Employee Management: Public versus Private Sector

In modern times, organizations operating in the private and public sectors are experiencing massive changes in both their internal and external environments due to the need to remain competitive. The pressure resulting from stiff competition has forced organizations in both the private and public sectors to optimize their performance to maintain relevance. Researches have emphasized that the internal resources of any organization are critical in improving performance and coping with competition. Management of human resources, the most vital internal resource, determines an organization's ability to utilize all the other resources to create a competitive advantage. Regardless of the common desire to perform, there are definitive differences in how human resources are managed in both the private and public sectors. Unlike the private sector, HRM in public organizations is challenging predominantly due to managers’ lack of absolute control over organizational operations and resources. Managing employees in the public sector is challenging due to differences in organizational values and behaviors, passive role in recruitment and staffing, difficulty in employee involvement, indistinct metrics of performance management, and change complexity. Managing employees in the public sector isis challenging as public organizations have different views on values and behaviors. Lyons et al. (2006) define values in organizations as generalized beliefs that determine the desirability of specific aspects of work and consequent outcomes. According to public administration theorists, values are means of enforcing the ethical decision-making ability of public employees to enable them to fulfill their mandates to the public. On the contrary, business theorists define values as avenues that organizations exploit to achieve performance and excellence (Lyons et al., 2006). Public employees rely on policies, procedures, and structures to maintain values and ethical behaviors. On the other hand, private employees are governed by value-based management that advocates for individual accountability and overarching principles. Essentially, beliefs are not central aspects of public organizations as they are in private organizations. Public and private organizations have different work values that refer to employees' criteria in choosing work-related behaviors and goals. Employees in the public sector hold extrinsic work values where they consider job security as more important than pay. Public organizations work towards satisfying the processes and are less concerned about the outcomes. Therefore, employees in the public sector show less organizational commitment since they identify more with their current work than future organizational goals (Lyons et al., 2006). Lower organizational commitment in public organizations results from the unavailability of market test in the public sector. Employees in private organizations are more motivated since survival in the marketplace is determined by organizational performance. Therefore, managing human resources in the public sector includes engaging with employees with divided attention between performing and satisfy affirmative action job requirements. The lower level of incentive in public organizations can be attributed to the inability of managers in the sector to instill a sense of individual significance in their organizations (Monte, 2017). Personal significance can be enhanced by evaluating the impact that employees have in an organization. However, public organization’s value for processes at the expense of results makes it difficult for managers to prove employees’ worth. Moreover, public organizations have little concern for individual behaviors since the employees are not wholly answerable to the managers. Monte (2017) argues that employees are less considerate of their characters due to the sense of job security in the public sector. As a result, public employees are less fearful of being dismissed for misconduct, absenteeism, and laziness compared to private employees. The process to hold employees accountable for misconduct in public organizations is long and complex, where managers have little or no authority to fire or dismiss employees. In most cases, employees are transferred from one organization to another after being charged with misconduct. It is challenging for managers to work with public employees since they lack the authority to demand behavioral accountability even when they risk the organization's reputation. Managers can overcome the inexplicit view of values and behaviors in public organizations by adopting transformative leadership to influence gradual changes in organizational behavior. Since managers cannot dictate the expected ethics in public organizations, they can only influence how employees behave by engaging them to form an ethical culture. Managers can form internal ethics in organizations by agreeing on values with the employees even though the employer does not document them. Besides, managers can model the desired values and behaviors to influence the employees into change. Employee-centered leadership can also be effective in enhancing commitment and accountability. Managing employees in the public sector involve working with employees who one was not adequately involved in their selection or recruitment. In most cases, employees in the public sector are selected and recruited at the national or state level before being posted to various public organizations. According to Dresang (2017), public organizations spend little time and money publicizing recruitment exercises, and information about employee selection is availed only on inquiries. Conversely, recruitment in the private sector is aggressive as the organizations aim to attract the best professionals in the job market. Therefore, managers in public organizations have minimal or no influence on who they work with since employees are engaged by governmental institutions or state organs. Managers are restricted to identifying the vacancies in the departments, the required specifications, and the salary range (Amegashie-Viglo, 2014). Staffing in private organizations is the opposite of that in the public since managers in the private sector have complete control of who they recruit and incorporate into their organizations. Managers in the private sector can recruit