Introduction to Human Capital Management in Public ... - CQ Press

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010 Selden Ch01 (1-12).qxd 4/29/08 12:59 PM Page 4 4 CHAPTER 1 Although originally the act only required a limited share of the “classified service” to be selected by competitive exam, it was extended over time to cover more and more employees. The classified service includes po,, taOver time merit systems diffused through all levels of government and public bureaucracies, as political machines were transformed into professionally administered institutions (Hoogenboom 1959). Carolyn Ban and Norma Riccucci (2002) write, “Public personnel management, for better or worse, continues to embody the concept of merit. Notwithstanding, the nature of civil service and the personnel practices which sustain it have changed considerably since 1883.” In addition to merit-based hiring, most civil service systems give employees other administrative and legal due process rights, such as a right to grieve or appeal an employment decision (e.g., on promotion or compensation) or a decision to discharge them for cause, and protection from partisan pressure and removal (Mosher 1968). In the past decade some governments have tried to eliminate the classified civil service. A few states, such as Georgia and Florida, have shifted at least part of the legal basis of their employment systems from a civil service structure to an employment-at-will model. Employment at will typically connotes an employer’s right to terminate an employee without a reason and an employee’s right to leave when she or he elects (Baucus and Dworkin 1998; Fulmer and Casey 1990). 1 The Department of Homeland Security has an at-will human capital system independent of the federal classified service. Although most governments operate a classified civil service or merit system, the percentage of employees covered by it varies. For example, in 2008, only 60 percent of Indiana’s state government was part of its classified civil service, whereas more than 99 percent of North Carolina’s workforce was covered by its merit system (GPP 2007). The administrative and legal protections that these systems provide public employees vary. The structure of civil service systems also varies across governments, with some largely decentralized and others very centralized. The purported benefits of a centralized structure include equitable treatment of employees, consistency in the delivery of services, efficiency gains through economies of scale, and clear division of functions between the central human resource department and agencies. In the 1990s many scholars and practitioners pushed for central human resources departments to decentralize authority over some human resource practices to give more flexibility to public agencies and their managers (Kellough and Nigro 2006). Today responsibilities are often shared by a central human capital department or agency, such as the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and other agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. 1 Both federal legislation and state laws provide exceptions to the doctrine of at will, including, but limited to, participation in union activities, whistle blowing, public policy, employer motivation, race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, and disabilities (Fulmer & Casey, 1990). Montana is the only state that has passed legislation that prohibits employers from discharging employees without “good cause” (Falcone, 1999; Wallihan, 2003).
010 Selden Ch01 (1-12).qxd 4/29/08 12:59 PM Page 5 Introduction to Human Capital Management in Public Organizations 5 Labor relations—the spectrum of interactions among public employees, public managers, and institutions (governments and unions)—also influence today’s public human capital systems. The academic literature on labor relations is vast. There is great variation in labor relations across governments, depending on the extent of unionization; the scope, nature, and number of issues over which unions bargain; the laws that govern collective bargaining processes; the locus of authority to negotiate labor contracts; and the contentiousness of the bargaining process. In some governments, employees may join a union, but the union has no formal authority to negotiate employment contracts on behalf of its members. In governments where collective bargaining is allowed, there are often restrictions on which employment actions can be bargained. As with merit systems, there is not a common legal framework governing the labor relations of state and local governments (see Cayer 1996). CHANGING PERSPECTIVE Historically public personnel management had a strong functional focus that emphasized the administration and regulation of civil service and other public personnel systems and policies—such as job classification, hiring, discipline, performance evaluation, training, and compensation—used to manage people in an organization (Pynes 1997). Public personnel agencies were typically organized into the aforementioned functions, with limited integration across the functions (Wright and McMahan 1992). Although some continue to view human resources traditionally, increasingly public organizations are integrating the traditional responsibilities of managing personnel systems with strategic human capital management (Center for Innovation in the Public Sector 2006). A strategic human capital perspective suggests that an organization is forward thinking and conceives of its human capital as a valuable asset to the government. It implies that human capital can play a strategic role in the organization’s success. Wright and McMahan (1992, 298) define it as “the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable the [organization] to achieve its goals.”As a result of this shift in the field, HCM departments are shifting from a preoccupation with policing the merit or civil service system and its rules to a broader human resources or human capital perspective that emphasizes planning, collaboration, and partnership with public leaders and managers to achieve government and agency goals (U.S. GAO 2002; Selden, Ingraham, and Jacobson 2001). Human capital management staff are moving away from primarily making operational decisions to acting as consultants to other departments and managers, designing and delivering policies and programs that give managers the tools and training they need to perform effectively in their positions. Below are three examples that illustrate the new role that central human resource offices are assuming. The Office of Personnel Management is leading the federal government initiative on strategic management of human capital. In conjunction with the
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