public Administration Review • December 2010 • Special Issue

employers with the constitutional rights of public employees as citi- zens or legal residents. With respect to federal HRM, constitutional integrity typically involves the scope of presidential versus congres- sional authority over employee job security, rights, and working conditions. Issues pertaining to the constitutional rights of public employees tend to involve procedural due process, Fourth Amend- ment and substantive due process privacy, equal protection of the laws, and First Amendment guarantees. Courts also play a large role in interpreting statutes dealing with technical aspects of labor rela- tions and other HRM matters. Today, one cannot practice public sector HRM without reference to judicial decisions.

2020 Th ese clusters are likely to persist into 2020, with relatively minor adjustments. Oddly, dramatic change is more likely to come by a

U.S. Supreme Court decision stripping public employees of procedural due process protections or First Amend- ment rights than through the rise of a dominant political ideology or public administrative paradigm shift. Th e United States is a hyperpluralistic, fragmented society with a simmering 60-year-old culture war. Unless the nation coalesces around a new political movement with an ideology that can defi ne public administration, 2020 will look a lot like 2010.

References Mosher, Frederick C. 1982. Democracy and the Public Service. 2nd ed. New York:

Oxford University Press. Naff , Katherine C. 2001. To Look Like America: Dismantling Barriers for Women and

Minorities in Government. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Riccucci, Norma M., and Katherine C. Naff . 2008. Personnel Management in Govern-

ment. 6th ed. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis. Rosenbloom, David H. 1971. Federal Service and the Constitution: Th e Development of

the Public Employment Relationship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Van Riper, Paul P. 1958. Th e United States Civil Service. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.

demand more fl exibility in terms of position classifi cation so that federal employees could be reassigned to form “most effi cient orga- nizations” under the Offi ce of Management and Budget’s Circular A-76 format. President Barack Obama’s administration has not introduced a comprehensive plan for adjusting or reengineering federal HRM. Th us far, his emphasis has been on insourcing, which, of course, runs the gamut of personnel functions—recruiting, select- ing, placing, classifying, compensating, appraising performance, training, and engaging in equal employment opportunity and labor and employee relations.

Political Values In terms of HRM, the major political values are representativeness and responsiveness to elected and appointed political authorities (including members of Congress). Representativeness, articulated by President Bill Clinton as “a government that looks like America” (Naff 2000), is built into federal HRM by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which uses convoluted language to identify the same objective and includes provisions for com- bating the underrepresentation of demographic groups. Responsiveness concerns the interface between political executives and career civil ser- vants, centering on the right balance of political control and employee protection from politiciza- tion and discrimination based on partisanship. Th e Senior Executive Service exemplifi es this approach. Arguably, homeland security legislation providing managers with greater fl exibility to reassign, trans- fer, and discipline subordinate employees tips it toward politicized management. Responsiveness also requires federal HRM to deal with political appointees, who have a high degree of turnover and sometimes try to “burrow in” to the career ranks.

Legal Values Legal values in U.S. public administration are incorporated into statutes, executive orders and related proclamations, and constitu- tional law. Many are imposed on public sector HRM by judicial decisions. Th e dominant legal values in HRM are maintaining constitutional integrity and balancing the needs of governments as

Th e United States is a hyperpluralistic, fragmented

society with a simmering 60-year-old culture war.

Unless the nation coalesces around a new political

movement with an ideology that can defi ne public

administration, 2020 will look a lot like 2010.

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