Personnel Management in Government: Fifth Edition, Politics and Process (Public Administration and Public Policy)

604 Pages·2001·3.45 MB·English

by  Jay Shafritz

ThefourtheditionwaspublishedasPersonnelManagementinGovernment:Politicsand
Process,FourthEdition,RevisedandExpanded,byJayM.Shafritz,NormaM.Riccucci,
DavidH.Rosenbloom,andAlbertC. Hyde.
ISBN:0-8247-0504-1
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Preface
More than 20 years have passed since the first edition of this book appeared.
In 1978, public sector personnel management seemed complex but still quite
straightforward.Thefirsteditionwasfewerthan300pageswithafairlysimplistic
structure. We began with an extensive historical section explaining the political
context of personnel, which we felt had been largely ignored by the standard
personneltextbooksofthetime—indeed,wefeltthatwasperhapsthemostim-
portantreasonfor us towritea newtextbook.Ourhistory sectionwasfollowed
by one on the functions of personnel and separate sections on employee rights
and labor relations. Our inclusion of a separate chapter on equal employment
opportunity,oneofthefirstpublicpersonneltextstodoso,seemedalmostradical
at the time. Finally, we tried to integrate personnel into the major management
movement(whatsomenowcallafad)oftheera—productivityimprovement—
soweconcludedwithseveralchaptersonhowpersonnelsupportedproductivity
efforts in government. That also seemed radical back in the late 1970s.
So much is different today. Ironically, we wrote in our fourth edition that
‘‘while history does not change much, almost everything else about personnel
management in government does.’’ That certainly seemed apparent back in
1990—theeconomywasyetagaininrecession,stateandlocalgovernmentswere
playingcutbackmanagementde´ja` vu,scramblingtocovermassivebudgetshort-
falls, while the federal government was forecasting slow growth with budget
deficitsfordecadestocome.GovernmenthadnoconceptoftheInternet,broad-
band,ore-commerce,muchlesstheneweconomyorglobalization.Thebigman-
agementissuewaswhethertoemulateJapan,thenthemostsuccessfuleconomy
in the world, and adopt quality management. For the fifth edition it should be
iii
iv Preface
noted that it is history now that is changing rapidly and that governments at all
levelsarefacingtremendouschallengestobecompetitiveandrelevant.Forpublic
personnelmanagement,thelinefromTomasi’sclassicnovel,TheLeopard,seems
most appropriate:‘‘If wewantthingstostayastheyare,thingswillreallyhave
to change.’’
Allthemorereasonforanewfiftheditionaddressinghowtheenvironment
haschangedandassessingbothhowfarwehavecomeinpublicpersonnelman-
agementandhowfarwehavetogo.Forthisedition,therearenowfivecoauthors.
Katherine C. Naff, formerly with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board and
now at San Francisco State University, has joined us.
The textbook itself has been redesigned but structurally looks very much
like our first edition. We’ve kept the opening prologues but extended the range
of material they encompass. There’s much more state and local analysis as, not
surprisingly, that’s where much of the action in public personnel management
hasbeeninthe1990s,andthispromisestobeevenmoretrueinthe21stcentury.
The chapter on equal employment opportunity is now its own section with an
additional new chapter on diversity. The labor relations section remains but in-
cludes anew chapter on employeerelations. Having predictedwrongly for four
editionsaboutwhichmanagementfadwouldforeversolveourperformanceprob-
lems in government, the productivity section has been replaced with a single
chapteronthelegacyofqualityandreengineering.Butmorethananything,we’ve
tried to keep the focus on the future. After all, the value of public personnel
management is primarily about solving the ‘‘people’’ problems of tomorrow’s
government organizations.
As with each edition, we remain solely responsible for the content that
follows.Wewouldbepleasedtohearfromanyreaderregardingourperspectives
or positions, or your thoughts on any of the issues presented in the text. With
emailandalltheothercommunicationsadvancesoftoday,there’snoreasonnot
to.
Jay M. Shafritz [email protected]
David H. Rosenbloom [email protected]
Norma M. Riccucci [email protected]
Katherine C. Naff [email protected]
Albert C. Hyde [email protected]
Acknowledgments
Alltotaled,welloverahundredpeoplewereacknowledgedinthefirstfouredi-
tionsofPersonnelManagementinGovernment.Manyofthemwerehelpfulcol-
leagues at the universities where we were teaching, who shared with us their
expertise and encouragement. Many more were our students, who provided us
with insights about what was and wasn’t in our textbook and even occasionally
showedusintheirresearchpaperstheirassessmentofwhatwasnewand,perhaps
more importantly, what was really old and boring. For the purpose of trying to
keep this section from resembling a phone directory, we simply extend thanks
againtoallouraforementionedcolleaguesandstudentsfortheirhelpinthepast.
Thereisathirdgroupofindividualswehavealsolistedinpreviouseditions
whohaveaidedimmeasurablyinmakingthistextbookwhatitis:themanyper-
sonnel professionals in the federal government and in state and local agencies,
who have shared with us their best practices and lessons learned in leading
change.Therearealsoourcolleaguesintwoprofessionalassociations—SPALR
(theSectiononPersonnelandLaborRelationsoftheAmericanSocietyforPublic
Administration) and IPMA (the International Personnel Management Associa-
