Human Resource Management

in the midst Globalization

Module 4
Course Outline
A. Definitions of Human Resources Management (HRM)
B. The Challenges of Recruitment
C. Loss of Prestige in Government Employment
D. Loss of the Tenure System
E. Compensation
F. Erosion of the Social Contract
G. Democracy in Human Resource Management in the Public Sector
A. Definitions of Human
Resources Management (HRM)
Defining and Introducing HRM
• To be effective, HRM must adapt to the forces of globalization
characterized by growing interdependence, porous borders, and
increasing use of the Internet and communication technology.
• Human resources management in the public sector in an age of
globalization faces serious challenges. Despite the advocacy of
limited government and the drive toward privatization, the
government still plays a primary role in the delivery of services.
A Global Perspective
• An issue of significant concern for today’s organizations is competing on
a global basis, and the success of a company’s global business strategies
is closely tied to the effectiveness of the organization’s global HR
strategies.
• A subfield known as international human resource management (IHRM)
specifically addresses the added complexity that results from
coordinating and managing diverse people on a global scale.
• As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, some HR practices
and trends are converging. However, IHRM managers need a high
degree of cultural sensitivity and the ability to tailor and communicate
policies and practices for different cultures.
• What works in one country may not translate well to another.
The Changing Social Contract
• In the old social contract between organization and employee, the
employee could contribute ability, education, loyalty, and
commitment and expect in return that the company would provide
wages and benefits, work, advancement, and training throughout
the employee’s working life. But volatile changes in the
environment have disrupted this contract.
• Downsizing, outsourcing, rightsizing, and restructuring have led to
the elimination of many positions in organizations. Employees who
are left may feel little stability. The foregoing has primarily negative
view of the new employer-employee relationship, but there are
positive aspects as well. Many people, particularly younger
employees, like the expectation of responsibility and mobility
embedded in the new social contract. Everyone is expected to be a
self-motivated worker who is continuously acquiring new skills and
demonstrating value to the organization.
• The new contract is based on the concept of employability rather than lifetime
employment. Individuals are responsible for developing their own skills and
abilities, understanding their employer’s business needs, and demonstrating
their value to the organization. The employer, in turn, invests in creative
training and development opportunities so that people will be more
employable when the company no longer needs their services. This means
offering challenging work assignments, opportunities to participate in
decision making, and access to information and resources.
• In addition, an important challenge for HRM is revising performance
evaluation, compensation, and reward practices to be compatible with the
new social contract. Smart organizations contribute to employees’ long-term
success by offering extensive professional training and development
opportunities, career information and assessment, and career coaching.
Innovations in HRM
• The rapid change and uncertainty globally brings significant new
challenges for human resource management. Some important
issues are becoming an employer of choice, addressing the needs
of temporary employees and part-time workers, acknowledging
growing employee demands for work-life balance, and humanely
managing downsizing.
Becoming an Employer of Choice
• The old social contract may be broken for good, but today’s
organizations recognize the importance of treating people right and
thinking for the long term rather than looking for quick fixes based on
an economic exchange relationship with employees.
• An employer of choice is an organization that is highly attractive to
potential employees because of human resources practices that focus
not just on tangible benefits such as pay and profit sharing, but also on
intangibles (such as work/life balance, a trust-based work climate, and a
healthy corporate culture), and that embraces a long-term view to
solving immediate problems.
• To engage people and spur high commitment and performance, an
employer of choice chooses a carefully balanced set of HR strategies,
policies, and practices that are tailored to the organization’s own unique
goals and needs.
Using Temporary and Part-Time Employees
• Contingent workers are becoming a larger part of the workforce in both the
world including the Philippines. Contingent workers are people who work for
an organization, but not on a permanent or full-time basis. These include
temporary placements, contracted professionals, leased employees, or part-
time workers.
• Presently, the temporary staffing industry have been rampant. People in
temporary jobs do everything from data entry, to project management, to
becoming the interim head of office. Although in the past, most temporary
workers were in clerical and manufacturing positions, in recent years demand
has grown for professionals, such as accountants and financial analysts,
interim managers, information technology specialists, product managers, and
even lawyers and health-care workers.
• A related trend is the use of virtual teams. Some are made up entirely of
people who are hired on a project-by-project basis. Many organizations
depend on part-time or temporary employees to maintain flexibility.
