JANUARY/JUNE 2011 Development of a Human Resources

JANUARY/JUNE 2011

Development of a HumanResources Development

Strategy in Croatian CivilService

Gordana Marcetic and Dubravka Preiec

Original scientific paperUDC 658.3(497.5)Received in November 2010

The Croatian civil service is determined to be preparedfor the EU membership andto create organisational and cultural environment that can attract, develop and retain

qualified civil servants. Besides creating, amending and revising legal and institutionalprovisions this process will also require a profound change of the administrative andorganizational culture. In the article the authors present legal and policy frameworkin the Croatian civil service system after the fall of socialism and current situation of

the structure of human resources in the civil service, as the reference framework withinwhich the newly adopted 2010-2013 Civil Service HRD Strategy was developed. The

article points to the key issues and problems of Croatian civil service system related torecruitment, career development and rewarding, performance appraisal, education andtraining. It discusses development, content and strategic objectives of the HRD Strategywith special attention on management development and recruitment policy. The authors

conclude that the HRD Strategy represents a qualitative framework for attracting andpromoting high quality, professional, dedicated and motivated individuals in civil service,emphasizing also the importance of connecting civil servant's individual development with

organisational development.

Key words: human resources development, Croatian civil service, civil servants, HRD strategy,management development

1. Introduction

In addition to certain particularities, Croatiahas many similarities with the majority of thecountries in transition in building and developingcivil society institutions, multi-party democracyand free markets, both in relation to the historicallegacy of socialism and in relation to the standardsestablished by the European Union (EU) andthe wider international community. Experiencehas shown that a longer period of time has toelapse for the elements of the old system to be

completely replaced with the new elements. Inaddition to formal - institutional, legislative andorganizational changes, many less visible, subtle

. Gordana Marcetic, PhD, Associate Professor of AdministrativeScience at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia,and Head of the Public Administration Study at the SocialStudies Polytechnics in Zagreb; Dubravka Prelec, MA, ProjectCoordinator and Key Expert on the Danish bilateral assistanceproject Support to Development of a Civil Service HumanResources Development Strategy, implemented by BritishCouncil, Croatia; Deputy Director in the Croatian State Schoolfor Public Administration

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42 CROATIAN iNTERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEW

changes on the social, cultural and psychologicallevel need to happen.

One ofthe key questions is the impact ofthe EUon the direction ofthe development of post-socialistcountries, which is particularly evident in the fieldof administrative reform and the establishment ofmodem civil service systems. All post-socialistcountries, former or current candidates for theEU membership, have, under the guidelines ofthe EU, created and improved their civil servicesystem. Comparative analyses of administrativesystems suggest a strong link between the set EUstandards and the development of civil servicesystems in the countries in transition. Significantcorrelation between the transition process and thedevelopment of modem civil service systems isalso evident. While on the one hand, the transitionprocess directly affects the transformation of therole and status of civil servants in the societyand the development of civil service systems, thespeed and quality of development of civil servicesystems and human resources development (HRD)in public administration influence the directionand quality of the transition process of individualcountry on the other (Marcetic, 2005: 342-343).

A major influence on civil service systems andhuman resources management (HRM) in the coun-tries in transition is an initiative by SIGMA' andthe creation of the so called European Administra-tive Space. SIGMA interprets the requirements ofthe EU in comparison to the countries in transition,codifies forms of administrative standards and as-sesses the administrative capacity of a country(Kopric and Marcetic, 2005:37). Among significantdocuments developed in this field is SIGMA Papernumber 27 which defines European principles forpublic administration. Croatian civil service systemis evaluated according to the following basic pre-conditions for efficient civil service:

(1) Separation between a public sphere and a pri-vate sphere;

(2) Separation between politics and administra-tion;

(3) Development of individual accountability ofcivil servants;

(4) Sufficient job protection, stability, and level ofpay, and clearly defined rights and duties ofcivil servants;

(5) Recruitment and promotion based on merit(SIGMAf27, 1999: 21).

A number of recommendations and EU stan-dards are directed towards the classical Weberadministrative model, highlighting the legal anddemocratic values, disciplined, loyal and politi-cally neutral administration. The focus is on well-educated and well-paid public servants who areprogressing in their careers according to their abil-ities and ensure professional execution of tasks ofpublic administration which are at the service ofpublic interest. Unlike the developed Europeancountries which, to a greater or lesser degree, haveabandoned the traditional administrative model re-placing it with certain elements of the new publicmanagement, the EU considers these features pre-cisely as desirable in the countries in transition. Itis not surprising since most post-socialist admin-istrative systems, including the Croatian system,are dominated by a high degree of politicizationand a lack of professionalism of civil servants, le-gal rules are not respected enough, and are not ap-plied consistently or do not even exist, while newpolitical and administrative institutions are not yetstabilized.

The overall assumption is that the Croatiancivil service per se is determined to be preparedfor the EU membership and to create institutional,organisational and cultural environment that canattract, develop and retain qualified civil servants.Facilitating this process is not merely a matterof creating, amending and revising legal and in-stitutional provisions. This process will require aprofound change of the administrative culture andtherefore the way of thinking of the bearers of thisculture - executives, civil service managers, civilservants and public employees in the wider sense.

The mechanism and the course of EU acces-sion negotiations are demanding and complex inmany aspects. It is evident that they present anenormous constraint on the candidate country - fi-nancial, institutional and administrative - in orderto fulfil the requirements for a future EU mem-bership in a limited period of time during the pre-accession period.

Especially in this context, the Europeanization'of national public policies through the accessionprocess should be reflected in the administrativeset up in order to achieve the required level ofpolicy implementation. It requires a shift inthe perception of what is regarded as "goodgovernance") and transformation of the existent

JANUARY/JUNE 2011 43

(national) traditional administrative structures,styles and paradigms.

