Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Human Resource Management : Public and Private Organisations

To all the enlightened readers and knowledge seekers of this Blog - Thank you for the continued love, respect and support. It is deeply appreciated and valued. Keep it coming.

Here is the latest post on this Blog that will detail and make crystal clear the concept and practice of Human Resource Management that is a pivotal and integral part of every Public and Private Organisation and its robust functioning is the force behind their success.

Here it begins.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:
DEFINITION (courtesy Wikipedia)  - Human resource management (HRM or simply HR) is the management of an organization's workforce, or human resources. It is responsible for the attraction, selection, training, assessment, and rewarding of employees, while also overseeing organizational leadership and culture, and ensuring compliance with employment and labour laws. In circumstances where employees desire and are legally authorized to hold a collective bargaining agreement, HR will also serve as the company's primary liaison with the employees' representatives (usually a labour union).

 Human Resources is a shift from the mechanical Personnel Administration philosophy and theory that views and treats Personnel or employees as mere cogs in the Organisational machinery.

HRM views employees as "Resources", in that tangible and intangible benefits flow from their best utilisation and how they are resourced in the right manner and at the right time for the benefit of the organisation and the employees, both.

OBJECTIVES OF HRM:
1. Societal Objectives - HRM has to keep in mind while making policies for the organisation the laws of the land, health and safety of workers, morale, ideological bias and issues of societal concern.

2. Organisational Objectives - HRM is at the forefront of organisational strategy, coordinating and harmonising organisation wide efforts and stressing on role of human resource management in contributing towards organisational effectiveness and objective attainment.

3. Functional Objectives - To keep the organisation functional in the best possible pattern by devising sound policies viz. Appraisal, Placement and Assessment polices for the welfare of the employees and their best use of their talents.

4. Personal Objectives - Assistance HRM renders to employees for achieving their personal goals and enhance their contribution to the organisation viz. Training and development, Appraisal, Placement, right compensation and Assessment, etc.


ROLE OF THE HR MANAGER:
The HR Manager has to be both a policy and a process specialist which demands both policy advise and policy implementation specialities.
He/She is the joining line or interface between the organisation and policy stimulators ( govt. strategic partners,etc) and ensure harmonisation and compliance of the two towards each other. He/She can be both a Generalist or a specialist and actual practice of the HR Manager in this regard differs from organisation to organisation.

FUTURE CHALLENGES TO HRM:
In the face of LPG in this global village that we live in today we need to understand its impact on HRM and the issues and solutions to the same.

In the future companies and institutions will invest more in health/welfare of workers and so HRM will be much more in demand.

Emergence of MNCs is bringing cross cultural work force and the consequent need to "manage diversity" in the work force efficiently by the HRM.
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Cost constraint and the resultant emphasis on the necessity of output maximising strategies viz. total quality management, flexible management systems, etc.

Participative management for 'knowledge workers' need an active policy to retain good workers is expected to be increasingly felt in the coming years.

New technology entry, socialistic/welfaristic(reservations) via the govt. macro policies, changing customer preferences, etc, into organisations pose a greater need for training programmes and their effectiveness via the HR Department.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

New Technologies (ICT - Information & Communication Technologies) Employed In Public Systems Management For Better Results In Governance

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The 21st Century that we live in is described quite aptly as the "Information Era".  It is an era of Connectivity, Information sharing and Participation between the Public and the respective State/Governments the world over. This leads to a thriving and vibrant Democracy.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) aims at bringing the above mentioned objectives to life along with transparency, accountability, responsiveness in Public Governance and sustainable growth for the people.

The fruitful presence and boons of ICT in Public Systems Management (inter governmental/Intra Governmental, Govt. to business/Govt. to Citizens) is well evident and obvious to each one in the society. It is also regulated from time to time via the laws laid down in the IT Act (2000) to stop nefarious activities routed through the ICT medium.


Let's look at a basic definition of ICT :
Stands for "Information and Communication Technologies." ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT) (which focuses mainly on information access), but ICT primarily focuses on communication technologies which includes use of the Internet ( E-mail, Instant Messaging, etc.), wireless networks, cell phones(SMS services), and other communication mediums between two parties.



INDIAN CASE STUDIES ON ICT INITIATIVES IN STATE GOVERNMENTS:
1) Sachivalaya Vahini: It is the ICT Package made by the National Informatics Centre, Bangalore and employed by the State Secretariat in Karnataka in all its 40 departments connecting 1000 computers and answering the needs of the 6000 employees viz. E-Governance by facilitating policy and decision making process.
Since the State Secretariat is the apex decision making body in the state government therefore it needs to maintain utmost efficiency and accuracy as there is too much at stake ( Public Welfare & limited resources). And to maintain the same, the state Secretariat needs to hold enormous amount of communication, maintaining and processing large volumes of data files or other formats,etc. All this was being done manually in the Karnataka state Secretariat prior to Sachivalaya Vahini stepping in and that is why the work there was very slow and inefficient.

