Public Personnel the General Population

¶ … Public Personnel

The general population has often revealed its discontent with the public institutions and the personnel in these institutions, with the main complaints referring to low levels of operability, decreased efficiency and these in the context that the public institutions are managed and supported from the taxpayers' money. Instead of focusing on these issues with the public sector, the tenth chapter of the book discusses the challenges encountered by the public personnel. The more notable of the challenges which face the public sector include the following:

Competitiveness

Resource limitations

Technology

Privatization / outsourcing

Litigation

Violence in the workplace

Changing demographics and Continuing reform.

Each of these challenges creates complexities and impedes efficient operations within the public sector. In terms of competition, this refers to the fact that governmental agencies have to select their employees from numerous candidates, each with different values, backgrounds and educational attainment levels. The employees as such come to be motivated by personal desires of self and professional development and their loyalty to the employer -- and as such the very performances of the agency -- come to a secondary place.

Then, unlike the private institutions, the public agencies do not generate profits and even when they do generate revenues, they are unable to redistribute and invest them as they see fit. In other words, they face severe resource limitations. Another challenge is raised by the technologies, which continually change and evolve. This implies sustained investments in upgrading, as well as continuous employee training.

Another issue is derived from the overall phenomenon of globalization and sees that vast operations of the governmental agencies are being outsourced to reduce costs. This however leads to the decentralization of the operations and the loss of control. Then, efficiency is lost due to numerous litigations. The legislation protecting the employees in the United States is extremely complex and managers in the public offices are often the target of accusations of discriminations. This leads to not only loss of efficiency, but also internal tensions and decreased commitments and performances.

Finally, problems are also raised by violence in the workplace, changing demographics and continuous reforms. With over 2 million cases of workplace violence and homicides in the workplace, employees in public institutions lose the sense of safety and security and this further decreases the quality of their work. Then, the structure and composition of the population change, to generate changes in the services needed, and require constant change and development in the means in which the agencies deliver the services. Last, the legislations continually change and this means that the public institutions have to be able to continually develop and adapt to the new laws.