Since the aim of the accession negotiations isthat a candidate is ready to fulfil all the prerequisitesofthe membership and demonstrate ability to playits role as a member, the significance of the issueof administrative preparedness is self-evident -no country is able to function as a member statewithout an efficient and well prepared publicadministration.

Among politicians as well as civil serviceexecutives, managers and staff there is anincreasing recognition of urgent needs of profoundchanges within the spheres of HRM and HRD inpublic sector in order to benefit fully from thereforms of the legal and institutional framework.

2. Legal and policy framework

After the fall of socialism Croatia relativelyquickly adopted the Civil Service Act in 1994which promoted career civil service system andwhich was replaced in 2001 by the new one, whichpromoted the opposing position-based concept.Five years later the Civil Service Act, which wasdrafted under the EU financed CARDS4 project,came into force on January 1,2006. It is generallyconsidered to comprise some improvements incomparison to the previous law from 2001 andthereby to coincide with basic European standardsand values, including among others:• depoliticization of the positions of Secretaries

General of the ministries, Assistant Ministers(who became Directors), Deputy Secretary ofthe Croatian Parliament, Deputy Secretary ofthe Government, Heads of the GovernmentOffices, Deputy State Secretaries ofthe CentralState Offices, Deputy and Assistant Directorsof State Administration Organizations;

• an obligation for all state bodies with more than50 employees to set up HRM departments;

• new uniform recruitment procedures in thecivil service and the objective selection ofcandidates who have applied in response toan announcement, through mandatory testingof their knowledge, skills and abilities and theintroduction of some principles of "the meritsystem";

• a basis for the civil servants' training systemwith particular emphasis on the Civil ServiceTraining Centre;

• the establishment of a special body responsiblefor dealing with appeals against decisions byheads of state bodies in the field of civil servicerelationships (the Civil Service Board).

In normative sense, the law in question wasadopted at short notice with some "cosmetic"changes and is deficient in as far as it omits andonly partly regulates basic institutes of civilservants' system. Basic institutes - classificationof working posts, promotion and remuneration -are not regulated by the law, but left for regulationby secondary legislation (decrees and rulebooks).In the following period a chaos in implementationcaused by the missing secondary legislationdecreased after the by-laws had been adopted.

The salary system which should follow thenew classification has not as yet been established,for a separate Civil Servants' Salaries Act has notbeen adopted and the salaries are paid accordingto the old law dating from 2001.

In that sense the Governmental Decree onCivil Service Jobs Classification de facto cannotand has not been implemented in practice.

The policy documents which recognize theimportance of civil servants' system improvementare the Government of the Republic of CroatiaMandate Programme for 2008-2011, the StrategicDevelopment Framework for 2006-2013 and theState Administration Reform Strategy for 2008-2011.

The Government Programme establishes thefollowing objectives in the area of public admin-istration: "Public administration reform is one ofkey factors of further development of the Republicof Croatia. A good quality, professional and quickpublic administration stands as a precondition foraccelerating the economic development and forguaranteeing the preservation of public interest.The guiding thought is that public administrationexists because of citizens, rather than citizens forthe sake of the administration". The State Admin-istration Reform Strategy identifies a need for en-suring a greater degree of decision-making decen-tralisation and a greater individual accountabilityof civil servants in terms of attaining the set ob-jectives as per the agreed work plans and a moreprecise definition of work assignments and dutiesof civil servants. Moreover, it identifies a need for

44 CROATIAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEW

4. HRM and HRD - challenges in practiceensuring objective and measurable criteria for ap-praising performance and quality of work againstthe set and expected results.

3. Human resources in the civil service -current state of affairs

According to the available data of the Ministryof Administration, the number of civil servantscurrently employed in the state bodies is 49,977.In terms of the structure, the largest stake pertainsto civil servants holding secondary educationqualifications (28,576), followed by those withuniversity degrees (14,898). The least representedare the civil servants holding 2-year universitydegrees (6,523).

The state bodies employ a total of 21,205 fe-male and 28,792 male staffs, in which female staffis more represented in the structure of civil ser-vants with university degrees, whereas male staffhave greater representation amongst civil servantswith 2-year university and secondary school qual-ifications (Table 1).

The highest number of civil servants withsecondary school qualifications is employed inthe Ministry of Interior. Should this number beexcluded from the structure above, the number ofcivil servants with secondary school qualificationswould be lower than the number of civil servantsholding a 4-year university qualification.

In the majority of other state bodies the civilservants with university qualifications prevail,but their number is too low. The analysis madein 2007 and 2008 within the functional reviewsof statebodies and their agencies' shows that inalmost all reviewed organizations a majority ofcivil servants have university education, but italso shows that the number of staff is lower thanenvisaged by the rulebooks on internal order(Table 2).

The main reason for vacant posts for whicha university degree is required is an inappropriaterewarding system as compared to the privatesector, especially where highly educated expertsare concerned. Due to low salaries and unattainablepromotion, the civil service is not an attractiveworking place, especially for economists, lawyers,psychologists and IT-specialists (!MO, 2008: 35-36).

4.1 Recruitment

Annual Civil Service Admission Plans have beenin place and gazetted since 2006. Even though thereis an option to pass medium- and long-term plans,these have not been to date. The civil service HRplanning has not become a sufficiently systematicprocess and it does not follow organisationalneeds stemming from a dynamic environment. Abroader lack of strategic HRM is reflected in aninadequate distribution of civil servants in respectof their skills, knowledge and abilities neededfor individual jobs. Inadequate planning causesexcessive workload, dissatisfaction and lack ofmotivation for some civil servants.

