SAMENVATTING
HUMAN RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC
ORGANISATIONS
Prof. Dr. Alex Vanderstraeten
Universiteit Gent
, 1
CHAPTER 0: INTRODUCTION
1. A FOUR DIMENSIONAL MODEL
APPROACH: A four-dimensional model for Human Resource Management to grasp the complexity of
Human Resource Management. HRM evolved from a simple administrative function towards a complex
function, by integrating specific managerial elements in the fulfillment of its general mission. The function
of the human resource manager evolved from administrative clerk to change architect (a versatile
management function with room for multiple specialism). One of the most important skills of a human
resource manager is the flexible use of these multiple approaches and corresponding basic views of
man and organization and the appropriate use of problem-solving models.
The central message is moving from operational to strategic and organizational Human Resource
Management. Organizations as an open system or the relationship between the organization and her
environment has important implications for the organization among which the emphasis on the ability of
understanding the environment and on the possibility to develop strategic answers to changes in this
environment. the reflection upon strategic management is the product of this approach where the
organization is considered to be depended and sensitive to changes in her immediate social and
economic environment.
There are four dimensions:
1. Instrumental dimension (administrative aspects of HRM): rules, procedures, work systems,
administration, paperwork, …
2. People dimension: motivation, working conditions, leadership, internal communication, …
3. Strategic dimension: strategy, goals and objectives, measurement, added value, …
4. Organizational dimension: structure and culture, organizational design, organizational
development, …
, 2
PART ONE:
INSTRUMENTAL
DIMENSION
, 3
CHAPTER 1: THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF THE
INSTRUMENTAL DIMENSION
The instrumental dimension is the most traditional and best-known approach of HRM. It represents more
or less the fundamentals of the personnel function and fits perfectly with the initial preoccupation of
managers during the first industrialization in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the
20th century.
1. HISTORY
1.1. THE HISTORY OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL TOWARDS INTERNAL
SERVICE
Early 20th century
First management theories: for example: the movements: it is to do work more efficiently, to save time
and money. It has the focus on Taylorism.
Scientific Management (Taylor): Taylor is preoccupied with the technical organization of the
production process, while Fayol pays more attention to the administrative and managerial aspects of
the organization. Weber as a sociologist is considered to be the father of the theory of bureaucracy, that
is a regarded as the ideal image and blueprint of the industrial organization.
There is one best way: to produce as efficiently as possible and to deploy employees as adequately as
possible.
The industrialization was seen like a man and organization as a machine.
L’homme machine: thinking in function of machines means mechanical reasoning, where predictability
and security by means of tight rules and procedures and the creation of automatisms in the functioning
of man and organization.
1.2. MCDONALDIZATION
From ‘70s
Taylorims still exists: McDonalds = work progress as efficient as possible. McDonalds aims at complete
controllability, the specialization of labor, uniformity, mass production and the use of routine.
- Efficiency: optimization of production in terms of speed;
- Calculability: the tendency to calculate everything;
- Predictability: uniformization of products, services, procedures, …
- Control: control systems through the use of technology.
McDonaldization is a term used by sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society
(1993). He explains it occurs when a culture possesses the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant.
McDonaldization is a reconceptualization of rationalization, or moving from traditional to rational modes
of thought, and scientific management. Where Max Weber used the model of the bureaucracy to
represent the direction of this changing society, Ritzer sees the fast-food restaurant as having become
a more representative contemporary paradigm.
, 4
1.3. TODAY: THE IMPORTANCE OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL
- Importance of procedures
- Introduction of disciplinary (tendency to natural soldiering)
- Measurement of labor productivity as one of the first HRM measurement systems
- Registration systems
- Operational systems: making lean management work.
There are different aspects of instrumental tasks:
- Administration: paperwork, it must be ok.
- Service delivery: Are we able to pay the salary on time? Are they correct?
- Juridical service
- Expertise in administrative procedures and legal affairs
- Negotiations with social partners for setting up regulations, rules, agreements, social laws, …
2. THE ROLE OF SOCIAL PARTNERS IN SETTING UP INSTRUMENTAL
SYSTEMS
What is the role of employers (or organizations), trade unions and government in setting up socio-
economic regulations? The result of this is socio-economic policy making. It leads to neo-corporatist
institutions. Neo-corporatism refers to a system of consultation and policy making in industrialized
countries by which the government and social partners come to socio-economic agreements in a so
called tripartite consultative structure.
There are two models: the Rhineland model and the Anglo-Saxon model where the socio-economic
stakeholders in HRM. The Rhineland model emphasizes the institutional regulations between trade
unions and employers that will lead to the satisfaction of the social partners.