employees with their preferred attributes regarding behavior, academic performance, and work ability. Unluckily, managers in the public sector work with the available employees with minimal options of change. For example, public organizations in the United States have preference points for military veterans as they transition to civilian life regardless of whether they are qualified for the selected duties (Dresang, 2017). However, managers in public organizations have more considerable influence during internal recruitments, where some vacant positions are required to be filled internally. Recruitment in the public sector is influenced by political, religious, and gender factors. Though public organizations prefer internal recruitments, the process is not independent of external interference. Usually, internal recruitments include promotions and transfers motivated by factors beyond the control of the managers. As Amegashie-Viglo (2014) explains, recruitment and selection processes in the public sector are influenced by sex discrimination, nepotism, and corruption. Nepotism in the public sector occurs when public organizations are coerced to employ specific people based on where they come from or who they know in government. Besides, recruitment in public organizations is a political process that must be perceived as include employees from all political divides. Besides, the increased unionization in the public sector has formalized employee recruitment and selection to meet collective bargaining agreements (Harel & Tzafrir, 2001). Essentially, most selected employees represent people's interests outside of public organizations, and therefore, managers have to develop strategies to improve their outputs and commitment. Managers can overcome the challenge of working with employees they did not select by initiating training programs to improve employee skills and organizational performance. Managers should accept that they cannot change the employees, and therefore, they should improve their efficiency by identifying individual strengths and nurturing skills and talents. Though the employees might not have the desired attributes, training and coaching can bridge the gap in skills and experience. Public organizations have limited chances for employee involvement in management compared to private organizations. Employee involvement involves organizations' willingness to engage the employees in decision-making and the degree to which organizations consider employee opinions (Harel & Tzafrir, 2001). Employee participation in organizational management is a critical factor in organizational performance and employee satisfaction. Employees in the private sector participate more in organizational management than those in the public sector because of the differences in profit motives, legal and constitutional framework, and differences in diffusion of authority (Harel & Tzafrir, 2001). The most significant determinant of employee involvement is the organizational motive and the measure of success. In the private sector, employees are engaged more, aiming to foster optimal performance, innovation, and invention to maximize profit margins. In contrast, low employee engagement in the public sector is justified by public organizations' mandates to provide services and correct public problems. Consequently, public organizations have high deterrents to control labor costs. In addition, employee involvement in public organizations is differentiated from that in the private sector by legal and constitutional structures. Public employment relationships in public organizations are differentiated from engagement arrangements in the private sector by the federal and state constitutions (Harel & Tzafrir, 2001). Therefore, relationships between managers and public employees are bureaucratic and limited by law. As Harel & Tzafrir (2001) contends, managers in public organizations perceive weaker relationships since they rate employee development and motivation lower than managers in private organizations. In contrast, managers in public organizations have less flexibility to engage employees in management since decisions in public organizations are made in consultation with boards of governors and external entities. The need to follow specific guidelines in the public sector limits employee engagement, thereby reducing their motivation. Contrastingly, higher employee engagement in the private sector improves employee motivation. However, managers can address the challenge of employee involvement in public organizations by incorporating consultative leadership. Consultative leadership includes exchanging ideas and skills in organizations aiming to make every employee like part of a team. Though the employees cannot dictate how public organizations are managed, consultative leadership can ensure their concerns are addressed. The manager can act as a mediator between the organizational leadership and the employees by taking into account employees' opinions and suggestions. Though consultative leadership in public organizations might be limited to internal decisions, managers will engage the employees in their daily activities. Unlike the private sector, the public sector lacks a bottom line by which performance and success can be measured. The private sector involves initiatives to improve productivity, minimize costs, increase customer satisfaction, and decrease cycle times (Jurisch et al., 2013). In the private sector, business performance is defined as fulfilling customer needs and creating customer satisfaction. The citizens' satisfaction does not guide the public sector since they are bound to follow procedures provided by federal and state laws. Public organizations operate within budgetary presets, and therefore, they do not feature the urgency to perform financially as businesses in the private sector. Therefore, managers in public organizations lack metrics to measure organizational and employee individual performance and thus lack adequate grounds to initiate organizational changes. The ambiguity of management of performance in the public sector results from the dimensions of ownership, goals, funding, and control. Public organizations are owned at least partly by the government, and thus, their interests diverge, and they lack goal clarity. Therefore, managers find it challenging to manage employees in the absence of clear goals and