Background Statement
Disucuss about the Challenges of attracting and retaining staff in public sector.
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the challenges faced by the public sector organizations while attracting new employees and retaining them within their organization. Human resource department of the organization implements these strategies to increase the level of performance of the organization. The ability to retain the employees within the organization depends on some key factors like job satisfaction, career growth opportunities etc. HR practices of an organization play a key role to attract and retain the right talent within the organization. The function of the HR department of the public sector is to identify and nourish the talents of the organization and create a sustainable work culture within the organization. However, these organizations fail to meet the expectations of the employees by not providing them an opportunity to develop their professional career within the organization. However, public sector organizations are unable to attract and retain new employees towards the organization. The primary reason behind this failure is the reduced image of the public sector. Furthermore, this paper will evaluate how job satisfaction of the employees creates a significant effect on the employee retention strategy of the organization.
Employee attraction and retention are defined as the strategies used to attract new talents towards an organization and retain them within the organization. Generally, employees join an organization to work for them for a long time. In case they find the organization is suitable for their professional and personal development, they will stay in the organization otherwise not. This paper discusses how public sector organizations can employ strategies to attract and retain their employees. Several public sectors have faced the problem of attracting and retaining the employees towards it.
Public sector is a vital part of the economy of a country and it comprises of both public services and business organizations. Defense, public transport, healthcare, public education are all examples of the public sector. These enterprises are self-financed and they operate on a large scale to provide their service to the public.
This has happened due to the fact the image of the public sector has degraded over the last few years. Their HR strategies have failed to attract new employees, especially in the senior management positions. A reduced image of the public sector is one of the main challenges of attracting and recruiting new talents within the organization. Freezing of payments and pension reform schemes are some other challenges faced by the public sector organizations.
Introduction of the Sector
Public organizations around the world have faced some challenges in attracting and retaining skilled employees within the organization. The human resource department plays a significant role in attracting and retaining the skilled employees of these public organizations. Their strategies give this organization a competitive edge over the market. One of the primary functions of this department is to develop relationships with the employees of an organization (Manning, 2010). These relationship-building strategies can strategically enhance the performance of the organization (K, 2018). However, if they are unable to attract new talent or more importantly the right talent towards the organization, it can decrease the performance quality of the organization thus increasing its operational costs. Increase in employee turnover can severely affect the business image of these public organizations. One of the external challenges faced by the public sector organizations while attracting and retaining their employees is the level of competition within the market (Al Wahshi et al., 2013). Not only they are facing competition from the private organizations, they are also facing competition from other government organizations as well.
There are many challenges faced by the public sector organization while attracting new talents within the organization (Bagheri, 2016). A limited number of candidates with no experience of working in the public sector finds it attractive. Public some jobs lack some attributes which increase the attractiveness of the job. These attributes are professional development and career development opportunities and flexibility in the work within the organization. Other attributes include effective leadership, flexible work arrangements and how the challenging nature of the work. The level of competition is high among the candidates in the job market making it difficult for the public sector organizations to attract the right candidate towards their organization (Teo, 2002). The number of applied candidates is huge, but most of them do not meet the requirements of the public sector organizations. Unable to attract new talents towards the organization, these organizations are failing to increase their cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and performance of the organization. Due to these failures, the organizations will be unable to compete in the competitive market with the private organizations. If the HR department of the organization, is unable to provide training facilities to their employees, there is a chance of huge employee turnover which can severely impact the profitability of the organization (Goyal & Babel, 2015). The effectiveness of the HR strategies depends on how efficiently they have managed to attract and retain the employees of the organization.
Statement of the Purposes
Along with financial rewards, the factors which motivate employees to stick with the organization they are currently working. These factors are roles and responsibility of the employees, opportunities for career growth, social environment and maintaining a work-life balance within the organization. The HR department of the public organizations fails to recognize and reward the top employees of the organization. Employees leave public sector organizations if they do not have any access to career development opportunities within that organization (Onah & Anikwe, 2016). Career development opportunities do not mean only promotion on the job but also relevant training. The organizations which fail to provide proper training to their employees also fails to attract and retain talented employees. HR department of a public sector organization is responsible to provide job satisfaction to the employees. Employees want to have a challenging task in order to learn something in their work. Generally, public organizations are unable to provide challenging work for their employees, thus risk high employee turnover rate within the organization (Ibidunni et al., 2016). The employees of the human resource department of these public organizations have to play a critical role to develop employee satisfaction with the organization. In case the employees are not satisfied with their jobs, they will not be able to commit fully to achieve the organizational goals of these public sector companies.
