Personnel management is the process of planning, shaping, incorporating, and upholding people to contribute to organizational, social, and individual goals. It sets the ground for human resource structures such as employment, growth, and salary payment in the organization. Various personnel management systems govern the business environment within the conventional concept. The paper discusses five personnel management periods and their relevance to human resource management.
Government by Spoils System
It was a system where the winners in a political contest rewarded their followers with appointments and other job offers. The spoils system allowed individuals with a strong political following to hold important positions in government regardless of their qualifications or experience. The regimes were known for runaway corruption and mismanagement of public resources. The human resources authority is rendered powerless because choices are decided by the ruling party’s leaders (Snyder, 2021). The spoils system was established by Democratic President Andrew Jackson, who asserted that every government position belonged to the ruling party. It permitted persons unfit for government employment to hold office and politicians to possess immense influence. The spoils system harms the government by producing a corrupt administration more focused on political party preference than public interests.
Government by Gentleman
The time from 1789 and 1829 was known as the Government by Gentlemen, and the higher classes dominated it. The gentleman’s mystique was built on quasi-feudal social hierarchical appeals. These conventional qualifications were purposefully updated, rationalized, and enhanced throughout the mid-Victorian century through the public sector, public school, and college reform. The gentleman was reasoned, empirically tested, and perplexed (Snyder, 2021). Under this system, job appointments are given to friends and political supporters, thereby derailing the mandate of the human resources department.
The system tampers with accountability because the system of a government is weak to hold anyone to account. A serene workplace environment is formed and upheld through effective personnel management. It encompasses making sure that the salary and benefits plan of the organization fosters success, establishing employee punishment and complaint procedures, clear communication, and strong safety and health policies. Political leaders in the United States, who have served under successive administrations, have taken on some of the powers of human resources to reward loyalty. The result was the weakening of the human resources wing by making it unable to make long-term choices without contacting the governing class. It had a devastating contribution to the growth of the country because access to services depended on whom you knew.
Government of Good or Pendleton Act
The legacy of the Pendleton Act is characterized by creating a more egalitarian system for recruiting and retaining federal officials. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act created objective criteria for recruiting federal officials. It was approved in 1883, and it assured that persons gained employment based on their civil service exam results and prohibited discrimination based on political allegiance (Glass, 2018). Although the Act was initially limited in scope, subsequent presidential administrations increased its provisions. The Act was set in motion to bring sanity to society. It ended political appointments due to party allegiance to focus on merit and academic qualification. Different presidents would have varying value sets in their selection of civil service employees because; it was a scheme to reward campaign donors and supporters. The impact would be a discouraging human resource that would be difficult to achieve prior to setting organizational goals.
Government by Administration or Classification
The Classification of Government Functions is a global classification that divides data on general government spending from the National Accounts System into the various purposes or functions that the funds are spent. It categorizes general government spending into ten groups based on its aim. The government funds training and capacity-building programs in the public sector (Bezzina et al., 2021). It also assures appropriate service staffing levels by hiring human resources based on knowledge, abilities, and experience and presenting cases for succession planning. The Government, by Classification, helps the administration to streamline operations and ensure employees’ duties are clear. Therefore, it reduces redundancy in government offices because duplication and ghost workers are a menace in many government offices worldwide.
Civil Service Reform
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 restructured the national government’s civil service, partly responding to the Watergate scandal. The Act repealed the United States Civil Service Commission and transferred its functions to other agencies. Civil Service Reform was a deliberate act to improve the effectiveness, performance, excellence, and democratic personality of civil service. The Governments sought to trim down the civil service to make it cost-effective and in sequence with a new, modeled role for government in commercial development, as well as to offer civil servants proper incentives and improve accountability and management. President Jimmy Carter’s strategy for Congress was to bring civil service reforms to enhance accountability to the Federal Government. It established guidelines for federal civilian workers and is regarded as one of the key domestic accomplishments of the Carter Administration. An effective running civil service and motivated civil servants are instrumental to the success of government.
References
Bezzina, F., Camilleri, E. & Marmara, V. (2021). Public service reforms in a small island state: The case of Malta. Springer, Cham, Switzerland.
Glass, A. (2018). Pendleton Act inaugurates U.S. civil service system, Jan. 16, 1883. Politico.
Snyder, T. (2021). On Tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century. Thorndike Press.