At the normative level, the recruitment inthe civil service is merit-based and implementedthrough an open and competitive procedure. Priorto its announcement, a vacancy may be filled fromamong the existing civil servants through an inter-nal announcement. In the formal one, the selectionof candidates is based on their academic qualifica-tions, skills, prior professional experience and theresults of a written examination and an interview.However, there are no adequate criteria or proce-dures to examine competencies needed for a jobposition, which is a consequence of inadequate-ly described job positions. Personal favouritism,nepotism and political loyalty still seem to governa considerable amount of executive decisions con-cerning selection of staff and promotion. A largenumber of legalistic obstacles prevent the imple-mentation of a true merit-based, transparent andfair recruitment and career system.

To ensure legality and impartiality of the re-cruitment procedure, the Ministry of Administra-tion has to appoint its representative in all com-missions charged with conducting a recruitmentprocedure organised either internally or via an ex-ternal announcement. In practice these representa-tives are neither properly trained to act in a uni-form manner in the recruitment commissions normotivated, and thus their involvement sometimescomes down to a mere formality.

\1

The selection and recruitment procedure forsenior management positions is less demandingthan for other civil service positions. Most of thesenior civil servants are recruited after an inter-

JANUARY/JUNE 2011

Table 1: Breakdown of civil servants by qualification and gender

Level of educationGender Gender and

State bodies4-year 2-year High Gender Total Education

TOTALUniversity University School

Ministries5.870 2.203 7.873 F 15.946 41.8835.573 3.307 17.057 M 25.93711.443 5.510 24.930

Central State Offices 54 1 12 F 67 10128 0 6 M 3482 1 18

State Administrative 848 217 879 F 1.944Organizations 779 236 844 M 1.859

3.803

1.627 453 1.723State Administration 812 381 1214 F 2.546 3.276

Offices in the Counties 354 134 381 M 7301.166 515 1.595

Governmental Offices 117 8 101 F 226 29139 8 18 M 65156 16 119

Other State Bodies? 320 23 133 F 476 643104 5 58 M 167424 28 191

Education and Gender 8.021 2.833 10.351 F 21.205TOTAL 49.997

6.877 3.690 18.225 M 28.792Level of Education 14.898 6.523 28.576Total

Source: Ministry of Administration, 2009

Other State Bodies'- The Professional Service of the Parliament, the Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia,the Office of the Ombudsman, the Office of the Ombudsman for Children, the Office ofthe Ombudsman for Gender Equality,the Office of the Ombudsman for Persons with Disabilities, the State Audit Office, the State Electoral Committee ProfessionalService; data excluding the judicial bodies and the Professional Service of the Constitutional Court.

Table 2: Number of envisaged working posts according to the Rulebooks of internal order andnumber of employed civil servants (December 31, 2007)

Mlnlstries" MJ MSES MFVI MC MF MEPC MELE MSTD CSOA SI

Numberofworking posts 3361 353 332 546 ~~a 647 330 1181 105 140

Numberof staff 615 86 118211 469 7659 536 2402931 290

Ministries? - MJ: Ministry of Justice, MSES: Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, MFVI: Ministry of Family,Veterans' Affairs and Inter-generational Solidarity, MC: Ministry of Culture, MF: Ministry of Finance, MEPC: Ministry ofEnvironmental Protection, Physical Planning and Construction, MELE: Ministry of Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship,MSTD: Ministry of the Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development, CSOA: Central Sate Office for Administration, SI: StateInspectorate.

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view usually conducted by a single person - a headof an institution or another authorised person. Theappointments are made by the Government and inpractice they continue to be political. That practiceis supported by the Civil Service Act provisionsand the Government Decree on Civil Service JobsClassification.

At the normative level, the Civil Service Acthad initiated the process of depoliticization whichhad an aim to professionalise the civil service byrequiring government officials to pass a standardpublic announcement recruitment procedure ifwishing to retain their position of a high level civilservant. Upon the formal assumption of the office,the new Government was faced with the need toimplement this provision. Since this concerns topcivil servant positions, it is a logical presumptionthat persons employed in these positions shouldpossess the highest level of expertise and knowl-edge, if compared to their subordinates. This isa provision of the Decree on Civil Service JobsClassification in 2007. However, in 2008 the Gov-ernment amended this Decree and added the Arti-cle 29 which refers to the criteria for appointmentof persons to all positions listed in the transitionalprovision of the Civil Service Act (Article 151),which were significantly alleviated when com-pared to the original Decree. In addition to the factthat leading senior civil servants under this provi-sion are eligible for their jobs according to lowercriteria than those required for a number of civilservant jobs, they are exempt from undergoingtesting oftheir knowledge and skills in the recruit-ment process. In their case, the recruitment com-mission only establishes minimum requirementsfor appointment, while the head of the institutionproposes to the Government the candidates forthe appointment to these positions. Of course, inthat case the actual selection of the leading civilservants is not made based on assessing and com-paring the professional qualities of the candidateby the recruitment commission. Instead, the selec-tion is made following an agreement between theheads of individual governmental organizationsand the Government.

4.2 Career development and rewarding

The Civil Service Act establishes the criteria forthe possibility of promotion, but there is neitherobligation nor established basic framework forpromotion and salary increase system. The law

prescribes that prior to its announcement a va-cancy may be filled from among the existing civilservants through an internal announcement or atransfer. As the promotion system is not imple-mented in practice, the transfers are used for pro-motion. It is one of the ways to avoid both internalannouncement and open competition procedure.

In addition to regular promotion avenues, nor-mative regulations provide for extraordinary pro-motion to enable accelerated promotion of quali-fied young professionals, which has been veryrarely implemented in practice. It also serves as areward for civil servants who continue to work ontheir academic or professional education in areasrelated to their job.