Sachivalaya Vahini's various components are:

a) Patra - Letter Monitoring System - Receives and scans letters received by the Secretariat and transfers to relevant departments of the state Secretariat for its review and action and final disposal.

b) Kadatha - File Monitoring System - maintaining and speedy disposal of files.

c) Mokaddame - Court Case Monitoring System

d) Aayayaya - Budget Monitoring System - Helps estimate Budgets and funds allocation to departments and its monitoring.

e) Sibbandi - Personnel Information System - Maintains all information pertaining to each Personnel working in the Secretariat.

f) Customer Support System - Helps in resolving technical issues of the employees regarding the software and network.





CASE STUDY OF ICT IMPLEMENTATION - INDIAN JUDICIARY (E-JUDICIARY) :
1) COURTIS (Court Information System)- Launched in 1990 for the benefit of the entire legal community and commissioned for streamlining registries of various courts in the country. All High Courts and the Supreme Court of the country have been successfully armed with the following applications through NICNET:

a) Case Status - Helps provide tracking of all pending and disposed cases statuses that can be accessed by advocates as well as litigants and legal scholars.

b) Judgement Information System ( JUDIS) - It is a CD-ROM encompassing complete texts of all reported judgements of the Supreme Court of India from 1950 to 2000. Judgements from 2001 onwards are available on the Internet. NIC markets these CD-ROMs on a membership basis. The Internet display judgements are available within 24 hours of passing of judgement.

c) Cause Lists on the Internet - Displays schedules of cases to be heard b the respective Court the following day.

d) Daily Orders on the Internet - Displays the daily orders of the SC and HC as soon as the orders are signed by the respective Judges.




CASE STUDY OF ICT IMPLEMENTATION - E - PANCHAYAT IN INDIA :
The Govt. of Andhra Pradesh has introduced the E-Panchayat software in Ramachandrapuram Gram Panchaat, Medak District as part of its E- Governance initiatives that is user friendly and citizen centric. This pilot e-panchayat project comprises nearly 20 main modules and nearly 150 sub modules in line with the 30 sectoral functions of the Gram Panchayats. It has been rolled out in several pilot villages and is to be expanded majorly to all of Andhra Pradesh's Panchayats and a National roll out plan for its implementations is also being taken up . It aims to cover all information requirements of the village Panchayat administration.





INTERNATIONAL ICT IMPLEMENTATION CASE STUDY - MALAYSIAN E-GOVT PROJECT:
The Multimedia Support Corridor's advent in Malaysia has helped the Public Service there leverage the potential revolutionising service delivery through seamless and integrated govt. via its e-govt. flagship applications. Smart partnerships between local and international consortia working together with the govt. in developing leading edge e-govt. solutions has produced the first set of e-govt. pilot projects that have been implemented successfully which include: e-services, e-procurement, electronic labour exchange, generic office environment, human resources management information system and project monitoring system.

We will focus on the E-Services Project here in this case study.

E-services is the capability that enables citizens and businesses to conduct transactions through a one-stop service window and provides easier access to govt. agencies such as the Road Transport Dept.,Ministry of Health and utility companies.
It provides the citizens with a multiple delivery channels with 24 hour access that is available anywhere at their convenience;citizens are no longer limited to conducting these transactions at agency branches and utility offices. It also caters to the various languages spoken in Malaysia and is extremely user friendly even to the elderly and physically and visually challenged.
All this has helped in making services more efficient, corruption free and people becoming more participative and responsive as well as sincere in terms of paying bills on time,etc.
A large part of this success comes from the Malaysian government's aggressive encouragement of wider ownership of personal computers,tax deductions and providing IT facilities in rural areas such as the Internet.



PROBLEMS IN ICT APPLICATION:
1) Minimal Internet Penetration n rural areas
2) Computer illiteracy in urban areas
3) Untrained or improper training given to employees working on these softwares in govt. systems and organisations.
4) Govt. not implementing schemes to help the rural areas develop affinity with ICT via services like tele-medicines, tele-marketing and e-commerce.
5) Lack of will to share and disclose information with citizens/beneficiaries of schemes for them.
6) Inadequate infrastructure, language barriers, lack of capacity building initiatives, absence of grievance mechanisms, non-availability of information and variations in utilisation of information.


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Monday, May 6, 2013

Public Systems Management : Socio - Economic Context

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PUBLIC SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT IN INDIA- SOCIETAL CONTEXT:

A country's political life, Constitutional laws, and Administrative rules and regulations and relations are greatly influenced by its societal traditions, culture and values. In Indian society, many Public systems/ Public Organisations are created especially to manage and relate to it with special reference to :

1) RELIGION

2) CASTE

3) LANGUAGE

4) JOINT FAMILY SYSTEM

5) WOMEN

6) GROWING VIOLENCE

7) RURAL - URBAN INTERFACE




PUBLIC SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT - ECONOMIC CONTEXT IN INDIA:

1) AGRICULTURE - BASED ECONOMY

2) POVERTY

3) UNEMPLOYMENT

4) INDUSTRIAL POLICY RESOLUTION AND MONITORING

5) MIXED ECONOMY

6) WEEDING OUT CORRUPTION



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Public Systems Management : Constitutional Context

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Fred Riggs so forcefully advocated that Public Administration should be sensitive to the environment it functions in and should develop methods of administration that would alleviate the latter of its issues, as only that would be a successful administrative setup that would lead the country on the road to development.

