Slide 1

Question 1

What is public personnel administration?

Answer 1

Public personnel administration is a branch of human resource management that is concerned with the acquisition, development, utilization and compensation of a public organization’s workforce

Question 2

what are the 4 main functions of public personnel administration?

Answer 2

1. planning
2. acquisition
3. development
4. sanctions

Question 3

What does planning involve?

Answer 3

this includes preparing staffing plans and budgets, deciding how employees will be used, and setting pay rates.

Question 4

What is acquisition?

Answer 4

refers to selecting and recruiting employees.

Question 5

What does development involve?

Answer 5

it involves employee training and advancement programs, as well as performance evaluations

Question 6

What are sanctions?

Answer 6

it deals with employer-employee relationships, and may include workplace safety and handling grievances

Question 7

What is the strategic focus of PPA

Answer 7

The strategic focus of PPA emphasizes the need for Human Resource (HR) plans and strategies to be formulated within the context of overall organisational strategies and objectives, and to be responsive to the changing nature of the organisation’s external environment.

Question 8

What HRM activities that deal with strategic focus?

Answer 8

Human resource planning
Compensation planning
Cost containment
Evolving legal issues

Question 9

What is the operational focus of the PPA?

Answer 9

The operational focus concerns the day-to-day running of the organization’s human resources. Operational activities of HRM tend to be tactical and operational in nature.

Question 10

What are some examples of operational activities of hrm?

Answer 10

Recruitment and selection
Employee complaints and grievances
Employee orientation
Employee health and safety

Question 11

When did the Gentlemen System start and end?

Answer 11

It started with Washington’s administration in 1789 it ended with the inauguration of Jackson in 1829

Question 12

What were the features of personnel management under the gentlemen system?

Answer 12

1. For Washington, the primary criterion in making appointments was “fitness of character”.
2. Fit characters were those with high standing in the community with personal integrity, such individuals tended to be members of the upper class.
3. Washington hoped his fit characters would perform honestly and efficiently, but he also sought effectiveness
4. Some lacked clear technical qualifications of competence for the jobs to which they were appointed
5. He sought political loyalty as well as social and administrative fitness

Question 13

Why did the gentlemen system collapse?

Answer 13

1. The inauguration of president Jackson
2. Intolerability of upper class bias in democratic era
3. Unresponsiveness of personnel to the public and the public interest

Question 14

What is the spoils system according United States History?

Answer 14

In the politics of the United States, a spoils system refers to an informal practice by which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its voters as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party.

Question 15

Where did the term, the “Spoils system” come from?

Answer 15

The term was derived from the phrase “to the victor go the spoils.”

Question 16

Narrate the history of the spoils system?

Answer 16

After Andrew Jackson became President in 1828, he systematically rewarded his supporters.
He considered that popular election gave the victorious party a “mandate” to select officials from its own ranks.

Question 17

Why was the spoils system introduced?

Answer 17

1. The long tenure of administrators in office made them unresponsive to the public and the public interest
2. The elderly gentlemen were simply unable to rise to the tasks at hand and consequently, the government was not functioning as good as it might
3. He also rejected the notion that a government job was a kind of property to which the incumbent civil servant had a right
4. He sought to establish a maximum term of 4years in office for public officials, to coincide with presidential administrations, thereby allowing the newly elected president to distribute “ the spoils of victory” among his supporters
5. To help prevent the unpleasant necessity of actually dismissing incumbents, whose appointments, would simply expire as a matter of law and/or custom

Question 18

What were some major effects of the spoils system?

Answer 18

1. There was a serious decline in administrative ethics, efficiency, and performance
2. A thorough inter-mixing of public administration and party politics
3. A high degree of political corruption
4. A reduction in the social class status of public administrators

Question 19

Where did the merit system evolve from?

Answer 19

America

Question 20

What were the roots of the Merit system?

Answer 20

China

Question 21

When was the Merit System Principles set in statute?

Answer 21

1970

Question 22

How many Merit Principles does the Intergovernmental Personnel Act that requires states that receive Federal funds follow?

Answer 22

6

Question 23

What did the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 create?

Answer 23

1. the nine Merit System Principles
2. 11 Prohibited Personnel Practices

Question 24

What are the 9 Principles of the merit system?

Answer 24

1. Recruit, select, and advance on merit after fair and open competition.
2. Treat employees and applicants fairly and equitably.
3. Provide equal pay for equal work and reward excellent performance.
4. Maintain high standards of integrity, conduct, and concern for the
   public interest.
5. Manage employees efficiently and effectively.
6. Retain or separate employees on the basis of their performance.
7. Educate and train employees if it will result in better organizational or individual performance.
8. Protect employees from improper political influence.
9. Protect employees against reprisal for the lawful disclosure of
   information in “whistleblower” situations.