The Philippine Government’s Personnel Administration

By: Evar Louie H Magamay

Introduction
Personnel is always the most important asset being the core and the backbone
of any organization. The success of bureaucracy mainly relies on its very important
asset. People would always be vital for any organization to function, mostly in the
government where selfless service is an essential attribute and dedication to duty is
an utmost requirement. As William Mosher and J. Donald Kingsley said, “the key to
better governance lies in effective personnel management”.
Personnel administration being also called human resource management
would always entail the involvement of people in all the activities of any organization
and it requires technical and interpersonal skills of personnel administrators or
managers. Meriam Webster defined personnel administration as the phase of
management concerned with the engagement and effective utilization of manpower
to obtain optimum efficiency of human resources. Personnel management is
basically an administrative task performed by a supervisor to serve as the link between
the organization and its employees. The effectiveness of an organization is greatly
affected by the capacity of the supervisor who served as the hinged between the
organization and its employees. Thereby, you could never separate personnel
administration with leadership since leading people always involves personnel
management by itself. You can lead people by managing them, but you can never
manage people without leading them. Thereby, the key component of personnel
administration above all else is leadership.

Leadership
Leadership is essential to any organization by having the right virtues,
appropriate skills and required knowledge to motivate your subordinates. According to
John Maxwell, “A leader should be close enough to relate but far enough ahead to
motivate.” It involves two (2) things, close enough to relate would mean that a leader
should be a good motivator but at the same time, he should be a good motivator to
himself. Thus, a leader could never be a good motivator, if he himself doesn’t know
how to motivate himself. The success of any organization relies on the performance
of its people, but the motivation of the said people mainly relies on leadership.
Leadership should be the primary driving force for the public servants to remain
committed to serving the country. The leader should be able to oversee the concerns
of its employees so that in return the said employees will be productive. As we all know
that motivated employees will result in better performance. Thus, having the right
leader is a prerequisite to being effective in public service but it would not be enough
without an appropriate government institution that will be solely dedicated to
overseeing the welfare of its most significant resources, the Human Resource (HR).
The Administrative Code of 1987
The Executive Order No. 292 or known as the Administrative Code of 1987
mandated the Civil Service Commission, as the central personnel agency of the
Government that shall establish a career service, adopt measures to promote morale,
efficiency, integrity, responsiveness, and courtesy in the civil service. Further, to
promote the public office as a public trust, the EO 292 strengthens public
accountability for public servants to be accountable to the people at all times. It
imposes the merit and rewards system, integrates human resource development and
decentralizes personnel functions for any agency to effectively performed its human
resource functions. In order to encourage meritocracy and excellence, a program was
developed to empower public servants, to give due recognition and to provide
continuous development.

PRIME-HRM

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) is currently implementing a program that

empowers government agencies to develop their human resource management
competencies, systems, and practices toward HR excellence which is called Program
to Institutionalize Meritocracy and Excellence in Human Resource Management
(PRIME-HRM). It aims to elevate public sector human resource management to a level
of excellence through the assessment, assistance, and awarding processes of HRM
Systems, Practices, and Competencies using HRM maturity level indicators that are
at par with global HRM standards (PRIME HRM Guidebook). The CSC is assessing
the maturity level of government agencies on competencies, systems, and practices
in terms of (1) recruitment, selection, and placement; (2) learning and development;
(3) performance management; and (4) rewards and recognition. As a result, the Civil
Service Commission may classify a government agency and award it for HR
excellence according to their set maturity levels: (1) Transactional HRM; (2) Process-
Defined HRM; (3) Integrated HRM; and (4) Strategic HRM. Identifying maturity levels
results in better planning and implementing specific functions of HRM systems that
eventually leads to higher employee and agency performance resulting in
organizational transformation.

Issues and Recommendations

The four (4) core HRM systems identified by Civil Service Commission are
considered to be the heart of PRIME-HRM because they cover all the essential people
requirements of Attraction, Engagement, Performance, Motivation, and Retention of
any organization (PRIME HRM Guidebook). To make my identified issues and
recommendations more responsive, I will be focusing based on the said systems, but
these are my personal opinion to the current HR system of the government and without
pinpointing any specific agency:

1. Recruitment, selection, and placement – Respective government

agencies to include Local Government Units (LGUs) are responsible for the
recruitment and selection of their employees. However, consistency is always the
issue of what would be the standards of imposing those HR functions. On external
recruitment, aside from the poor recruitment process, attracting potential applicants is
also an issue since the competitiveness of salary rates of government employees is
somewhat low as compared to corporate organizations. On designation of personnel,
putting the right person on the job based on the competencies of the employees should
supposedly be the basis in the placement of personnel. However, the culture of
factionalism or “bata-bata” system greatly affected the designation of personnel mostly
to sensitive positions that supposed to be based on competencies and merits.

2. Learning and development – On the aspect of learning and

development, somehow our government is partially responsive on this but would still
vary on certain agencies. However, the changing environment should also be taken
into consideration so that the training module would be adaptive to change. There are
still outdated training programs and some training are too generic to specifically
address the desired learning for a specific role and position. Training is always
beneficial for employees learning and the success of the organization is affected by
through it. However, sometimes in the government ’s context, training employees is a
waste of time and money.

3. Performance management – The performance appraisal or evaluation

on the government aspect is not seriously practiced as compared to the corporate
organizations to encourage performance excellence in the workplace. However, in a
government setting, for majority performance appraisal is mere compliance and were
not seriously taken into consideration. Despite the linkage of Performance-Based
Bonus (PBB) into performance appraisal, still, this incentive turns to be a demotivating
factor instead to be a motivating one.

4. Rewards and recognition - The criteria of rewards and recognition is

inconsistent not only in the government but to include in the private sector. However,
there would be no problem in dealing with tangible results since it is usually given due
recognition. But in terms of intangible outputs, favoritism may arise due to “kabayan”
system or someone from the same town/province or someone who came from the
same school. Thus, the processes for the selection of awardees should be supposed
to be based on employees’ extraordinary achievements, but somehow influenced by
the socio-economic-political environment.
Conclusion
It is evident with the prevailing issues of personnel administration in our country,
we could conclude that our HR efforts are still in the developing stage. Continuing
efforts of HR evaluation and development strategies are needed to improve the
administration to the public servants. The role of HRM in the Philippine setting is
related to the forecasting and planning of human capital, selection and staffing,
development and training, performance management, employee discipline, and the
promotion of the productivity and welfare of each employee which are vital elements
to the success of any organization (PAMIS, 2017).

References

Memorandum Circular 3. Series 2012. Civil Service Commission. Program to

Institutionalize Meritocracy and Excellence in Human Resource Management.
Retrieved from: http://www.csc.gov.ph/2014-02-21-08-16-56/2014-02-21-08-17-
24/2014-02-28-06-36-08.html

Meriam Webster Dictionary. Retrieved from: https://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/personnel%20administration
Pamis, Allan. 12 September 2017. The Role of HRM in New Public Management.
Retrieved from: https://www.manilatimes.net/role-hrm-new-public-
management/350185/

PRIME HRM Guidebook. 2016. Philippines Australia Human Resource and

Organizational Development Facility (PAHRODF). Retrieved from:
https://www.pahrodf.org.ph/resource-center/publication/csc-prime-hrm-guidebook