Human resource development in the public sector

Public sector human resource management involves monitoring, control, organizing and coordinating major activities in the sourcing, training, development, and motivation of the personnel in the public sector. Human resource development in the public sector involves key activities in the enhancement of skills and capabilities of public sector staff. Human resource development does not only revolve around training but many other activities that will be covered in this paper. The focus will also be on strategies adopted to ensure proper public sector staff development.

The management of staff requires an analysis of the organizational vision and mission and matching the employee's capabilities with these organizational factors. These key organizational goals should be matched with the capabilities and skills of the available staff before a human resource development approach is adopted. For instance, a public personnel team can be trained on communication skills and public relations to enhance a good customer relations objective of an organization.

Activities of human resource development

When conducting a staff development exercise early planning must be done to avoid unexpected outcomes from the training exercise these planning activities include.

1. Training needs analysis

There is an exercise aimed at determining the training needs of the staff for the training to take off. This information concerning the needs of the members of staff can be obtained through interviews, focus group discussions, reviewing the job descriptions of each job category. Job review is a task that involves determining new requirements for the job descriptions. While assessing the training needs the management can also go over the clients’ charter and gathering information on what the public expects from the employees of the firm and holding sessions with supervisors to determine the training needs of their team. This training needs analysis helps in ensuring that the training program will go directly to addressing the issues faced by the organization and giving the staff the knowledge to enable them to achieve the organizational objectives.

Sourcing of the trainer and training materials must be done in consideration of the cost and training needs of the employees. Human resource essaysThe management may decide to outsource the trainer depending on the objectives of the training program. Outsourced trainers may play a key role in the training program due to their objectivity in the training program. Training materials can be prepared by the management itself, tactical level managers or the operational level managers depending on the training needs determined. The management can also decide to outsource the training manuals.

The actual training

Training needs for all employees vary according to their job categories and job descriptions. General training can be undertaken at the initial stages with an aim to put emphasis on the general values and goals of the firm. The training will further be undertaken under the functional areas of the organization after the initial general training. This session focuses on equipping employees with knowledge regarding their departments, branches or their rank in the organization. Special training sessions that focus on a specific job description and specialization this is undertaken after the departmental training. In this level of training, the sessions cover the specific areas covered by the job description of the employees. This training may use job manuals, task execution guides, and specific task execution modules guides.

Outcomes evaluation

The management should carry out a performance analysis to determine whether the training program was able to meet the desired objectives. The management should conduct an analysis on the satisfaction of clients, quality of product output, the level of efficiency and profit index to establish whether the training session was carried out properly and if the organization is moving in the desired direction after the training session.

Use of employee development software

Using computer-aided software in human resource development is one of the most effective approaches to keep track of activities carried out by the public sector employees. These systems give the management an opportunity to create a quality management system that will help the managers give direction to their employees. Training sessions can be carried out on this systems and help to cut down on the training costs. The management can also use these systems to create awareness over crucial matters affecting the organization.

To conclude public sector employee management is an area that requires commitment from the management. The role of managers in human resource development does not only end in the planning and resource allocation phase but it goes beyond the training and performance evaluation. Managers in the public sector should build strong teams of employees by motivating them and acting as role models in their execution of duties.