There is a practice in which semonty stillcontinues to be a very common reason forpromotion, especially on the first line-managementposition (head of unit, head of department) whileother (non)competencies of civil servants arenot taken into consideration when a decision ismade. Sometimes even important changes inthe organizational structure (establishment of adepartment, sector or directorate) are driven bya decision to reward a civil servant for hisfherloyalty neglecting all other factors in assessingsuitability for promotion (all management skillsand previous working results).

Despite the existing regulations allowing forwork from detached sites, part-time work andwork outside the civil service, these flexible work-ing conditions, which would influence motivationand performance of civil servants, are either rarelyor not at all used in practice.

Further development of a civil service meritbased recruitment and career advancement systemand the parallel depoliticization of managerial po-sitions are the means which shall ensure increasedprofessionalism and a significant reduction of staffturnover at all levels.

Due to an underdeveloped and unjust remu-neration system that has been in place to date,some civil servants decide to leave the civil ser-vice for better paid jobs in other sectors. There isa frequent practice of putting new, unnecessaryinternal organisational units in place to rewardand motivate good quality civil servants, simplybecause there are no adequate positions to which


they could be promoted. Furthermore, this prac-tice is sometimes employed to reward loyalty ofsome civil servants.

4.3 Performance appraisal

Managerial methods have brought significantchanges in the systems of remuneration and ca-reer advancement. The system of automatic ad-vancement (characteristic of the career systems)is becoming more similar to the open system ofadvancement (characteristic of job classificationsystem) by introducing performance assessment(France, Hungary, etc.). There have appeared newtypes of stimulation in the form of different bo-nuses for exceptional performance at work, whileclassic career advancement is much more frequent-ly accompanied by financial rewards as alternativeor complementary stimulation. Two thirds of theOECD countries have introduced some forms ofremuneration models based on performance intotheir civil service systems, or are in the process ofintroducing such models. Nevertheless, the degreeof implementation varies significantly. The mod-els vary depending on the nature of civil servants'and salaries systems and the level of centralizationor delegation in management of financial and hu-man resources, but even so some general and com-mon trends are visible (OECD, 2003: 2-4).

The purpose of performance assessmentshould be to motivate civil servants to performtheir duties efficiently and to establish the contri-bution civil servants give in the performance oftheir duties as a bonus and career advancementcriterion. Performance appraisal which is basedon the MB06 principles has been implemented inall Croatian state administration bodies. The pro-cess of performance appraisal is an annual processwhich starts with a conversation (interview) withthe purpose of establishing working tasks andobjectives followed by continuous monitoring ofperformance - advice, support and amendments oftasks and objectives. During the final conversationthe evaluation of tasks performed and objectivesattained are done and the overall performancerated. The form (report) is filled during conversa-tions and agreement between the civil servant andhislher superior is being made.

However, the objective setting process itself, alack of experience in providing feedback, the non-existence of uniform standards and guidelines and

the fact that the decision on performance appraisalcomes in the shape of an administrative act (signedby a head of a state body), prevent performanceappraisal from becoming a development tool to-wards improved productivity and raised motiva-tion of civil servants. Moreover, the Civil ServiceAct does not relate pay to performance and theCivil Servants' Salaries Act which should regulateincrease in salary based on performance evalua-tion has not been adopted. Since the criterion ofperformance does not have an important role ina civil servant's career, the performance appraisalis not a reliable indicator of quality performance.Thus, over 90% of civil servants have high andthe highest performance appraisal rates (Marcetic,2005: 313-314). Civil Servants' Salaries Actwhich has been in preparation for more than twoyears should enable results-based rewarding andadvancement to high expert positions for civil ser-vants, which would reflect on their payroll.

It must be borne in mind that performanceassessment of civil servants can produce moredamage than benefit if it is not objective and if it isnot implemented according to the prescribed criteriaand defined standards. Applicable, transparent andfair criteria for performance assessment have tobe put in place - setting new standards for under-performance, acceptable performance and over-average performance. That may require a "cultural"revolution among managers related to their way ofgiving feedback and evaluating performances. Itincludes recognition of some general errors thatappear in the systems which have been using themechanism of performance evaluation. Amongthem some are individual and refer to the evaluatorpersonally, such as "hallo" effect, "pitch-fork"effect, recency error, length of service bias, and soon (Beaumont, 2002: 78), but also errors caused byorganizational and structural characteristics whichcan result in many other errors in performanceappraisal (Daley, 1998: 380-383).

4.4 Education and training

Many transition countries have developed anumber of higher education institutions foreducation of civil servants. In addition to academicand educational institutions, many centres fortraining and specialization of civil servants wereestablished (Marcetic, 2005: 280-301). Despitea great number of offers, in many post-socialistcountries civil service training (CST) is still


carried out partially and ad hoc, and not as partof an integrated system. Most of these countrieshave not developed a public administrationreform strategy or the CST strategy. They havegenerally not performed a detailed analysis ofcurrent situation with regard to the knowledgeand skills of civil servants and related forms ofCST. They do not have elaborated programmes,indicating short, medium and long term goals orsystems for evaluating the results of a CST. Theylack the HR staff specialized for the CST. Theseproblems become even bigger due to lack of fundsand because the managers often fail to recognizethe importance of CST (Serban, 2003: 38).

