Unit 3 Discussion 1 – Federal Employment Trends
• Explain the peak of federal employees that occurred in 1990, and project where that number will go given the
current climate in the congress.
• How will this affect public administrators, not only from a human resource perspective, but also in other ways?
• What can a human resources department offer to address the issues that might arise?
• Support your positions with appropriately cited references to the texts or other academically credible sources.
INTRODUCTION
In this unit, you will explore the three main models of service delivery used over the last two hundred years by the
government in the United States. You will explore the advantages and disadvantages of these models of service
delivery. As the staff model has given way to contract models, the ability to change, add, and delete programs has
increased, but the costs of service delivery have gone up. To battle these costs, a new model of supporting faithbased
organizations has emerged that reduces costs (Klingner, Nalbandian, & Llorens, 2010). You should evaluate
features of these models for use within you own organization.
You will discover that changing the status quo in delivery model can be very challenging and complex for a human
resources manager. Understanding both sides of the issues is critical in making the changes to add a new service and
staffing it with a new job design, such as you will do in your course project.
Klingner, D. E., Nalbandian, J., & Llorens, J. (2010). Public personnel management: Contexts and strategies (6th
Unit 3 Study 1- Readings
Use your Public Personnel Management text to complete the following:
• Read Chapter 2, “Doing Public HRM in the United States.”
• Read Chapter 3, “Thinking Strategically About HRM.”
◦ The text will explore traditional assumptions in models of staffing for public service organizations and
challenges to these models. Pay particular attention to the four key recommendations for strategic
thinking about these models, and indicators that the model in use is right for the organization.
• In Chapter 4, “The HR Role in Policy, Budget, Performance Management, and Program Evaluation”:
◦ Read “Case Study #2, Privatization,” page 101.
Process Flow
The term “process flow” is used in your assignment in this unit. Use the following as a working definition:
• A description or visual representation of the organized sequential stages or steps necessary to complete a
procedure resulting in a product or service.
In other words, the process flow is a representation of the HR systems employed to define, fill, and manage a
position.