Therefore Constitution or the law of the land is of utmost importance which is to be studied and its directives and principles followed to the tee by the Public Administrative setup of that country in order to fulfill its true objectives of public welfare and development since the constitution is framed by the political class who are basically the representative of the people of that land and thus know their needs intrinsically.

The following parts of the Indian Constitution determine and direct the functioning of Governance and Public Systems in India:

1) PREAMBLE - The Preamble is the key to the minds of our freedom fighters and Constitutional founders and thus introduces the reader to the overarching philosophy of Constitutional governance specifying the source of authority , the system of government , the objectives to be attained by the political and administrative systems. It has been declared as a valuable part of the Indian Constitution and if one wants to understand the spirit of the Indian Constitution then this has to be read.

2) PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY - In this form of Government, the executive is an integral part of Parliament and is responsible to it.

3) FEDERATION WITH STRONG CENTRE - India is a Union Of States which is unique federalism and may be aptly described as a new experiment in this area for ensuring national unity and growth on one end and regional autonomy at the other.

4) FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES - It is very necessary for any Public Administrator to understand these Fundamental citizen rights and duties before embarking on its course of work else it would end up in litigation perpetually.
Refer in detail:
Fundamental Rights And Fundamental Duties - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_Rights,_Directive_Principles_and_Fundamental_Duties_of_India

5) DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF STATE POLICY - It indicates the Responsibilities of the State/ Government in promoting the rights and benefits of the individuals while formulating policies and also in translating the basic values of the Constitution in real life.
DPSP in detail, refer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_Principles_in_India


6) INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY - The terms and conditions of the judges are regulated by the Constitution and not at the whims and fancies of the Politicians, hence it remains out of their clutches and autonomous, non biased and just.

7) JUDICIAL REVIEW - It implies the powers possessed by the courts to pronounce Constitutional validity of the acts of Public Authorities, both executive and legislative.

CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITIES - To carry out the objectives enlisted in the Constitution which have independent power given by the latter in order to perform impartially and uninfluenced executive:

1) Comptroller And Auditor General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptroller_and_Auditor_General_of_India

2) Finance Commission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finance_Commission

3) Election Commission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Commission_of_India

4) UPSC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Public_Service_Commission

5) Attorney General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_of_India

6) National Commission for Scheduled Castes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_for_Scheduled_Castes

7) National Commission for Scheduled Tribes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_for_Scheduled_Tribes

8) Official Languages Commission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Languages_Commission

9) Special Officer for linguistic minorities: http://www.advocatekhoj.com/library/bareacts/constitutionofindia/350b.php?Title=Constitution%20of%20India,%201949&STitle=Special%20Officer%20for%20linguistic%20minorities



10) Administrative Tribunals: Refer to a post on this blog :  http://publicadministrationtheone.blogspot.in/2012/08/administrative-law-meaning-scope-and.html


OTHER IMPORTANT COMMISSIONS:
These are not Constitutional but created by an Act Of Parliament but of great importance and power:

1) National Commission For Women: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_for_Women

2) National Commission For Backward Classes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_for_Backward_Classes

3) National Human Rights Commission & State Human Rights Commission of India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Human_Rights_Commission_of_India



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Difference Between Traditional Public Administration And Public Systems Management

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Differentiation Points of Traditional Public Administration And Public Systems Management -



TRADITIONAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

1. Public Service is considered an exclusive task performed by the government.

2. Citizen avoiding and secrecy in governmental business.
3. Public – Private Distinction.
4. Rigid, rule – bound and hierarchic model.
5. Process accountability.
6. Anonymous bureaucracy.
7. Structure – oriented.
8. Emphasis on rationality in decision making process.
9. Adoption of centralised strategy.
10. Authoritative approach.
11. Politics – Administration Dichotomy.
12. Focus on Structures and Processes.
PUBLIC SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

1. Public Service is considered as a collaborative exercise involving Government, NGOs and Private firms, etc.
2. Citizen friendly, transparent and accountable.
3. Public – Private partnership.
4. Flexible Organisational Design and Practices Model.
5. Result Accountability.

6. Accountable Bureaucracy.
7. People – Oriented.
8. Emphasis on bounded rationality in decision making process.
9. Adoption of decentralised strategy.
 10. Participatory approach.
11. Politics – Administrative confluence.
12. Focus on performance and results.



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