CST is widely understood by the countries in theBalkan region as intimately linked to the objectivesand processes of public administration reforms andthe related HRM modernization efforts. The com-mon main goal of CST is to obtain modem, profes-sional and competent personnel in administration,delivering quality public services to citizens. Thisgoal includes effectiveness and efficiency in theprocess ofEU integration (RESPA, 2009). A centralorganization was established in each country, ac-cording to special legislation (law or decree) whichis responsible directly to the Prime Minister or to theGovernment'. As in other East European countries,international bilateral and multilateral assistanceplays an important role in civil service training.Those programmes often support the activities ofthe central institutions for CST which, in addition toindependently conducting national civil service pro-grammes financed from the state budget, implementa range of programmes in cooperation with foreignpartners. It should, however, be mentioned that theevaluation ofTAP8 programmes that were previous-ly conducted in some other post-socialist countries(Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Ukraine) showedmuch lower levels of TAP-efficiency in relation tothe national civil service training programmes (Gaj-duschek and Hajnal, 2003: 73-74).

Continuous improvement of professionalknowledge and skills is a formal requirement forall civil servants. An integral civil servants' gen-eral training system is established and deliveredcentrally by the Civil Service Training Centrewithin the Ministry of Administration accordingto the Civil Servants' Training Strategy for 2004-2009. Each state body may organise specific spe-cialized training programmes separately, in accor-dance with their institutional needs. In addition,

civil servants are allowed to attend specialisedtraining programmes outside the civil service inorder to improve their knowledge and skills.

Newly employed civil servants are being in-troduced to the civil service through training pro-grammes, whilst trainees are also included in thementoring system. Regardless of the fact that theimportance of the mentoring system was recog-nised in regulatory terms, there is a range of ob-stacles for its implementation - restrictive require-ments for mentors, a lack of a mentor training pro-gramme and a lack of funds allocated for mentors'fees.

After the probation period, the civil servantsare obliged to pass the state exam. Currently thereis no analysis of the extent to which an examtaken ensures that necessary knowledge, skillsand competences have been acquired. Given thelimited resources and the recommended positiveapproach to motivation and personal development,it would be worthwhile to consider whether or notthe current state exam system produces resultscommensurate to financial and human resourcesinvested or another, more modem approach toensuring the necessary skills and knowledge couldbe applied through a structured mentoring system.

In spite of achieved progress, there is stillno complete and coherent system of in-servicetraining. Decentralized training programmes inindividual ministries, as well as the programmesimplemented through various international proj-ects, are not coordinated or harmonized with thegeneral programmes of the CST, resulting in ir-rational spending of funds and certain overlap-ping and discrepancies in some areas. Althoughthe Training Centre has upgraded the contents ofCST programmes for civil servants, it is necessaryto continuously work on their development. Theprogrammes should be more directly related to theactivities performed by the trainees in administra-tive organizations, and seek a higher quality of thecontent and trainers. It is necessary to establish anintegrated and coordinated system of in-servicetraining that will be connected to educational in-stitutions and public administration studies andthat would cover all levels of the territorial admin-istrative system. However, for that to happen it isnecessary to provide the Centre with much moresubstantial financial, personal and professionalsupport". A civil service career development pro-


gramme has been developed. The purpose of theprogramme has to do with the concept of careerdevelopment through a programme which wouldallow a civil servant to explore and improve his/her management potential, while enabling mana-gerial staffs to pinpoint potential future candidatesfor management positions.

The existing civil service HRD system shouldimprove and keep upgrading. The establishmentof a comprehensive HRD framework will makethe civil service capable of overcoming theproblems mentioned earlier and responding to allnew challenges yet to come.

5. Development of the strategy and keyfindings

5.1 Content and strategic objectives

2005 United Nations World Public Sector Reportrecommended the development of national strate-gies for HRM based on the best features of all threebasic models - the traditional public administra-tion, public management and good governance 10.

The report highlights that each model offers theessential elements that contribute to the improve-ment of HRM in the public sector. United prin-ciples of such a synthetic model can be conciselyexpressed in terms of impartiality, professional-ism and responsibility. The basic framework for amodel of HRM in public administration should bebased on the following components (UNIWPSR,2005: 69):

1. A politically impartial, professional and merit-based civil service;

2. A core "guardian" agency, exercising strategicleadership and monitoring a system of dispersedmanagement rather than operating throughbureaucratic controls;

3. A strong focus on results-oriented managementin the public service through the use of effectiveperformance standards and indicators as wellas promotion criteria giving greater weight torelative efficiency (rather than relying only onseniority);

4. Tough, objective anti-corruption rules andagencies;

5. Legislative provisions and professional normsthat facilitate making the civil service open toexternal scrutiny;

6. Systems and skill sets that provide high levelsof communication capacity through being

networked by the effective deployment ofinformation technology.

The concept of the strategic HRM appearedat the beginning of the 1990s, after the managerialconcept had already shown certain weaknesses. Itstresses the need of systematic HRD in order toachieve the strategic goals of organisation, organi-sational competences and efficiency. The strategicapproach requires explicit, two-way channels be-tween the real nature of the decisions concerningHRM and the real nature of the exterior, competi-tive strategy of an organisation. It means that HRMdetermines the successfulness of an organisation'sbusiness strategy, while the organisation's busi-ness strategy determines the goals, sets the models,and directs the development and methods ofHRM.Thus, an organisation has two strategies, exterior,whose purpose is to find ways for competitivenesson the market, and interior, which is oriented to-wards development, motivation, and the control ofinterior potentials (Beaumont, 2002: 16-19).

One should bear in mind that the strategicmanagement of human resources is the conceptthat is conceived as an idea in the private sectorto enhance the competitiveness of organizationsin the market. However, public organizationscan never decide autonomously on the strategiccomponents as can organizations in the privatesector. The issues of the mission, objectives,content and financing activities of publicorganizations, as well as ways of evaluating theexecution of tasks, depend on political decisionsand numerous conflicting interests which arisefrom competing values in public administration. Indetermining the strategies of public organizationsoutdoor environment is a crucial factor, while theproblems related to HRM in public administrationare political and not technical. In this sense, thestrategy-making process is more complex, andeffects it would produce are less predictable(Marcetic, 2005: 166-171).