Promoting Work/Life Balance
• Initiatives that enable employees to lead a balanced life are a
critical part of many organizations’ retention strategies. One
approach is to let people work part of the time from home or
another remote location. Telecommuting means using computers
and telecommunications equipment to do work without going to
an office.
• In a report by HRM Asia, civil servants in the Philippines offered
flexible work options where government agencies can implement
alternative work arrangements at any time for some 1.7 million
employees regardless of their status of appointment (Civil Service
Commission Memorandum Circular No. 2022-6).
• The CSC said the move was part of its efforts to institutionalize a
more responsive and efficient bureaucracy as the country
transitions to a post-pandemic new normal.
• “This is something new for the government and we would like to
see how it plays out [now]. We have to make sure that all
government services are running smoothly, but we also have to
protect government workers and see to it that they also have a
work-life balance,” (Aileen Lizada, Commissioner of the CSC).
• In addition, many organization have implemented broad work/life
balance initiatives, partly in response to the shift in expectations
among young employees. Generation Y workers are a fast-growing
segment of the workforce. Typically, Gen Y employees work smart
and work hard on the job, but they refuse to let work be their
whole life. Unlike their parents, who placed a high priority on
career, Gen Y workers expect the job to accommodate their
personal lives.
Rightsizing the Organization
• In some cases, organizations have more people than they need and have to let
some employees go. Rightsizing refers to intentionally reducing the
company’s workforce to the point where the number of employees is deemed
to be right for the company’s current situation. Also called downsizing,
planned reductions in the size of the workforce are a reality for many of
today’s organizations. As the term rightsizing implies, the goal is to make the
company stronger and more competitive by aligning the size of the workforce
with the company’s current needs.
• Massive cuts often fail to achieve the intended benefits and in some cases
significantly harm the organization. Unless HRM departments effectively and
humanely manage the rightsizing process, layoffs can lead to decreased
morale and performance. Managers can smooth the process by regularly
communicating with employees and providing them with as much information
as possible, providing assistance to workers who will lose their jobs, and using
training and development to help address the emotional needs of remaining
employees and enable them to cope with new or additional responsibilities.
• In the Philippines, Southern Leyte State University, through the
University Human Resource Management and Development Office
(UHRMDO), organized an orientation session on the Revised
Organization and Staffing Standards (ROSS) in accordance with the
guidelines outlined in National Budget Circular (NBC) No. 589.
• As a result, it was emphasized that all administrative staff needs to
understand the revised standards to enhance organizational
efficiency and promote transparency.
B. The Challenges of
Recruitment
• Of all the factors that contribute to organizational performance,
the human element is the most fundamental.
Administrators/Managers across the public, private, and non-profit
sectors are increasingly “recognizing that employees are their
organization’s most important assets and that the most significant
source of competitive advantage comes from having the best
systems in place for attracting, motivating, and managing their
organization’s human resources” (Mesch 2010, p. 173).
• Governments are the largest employer in many countries.
According to Light (2002), government at all levels faces a growing
challenge in efforts at recruitment and retention.
• HRM promotes the following measures: optimizing the conditions
for staff development; preserving the dignity of employees,
particularly their right to participate in decisions that affect them;
and ensuring that the talents of all the groups from which the
public workforce is drawn, both women and men, members of
various ethnic groups and so on, are effectively harnessed (Light
2002). Based on the World Development Report, some countries
need to establish the legal framework ensuring the compliance
before undertaking devolution and delegation.
• In a globalized world, public personnel managers face problems of
recruiting employees who have the ability to deal with the
challenges of organizations in a constantly changing environment.
• Globalization has made it necessary to recruit people who are
knowledgeable about technology and the situation around the
world.
• In developed countries, the retirement of the “baby boomer”
generations has led to the opening up of many vacancies. On the
other hand, the developing countries, although they have large
population, there is a scarcity of people qualified to deal with
present-day technology.
• Moreover, a high degree of politicization in developing countries
diminishes the proportion of recruitment carried out on the grounds of
merit. Extreme politicization causes favoritism, cronyism, and a
patronage system that deprives the qualified people of government
jobs. As a result, public policies suffer from inefficiency and
ineffectiveness: “The success of a public policy is dependent on the
quality and capacity of those who are entrusted with the
implementation” (Khan 2016, p. 31).
• Under conditions of globalization, government needs to pay an
attractive salary in order to recruit skilled people. It is therefore
competing directly with the private sector to recruit the best people.
There are several reasons for the problem of recruitment in the public
services.