There several challenges faced by the public sector organizations while retaining their employees towards the organization. These challenges are competition from the private sector, where the opportunity for career growth is relatively higher. In private organizations, the employees can get a higher amount of salary for their skills than the public sector organizations. Employee dissatisfaction is one of the reasons for which the public sector organizations are unable to retain their talented employees within the workplace. These employees are generally concerned about how their jobs are perceived by the general public. They are not happy with the responsibilities assigned to them with respect to their skills and abilities (Ibidunni et al., 2016). An employee can leave an organization if the responsibility assigned to him or her do not fulfill their expectations. Another reason an employee can leave a public sector job is that if it fails to provide no learning opportunities for them. Other reasons include hostile work environment, lack of appreciation, stress and work-life imbalance etc. There are two main reasons for employees changing their jobs; job satisfaction in the current job, and expected job satisfaction in the alternative job. The employees who are not satisfied with their current job in the public sector organizations are more likely to switch to other organizations so that they can have a better career opportunity.
Challenges of Attracting Employees
The employees of these organizations fail to learn anything new and further develop their professional skills. The candidates want to join an organization where they can have access to training to develop their professional career and learn new skills. They want to work in an environment where the employees are encouraged to achieve new professional heights and face challenging situations while working in the organization (Kakar et al., 2015). The HR department of an organization is responsible to create a positive environment within the organization. A positive environment will ensure that there is open and honest communication and interaction among the employees of the organization (Al-Emadi et al., 2015). However, if there is no communication and interaction among the employees of the organization, it will reduce the level of performance of the organization. A hostile environment is considered as one of the main reasons for an employee leaving the public sector organizations. A hostile environment discourages the employees to participate in any work related process within the organization thus affecting their individual and organizational performance. The employees may not want to remain in the organizations that do not provide a supportive environment in the workplace. Financial needs of an employee can be considered as an important motivational factor, it is not the most important factor (Podger, 2017). The employees want to have suitable work environment along with sufficient pay and other benefits. In case the employees feel that their opinion is valued within the organization, they can choose to leave the organization. Thus the HR department fails to retain the employees of the public sector organizations.
Strategies implemented by the human resource department of these public organizations have a direct effect on the performance level of the organization. Better strategies developed by the department can increase the level of job satisfaction among the employees thus increasing the quality of performance of the employees of an organization. Increase in the job satisfaction can increase the level of commitment and engagement of the employees driving the organization towards success. Public sector organizations unable to developing consistent and flexible strategies, these public sector organizations fail to retain their talented employees (Christensen et al., 2017). However, developing these human resource management strategies can help these organizations to improve the business situation of these organizations. Another reason why the employees want to switch from public sector organizations is that they feel a lot of stress at their current jobs. They are not assigned appropriate roles and responsibilities according to their skills or expertise. This increases the level of stress on them, thus increasing the level of dissatisfaction among the employees of a public sector organization (Wright et al., 2017). The negative and hostile environment within an organization can also lead to employees leaving the organization. In this environment, communication and interaction among the employees are absent thus affecting the performance level of the organization.
Challenges of Retaining Employees
The environment within the workplace changes dynamically so does the functions of human resource department of the organization (Terera & Ngirande, 2014). They are mainly responsible to increase the level of performance of the organization by increasing their cost-effectiveness and efficiency by developing job satisfaction among their employees. If they are unable to provide job satisfaction to the employees they will not be able to attract or retain their talented employees (Anitha & Begum, 2016). The HR management of public sector organizations is responsible to attract right talents towards the public sector organizations. They have to implement innovative strategies to attract the right candidates towards the organization. The candidates are not attracted to the public sector jobs, because these jobs do not have any flexible work schedules. The candidates prefer to have a work-life balance by working at flexible hours within the workplace. These organizations fail to provide challenging situations at work to the candidates thus resulting in a decrease in the interest among the candidates. They do not provide any career development opportunities in the workplace, thus they do not attract right candidates towards the organization (McGinnis Johnson, et al., 2016). These organizations fail to provide training opportunities to the candidates, thus cannot provide any career development opportunity to the candidates.
