Enduring Challenges and New Developments in Public Human Resource Management

• Author: Andrew Podger
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X17693057
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X17693057

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2017, Vol. 37(1) 108 –128

© The Author(s) 2017

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0734371X17693057

journals.sagepub.com/home/rop

Article

Enduring Challenges and

New Developments in

Public Human Resource

Management: Australia as

an Example of International

Experience

Andrew Podger1

Abstract

Australia has its own unique institutional arrangements within which its civil services

operate, yet its experience in public sector human resource management over

the last 40 years or so has much in common with that of many other Western

democracies, including the United States. It faces enduring challenges such as the

relationship between politics and administration while its approach to public

management has evolved from traditional Weberian administration through new

public management to a much more complex, open and networked system. While the

role of government in society has not radically changed, the way in which that role has

been exercised has changed significantly. Government employees represent a smaller

proportion of the workforce, what they do and their skills have changed dramatically,

internal arrangements to foster ethics and to manage staff are different today, new

approaches have been adopted to compensate and motivate employees, the diversity

of employees has widened, and the place of human resource management (HRM)

in agencies’ strategic management processes has ebbed and waned. In each of these

areas, human resource (HR) managers in Australia today face difficult questions about

future directions. Most of these will be familiar to HR managers in other countries.

Keywords

new public management, new public governance, workforce trends, public service

values, devolution, diversity, strategic HRM

1Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Andrew Podger, 8, Yarrow Place, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2602, Australia.

Email: andrew@podger.com.au

693057ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X17693057Review of Public Personnel AdministrationPodger

research-article2017

Podger 109

Background, Enduring Challenges, and Changing

Contexts

Some Australian Background

The Commonwealth of Australia was established on January 1, 1901, by British law.

The Constitution was developed over the previous 20 years through a series of con-

ventions and drew consciously from both the United Kingdom and the United States,

as well as Canada. It incorporates a broadly U.K.-style parliamentary system.

Australia also adopted from the beginning the U.K. approach to separating politics

from administration, with a merit-based civil service based on the 1854 Northcote–

Trevelyan Report (Northcote & Trevelyan, 1854). The Constitution provides for a

federal structure with many similarities to U.S. arrangements, including an elected

Senate based on state representatives. The powers of the national government are

specified in the Constitution, the intention being to constrain its role; the six states

have sovereignty in all other areas (there are now also two territories with broadly

similar responsibilities).

In practice, over the next 100 years, the role of government has widened and the

power of the national government in Australia has increased very substantially.

Nonetheless, more than 75% of public sector employees are employed by state and

territory governments, which continue to manage most service delivery—schools,

hospitals, public transport, and police. Local government plays a limited role in

Australia, with about 10% of all public sector employees, these being mostly involved

in property services (local planning, roads, storm water, garbage collection, etc.) and

some community services (such as local libraries). The national government has about

15% of public sector employees, but it also collects the vast majority (about 80%) of

government revenue and uses this to play a significant role in most sectors including

health, education, and welfare as well as in traditional areas of federal responsibilities

such as the national economy, defense, trade, and social security.

Enduring Challenges

While contexts change over the years, two of the enduring challenges in public admin-

istration in Australia, as elsewhere (e.g., Thompson, 1988; Wilson, 1886), are the rela-

tionship between politics and administration, and the balance between the respective

roles of government, the market, and civil society. Old debates on these get refreshed

and reframed as new technologies and new ways of doing business are introduced.

Concepts of merit, nonpartisanship, impartiality, professionalism, and anonymity in

the public service are inevitably recalibrated in the light of modern communications

and the corresponding professionalization of politics, and the continuing obligations

of the civil service to be responsive to the elected government and to be publicly

accountable. Similarly, the classic concepts of the role of government in liberal market

economies, such as allocation, (re)distribution, and stability (Musgrave & Musgrave,

1980), involving the delivery of public goods and addressing market failures as well