C. Loss of Prestige in
Government Employment
• It is particularly difficult to recruit qualified people when public
employees no longer enjoy the respect and the status they enjoyed
previously.
• In many developing countries, the opportunities for bribes and generous
benefits for government services may be attractive factors to go into
public service. Bureaucrats enjoy many extensive perks.
• For example, governments provide cars with the drivers, and housing
facilities, to name just a few. Recently, some of the governments have
decided to increase the salaries of civil servants. So, developing
countries have sufficient opportunities to attract people for recruitment
into government services although they may have detrimental effects
on the country.
• Gloembiewski (1989) expressed dismay in the state of public service
because older people are leaving at the first opportunity, middle-aged
people are reconsidering their commitment to government services, and
younger people are pessimistic about the future of public service. The
overall trust in government is at an all-time low in both developed and
developing countries.
• As a result, the prestige and the importance which government officials
had once enjoyed no longer exists. The privatization movement, New
Public Management and the Reinventing Government philosophy have
constantly criticized public officials for being wasteful, rigid, and
inefficient. These management practices have led to the rise of a
disrespect for public services. As a result, the commitment to public
service is no longer the principal driver for influencing people to join the
government.
• The media, with its constant coverage of government corruption and
waste, further damaged the reputation of the public service. It has led
to what Cohen et al. (2013) call a crisis of public management.
• The constant projection of a negative image of public service
complicates recruitment into government services (Reichenberg 2002).
A “retirement Tsunami” is a result of the baby boomer generation
leaving the workforce , implying an imminent loss of experienced city
and county managers” (Holmes 2012, p. 450).
• In an environment of the loss of prestige for government services and
the rise of informal actors the recruitment of a new generation of public
servants is a significant challenge. Thus, human resource managers face
a serious challenge to replace the government employees who are
retiring in large numbers.
D. Loss of the Tenure System
• Globalization has facilitated the widespread adoption of the western ideology
of New Public Management and Reinventing Government, which has led to
spread of the privatization movement across the world.
• One of the consequences of privatization is outsourcing and the rise of the At-
Will and contractual employment, that resulted in the end of the tenure
system, which had earlier provided an incentive to join the public service.
However, with the rise of At-Will employment, the tenure system is under
attack. So, the government is losing one of the major attractions to recruit the
best people.
• In previous decades, one of the major attractions for public sector jobs is the
tenure and protection enjoyed by civil servants. The loss of this system has
also led to an erosion of the commitment and loyalty of public servants. This
has removed the psychological contract that prevailed in government
services.
• Lavigna and Hayes (2004) have outlined the following problems associated
with present-day public personnel management: the aging of public
employees, the erosion of loyalty, competition from the private sector, and
budget shortages.
• The developed world faces the aging of the public employees who are
dedicated to their services. The older generation was committed to their
services, and was dedicated to the preservation of its organizational culture.
The loss of the tenure system is depriving the government of the services of
these experienced people. In an age of globalization with complex problems
that require immediate action, government services need to be run by
experienced people. Without such personnel, crises in governance will grow
and this will result in serious consequences. The loss of experienced people
may threaten the organizations’ stability. As Thompson (1967) remarked much
earlier, in order to survive the organization needs both stability and change.
• Organizational stability is crucial for the continuity and maintaining
institutional memory, which is necessary to set its future priorities and
learning.
• Despite the call to abolish the tenure system, there are a number of
advantages. By providing tenure, human resources management can
attract the best-qualified individuals for government jobs. These new
recruits can then bring their knowledge about modern technology and
the concerns of the younger generations to the forefront of
government priorities.
• Under the tenure system, they will feel secure in the jobs and will do
their best to the improvement of the tasks of the government without
the fear of the loss of jobs due to politicization or any other external
variable.
• On the other hand, the tenure system in developing countries, for
example, in South Asia, has led to inefficiency, rigidity stifling
innovation and changes crucial under globalization. The difficult
challenge is how to maintain a tenure system, and, simultaneously,
to preserve the efficiency in the government system. However, a
tenure system with an effective performance evaluation can
eradicate many of the concerns associated with tenure. The
efficient public servants are crucial for dealing with the complex
problems under globalization.
Compensation
• In an era of low budgets, it is difficult to attract the cream of the crop when the
organizations cannot afford to offer a competitive salary. In an age of globalization,
there are sufficient opportunities for talented people to find jobs outside
government. Although salary is not the only factor that attracts people to the jobs it
remains a powerful factor in a world of rising prices and the ever-growing necessities
of life.
