The question of public sector employee performance had been criticized for decades by many public officials, politicians, academics and civil society, yet, still remains critical even today. Lovegrove, Ulosevich & Warner (2010), reckoned that the concern about improving public sector performance is no longer a choice but a fiscal reckoning.
Moreover, Brown (www.articlesalley.com), stated that the human resource is now considered the most important resource in organizations because of the costs attached to recruitment, selection and retention. Those conducting market research have estimated the total costs associated with human capital to comprise the larger share of the organisation’s worth. Consequently, organizations are now realizing that the human resource is indeed the most important asset and, therefore, concentrating efforts to develop them to their full potential for optimal performance and to enhance their competitive advantage. This chapter provides a background and setting of the research, statement the problem and purposes of the research, identifies the research questions to be addressed and highlights the significance of the research.
The researcher, being a public sector employee as well, gained interest in the subject of employee performance. Therefore, the justification in conducting the study was to make comparisons among different demographic characteristics of the employees in the public sector to explore how the employee performance can be enhanced.
Selected demographic characteristics were used to make the comparisons and following is a brief outline of why each characteristic was selected. According to reviews from previous research, there is a relationship between age and performance. While many researchers concluded that the average age of the employees in many organizations seemed to be going higher, the interest of the research was in exploring whether performance was higher for older or younger employees. Closely linked to the age characteristic were also the years of experience that the employees had served in the public sector (Maurer et.al, 2002).
Many countries all over the world are preaching the gospel of gender equality.
However, in most organizations, women are still side-lined when it comes to positions of authority because it is perceived that men perform better than women. Such gender bias may work against maintaining a motivated work force and lead to poor performance from the discriminated gender. The workplace gender equality agency in Australia
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(www.wgea.gov.au) advocates for, among others, the removal of barriers to the full and equal participation of women in the workforce.
Furthermore, the Australian agency advocates for the elimination of discrimination on the basis of gender particularly in relation to family and caring responsibilities for both women and men. The perceived barriers that may affect performance between married and single employees also need to be explored in order to design appropriate interventions to ensure enhanced performance (www.wgea.gov.au).
The hierarchical nature of the Swaziland government means that progression is in an upward direction. Therefore, the relationship between higher level and lower level employees is that of supervisor subordinate. Exploring the perceptions to enhanced employee performance from both levels will help to provide human resource development professionals with an all-inclusive approach to the strategic human resource development activities pursued.
In addition, the major activity in human resource development is to assess the need for, and provide training opportunities for employees to ensure enhanced performance. The review of the human resource function (2010) in the Swaziland government highlighted the need to ensure that the human resource is utilised in a holistic manner. Hence, educational level was also selected to be explored in the research.
Background of the Study
In the business world, highly effective organizations have employees who are committed and make contributions to organizational success. Therefore, human resource development (HRD) professionals should provide activities that support organizational learning in order to establish performance expectations, address higher level problem solving skills, and account for outcomes. In this regard, strategic HRD involves long-term development of people within the organization that fosters continuous organizational effectiveness (Gilley & Maycunich, 2000).
Country Profile
Swaziland is a small, landlocked country measuring 17,364 square kilometres. The population, as of July 2012, was estimated at approximately 1,386,914. The country’s labour force was estimated at 457,900 in 2007 and approximately 35, 000 are Public Sector employees (http://www.indexmundi.com).
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Figure 1.1 General Map of Swaziland. Adopted from “Swaziland Country Strategy Paper, 2009-2013 Mid-term Review” 2011. Retrieved on June 10th 2013 from http://www.afdb.org
For the Swazi government, strategic HRD means attaining effective development and utilization of human resources to improve performance. However, inculcating a performance and learning culture in the Civil Service of Swaziland has been a challenge. The continued need for individual and organizational development arises from the numerous demands for enhancing employee skills and knowledge while also increasing productivity. The continued need for individual and organizational development also arises from the need for improved
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performance of the public sector, as is the case in many developing countries (Review of the HRM Function in the Swaziland Civil Service, Final Report, 2010).
The report continued to highlight that managing the public sector in Swaziland has increasingly become a challenging and demanding task. Just like many governments in the Southern African region and worldwide, Swaziland has been subjected to pressures to improve performance of the public sector. The pressures emanate from the deteriorating socio-economic conditions, declining quality of life, and continuing demands from the citizens, in spite of the diminishing resources.