3. THE CORE BUSINESS OF THE INSTRUMENTAL DIMENSION
3.1. THE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE: THE NECESSITY OF PAPERWORK
The paperwork must be done. There is still need for paperwork. There also is the urge for high quality
service delivery. So internal management is for example organizing schedules, holidays, work systems,
… There are two kinds of services: transactions and transformations. Transactions are for example:
routines, automatic tasks, … and transformations are for example: change, add more value,
transformations of situations, problem solving, …
Transactional Transformational
Non-routines, not 100% predictable, project-
Routine based
based
Relative easy process Relative complex process
Mostly not personal Need for personal contact
Require more technical, juridical and
Low competencies required
managerial expertise
Basic service Complex service, change processes
, 5
For example: training. Training is not a transaction, but a transformation. Training is always something
new, it brings new insights.
3.1.1. HRM TRANSACTIONS: EXAMPLES
Presence administration: time schedules, time clock administration, overtime registration, holiday
administration, flextime systems (telework, part-time work systems);
Contract management: making of contracts, login procedures for new employees, breaking up of
contracts, outplacement administration;
Administrative support of internal employment: recruitment and selection procedures, appointment
formalities, insurance formalities, individual administrative file;
Pay-related services: payroll, tax administration, administration of variable payment systems (stock
options, profit sharing, bonuses, performance related pay);
Extra-legal pay systems: meal vouchers, administering car park, cell phone, laptop, work related
transport costs;
Social security administration: child allowances, health and accident insurance, retirement
administration, extra pension funds;
Administration of personnel development: listing and registering personnel development (training,
education activities, conferences), organization of training with external partners, keeping up
performance monitoring and evaluations;
Developing HRM database and information system: maintenance of electronic database (electronic
personnel administration, communication) and intranet portal system
3.1.2. HRM TRANSFORMATION: EXAMPLES
Human Capital planning (workforce planning) and recruitment: strategic personnel planning,
recruitment of candidates, screening of new employees, strategic socialization;
Strategic retention: individual potential analysis, individual mobility and promotion, career planning,
talent assessment;
Strategic compensation and benefits: developing strategic payment programs, profit sharing,
employee and team rewarding systems;
Training and development: management development, (e-) learning, personal development plans,
competence management, employee performance management;
Organization development: change management, organization cultural development, HRM business
process reengineering, organizational learning and knowledge management;
Internal communication: internal HRM public relations, electronic HRM communication (intranet,
email), newsletter, internal communication plan;
HRM Information System (HRMIS): relational HRM databases, data analysis, HRM metrics and
decision making, big data;
Employee relationships and labor conditions: employees job satisfaction surveys, psychological
contract, work/family life balance, diversity management, employee support, complaints management;
, 6
Industrial relations: employment contracts, negotiating and improving work conditions, complaints
procedures, keeping social peace, collective sectoral and organizational level bargaining.
3.2. THE ORGANIZATIONAL SERVICE: FROM SIMPLE TO COMPLEX WORK
ORGANIZATION
The Tayloristic principles are work specialization, analyze and split up work in smallest task units,
deskilling because of breaking up tasks to degrading, bureaucratic logic, obedience, rigid, discipline, …
That’s how they organized work in the ‘90s. It’s the secret to success for industrialization. Human beings
are considered as machines. What’s the one best way to produce?
3.2.1. EXAMPLE OF TAYLORISTIC PRINCIPLES
- Divide the work of a man performing any job into simple elementary movements
- Pick out all useless movements and discard them
- Study, one after another, just how each of several skilled workmen makes each elementary
movement, and with the aid of a stop watch select the quickest and best method.
- Describe, record, and index each elementary movement, with its proper time, so that it can be
quickly found
- Study and record the percentage which must be added to the actual working time of a good
workman to cover unavoidable delays, interruptions, and minor accidents, etc.
- Study and record the percentage which must be added to cover the newness for a good
workman to a job, the first few times he does it
- Study and record the percentage of time that must be allowed for rest, and the intervals at which
the rest must be taken, in order to offset physical fatigue.
3.2.2. NEW WAYS OF DEFINING JOBS
The main dimensions of work organization that reflect such a development are:
- From narrowly defined, routinized tasks to re-integration of tasks and multitasking;
- From direct control to relative autonomy and devolution of management functions to workers;
- From deskilling to multiskilling and upskilling;
- A shift in the unit of production from the individual to the group;
- A shift from (technical and bureaucratic) system integration to social integration through
communicative action and co-operation in self-directed teams.
This model focuses on the motivating potential of task characteristics. The authors combine several
elements to a comprehensive model that does not only focus on the characteristics on their own, but
also on the presumed effects on mental states of a person and organizational performances.
