Integrating People Management into Public Service Reform

In the context of major public sector reform efforts in many OECD countries, increasing attention is being focused on the people-side of the reform equation -- the human resource management policies and practices available to public sector managers to shape and direct the workforce to achieve new organisational goals. The experiences of OECD countries show, however, that improving individual policies and practices is only part of the reform equation. The key factor lies in integrating human resource management with the core business of the public service -- the outcome and output goals of individual departments and agencies -- and in doing so, ensuring that effective management of people is recognised as an indispensable ingredient for accomplishing the business of government. Using surveys and selected country case studies, this monograph identifies the factors driving human resource management reforms in the national public administrations of OECD countries. In offering the lessons drawn from these wide-ranging experiences to the attention of policy makers and practitioners, it identifies promising reform strategies for ensuring that human resource management policies evolve in ways consistent with broader public management reforms aimed at building more productive, performance-oriented and responsive public services.