Setting of Personnel Administration

Personnel Administration Personnel Administration is one of the many specialized fields of administration. Moreover, it could be considered the most important field of administration. The reason is very simple. All the activities of any organization are initiated, determined, and implemented by the people who make up that organization. When problems come up in the institution, they are solved by people. Managerial and administrative skill could only be exercised through personnel administration. Certainly, personnel administration plays a vital role in the efforts to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and economy in the government, particularly the improvement of the administrative structure of its public administration. What kind of personnel administration, then, should the government have? The answer could be found in detail in any standard textbook in public personnel administration. For that reason, in this chapter, the discussion will be limited to some of its important subjects, issues and problems. It will center its attention on the following matters: 1. The nature and Scope of Personnel Administration 2. The Setting of Personnel Administration 3. Personnel Administration and the Civil Service System Nature and Scope of Personal Administration For one thing, personnel administration could be viewed as the totality of concern with human resources of an organization. This concern consist of the art of selecting new employees and of utilizing the earlier employed to gain the maximum of quality and quantity in output and service from the working force. For Ordway Tead, it compasses much more than concern with people. He expresses the idea in this manner: Personnel administration is the utilization of the best scientific knowledge of all kinds to the end that an organization as a whole and the individuals composing it shall find that corporate and individual purposes are being reconciled to the fullest possible extent, while the working together of these purposes realizes also genuine social benefit. That administration is a “cooperative group behavior.” It refers ‘to those patterns of behavior that do not depend upon either the scientific goals toward which they are cooperating or the specific technological methods used to reach these goals.” Other authors call administration as “cooperative group effort, in a public or private setting.” Two American author point out that:

While the common factor is the element of cooperation, the purposes or goals of human organizations naturally vary… . Furthermore, the problems of all public organizations are not the same, just as the problems of private ones vary from company to company. Each organization, public or private, must meet the challenge of its particular environment. The exact form of administration varies according to the kind of undertaking. Theoretically, since administration is concerned “ with people and their behavior, all administration might be properly described as personnel administration – and some specialists in personnel work would like to use this broad definition of their specialty. In actual practice, however, “the personnel specialist is concerned with a limited matter.” They are concerned with matters that are of the greatest long range importance to the organization. Herbert A. Simon, Donald W. Smithburg and Victor A. Thompson explain the personnel practice in this way: Personnel Administration in this narrower sense deals principally with the recruitment of employees for organization positions (including promotions and transfers from one position to another), with the separation of employees from the organization by retirement, dismissal, or resignation, with the training of employees, with their salaries and wages, and their health, safety and welfare. The Evolution of the Personnel Specialized Function. Throughout the history of any nation, there have been various approaches to personnel administration in the government. Some of them are as follows: 1. Merit System. This approach is to recruit, promote and otherwise manage government personnel in accordance with “comparative merit or achievement.” 2. Spoils System. This approach is to appoint and dismiss government personnel for partisan political reasons. 3. Emergency Employment. This approach is to provide temporary jobs for those who otherwise would be unemployed due to economic reasons. This approach, which is common in underdeveloped countries, is also found in the developed countries. 4. Veteran preference. Preference in public employment may be given for services in the armed forces of the country. 5. Equitable allocation of employment. To assure equitable allocation of public jobs, representation by geographic areas, social class or ethnic groups may be considered as factors in the employment in the government. These approaches are not mutually exclusive because some jobs may be filled on the basis, others on another; furthermore the approach or combination of approaches changes with various periods in nation’s history. Nor are the specific policies under any approach always fixed or easily derived. The Elements of a Well-balanced Personnel Program. In the line with the definition of public personnel administration, well –balanced personnel program would stress on the following elements:

1. Development of a sound organization structure for carrying out the personnel program, one in which the responsibilities of all those participating in the program are clearly defined. 2. Systematic and flexible position classification and establishment of a just salary plan, taking into account the strong competition which the private sector offers. 3. A well-conceived recruitment plan and the attraction of good candidates by means of imaginative and aggressive recruiting techniques. 4. A sound system of selection, assuring the appointment of only the most qualified candidates and their placement in the jobs for which they are best fitted. 5. Comprehensive in-service training programs, aimed at improving the skills of the employees, raising their morale, and preparing them for promotions. 6. A satisfactory plan for the periodic evaluation of the efficiency of the employees in order to improve their performance and to identify the most competent ones. 7. A plan of promotions based principally on the merits of the aspirants, with the object of establishing a career system by means of which good people are brought into the service and in accordance with their performance, are moved up the line until they reach the highest ranking positions. 8. Constant efforts to improve the human relations skills of supervisors and in general to assure proper attention to human relations factors. 9. A complete program for maintaining the morale and discipline of the employees at a high level. Considering the elements of a well-balanced personnel program, is the career service system in the Philippines adequate? Career may be defined as the pursuit of progressive achievement by an individual in a field of work throughout the employable years of his life. The removal or suspension of government employee depends upon causes which are considered in violation of the law that affect public administration or the affairs of the government related to the rights and interests of the general public. Entrance to the Civil Service is based on merit and fitness and determined as far as practicable by competitive examinations or based on highly technical qualifications. To facilitate the entry of competent and qualified manpower into Civil Service, a systematic review of the entire examination schemes, which seeks to develop new ways of ascertaining merit and fitness, is being undertaken. Opportunity for advancement to higher career positions is another characteristic of the Philippine career system. Conceivably, one of the most rewarding aspects of any employment situation is the recognition of work well done through promotion. Moreover, one of the characteristics of the career system in the Philippine civil service is the provision of the promotion and development of sound career in public service through a continuing program of career and personnel development for all government employees at all levels.