HUMAN RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC
ORGANISATIONS
Prof. Dr. Alex Vanderstraeten
Universiteit Gent
, 1
CHAPTER 0: INTRODUCTION
1. A FOUR DIMENSIONAL MODEL
APPROACH: A four-dimensional model for Human Resource Management to grasp the complexity of
Human Resource Management. HRM evolved from a simple administrative function towards a complex
function, by integrating specific managerial elements in the fulfillment of its general mission. The function
of the human resource manager evolved from administrative clerk to change architect (a versatile
management function with room for multiple specialism). One of the most important skills of a human
resource manager is the flexible use of these multiple approaches and corresponding basic views of
man and organization and the appropriate use of problem-solving models.
The central message is moving from operational to strategic and organizational Human Resource
Management. Organizations as an open system or the relationship between the organization and her
environment has important implications for the organization among which the emphasis on the ability of
understanding the environment and on the possibility to develop strategic answers to changes in this
environment. the reflection upon strategic management is the product of this approach where the
organization is considered to be depended and sensitive to changes in her immediate social and
economic environment.
There are four dimensions:
1. Instrumental dimension (administrative aspects of HRM): rules, procedures, work systems,
administration, paperwork, …
2. People dimension: motivation, working conditions, leadership, internal communication, …
3. Strategic dimension: strategy, goals and objectives, measurement, added value, …
4. Organizational dimension: structure and culture, organizational design, organizational
development, …
, 2
PART ONE:
INSTRUMENTAL
DIMENSION
, 3
CHAPTER 1: THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF THE
INSTRUMENTAL DIMENSION
The instrumental dimension is the most traditional and best-known approach of HRM. It represents more
or less the fundamentals of the personnel function and fits perfectly with the initial preoccupation of
managers during the first industrialization in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the
20th century.
1. HISTORY
1.1. THE HISTORY OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL TOWARDS INTERNAL
SERVICE
Early 20th century
First management theories: for example: the movements: it is to do work more efficiently, to save time
and money. It has the focus on Taylorism.
Scientific Management (Taylor): Taylor is preoccupied with the technical organization of the
production process, while Fayol pays more attention to the administrative and managerial aspects of
the organization. Weber as a sociologist is considered to be the father of the theory of bureaucracy, that
is a regarded as the ideal image and blueprint of the industrial organization.
There is one best way: to produce as efficiently as possible and to deploy employees as adequately as
possible.
The industrialization was seen like a man and organization as a machine.
L’homme machine: thinking in function of machines means mechanical reasoning, where predictability
and security by means of tight rules and procedures and the creation of automatisms in the functioning
of man and organization.
1.2. MCDONALDIZATION
From ‘70s
Taylorims still exists: McDonalds = work progress as efficient as possible. McDonalds aims at complete
controllability, the specialization of labor, uniformity, mass production and the use of routine.
- Efficiency: optimization of production in terms of speed;
- Calculability: the tendency to calculate everything;
- Predictability: uniformization of products, services, procedures, …
- Control: control systems through the use of technology.
McDonaldization is a term used by sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society
(1993). He explains it occurs when a culture possesses the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant.
McDonaldization is a reconceptualization of rationalization, or moving from traditional to rational modes
of thought, and scientific management. Where Max Weber used the model of the bureaucracy to
represent the direction of this changing society, Ritzer sees the fast-food restaurant as having become
a more representative contemporary paradigm.
, 4
1.3. TODAY: THE IMPORTANCE OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL
- Importance of procedures
- Introduction of disciplinary (tendency to natural soldiering)
- Measurement of labor productivity as one of the first HRM measurement systems
- Registration systems
- Operational systems: making lean management work.
There are different aspects of instrumental tasks:
- Administration: paperwork, it must be ok.
- Service delivery: Are we able to pay the salary on time? Are they correct?
- Juridical service
- Expertise in administrative procedures and legal affairs
- Negotiations with social partners for setting up regulations, rules, agreements, social laws, …
2. THE ROLE OF SOCIAL PARTNERS IN SETTING UP INSTRUMENTAL
SYSTEMS
What is the role of employers (or organizations), trade unions and government in setting up socio-
economic regulations? The result of this is socio-economic policy making. It leads to neo-corporatist
institutions. Neo-corporatism refers to a system of consultation and policy making in industrialized
countries by which the government and social partners come to socio-economic agreements in a so
called tripartite consultative structure.
There are two models: the Rhineland model and the Anglo-Saxon model where the socio-economic
stakeholders in HRM. The Rhineland model emphasizes the institutional regulations between trade
unions and employers that will lead to the satisfaction of the social partners.