performance standards. In addition, performance in public organizations is indicated by the social relevance of their activities, depicting the low measurability of outcomes (Helden, 2016). Moreover, performance management in the public sector is challenging since funding is detached from service delivery (Helden, 2016). Managers in the public sector lack grounds to hold employees accountable for poor performances since the performance of an organization does not affect budgetary allocation. Public organizations continue to receive funding from the government even though they fail to deliver services. Therefore, managers find it challenging to initiate performance-based management in public organizations. Lastly, the control dimension in the public sector, where organizations have multiple stakeholders, makes human resources management challenging since it is complex to serve diverging stakeholder interests. Managers have limited control over the employees as stakeholders determine what they prioritize and thus lose the authority of terming processes as success or failure. Managers can counter the challenge of vague performance management in the public sector by introducing personal goals for all employees. The manager can help employees to formulate individual targets that employees will work towards. The manager can initiate a non-monetary reward system for employees who achieve their personal objectives. Accomplishing personal objectives will, in turn, improve organizational performance even though it cannot be precisely evaluated. Managers can use individual targets to gauge the performance of the organization and establish the necessary adjustments. For example, managers in the public health sector can use the number of patients a doctor treats in a day as an indicator of improvement or decline in efficiency. Changes in HRM in the public sector are complex due to the authoritarian and top-down management structure. Change in employee management is critical to the development of organizations and the improvement of results. However, change processes in the workforce in public organizations are derailed due to the high number of authority figures with interests in the workforce. Fragmentations of stakeholder interests regarding the change in public organizations establish change resistances that create division and risks organizational integration (Crough, 2003). Public organizations are often under politically appointed executives who link public employees to political authorities. Therefore, intended changes in employees in public organizations must be approved by political executives before they are sanctioned for implementation. Human resource changes that are against the executive opinion are more likely to be opposed and nullified. The authoritarian position of the political executives involved in HRM changes in the public sector diverges the organizations' best interests and introduces political affiliations. Laws and legal guidelines limit changes that managers can initiate in the workforce. Due to the change processes in public organizations being stipulated by laws, managers have a greater urge for adherence and transparency (Jurisch et al., 2013). The bureaucracy in public organizations' change processes means that managers can be legally answerable to implementing changes in the workforce against the stipulated process even though the changes improved the workforce and its performance. As mentioned before, public organizations are more sensitive to processes than results. Therefore, any change in the workforce follows the laid down procedures that are sometimes time and resource-consuming. As a manager in a public organization, one can create formal avenues of engaging the involved stakeholders before implementing changes. Managers should apply negotiation skills such as compromise to gather support for the intended changes. Also, managers can influence the stakeholders by modeling how the intended changes will affect the organization and its mandate to the public. For example, managers can implement the changes in a section of the workforce following the set laws to model the impact of the proposed changes. Managers can gradually counter the change complexity in public organizations by proving efficiency to stakeholders and the governing executives. In conclusion, managing employees in public organizations is challenging compared to the private sector due to differences in values and behaviors. Work values in the public sector justify the means by the results, and therefore, creates avenues for unethical behaviors. Employees in public organizations show lower commitment and ethical behaviors due to the perception of job security. The negative values and behaviors can be corrected through transformative leadership, where managers model the desired attributes. In addition, managers in the public sector have a passive role in recruitment and staffing since external forces and stakeholders influence the processes. Many appointments are done externally, and therefore, managers have limited influence on who government institutions assign to their organizations. However, managers can utilize the available employees by improving their skills through training and coaching since changing the recruitment process is complex. Moreover, effective HRM in public organizations is hindered by the limited involvement of employees in management. Public organizations are managed by sets of laws and regulations with little regard for employees' opinions and suggestions. Management in the public sector is autocratic, and therefore, employees have few chances of presenting their views directly. Managers can address employee segregation by incorporating consultative leadership, where they present the employees' views to the governing bodies. Nevertheless, HRM in the public sector encounters inarticulate performance management structures. Managers have limited strategies to evaluate employee performance since public organizations are not profit-oriented. However, managers can introduce individual goals to evaluate employee development. Lastly, the change processes when managing employees in the public sector are complex due to bureaucracy and the governing laws. However, managers can use change models to influence stakeholder opinions to approve desired changes.

References 

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