tion)—who have greatly assisted us in the past.
We would be remiss, however, if we did not give special thanks to two
organizationsandtheirexceptionalstaffwhohavemadespecialcontributionsto
our study of public personnel. The first is the U.S. Merit System’s Protection
BoardOfficeofPolicyEvaluation,directedbyJohnPalguta,whichhascontinued
to provide some of the most insightful and best-researched studies of federal
personnel policies and surveys of the federal public service. The other is the
NationalAcademyofPublicAdministration’sCenterforHumanResourcesMan-
v
vi Acknowledgments
agement, led by Frank Cipolla, whose research reports on federal reforms have
been invaluable.
Forthisfifthedition,weaddsomenewnamestoourlistofdebts.Forthis
edition, we are especially indebted to:
Carolyn Ban, University of Pittsburgh
John Crum, U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board
RandyHamilton,InstituteforGovernmentStudies,UniversityofCalifornia
at Berkeley
Joel Kassiola, San Francisco State University
Tom Novotny, Publisher of The Public Manager
Steve Ott, University of Utah
Ray Pomerleau, San Francisco State University
Frank Scott, San Francisco State University
Genie Stowers, San Francisco State University
Robert Tobias, The American University
Andrew Wasilisian, U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Stephanie Hyde of Cox Communications helped convert the entire manu-
scriptfrompapertoelectronicfiles.AlexisKatzofHRConsultingmanagedthe
archive.
Finally, our thanks to Paige Force and her colleagues at Marcel Dekker,
Inc.—forherpatienceandalltheirmanyhelpfuleffortsinputtingthisfifthedi-
tion on your bookshelf.
Contents
Preface iii
Acknowledgments v
Introduction: Why This Book? xiii
Part I The History and Environment of Public Personnel
Management
1. The First Century of Civil Service Reform 1
Prologue: President Garfield’s Assassination and the Origins
of the Merit System 1
A Historical Perspective: Enter the Spoils System 2
The Motivation for Civil Service Reform 6
The Impetus for Reform 8
The Pendleton Act 13
The Development of the Central Personnel Agency 15
State and Local Institutional Arrangements: A History
in Parallel 33
Civil Service Reform and the Decline of the Commission
Format 37
A Summary Note on the Merits of Reform 39
Bibliography 40
vii
viii Contents
2. Civil Service Reform in the Postreform Era (1979 to 2000) 45
Prologue: The Death of the Merit System in Georgia 45
The Aftermath of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 48
Overture for Postreform: The Volcker Commission 53
The First Movement: The Clinton Administration ‘‘Transition’’ 57
The Second Movement: The NPR and Federal Workforce
Restructuring 60
The Third Movement: Reinvention of OPM 67
An Unfinished Symphony: Civil Service Reform in the
Second Term 72
Civil Service Reform at the State and Local Level 77
Appendix: 1999 Civil Service Improvements 82
Bibliography 91
3. The Legal Framework of Public Personnel Management 93
Prologue: Elrod v. Burns (1976) 93
Comparing the Legal and Managerial Frameworks
of Government 96
Merit Principles and Civil Service 97
The Constitutional Law of Public Employment 106
The Individualized Rights Approach 109
The Public Service Model 110
Conclusion: Know Your Law 128
Bibliography 128
Part II The Processes of Human Resources Management
4. Human Resources Planning 131
Prologue: Where Have All the Firefighters Gone? 131
The Environment for Human Resources Planning 134
Human Resources Planning in an Era of Downsizing 139
A Historical Overview of Human Resources Planning 147
Workforce Planning 149
Forecasting Human Resources Supply 153
Forecasting Organizational Demands 156
Strategic Human Resources Planning—Future Prospects 164
Bibliography 168
5. Classification and Compensation 171
Prologue: Transforming Waiting Rooms into Museums 171
Why Classification—Why Not Staffing in Public Sector
Organizations? 176
Contents ix
The Evolution of Position Classification: The Ascendancy
of Scientific Management 177
After the War: ‘‘The Triumph of Technique Over Purpose’’ 183
The 1970s and the Behavioralist Critique 185
The System Response: Factor Evaluation in the 1970s 188
The Reform Initiative of the 1990s—Broadbanding? 197
Classification in the States 202
Pay Administration in Government 206
Federal Pay Reform: 1990 208
State and Local Compensation Developments 212
Pay Issues of Another Kind: Living Wages 215
Bibliography 217
6. Recruitment and Selection 221
Prologue: A Michigan Executive Recruitment Experience 221
The Legal Environment of Public Sector Selection:
From Griggs to Adarand 224
The Development (and Decline) of the Uniform Guidelines 230
The Importance of Public Employment 236
Personal Rank Versus Position Rank 241
Essentials of the Employment Process 242
Examinations and Validation 246
A Federal Case History from PACE to ACWA to Other 251
Human Capital in Government: The Next Frontier 256
Bibliography 260
7. Performance Appraisal 265
Prologue: 360-Degree Appraisal: Rising Star or Wreck on the
Performance Appraisal Highway? 265
The Problem of Performance Appraisal 267
The Traditional Approach to Performance Appraisal 273
Changing the System: The Behavioral Focus 277
The History of Merit Pay 281
Some State Government Perspectives on Merit Pay 287
Other Alternatives: Assessment Centers and Assessments
of Multisource Appraisals 293
Bibliography 298
8. Training and Development 301
Prologue: The Future of Training in the New Era
of Knowledge Management 301