3. THE CORE BUSINESS OF THE INSTRUMENTAL DIMENSION
3.1. THE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE: THE NECESSITY OF PAPERWORK
The paperwork must be done. There is still need for paperwork. There also is the urge for high quality
service delivery. So internal management is for example organizing schedules, holidays, work systems,
… There are two kinds of services: transactions and transformations. Transactions are for example:
routines, automatic tasks, … and transformations are for example: change, add more value,
transformations of situations, problem solving, …
Transactional Transformational
Non-routines, not 100% predictable, project-
Routine based
based
Relative easy process Relative complex process
Mostly not personal Need for personal contact
Require more technical, juridical and
Low competencies required
managerial expertise
Basic service Complex service, change processes
, 5
For example: training. Training is not a transaction, but a transformation. Training is always something
new, it brings new insights.
3.1.1. HRM TRANSACTIONS: EXAMPLES
Presence administration: time schedules, time clock administration, overtime registration, holiday
administration, flextime systems (telework, part-time work systems);
Contract management: making of contracts, login procedures for new employees, breaking up of
contracts, outplacement administration;
Administrative support of internal employment: recruitment and selection procedures, appointment
formalities, insurance formalities, individual administrative file;
Pay-related services: payroll, tax administration, administration of variable payment systems (stock
options, profit sharing, bonuses, performance related pay);
Extra-legal pay systems: meal vouchers, administering car park, cell phone, laptop, work related
transport costs;
Social security administration: child allowances, health and accident insurance, retirement
administration, extra pension funds;
Administration of personnel development: listing and registering personnel development (training,
education activities, conferences), organization of training with external partners, keeping up
performance monitoring and evaluations;
Developing HRM database and information system: maintenance of electronic database (electronic
personnel administration, communication) and intranet portal system
3.1.2. HRM TRANSFORMATION: EXAMPLES
Human Capital planning (workforce planning) and recruitment: strategic personnel planning,
recruitment of candidates, screening of new employees, strategic socialization;
Strategic retention: individual potential analysis, individual mobility and promotion, career planning,
talent assessment;
Strategic compensation and benefits: developing strategic payment programs, profit sharing,
employee and team rewarding systems;
Training and development: management development, (e-) learning, personal development plans,
competence management, employee performance management;
Organization development: change management, organization cultural development, HRM business
process reengineering, organizational learning and knowledge management;
Internal communication: internal HRM public relations, electronic HRM communication (intranet,
email), newsletter, internal communication plan;
HRM Information System (HRMIS): relational HRM databases, data analysis, HRM metrics and
decision making, big data;
Employee relationships and labor conditions: employees job satisfaction surveys, psychological
contract, work/family life balance, diversity management, employee support, complaints management;
, 6
Industrial relations: employment contracts, negotiating and improving work conditions, complaints
procedures, keeping social peace, collective sectoral and organizational level bargaining.
3.2. THE ORGANIZATIONAL SERVICE: FROM SIMPLE TO COMPLEX WORK
ORGANIZATION
The Tayloristic principles are work specialization, analyze and split up work in smallest task units,
deskilling because of breaking up tasks to degrading, bureaucratic logic, obedience, rigid, discipline, …
That’s how they organized work in the ‘90s. It’s the secret to success for industrialization. Human beings
are considered as machines. What’s the one best way to produce?
3.2.1. EXAMPLE OF TAYLORISTIC PRINCIPLES
- Divide the work of a man performing any job into simple elementary movements
- Pick out all useless movements and discard them
- Study, one after another, just how each of several skilled workmen makes each elementary
movement, and with the aid of a stop watch select the quickest and best method.
- Describe, record, and index each elementary movement, with its proper time, so that it can be
quickly found
- Study and record the percentage which must be added to the actual working time of a good
workman to cover unavoidable delays, interruptions, and minor accidents, etc.
- Study and record the percentage which must be added to cover the newness for a good
workman to a job, the first few times he does it
- Study and record the percentage of time that must be allowed for rest, and the intervals at which
the rest must be taken, in order to offset physical fatigue.
3.2.2. NEW WAYS OF DEFINING JOBS
The main dimensions of work organization that reflect such a development are:
- From narrowly defined, routinized tasks to re-integration of tasks and multitasking;
- From direct control to relative autonomy and devolution of management functions to workers;
- From deskilling to multiskilling and upskilling;
- A shift in the unit of production from the individual to the group;
- A shift from (technical and bureaucratic) system integration to social integration through
communicative action and co-operation in self-directed teams.
This model focuses on the motivating potential of task characteristics. The authors combine several
elements to a comprehensive model that does not only focus on the characteristics on their own, but
also on the presumed effects on mental states of a person and organizational performances.