Developing an environment where the employees are encouraged to reach new professional heights within the organization. The public sector organizations fail to attract new candidates towards the organization, as they cannot provide a supportive environment within their organization (Kaur et al., 2015). The employees want to have higher pay and other benefits from the organization as well they expect a supportive environment from the public sector organizations. Career development does not mean only promotion in the job, it also means the development of professional skills with the help of training provided by the public sector organizations. In absence of positive environment within the organization, the employees of an organization will feel bored and ignored within the organization. Thus they will start to look for other opportunities outside the organization. The organizations who do not provide a better culture of development to the employees cannot retain their employees. The organizations who provide a better career path to the employees are most likely to retain the right talent within the organization. These strategies developed by the HR department will allow them to attract new talents towards these public sector organizations (Schlechter et al., 2015). These organizations are not able to mentor their employees and provide scope to develop their professional skills within the organization. The positive environment allows the employees of these organizations to participate in teamwork, thus improving the level of performance of the public sector organizations.
Generally, the public sector organizations are unable to provide an environment of care to the employees of the organization. Thus the employees of an organization are unable to fell inspired by the work they are doing within the organization and fully commit to the achieving the organizational goals of their organization (Ibidunni et al., 2016). They may not feel that they are contributing to the development of the organization and participating in achieving the organizational goals. Instead, they will feel stressed and disinterested about their work, thus affecting the performance of the organization. They will leave the organization to look for better opportunities in other organizations. Employees leaving an organization negatively affects the performance of the organization and it also costs operational costs of these public sector organizations (Taylor, 2016). If they are not led by an ethical leader, they might feel lost, thus increasing the level of dissatisfaction among the employees of these public sector organizations. Increase in the level of dissatisfaction among the employees of the organization will severely affect the profitability of these organizations (Goyal & Babel, 2015). It will also ruin the image of these organizations among the candidates thus further decreasing the attractiveness of jobs in public sectors.
One of the external challenges faced by the public sector organizations while attracting and retaining their employees is the level of competition within the market. The human resource department plays a significant role in attracting and retaining the skilled employees of these public organizations. Their strategies give this organization a competitive edge over the market. One of the primary functions of this department is to develop relationships with the employees of an organization (Manning, 2010). These relationship-building strategies can strategically enhance the performance of the organization. . These employees are generally concerned about how their jobs are perceived by the general public. So developing attractiveness of the public sector is crucial to increase the number of new talents to the organization. They will be happy with the responsibilities assigned to them with respect to their skills and abilities. The opportunity for career growth will be higher in these organizations. In private organizations, the employees can get a higher amount of salary for their skills than the public sector organizations.
An employee can leave an organization if the responsibility assigned to him or her do not fulfill their expectations. Another reason an employee can leave a public sector job is that if it fails to provide no learning opportunities for them. Other reasons include hostile work environment, lack of appreciation, stress and work-life imbalance etc. There are two main reasons for employees changing their jobs; job satisfaction in the current job, and expected job satisfaction in the alternative job. The employees who are not satisfied with their current job in the public sector organizations are more likely to switch to other organizations so that they can have a better career opportunity. These can be reduced by developing suitable work environment and develop career opportunities.
Developing an environment where the employees are encouraged to reach new professional heights within the organization. The public sector organizations will be able to attract new candidates towards the organization, as they provide a supportive environment within their organization (Kaur et al., 2015). The employees want to have higher pay and other benefits from the organization as well they expect a supportive environment from the public sector organizations. Career development does not mean only promotion in the job, it also means the development of professional skills with the help of training provided by the public sector organizations. In absence of positive environment within the organization, the employees of an organization will feel bored and ignored within the organization. Thus they will not start to look for other opportunities outside the organization. The organizations who do not provide a better culture of development cannot attract new employees. The organizations who provide a better career path to the employees are most likely to retain the right talent within the organization. These strategies developed by the HR department will allow them to attract new talents towards these public sector organizations (Schlechter et al., 2015). These organizations are not able to mentor their employees and provide scope to develop their professional skills within the organization. The positive environment allows the employees of these organizations to participate in teamwork, thus improving the level of performance of the public sector organizations.
