公共事业管理外文翻译

公共事业管理外文翻译

河南理工大学

公共事业管理专业2009级

姓名:冯明雷

学号:310919010220

班级:事管09-2班

From Crisis to Opportunity: Human Resource Challenges for the Public Sector in the Twenty-First Century

Vidu Soni Central Michigan University

Abstract

A great deal of attention has been focused on the human capital

crisis in the public sector since the mid-1990s. Experts and practitioners give many reasons why the current crisis emerged. This article examines the important factors that led to the crisis, what is being done about them through presidential agendas, legislators, oversight agencies, professional societies, and public policy think tanks. Concerns are many in terms of a large number of upcoming retirements, early retirements, unplanned downsizing, difficulty in attracting new generations to public service, and the changing nature of public service. However, the human resource crisis also presents an opportunity to fundamentally change those features of public sector human resource management practices that have become outdated for contemporary organizations and position government agencies for the

twenty-first century by meaningfully reforming the civil service. This transformation would require public sector organizations to take a more strategic view of human resource management and to give greater policy attention to human capital issues.

Introduction

In 1989, the National Commission on the Public Service (commonly referred to as the Volcker Commission) issued a report on the state of public service characterizing it as a “quiet crisis,” which referred to the slow

weakening of the public service in the 1970s and 1980s. This period was marked by loss of public confidence in its elected and appointed officials, heightened bureaucrat bashing by the media and political candidates, and a distressed civil service. For different reasons, the quiet crisis of earlier decades continued through the 1990s and is present today. The current crisis is building as large numbers of government workers are expected to retire in the coming years and not enough younger people are in the pipeline for government jobs. Adding to the crisis is understaffed government agencies, a skills imbalance, and a lack of well-trained supervisors and senior leaders. These concerns are reinforced by a preliminary report of the second National Commission on Public Service (Light, 2002), which paints a more dire picture and foreshadows a more pronounced crisis. Light contends that “the United States cannot win the war on terrorism or rebuild homeland security

with out a fully dedicated federal civil service” (p. 2). Millick and