Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Personnel
INTRODUCTION
One of the most critical challenges facing public administration is the recruitment and retention of qualified personnel. While the problem of attracting talent into public service is not new, the introduction and rapid expansion of the high technology and Internet industry, the problem has reached crisis proportions. Both the public and private sector have embraced the Information Age with increasing dependence on a skilled and versatile workforce. Private industry responded by developing greater versatility in expanding and contracting their workforce to compliment the strategic requirements and goals of the organization. Public administration did not adequately recognize the changes in private industry that had such a significant impact on the workforce. In the past twenty years the workforce, who had previously expected to spend their career with a single employer, has adjusted to a norm of changing employers several times, (and in many cases changing career paths). This changing expectation of the workforce necessitates not only policy changes in public administration, but far better flexibility in hiring, rewarding and retaining methods.
The shift to broader based training and advanced skills have changed the expectations of the workforce. Workers are increasingly less content with remaining within a single occupational discipline and have matched the flexibility and agility of their employers. Public administrators have increasingly recognized the need to modify reward and incentive programs placing much greater emphasis on performance than tenure.
Private business, with its ability to change and re-focus strategic goals and objec...
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...US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, “Hiring”, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/hiring/index.html.
US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, “Retention”, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/retention/index.html.
US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, “The defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA)”, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/dawia/index.html.
US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, “The DoD Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project (AcqDemo)”, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/acqdemo/index.html.
Selecting new employees in nonunion operations. (1996). Management Report for Nonunion Organizations (Wiley), 19(5), 5-6.
According to Polanyi, a market economy becomes a market society when all land, labour and capital are commodified (Polanyi, 1957). A market society is a structure, which primarily focuses on the production and distribution of commodities and services. This takes place through a free market system, which allows the opportunity for individuals to engage themselves in the market place, through trucking, bartering or exchanging. Polanyi’s fundamental idea of a market society is that all social relations are rooted in the economy as opposed to the economy being submerged in social relations.
Music therapy works because of its three fundamentals: the application of systematic thinking through music theory, the creation of an individualized treatment plan, as well as the patie...
Snook, S., & Polzer, J. T. (2004). The army crew team. Manuscript submitted for publication, Business , Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, , Available from Harvard Business School. (9-403-131).
The rights to hunt a limited number of endangered black rhino for about $250,00 in South Africa,
Polanyi, Karl. "Societies and Economic Systems," "The Self Regulating Market and Fictitious Commodities: Labour, Land, and Money." "The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957. pp. 43-55, 68-75
Many public agencies in recent years have followed the trend of privatization, or contracting-out. Activities and functions that were once performed, or services that were once provided, by public employees are now being performed by private sector employees (Lyons). Vehicle towing, health services, police protection, and solid waste collection are among the many services and functions that government has contracted out. A survey in 1995 that was sent to mayors or city managers of America's largest cities (based on population) revealed that only three of the 66 cities that responded to the survey had not privatized any city services. http://fpac.fsu.edu/parbaby/pdf/1997/janfeb/dilger.pdf This trend translates to not only an administrative concerns but a staffing concern faced by many managers.
When originally created, teacher unions were a noble cause meant to prevent teachers from being taken advantage of. Fight from the beginning, teachers unions and schools have been in conflict over several issues. Now though, as a result schools’ eagerness to cut costs, along with the union’s unwillingness to allow teachers to be fired, the student is becoming collateral damage. This conflict that exists between the teachers unions and school administration must be resolved through mediation, focus on students, and stronger laws to prevent teachers suing districts. At one point, America had schools that it was proud of. There are many areas where teachers and school unions will likely never see eye to eye; the school districts place the student as their primary concern, and the teachers unions place the teachers as their primary concern. Just as Joel Klein once said, “You can never appreciate how irrational the system is until you’ve lived it.” (Qtd. in Brill, 30 ).
Management 3rd edition, Kathryn M. Bartol & David C. Martin (Boston, Massachusetts Burr Ridge, Illinois Dubuque, Iowa Madison, Wisconsin New York, New York San Francisco, California St. Louis, Missouri 2008), p36, 37, 41
Today, more than ever, there is great debate over politics and which economic system works the best. How needs and wants should be allocated, and who should do the allocating, is one of the most highly debated topics in our current society. Be it communist dictators defending a command economy, free market conservatives defending a market economy, or European liberals defending socialism, everyone has an opinion. While all systems have flaws and merits, it must be decided which system is the best for all citizens. When looking at both the financial well being of all citizens, it is clear that market economies fall short on ensuring that the basic needs of all citizens are met. If one looks at liberty and individual freedom, it is evident that command economies tend to oppress their citizens. Therefore, socialism, which allows for basic needs to be met and personal freedoms to be upheld, is the best economic system for all of a country’s citizens.
Refering to tenure policies, the Los Angeles Times also had this to say: "They too often allow uncaring or incompetent teachers to stay in their jobs, which has a direct effect on learning and engagement". No matter how young a student is, whether they be kindergarten or high school aged, they can tell when a teacher doesn 't care for the work that they do, and the students morale will decrease along with their grade point average. It 's easier for a teacher to lose their drive to care and engage their students when their paycheck doesn 't depend on it anymore. According to the textbook, the public is undecided on the need for tenure, and when polled on tenure policies "nearly half (47 percent) believe that these have hurt the quality of public education (Bushaw & Lopez, 2011)" (257). It isn 't called public schooling for no reason; it 's the children of the public who are affected by tenure policies, so it seems like the public should be more on board with something that affects their lives and those of their children 's to such a degree. There was even a courtcase in California that attempted to challenge tenure. The plaintiffs in the case (Vergara v. California) were nine students and their families who claimed that "this process protects senior, and potentially ineffective, teachers at the expense of newer, more competent ones" (Kauchak, 258). Just because a teacher is new to a school environment doesn 't mean they 're less competent than those teachers who 've been in the same school for years. In fact, new teachers often come in with fresh ideas to introduce to their students that older, tenured teachers who 've been stuck in their ways for so long would never think to try. It 's unfair to base teacher
63).” Novels into Film is based on in-depth research into film archives and libraries and on interviews with the screenwriters, directors, and producers who worked on these films. The majority of the book is comprised of essays that entail close, formalistic readings of both the cinematic and literary text in academic studies in the first half of the twentieth century.
Bersin, J. (2013, August 16). Employee Retention Now a Big Issue: Why the Tide has Turned | LinkedIn. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from
The purpose of the remainder of his book is to try and answer that proposed thesis, the importance being that Polanyi believes that markets are not a natural feature in human society, he points out that nearly all other societies used different, non-market instruments to deliver goods. I believe this is important because at the time of his writing, Polanyi’s views went against the grain, which I believe plays a strong part if why this book has stayed popular throughout the years.
Willy McCourt & Derek Elridge (2003), Global Human Resource Management, pp 311 - 315. Edward Elgar publishing.