HRD is concerned with change at all levelsboth organisational and personal, and shouldensure that the personal development of staff linksin with declared organisational objectives andperformance targets. But, the practice often showsthat there is a lack of understanding about theimportance ofthe comprehensive and participativeapproach to strategy development. The newlyadopted Civil Service HRD Strategy for 2010-


2013 is a qualitative framework for attracting andpromoting high quality, professional, dedicatedand motivated individuals in civil service. Thedrafting process of the HRD Strategy is a resultof cooperation between the experts and civilservants but the last say is made by politics. Theparticipants were ministries' Secretaries Generaland HR department heads and staff. A SWOTanalysis was conducted and a draft vision, missionand strategic objectives proposal were producedto serve as the groundwork for the developmentof the Strategy. The process of drafting the ActionPlan for implementation of the Strategy wasorganised in the same, participative manner.

The Strategy establishes vision, missionand fundamental civil service values. The visionstatement gives a description of the civil servicethat will in the long term be a "professional,accountable, flexible and transparent civil service,user-oriented through its quality services andfounded upon professional values".

The aim is to develop a new type of civil service- it needs to be creative, innovative, flexible, andcapable to rapidly adapt to change. HRD shallproduce competent civil servants, capable ofand committed to delivering quality services tothe citizens. The mission as a tool to achieve theset vision is "creating conditions conducive toattracting, motivating and retaining good qualitycivil servants and continuous development oftheir competencies". Shared values compriseservice oriented behaviour and ethics that promoteunquestionable accountability and transparency atall levels of administration.

The values are: Professionalism, Accountabil-ity, Ethics, Impartiality and Efficiency. Acceptanceand application of these core values by staff aswell as employers will contribute significantly tothe achievement of the highest possible standardsin all aspects of civil service responsibilities. Civilservants operate in a professional manner, whichimplies their competence and ability to performtheir jobs within the administration. Civil ser-vants assume the responsibility for their work andtreat everyone with respect. They are expected tocommunicate effectively and to work together to-wards the organisational objectives. In their com-munication with the citizens, civil servants mustabide by the principles of fairness, equality andinformation, and they are obliged to carry out de-

cisions legally in their dealings with the society atlarge. Impartiality of civil servants reflects in theirobjective behaviour regardless of parting convic-tions and excludes political patronising, nepotism,corruption and any other form of favouring oth-ers. Efficiency is an important integral part of or-ganisational performance and an indicator of bothwork quantity and quality.

Main strategic objectives are to:

• Improve managers' development system;• Conduct continuous civil servants' training;• Improve recruitment system;• Improve the career development and good

quality civil servants' retention system;• Improve organisational development.

The Croatian civil service should offer oppor-tunities for development and advancement throughimproved performance and career managementand development. Individuals are responsible forseeking opportunities for development and pro-motion in line with their own career aspirations.Managers have a responsibility for supportingand encouraging their staff to take advantage ofeducation and training opportunities and manag-ers' performance should be assessed, among otherthings, on whether they have fulfilled this respon-sibility. New directions of Croatian civil servicedevelopment are focused on changes in organiza-tional structure, system of rewards and incentives,management, leadership, teamwork and coopera-tion. These changes will enable improvements inthe basic organizational models in their decision-making processes, information flow and commu-nication.

The authors would like to emphasise theimportance of key strategic issues that shouldbe given special attention to in the sense of highpriority implementation of activities related tothem.

5.2 Management development

It is particularly important to start with the imple-mentation of the first strategic objective, as manyof senior civil servants are not actually publicmanagers competent in strategy and policy devel-opment, in organization management and othermanagerial skills. Instead, they are politically suit-able persons who were recruited in public compe-


tition procedure, de facto and de iure appointed bythe Government.

A new classification envisages a job descrip-tion adjustment to ensure better definition of au-thority and responsibilities of civil servants. How-ever, they have not been clearly defined in the areaof HR management and development. In practice,decision-making is mostly centralized at the high-est levels of hierarchy. Communication mainlyflows vertically across the hierarchy, while pow-ers of middle- and lower-management are limited.

The implementation of the ManagementTraining Programme started in 2008. In keepingwith the Decree on Civil Service Jobs Classifica-tion, a total of 908 managerial staff was obligedto take part in the programme. The results of the2010 Training Needs Assessment confirmed thatthis programme was recognised as an importantone, and a large number of managers expressedtheir interest to voluntarily take part in it. There-fore, maximum capacities should be provided toimplement the Management Training Programme,while financial and organisational resources, andqualified trainers, available for management train-ing and professional improvement should be sub-stantially increased.

In Western European countries the trainingcourses on institutions, ED legislation andmanagement programmes are among the maindevelopment programmes for managers (Maor,2000: 9-10). In countries in transition the situationis different because of the lack of administrativeand managerial professions, and lack of coherenceand coordination between organizations and HRM.Therefore, programmes should focus primarily onthe separation of political and professional leadingpositions and on defining the rights, obligationsand responsibilities of the leading staff in thecivil service. Furthermore, the quality of civilservants should be improved through selection,training and career development. Moreover,within the administration a central capacity shouldbe established for the management of leadingstaff and a separate system of unified selection,appointment and career development for the topleading positions (Synnerstrom, 2002: 1-2, 5-17).The latter trend is evident in many developedcountries. For example, typical systems of jobsclassification (American, British, Norwegian, etc.)that used to be more flexible, more individualized,

and much more decentralized now give biggerrole to the central bodies in charge of HRM andcentralize their systems of top human resourcesmanagement (OECD-HRM, 2004: 6).