As specified in the Departmental goals and objectives of the Human Resource Development, in the Ministry of Public Service of the Swazi Government, the HRD function involves the process by which the knowledge, skills, attitudes and performance of employees are enhanced. However, of the many reports that have been produced regarding performance and reforms, none has specifically addressed how individual employee performance can be enhanced, especially through the various strategies in HRD (www.gov.sz).
Research by Dainty (2000), suggested that it is important that human resource management have a way of tracking employee performance based on the objective of the organization and evaluate development of the employee competencies and skills. However, in Swaziland, while every effort has been tried to put in place training opportunities for all employees, linking the benefits of training and improved performance in a visible manner has been a challenge and performance as well as effectiveness still need to be increased. The public sector seems to be a training ground for the private sector as many employees have been lost to the latter after training. The Government in office during the period of 2008 to 2013 decried the absence of a monitoring and evaluation tool for the training department that provides a clear link between training and improved or enhanced performance. Therefore, even the appropriateness of the training programs cannot be measured to ensure that they indeed address the issue of performance improvement (Swaziland Government Programme of Action, 2009).
Training has remained one of the most pervasive methods for enhancing the productivity of individuals and improving overall organizational performance. However, strategic human resource development (SHRD) planning purports to ensure that comprehensive organizational training can be achieved as well as individual employee development objectives. Furthermore, academic research suggests that a link exists between
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strategic human resource development strategies and performance improvement (http://www.strategic-human-resource.com/).
Research Purposes
The pressure on governments to improve their performance has reached a new level of intensity and, thus, calls for leaders to rise to the challenge to make improvements in public sector performance. SHRD, with its focus on proactive rather than reactive change management, can help organizations survive in an increasingly global, unstable, and competitive environment (Grieves, 2003).
The leaders of government in Swaziland have also emphasized the need for competitive advantage and further declared this period as a business unusual phase. This, basically, highlights the leader’s commitment to improving performance and achieving government’s business goals in a competitive manner. However, no research has been conducted in relation to enhancing public sector employee performance, specifically informed by the perceptions of both supervisors and employees in Swaziland.
The purpose of the research is to explore and describe the functions of strategic human resource development in relation to both supervisors and employees perceive SHRD activities. The research will also explain the relationship between selected demographic characteristics of employees in the public sector and the employees’ perceived barriers to enhanced performance. Therefore, a comparative survey will be conducted to ascertain the perceptions of both the supervisors and employees to barriers of enhanced employee performance in the public sector.
Research Questions
While the study explores a variety of issues surrounding the topic of enhancing employee performance in the public sector, for purposes of guidance and clear direction three major research questions will be addressed by this survey.
1. What are the supervisors and employees’ perceptions of SHRD activities?
2. Do significant differences exist between the perceptions of female and male employees on the strategic human resource development activities?
3. Do significant differences exist between the perceptions of married and single employees on the strategic human resource development activities?
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4. What are the differences between perceptions of supervisors and subordinates on strategic human resource development activities?
5. Are there significant differences on the perceptions of employees with different educational levels?
6. What are the perceived barriers to enhanced employee performance?
Significance of the Study
By providing a comparative analysis of what the supervisors and subordinates perceive to be the barriers to improved performance, the research will recommend measures that can be adopted in order to remove them and enhance public sector employee performance. The research will serve as a foundation to making recommendations regarding interventions that can accelerate economic growth and development through improved performance of public sector employees. The comparisons between supervisors’ and subordinates’ perceptions will also help to establish how to maximise the potential of public sector employees, capitalising on knowledge and performance, to gain competitiveness and effectiveness
Definition of Terms
Employee Performance: The activities related to an employees’ job and how well they are executed in an organization involving all aspects that directly or indirectly affect and relate to their work (Schwab & Cummings, http://amr.aom.org).
Strategic Human Resource Development: Emerging from training and development to a sophisticated academic discipline and field of practice centred on learning and performance in organizations. HRD is the process of developing and unleashing human expertise through organization development and personnel training and development for the purpose of improving performance (Yorks, 2005).
Strategic Human Resource Management: HRM is defined as the effective selection and utilization of employees to best achieve the goals and strategies of an organization, as well as the goals and needs of employees (DeSimone & Werner,2012).
Perceptions: Predispositions to behave toward a person or object. Operationally defined for this study as subjects’ responses to statements.
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Performance Barriers: A barrier can be defined as anything, whether material or immaterial, that hinders performance and prevents the achievement of the organizations’
strategic goals and objectives (Eaton, 2008).
Perfomance Management: Performance Management is a continuous process of identifying, measuring and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization (Aguinis, 2013).
Strategy: Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term:
which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations (Riley, 2012).
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