The public sector organizations will able to provide an environment of care to the employees of the organization. Thus the employees of an organization will be able to fell inspired by the work they are doing within the organization and fully commit to the achieving the organizational goals of their organization (Ibidunni et al., 2016). They may feel that they are contributing to the development of the organization and participating in achieving the organizational goals. They will not feel stressed and disinterested about their work, thus affecting the performance of the organization. They will not leave the organization to look for better opportunities in other organizations. Employees leaving an organization negatively affects the performance of the organization and it also costs operational costs of these public sector organizations (Taylor, 2016). If they are not led by an ethical leader, they might feel lost, thus increasing the level of dissatisfaction among the employees of these public sector organizations. Increase in the level of dissatisfaction among the employees of the organization will severely affect the profitability of these organizations (Goyal & Babel, 2015). It will also ruin the image of these organizations among the candidates thus further decreasing the attractiveness of jobs in public sectors.
The environment within the workplace changes dynamically so does the functions of human resource department of the organization (Terera & Ngirande, 2014). They are mainly responsible to increase the level of performance of the organization by increasing their cost-effectiveness and efficiency by developing job satisfaction among their employees. If they are able to provide job satisfaction to the employees they will be able to attract or retain their talented employees (Anitha & Begum, 2016). The HR management of public sector organizations is responsible to attract right talents towards the public sector organizations. They have to implement innovative strategies to attract the right candidates towards the organization. The candidates will be attracted to the public sector jobs, because these jobs do have any flexible work schedules. The candidates prefer to have a work-life balance by working at flexible hours within the workplace. The organizations fail to provide challenging situations at work to the candidates thus resulting in a decrease in the interest among the candidates. They should provide career development opportunities in the workplace, thus they attracting right candidates towards the organization (McGinnis Johnson, et al., 2016). These organizations fail to provide training opportunities to the candidates, thus cannot provide any career development opportunity to the candidates.
The employees of these organizations will be able to learn something new and further develop their professional skills. The candidates want to join an organization where they can have access to training to develop their professional career and learn new skills. They want to work in an environment where the employees are encouraged to achieve new professional heights and face challenging situations while working in the organization (Kakar et al., 2015). The HR department of an organization is responsible to create a positive environment within the organization. A positive environment will ensure that there is open and honest communication and interaction among the employees of the organization (Al-Emadi et al., 2015). If there is communication and interaction among the employees of the organization, it will increase the level of performance of the organization. A hostile environment is considered as one of the main reasons for an employeenot attracted towards these organizations. A hostile environment discourages the employees to participate in any work related process within the organization thus affecting their individual and organizational performance.
The employees may not want to remain in the organizations that do not provide a supportive environment in the workplace. Financial needs of an employee can be considered as an important motivational factor, it is not the most important factor (Podger, 2017). The employees want to have suitable work environment along with sufficient pay and other benefits. In case the employees feel that their opinion is valued within the organization, they can choose to leave the organization. Thus the HR department fails to retain the employees of the public sector organizations. Thus decreasing the level of hostility within the these organizations is crucial to attract and retain employees towards the sector.
The main objective of the HR department of the public sector organizations is to increase the cost-effectiveness of the organization, along with the performance of the organization. However, if they are unable to attract new candidates towards the organizations, it will severely hamper the business growth of these organizations. If they are not able to retain the right employees within the organization, they will not be able to maintain the competitive advantage in the market over their competitors. These organizations are unable to provide career development opportunities to the employees, thus encouraging the employees to look for better opportunities in other organizations. They will switch to those organizations which are able to provide better career development opportunities to them as well flexible arrangements for their work (Onah & Anikwe, 2016). They want to maintain the balance between their personal and professional life, which is why tend to switch to different organizations.