Employee’s creativity and innovativeness are encouraged though an expanded, workable service-wide Employee Suggestions and Incentive Awards System. From the foregoing, it can be deduced that the career system in the Philippine civil service is adequate.

Setting of Personnel Administration •

One of the organization’s major linkage with its environment. It applies in microcosm the values, ethics, the philosophy of that environment, and it in turn influences the environment.

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It is important to emphasize that the individual needs to integrated with the organizational goals are needs above the elementary human needs. Moreover, these human needs should provide the primary link with the essence of organization.

Responsibility of Personnel Administration Personnel administration is the responsibility of the managers. Of course, they may be assisted by the staff specialists on personal matters. Historically, public personnel administration in the Philippines begun first with the establishment of government system , its formal and legitimate growth came with the establishment of the Philippine civil service system on January 20, 1899 on instruction of American President William McKinley. To meet the personnel administration needs, in the government, the civil service commission was made a constitutional office by the framers of the 1973 constitution of the Philippines. As such, it holds the main responsibility for public personnel administration in the country. The Political Environment of Personnel Administration Government is both a social and political institution. As a political institution, it evolves in a political environment not only within the organizational structure but also with its external environment. It is expected, therefore, that its personnel policies are greatly affected by political decisions.

Another effect of political decisions to personnel administration is aptly described by an editorial of THE BULLETIN TODAY, a national newspaper circulating in the Philippines. The Human Element of Personnel Administration A person’s basic needs determine to a large extent what he will try to do at any given time. All these needs are interrelated because they are the needs of an individual. When the basic need is adequately met, it loses power as a motivator and no longer does it determine that individual’s current behavior. But when that need is blocked, the person becomes a “sick man”. For every individual, basic needs take effect as though they are arranged in hierarchy. This arrangement is not rigid. Lower levels needs do not have to be determinate for behavior. However, different needs have priority at different times. Personnel Administration and the Civil Service System For the efficiency of the administration, former Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Republic of the Philippines said: “the administrative machinery of the government must be restricted and revitalized to meet the challenge and development. On the other hand, public service will defend primarily on its civil service, the core of public administration. The Civil Service is the professional body of people who have made of the government service a lifetime career. It is also that portion of the public service that is governed by the merit principle in the selection of its officers and employees. In the Philippines, the civil service embraces every branch, agency, subdivision, and instrumentality of the government, including GOCC. The constitution of the Philippines mandates that the requirements and benefits of the civil service system should cover the administrative personnel of the entire governmental organization, both national and local, including the military establishment. For the Philippine civil service system to be operated effectively, however, it requires that certain conditions be fulfilled. It requires that it should be politically neutral. It calls also for the selection of any appointee in any government position to be based not only in partisan consideration but be made strictly on the basis of merit and fitness. Moreover, they should enjoy security of tenure. Otherwise, the recruiting and maintaining of competent, qualified and honest civil servants cannot be expected. The constitution has for its primary purpose that the recruitment of government personnel is not to be made on the basis of an indiscriminate or whimsical method of selection or on consideration of friendship, kinship, partnership, social and political connections. Merit and fitness as qualitative factors in the selection of civil servants have preference to personal qualifications for competence and ability to perform the official task. A person’s qualifications in this manner are to be determined by competitive examinations as far as practicable. Where competitive examinations are not practicable, other methods of determining merit and fitness may be resorted to, such as an investigation of school records, experience in actual work, achievements of a character relevant to the

position to be filled, and such other tests modern educational science had produced. Is passing civil service examination or civil service eligibilities sufficient criterion for determining merit and fitness? As pointed out earlier, appointments in the civil service, except those which are highly technical in nature, shall be made only according to merit and fitness to be determined as far as practicable by competitive examination. This means that the candidates must have the specified educational attainment, experience and civil service eligibilities. Eligibility is just one way of determining the merit and fitness of an individual who wants to enter in the government service. It is just one of the requirements for an appointment to the position. The appointing authority may set special requirements or qualifications, such as psychometric and other tests, to fit the position to be filled. Educational attainment is another factor which should be considered in determining the qualification of a person. Experience is another factor. Since the merit system established by the constitution does not necessarily imply that the person so appointed have security of tenure to officers and employees in the civil service. Moreover, the prohibition against the partisan political activities for civil servants is designed to secure discipline and efficiency in the public service by doing away with the spoils system. To facilitate the entry of competent and qualified manpower into the civil service, the CSC as the central personnel agency of the government, is adopting ways and means to improve the recruitment system in the Philippines. Some of the positive measures that can improve the recruitment process are as follows: 1. Granting civil service eligibility for employees in the trade and crafts position after having served satisfactorily for a certain period of time. This simply means that a person may be appointed to a position in the trades and crafts even if he does not have yet civil service eligibility as long as he meets the other qualifications of the position. After 2 or 3 years of experience then he can apply for a grant of eligibility. 2. Qualification assessment instrument instead of the usual written test for appointments for scientific and technical positions in the second level of the career service. 3. Granting eligibility to honor college graduates. under PD no. 907, as amended, honor graduates (those who have earned at least cum laude honors of four-year college courses are granted either second or first grade civil service eligibility rating depending on the position to which they are appointed.