A key role for managers is to become moreproactive about development - they should expectand help to support the efforts of employeesto learn and develop. If they are more directlyinvolved there will be a better quality of learningand development at work for organisations andindividuals. Their involvement will lead to atransformation of managers themselves. The finaladvantage is that they, as developers of people,can contribute to a broader organisational changeand transformation of human relations at work.

According to Doyle (2000) in the contextof organisational change "managers at all levels- but more especially those in the middle - areconstantly being reminded of their pivotal roleand the "criticality" of the strategic influence theyexert in respect of organisational performance andrenewal. At an individual level, it is considered thatManagement Development can assist managersto unlearn their old ways, change their attitudes,modify their management styles and update theirprofessional skills. At the organisational level,arguments are made that it can operate as a catalystand a means to transform the organisation byencouraging managers to innovate and provide theknowledge and skills to manage radical change".

"The skills of line managers to offerleadership, involve employees, manage change,communicate and motivate, will be an importantelement in affecting the level and nature ofemployee commitment" (Thornhill and Saunders,1998: 463). The practices of line managers affectthe level of employee commitment. Any resistanceon the part of an organisation's line managers willdilute attempts to translate policy into practice.

Management development and trammgcomprising also the development of appropriatemanagerial and leadership skills are essentialto facilitate professionalization process andensure an adequate capacity at managementlevel. The emancipation of managers from unduepolitical influence and the professionalization ofmanagement - in particular generic management- seem to be one of the most basic preconditionsfor better HR in civil service. A comprehensive,


strategic, transparent and uniform approach toHRD has to be supported by a genuine and profoundchange in management style and practices.

How people are engaged, treated anddeveloped in the change process will ultimatelydetermine whether the staff is productive or not.Thus, effective leadership and management oforganizations are crucial to the success of stateadministration reform.

5.3 Recruitment policy

New methods and techniques of HRM havebrought significant changes into the traditionalcivil servants' systems, particularly in the fieldsof recruitment and remuneration. Comparativeresearches of managerial reforms in OECD coun-tries have shown certain cornmon characteristics,such as (1) equalising work conditions in thepublic and private sectors, (2) decentralisation ofcompetences from the central personnel servicesto the level of individual ministries and organisa-tions, (3) recruitment of civil servants of differ-ent professions, (4) introduction of limited termcontracts for civil servants and employees, (5) es-tablishment of special services for directing pro-fessional development and issuing bonuses for thebest servants, (6) introduction of a remunerationsystem that depends on performance at work, etc.(Jann and Reichard, 2001: 103).

Recruitment is an important process, andalthough considered to be a part of HRM, otherHR policies including HRD heavily depend onthe effectiveness of this process. Selection criteriashould be based on competencies rather thanundue over-emphasis on academic qualifications.Competency based selection presumes that theorganization will identify which qualificationsand skills are necessary for a certain job andthen find the ways of the assessment of thesequalities in a recruitment procedure. The selectionprocedure represents a prediction of a candidate'sfuture performance quality based on informationcollected by certain methods and techniques. Thusits level of success essentially depends on qualityof used methods and techniques which "measure"individual traits. The methods and techniquesmust have checked and defined metricalcharacteristics which enable judgement of theirprognostic validity of which the most importantare: objectivity, sensibility, reliability and validity(Hays, 1998: 312).

The most recognized and cornmon method ofselection in civil service is public announcement.It has to be accessible for as broader circle ofinterested persons as possible and many civilservice systems prescribe an obligation of itsannouncement in the press. According to the lawprior to its announcement a vacancy may be filledfrom among the existing civil servants through aninternal announcement or a transfer. It is not rarethat the public announcement is bypassed thusenabling no transparent transfers of civil servantsfor which monitoring mechanism does not exist(see 4.2).

The Civil Service Act prescribes the exami-nation procedure based on the examination ofknowledge and interviews. There are no criteriafor construction of exams and there are inconsis-tencies in their length and content and it is notdefined whether they should measure knowledge,skills or performance. Procedure is too long (even6 to 9 months), there are no patterned interviews,and the final report prepared by the recruitmentcommission is not obligatory for the head of statebody who makes the final decision. The fact that ahead of institution is not obliged to confirm a firstlisted candidate calls into question the objectiv-ity of time-consuming and expensive recruitmentprocedure and the recruitment commissions are inthat case reduced to formality, As stated before therecruitment of higher managers suffer even largerirregularities (see 4.1). .

Having an effective selection and recruitmentsystem in place helps the organizations to selectthe right people for the right jobs. Improvedrecruitment shall ensure increased professionalismand a significant reduction of staff turnover at alllevels, especially at the management level. So, aquestion of attracting bright and competent peopleis still a key issue for Croatian civil service.

6. Conclusions

There are different ways of public administrationreform, However, it is obvious that the radicalmanagerial approach is not appropriate for post-socialist countries whose transition to the newsocial and political systems is burdened withnumerous political, economic, and social issues.Modernisation ofthe Croatian civil service systemand hannonisation with European standards shouldnot be seen as mechanical and undiscriminatingcopying of western models, but as the process of

JANUARY/JUNE 2011 53creating a responsible, law-abiding, and politicallyneutral public administration. The basic orientationought to be towards the professionalization ofpublic servants and strengthening the status ofquality servants, depoliticization of top positionedpersonnel, and introduction of the merit principlein the civil servants' regulations and practiceof administrative organisations. That requiresnumerous measures at normative, organisational,personnel, and technical levels, at all levels of theterritorial administrative system.

The adoption of HRD Strategy for Croatiancivil service means one step further towards theseobjectives is. The missing, strategic frameworkfor HRD has been put in place now and the changeprocess can be accelerated in order to attract,develop and retain bright and competent people inthe civil service.