The employees want to have suitable work environment along with sufficient pay and other benefits. In case the employees feel that their opinion is valued within the organization, they can choose to leave the organization. Thus the HR department fails to retain the employees of the public sector organizations. They can develop suitable work environment within the organization to attract new employees. Thus the employees of an organization will be able to fell inspired by the work they are doing within the organization and fully commit to the achieving the organizational goals of their organization. They will not leave the organization to look for better opportunities in other organizations. Employees leaving an organization negatively affects the performance of the organization and it also costs operational costs of these public sector organizations.
The public sector organizations will able to face the several challenges faced by the public sector organizations while retaining their employees towards the organization. These challenges are competition from the private sector, where the opportunity for career growth is relatively higher. In private organizations, the employees can get a higher amount of salary for their skills than the public sector organizations. By increasing employee satisfaction is one of the reasons for which the public sector organizations will be able to retain their employees. These employees are generally concerned about how their jobs are perceived by the general public. They will be happy with the responsibilities assigned to them with respect to their skills and abilities (Ibidunni et al., 2016). An employee can leave an organization if the responsibility assigned to him or her do not fulfill their expectations. Another reason an employee can leave a public sector job is that if it fails to provide no learning opportunities for them. Other reasons include hostile work environment, lack of appreciation, stress and work-life imbalance etc. There are two main reasons for employees changing their jobs; job satisfaction in the current job, and expected job satisfaction in the alternative job. The employees who are not satisfied with their current job in the public sector organizations are more likely to switch to other organizations so that they can have a better career opportunity.
The public sector organizations will be able to retain candidates towards the organization, as they provide a supportive environment within their organization (Kaur et al., 2015). The employees want to have higher pay and other benefits from the organization as well they expect a supportive environment from the public sector organizations. Career development does not mean only promotion in the job, it also means the development of professional skills with the help of training provided by the public sector organizations. In absence of positive environment within the organization, the employees of an organization will feel bored and ignored within the organization. So creating a positive environment is crucial to retain their employees. The employees of these organizations will be able to learn something new and further develop their professional skills. The candidates want to join an organization where they can have access to training to develop their professional career and learn new skills. They want to work in an environment where the employees are encouraged to achieve new professional heights and face challenging situations while working in the organization (Kakar et al., 2015). The HR department of an organization is responsible to create a positive environment within the organization. A positive environment will ensure that there is open and honest communication and interaction among the employees of the organization (Al-Emadi et al., 2015). However, if there is no communication and interaction among the employees of the organization, it will reduce the level of performance of the organization. Training will ensure the career growth opportunities of the employees within the organization.
The employees of these organizations will be able to learn something new and further develop their professional skills. The candidates want to join an organization where they can have access to training to develop their professional career and learn new skills. They want to work in an environment where the employees are encouraged to achieve new professional heights and face challenging situations while working in the organization. In case the employees feel that their opinion is valued within the organization, they can choose to stay in the organization. Thus the HR department fails to retain the employees of the public sector organizations. They can develop suitable work environment within the organization to attract new employees. The employees of an organization will be able to fell inspired by the work they are doing within the organization and fully commit to the achieving the organizational goals of their organization. They will not leave the organization to look for better opportunities in other organizations. Employees staying in an organization positively affects the performance of the organization and it also costs operational costs of these public sector organizations.
Conclusion
The paper concludes that employee attraction and retention of employees is the two important aspects by which an organization increases its level of performance. These two strategies enable an organization to increase the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. However, the public sector organizations are facing some challenges while attracting and retaining the right employee within the organization. These organizations are unable to provide any career development and professional development opportunities to their employees, thus prompting them to look for opportunity in other organizations. They are unable to provide flexible work arrangements to their employees, who want to have a work-life balance in their lives. These employees who have access to the career development opportunities within the organization. The organizations who are able to provide better career development opportunity are most likely to attract and retain new employees. Employee satisfaction also increases the attractiveness of the organization, thus further increasing the number of employees within the organization. The employees of an organization will be able to fell inspired by the work they are doing within the organization and fully commit to the achieving the organizational goals of their organization. They will not leave the organization to look for better opportunities in other organizations.
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