Strategic Human Resources Management in Government: Unresolved Issues.(Brief Article)

Although this issue remains unresolved, it is possible to cite three reasons why the performance management approach is less suited to the purposes of SHRM. First, its underlying assumptions are difficult to satisfy in practice, potentially leaving participants frustrated and undermining their commitment to the process. As Bryson and Roering have cautioned, "a strategic planning system characterized by substantial comprehensiveness, formal rationality in decision making, and tight control will work only in an organization that has a clear mission; clear goals and objectives; centralized authority; clear performance indicators; and information about actual performance available at reasonable cost. Few public-sector organizations - or functions or communities - operate under such conditions."[13] Second, performance management systems are usually mandated from above and monitored by budget and planning offices. The problems associated with mandating strategic planning for purposes of control are well established.[14] Such systems tend to create an underlying air of distrust, which undermines commitment to the process. They tend to skew goal statements, choice of performance measures, and actual behaviors towards those results that are easiest to achieve, whether or not they truly enhance organizational performance. Third, the model of SHRM presented in Figure 1 calls for the alignment of personnel policies and practices with strategic initiatives designed to help the agency adapt to or cope with internal and external pressures. It does not call for their alignment with performance measures as such. Managing issues and measuring program results may be complementary processes, but planning for action and planning for control are two very different things. In the final analysis more research is required to determine whether the issues management approach is best suited to the purposes of SHRM or, alternatively, whether it is possible to integrate the two approaches successfully.

Involvement of the Personnel Director in Strategic Planning

SHRM as conceptualized in Figure 1 requires more than an established strategic planning process. It also requires the full involvement of the personnel director in that process. This is necessary to ensure that the strategic initiatives under discussion are evaluated in terms of their implications for human resources. When a new program initiative is under consideration, for example, the personnel director can offer an analysis of the gap between current human resources capabilities and projected needs. Similarly, if an agency wishes to adopt a customer-service orientation, the personnel director can explain the difficulties inherent in changing an organization's culture and the kinds of training and incentives required to accomplish it successfully. Involvement by the personnel director is also necessary so that the personnel staff can obtain a better and more complete understanding of the agency's mission and the issues confronting line managers.

Although examples of strategic partnerships are increasingly heralded in professional journals and at management conferences, many jurisdictions still do not include human resource professionals in strategic deliberations. An unresolved issue here is how to forge such a partnership. Traditionally, agency executives have tended to view the personnel office as a staff agency performing relatively routine functions and occupying a relatively low status in the organizational scheme of things. Consequently, they have not been inclined to involve personnel directors in strategic deliberations. At the same time many personnel directors have been slow to insist upon a strategic role because their professional training has not prepared them to perform such a role. Training in personnel management tends to emphasize the administration of personnel systems rather than general management or organizational development.

A Clear Statement of Strategic Objectives

Strategic goals and objectives, key products of the planning process, are often stated in a written plan. This plan provides a useful guide to the personnel office as it seeks to align existing policies and practices with strategic objectives. A written plan is not, however, an essential requirement of SHRM. As noted in NAPA's Guide for Effective Strategic Management of Human Resources, "the absence of a written plan developed at the agency level does not mean that SHRM cannot exist. The HR office can develop its own plan for linking its goals to the agency's goals, or the staff can be reminded of the need to factor the agency's strategic goals into its daily operations."[15] For purposes of SHRM, all that is required is that members of the personnel staff know and understand the agency's strategic objectives so that they can contribute to their attainment.

Although this requirement appears straight forward enough, most discussions of strategic planning fail to define what the term strategy or strategic objective means in a public context. In private sector firms practicing SHRM, a business strategy is designed to give them a competitive edge over other firms in their industry. They have three basic strategies from which to choose.[16] The innovation strategy involves developing a unique product or service, or concentrating on a specific market niche; the quality enhancement strategy involves offering products or services that are superior in quality; and the cost reduction strategy involves reducing costs so that the firm can offer goods and services at the lowest possible price. Firms may also explore different growth strategies, such as those involving mergers and diversification. Once business strategies are selected, specific objectives are identified and the task of aligning personnel policies and practices begins. Because public agencies are embedded in authority networks rather than economic markets, what it means to select a

"business strategy" is much less clear. As Wechsler and Backoff have noted, the "strategies of public organizations, unlike business strategies, are produced in response to a variety of competing signals that emanate not from markets but from complex political, economic, legal, and organizational structures, processes, and relationships."[17] Whereas business executives are relatively unconstrained in making strategic decisions, the constraints encountered by public administrators often cause them to make strategic choices other than those they believe are best suited to mission attainment. Factors influencing choice of strategy include the political goals of elected officials, demands of powerful stakeholders, judicial mandates, budgetary constraints, the organization's capacities and resources, and its relationships with other organizations. Agencies are more likely to engage in strategic planning and more likely to succeed in implementing their intended objectives when they possess internal capacity for performance (adequate funding, personnel, and management systems), a supportive political environment, and a weak or divided external influence field. Conversely, strategies tend to be shaped by external demands rather than internal intentions when an agency experiences a hostile environment and low internal capacity.

An agency's strategy may be understood as the basic pattern reflected in its policy decisions and actions. Wechsler and Backoff's analysis of state agencies in Ohio revealed three basic patterns. Developmental strategies involve actions taken to enhance the agency's resources, status, influence, and capacity for future action, presumably as it relates to mission attainment. Developmental strategies are often products of a formal planning process in which strategists and planners deliberately seek to develop capacity so as to maintain internal control and enhance organizational performance. Political strategies involve actions taken either to balance competing stakeholder demands or to reward supporters of the administration by moving the agency in specific policy or programmatic directions. For example, control over internal operations may be tightened in order to further a specific political agenda. Such strategies are adopted where political and partisan pressures are high. Protective strategies involve actions designed to accommodate external pressures or appease external stakeholders while maintaining the organizational status quo. It is a reactive strategy more or less forced on an agency by an overtly hostile environment and weak internal capacity for strategic action. It is a pattern that is highly frustrating for agency staff.

Steeped in the rationalistic assumptions of planning theory, discussions of SHRM tend to envision agencies pursuing developmental, capacity-building strategies rather than political or protective strategies. In practice, however, a developmental strategy requires widely shared objectives, the capacity to plan and carry out strategic initiatives, extensive discretion, adequate resources, and relatively weak or divided external forces - conditions which often cannot be satisfied. Although Backoff and Wechsler do not address issues relating to SHRM, their analysis strongly suggests that SHRM may look very different in agencies engaged in political or protective strategies. Rather than helping an agency develop its capacity for mission attainment, the personnel office may be asked, for example, to help the agency secure the political loyalty of career civil servants, recruit and reward based on partisan or political criteria, or tighten control over employee performance. In short, although the concept of SHRM, with its emphasis on linking means and ends, strongly implies an institutionalized process utilized by agencies pursuing a developmental strategy, it must be kept in mind that agency performance can be defined in terms of political and protective objectives as well, and that SHRM, as it is generally understood, may be undermined or derailed as a result.

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