Like many other reform activities in Croatia,the civil servants' system reforms often remain onnormative and declarative level with no politicalcommitment and preparedness for introduction ofthorough organizational, functional and personalchanges. These processes demand strong politicalcommitment, which means that the politicianshave to show willingness to invest in improvingthe competencies of civil servants. Politicalsupport (or lack of it) has consequently anenormous impact on the success and continuity ofadministrative reforms.

Therefore, there is a strong need for a structurein place that all political options would considerfavourable and functioning in the commonnational interest.

As the implementation of the strategic andcomprehensive HRD system is in its beginning in

the Croatian civil service, it represents a challengeand opportunity to conduct it properly. It must nothappen that it becomes isolated from other aspectsofHRM, especially remuneration and careers paths.It could result then in the "dispersion of actions,lack of communications and the establishment ofa system based on isolated training interventions"(United Nations, 2005: 33).

The Ministry of Administration is faced withmultiple challenges in this process with regardto HRD. It should establish a clear link betweenthe State Administration Reform Strategy andthe HRD strategy. It has to develop effectivecoordination and cooperation between the variousactors in the sector - notably the respective lineministries and their internal HRD units. HRDmeasures as an integral part of the structuralreform and organisational process should beestablished thus corresponding to the needs inpublic sector. They have to be actively applied insupport of respective state administration reformand pre-accession process.

Finally, we emphasize the importance ofconnecting civil servant's individual developmentwith organisational development. The traditionalHRD based on organizational stability and uniformCST oriented towards career development hasbeen replaced with modem HRD oriented towardsstrategic personnel development through integrityin organisational mission and its objectives. Besideinitial trainings it includes renewed trainings,refocusing and change of management style andsystems, it spreads over individual career andintegrates with organisational development whichwas previously disconnected from individual'sdevelopment (Wart, 1998: 277-278).


1 L SIGMA - Support for Improvement in Governance andManagement - is a joint initiative of the Organisation for Eco-nomic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Euro-pean Community (EC), principally financed by the EC

2 Europeanization is a term used to describe the influence ofthe EU membership or pre-accession process in creating poli-tics, policies or their implementation.

3 White Paper on European Governance by the EuropeanCommission, 2001, states 5 basic political principles regardedas essential for organizing the way the EU functioning and pro-moting reforms - openness, participation, accountability, effec-tiveness and coherence; the EU is its Member states, so na-tional structures implementing policies should respond to thoserequirements (European Commission, 2001: 10).

4 CARDS - Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Devel-opment and Stabilisation

5 Functional reviews and assistance in the restructuring ofpublic administration bodies and their subordinate agencies inCroatia, project of Public Administration Reform of Swedish In-ternational Development Agency (SIDA) and the InternationalBank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), implement-ed by the Institute for International Relations (IMO), Zagreb,Croatia.

6 Management by objectives

7 In Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the state level, there is Agencyfor Civil Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RESPA. 2008). Inaddition, in the Federation there is Agency for Civil Service ofBosnia and Herzegovina Federation (ADS, 2009) in BiH Fed-eration, and the same institutions - Agency for Civil Service Re-public of Srpska (2002) in Republic of Srpska (ADU, 2009) andThe Brcko District Sub-Department for Personnel and Salariesin District of Brcko (RESPA, 2008). Kosovo has a special De-partment of Civil Service Administration within the Ministry ofPublic Services (SIGMA, 2006:4) and, within the same Ministry,an executive agency The Kosovo Institute for Public Adminis-tration - KIPA (UNMIK, 2003). There is Agency for Civil Servicein Macedonia (Analytica, 2007:4-5) and Personnel Administra-tion in Montenegro (GOV, 2009). Serbia established HumanResource Management Service within the Ministry of State Ad-ministration and LS government (Zlatanovic and Antonljevic,

NOTES

2007:2-3), and Slovenia established a Division for training andprofessional examinations of public servants (formerly Admin-istrative Academy) within the Ministry of Public Administration.

S TAP - Training Assistance Project. These are civil servicetraining programmes that are financed by foreign donor organi-zations for a certain period

9 The SIGMA report on the progress of reforms of the CroatianGovernment in 2008 (Croatia Public Service and the Adminis-trative Framework: Assessment June 2008) justifiably pointsout that there is insufficient understanding of the necessity ofin-service training as part of the public administration reformand that it is necessary to increase funds in the state budgetused for professional training of civil servants in order to ensurethe change of culture in public administration. From a total ofHRK 5.8 million requested funds for training programmes in the2008, only 1.73 million were allocated, which are insufficient forthe implementation of mandatory training programmes (Lalic,2008:926).

10 Different models of HRM in PA correspond to the fundamen-tal concepts and doctrines of public administration. Historical-ly speaking, the first personnel management model was thepolitical model, characteristic of the pre-Weberian concept ofpublic administration. It can still be found in the contemporarytotalitarian, autocratic, or undeveloped administrative systems.It was followed by the administrative or bureaucratic personnelmanagement model based on legal and democratic values thatcorresponded to the concept of the traditional, Weberian publicadministration. Managerial model of HRM appeared next, pro-moted by the New Public Management stressing economic val-ues (the three Es). In the contemporary public organisations,one usually finds either administrative or managerial models,or a combination of both. Finally, the integrated model of HRMappeared, supported by the concept of good governance. Itseeks to integrate the good sides of the administrative andmanagerial models and ensure equal presence of democratic,legal, economic, and social values. It is oriented towards ef-fective and efficient achievement of organisational goals, butwithin an elaborated system of rules that protect the merit sys-tem and civil servants' status together with the public interestand social accountability of civil servants (Marcetic, 2007:109-117,396-397).


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JANUARY/JUNE 2011 Development of a Human Resources