• At modern times, the increasing desire for more amenities in life push people for
increasing salaries. For example, a modern family needs computer, television,
iPhones, cable TVs, cars, and all the appliances to have what is regarded just a basic
living. All these necessities are expensive. The salaries are not keeping up with the
necessities of life, and this is a more serious issue in public sector jobs because
governments have to increase taxation to fund public sector salaries.
• In developing countries, the low levels of salaries pressure the bureaucrats to resort
to bribes and other types of corruption. Accordingly, increasing the salary may
eliminate the propensity to engage in bribes.
• Compensation must be broadly competitive with that offered in
the private sector to attract qualified individuals into public service.
However, with growing pressures on a reduced budget, it is
difficult to provide a competitive salary and benefits for
government jobs.
• In the absence of a competitive salary, public service can provide
other opportunities such as tenure and pensions. With the growth
of part-time, contracted, and At-Will employment, the public
services lost most of the drawing factors to attract qualified
individuals.
• In this situation, the government can resort to a leaner bureaucracy
with the attractive salary and benefits. As a result, those who
remain in government services can be satisfied and committed to
their jobs. In most countries, grades determine the compensation.
• However, with the rise of the demands for the specialized
employees in different fields, the qualification and experience can
determine the compensation rather than the grade level. Even
under the grades, performance needs to determine the
compensation to create an environment of motivation for the
employees.
Erosion of the Social Contract
Erosion of the Social Contract
• The rise of informal actors in the delivery of the services associated with globalization
has eroded the social contract once enjoyed in the public services. Kouzmin and
Korac-Kakabadse (1999) refer to the erosion of two types of social contract: the
functional level and the organizational level.
• Despite the low visibility of the erosion of loyalty at the functional level, it is more
pronounced at the organizational level. Organizational cultures are powerful tools in
terms of the identity of the individuals in an organization. Organization culture
creates a spirit of belongingness among the employees, who are able to take pride in
their organizations. The erosion of the social contract can damage the organization
culture and its associated values of identity and belongingness.
• Modern organizations are increasingly relying on part-time, temporary and
contractual employees to cut employees and offer flexibility. This has led to a
changed psychological contract of security and loyalty (Morrison 1994). As a result,
the employees today no longer recognize the existence of the psychological contract
with their employer.
• Tang and Cunningham (2012, p. 330) assert that the “wake of
outsourcing and globalization, less than half of today’s employees
are committed to their employers because employees feel that
employers treat them as expendable commodities when times get
tough.”
• Long-term commitment is essential for the smooth operation of
the government. The low level of commitment of the employees
causes low morale among the employees reducing productivity.
The low commitment also leads to absenteeism and high turnover
in the organizations. This high turnover has, in turn, an adverse
effect on the organizations, which need to hire new employees on
a regular basis.
Democracy in Human Resource
Management in the Public Sector
• Globalization has facilitated the transition to democracies in many parts of the
world. It also increases demands for democratization in the area of public
personnel policies.
• One of the other issues in public sector human resource management is the
establishment of democracy. The problem of democracy is common in many
of the countries of the global South. Moreover, government services are
prestigious and powerful in developing countries. So, it is crucial that the
countries of the global South develop a policy of inclusiveness and equality.
• The important values of democracy, openness, equality, accountability,
participation, responsiveness, individual liberty, due process and justice, are
vitally related to human resource management. In the developed countries,
the challenge is how to balance between different democratic values. In term
of human resource management, a particular value may conflict with other
values.
 ARJAY PAGULAYAN-GUMABAY
Course Lecturer

References:
Daft, Richard L. with the assistance of Patricia G. Lane (2010). Management (9th Edition).
Vanderbilt University. South-Western Cengage Learning 5191 Natorp Boulevard, Mason, OH
45040, USA

Haroon A. Khan. Globalization and the Challenges of Public Administration. Henderson State
University Arkadelphia, Arkansas, USA. Springer International Publishing AG Gewerbestrasse
11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Chau, Charles, 2022. Civil servants in the Philippines offered flexible work options.
https://hrmasia.com/civil-servants-in-the-philippines-offered-flexible-work-options/

UHRMDO conducts orientation of ROSS under NBC 589 (2023).

https://southernleytestateu.edu.ph/index.php/en/events/1712-uhrmdo-conducts-orientation-of-
ross-under-nbc-589