Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Personnel Essay example -- Work Wor

Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Personnel INTRODUCTION One of the most critical challenges facing public administration is the recruitment and retention of qualified personnel. While the problem of attracting talent into public service is not new, the introduction and rapid expansion of the high technology and Internet industry, the problem has reached crisis proportions. Both the public and private sector have embraced the Information Age with increasing dependence on a skilled and versatile workforce. Private industry responded by developing greater versatility in expanding and contracting their workforce to compliment the strategic requirements and goals of the organization. Public administration did not adequately recognize the changes in private industry that had such a significant impact on the workforce. In the past twenty years the workforce, who had previously expected to spend their career with a single employer, has adjusted to a norm of changing employers several times, (and in many cases changing career paths). This changi ng expectation of the workforce necessitates not only policy changes in public administration, but far better flexibility in hiring, rewarding and retaining methods. The shift to broader based training and advanced skills have changed the expectations of the workforce. Workers are increasingly less content with remaining within a single occupational discipline and have matched the flexibility and agility of their employers. Public administrators have increasingly recognized the need to modify reward and incentive programs placing much greater emphasis on performance than tenure. Private business, with its ability to change and re-focus strategic goals and objec... ...US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, â€Å"Hiring†, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/hiring/index.html. US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, â€Å"Retention†, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/retention/index.html. US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, â€Å"The defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA)†, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/dawia/index.html. US Department of Defense, Acquisition Managers Recruiting, Hiring and Retention Handbook, â€Å"The DoD Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project (AcqDemo)†, 15 April 2001. Available from: http://gravity.lmi.org/acqbook/acqdemo/index.html.