The human resources management (HRM) practices a panacea to the challenges of the Ministry for Home Affairs

Abstract

As the public sector continues to face competitive challenges from the general public, the need for better service delivery and increased productivity has become extremely important. Resources are not readily available to a degree they are expected to be yet public scrutiny is increasing every day. The increased need for optimum service delivery in public sector institutions like the Ministry for Home Affairs has had significant impact on its operations. However, little is known about the challenges faced by the Ministry for Home Affairs regarding the causes of the inefficiency. A range of organizational factors can affect the nature, effectiveness, excellence and novelty of service provision to members of the public. Therefore, evaluation of human resource management practices is becoming increasingly essential in the Ministry for Home Affairs if it is to mitigate the challenges it faces. These can best be summarized by reference to human resource management practices. Responding to these pressures, the Ministry for Home Affairs needs to restructure itself in order to facilitate adherence to sound human resource management practices. Jackson and Schuler (2000) describe human resource as the available talents and energies of people who are available to an organization as the potential contributors to the creation and the realization of the organization’s mission, vision, strategy and goals. As the need for productivity grows and drastic changes in societal needs, it has become important that the public sector is staffed with the “right” people, at the “right” place and at the “right” time (Meehan, Robert. H: 2003). It is imperative that sound management practices should be identified and analyzed in a systematic way. From these analyses a blueprint of a unified set of guidelines is forged. Efforts to develop sound human resource management practices within the Ministry for Home Affairs are of critical importance if it is to meet public expectations. In response to these changing external environments and to the pressures from members of the public and constant calls to make it run like a business, reexamining of corporate planning is necessary. This is designed to bring coordination of activities and application of good practices. The challenge for the human resources department is the development and application of good human resource management practices. The study will try to decipher as to how the Ministry’s human resource management practices affect the range of services available or the mode of delivery of services. The study then presents an opportunity to the human resources department of the Ministry for Home Affairs to play a bigger and fundamental role of addressing the inefficiencies in this public sector institution. The approach to understanding the organizational factors deterring provision of good service in the Ministry for Home Affairs brings together two areas – human resource management issues on the one hand and models of intervention on the other hand. James, F. Stoner (2005) citing Max Weber a sociologist developed a theory of bureaucratic management that stressed the need for a strictly defined hierarchy governed by clearly defined regulations and lines of authority. He considered the ideal to be a bureaucracy whose activities and objectives were rationally thought out and whose divisions of labor were explicitly spelled out. He also believed that technical competence should be emphasized and that performance evaluations should be made entirely on the basis of merit. All these management practices are a far cry in the study undertaken to assess adherence of sound human resource management practices in the Ministry for Home Affairs. The study has demonstrated the importance of human resource planning in determining the basis for additional staff, staffing levels for enhancing optimum service delivery, the required skills to fulfill the Ministry’s obligations, the importance of performance appraisal, and the need for sound recruitment policies that will lead to employment of qualified staff, best selection methods that are free from graft and corruption manipulation and finally promotions as a means to improve morale. It is patently clear that the Ministry for Home Affairs should have effective organizational policies, procedures and guidelines in place in order to address the shortfall in all its service centers. The research methodologies used was sufficient to help conclude many aspects of operations of the Ministry for Home Affairs. In some cases available data was inappropriate for quantitative analysis and as such the qualitative technique was usable. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze and interpret the data. The findings of this study have revealed that employees need to be recruited and selected, trained and placed in a way that will facilitate them to utilize their skills and abilities. Inadequate attention to these lead to a situation in which the various departments within the Ministry for Home Affairs are overloaded with work resulting in under performance. It is observable that these problems continue to affect the Ministry for Home Affairs, as they become more severe, so there is a realization that we need better systems for controlling the output. It is apparent in all the departments that there are significant structural and operational problems in the Ministry for Home Affairs. It is also evident that these structural problems hamper information flow up and down the executive echelons thus reducing commitment from the employees to deliver. Monitoring and evaluation through performance appraisals, education and training remains weakly developed and a consequence of this is quality and effectiveness of service being unclear. The analysis and conclusions of this study are described in chapters five and six respectively. The overall conclusion of this study is that human resource management practices has been viewed to be correlated with effective and efficient service delivery when observed across the Ministry for Home Affairs. The study has revealed that a competitive advantage can be gained by any organization through sound human resources management practices (HRM). This study only used one source, the employees of the Ministry for Home Affairs, and one method, surveys, to address the research questions. The major limitation that comes with such is that there could be biasness in this single-source, single method approach. It is then recommended that a government-wide study be undertaken, interviews and surveys be conducted to members of the public. It is also recommended that The Ministry for Home Affairs develops staffing schedules and recruit enough personnel to ensure that there is adequate staff available in the Ministry at all times to avoid inefficiencies brought about by insufficient staff. It should also make new compensation structures to retain skilled staff.