UPPSALA UNIVERSITÉT & UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS & BUSINESS, VNUH Bì “<< steed Sct Whether Government agencies can Retain high quality Human resource: A SWOT Analysis for Hanoi City’s Administration Authors. Trang Nguyen Thi Mai Huong Hoang Lien Supervisors: Dr. Sven-Erik Svard Dr. Truong Do Xuan Class: MPPM- Intake 6 - Group 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Our group would like to express gratutide to Prof.
Sven-Erik Svärd, Uppsala University, Swissden and Dr. Do Xuan Truong, University of Econmics and Business (UEB), Hanoi National University for their guidange during the course of this thesis. We also thank all lecturers who have shared with us their knowledge and experience in public management. Many thanks to supports of UEB and the managers and coordinators of the Center for International Training and Education (CITE) for their great services.
We thank Department of Finance Hanoi for their encouragement and supports. Also thanks to the civil servants who participated in our survey. Finally, we thanks all class participants for their supprts and sharing not only on learning but also on daily life matters. Best regards, Authors: Trang Nguyen Thi Mai Huong Hoang Lien ABSTRACT Title: Whether Government agencies can Retain high quality Human resource: A SWOT Analysis for Hanoi City’s Administration Level: Final assignment for Master Program in Public Management.
Authors: Nguyen Thi Mai Trang and Hoang Lien Huong Supervisor: Sven-Erik Svard and Do Xuan Truong Date when the thesis is presented: 16 May 2013 Aim: Policies for managing civil servants are often lack strong scientific bases. In addition, the implementation of these policies do not has strategic focuses. Instead of focusing on the strengths of government agencies, these policies focus on the weaknesses. These policies do not utilise the opportunities in order to reform human resource practices in the public sector.
Therefore, the effectiveness ofthese policies is usually low.This thesis used the SWOT model to analyse the current settings of managing civil servants in government agencies and then, based on the results, to develop strategic options for managing civil servants. This approach would lead to better policies and measures for managing civil servants. Method: Based on various secondary sources of information, the authors proposed opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses in the managing and utilization of civil servants. These opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses were then verified by surveying views of 80 civil servants.
Result & Conclusions: Results of the survey showed that government agencies now are in a quite difficult situation when having more weaknesses than strengths. However, they are having more opportunities than threats. From the SWOT analysis matrix, the authors developed five strategic options for retaining high quality human resource. Strategies of priority include SO strategy (maximising strengths and opportunities), WO strategy (minimising weaknesses to maximising opportunities) and ST strategy (maximising strengths to minimising threats).
Although difficult but WT strategy (minimising weaknesses to minimising threats) need to be considered. The reason is that this strategy helps overcome two main current weaknesses of government agencies which are low salary and excessive staff. Unless these two weaknesses are overcome, it is very difficult to successfully implement other strategies. These two strategies can be successfully executed with certain conditions (opportunities) such as support ofthe society or strong political determination.
These strategic options showed that the focus of managing civil servants is not to attract high quality people but how to retain them into the government system. These strategies proposed in this thesis, if successfully implemented will help create a working environment that values competency and performance, and recognizes contributions of civil servants, positively re-enforcing efforts and good behaviours. Suggestions for future research: Research in the future should further focus on two areas: applying SWOT to other areas of state management and assessing the effectiveness of the human resource management policies and procedures. For example, a SWOT analysis would help the Government to identify relevant strategies for public administrative reform.
These research efforts should also avoid the shortcomings ofthis study that are not using qualitative approaches to develop SWOT components, only locally coverage, respondents were not homogeneous and having small sample size. Contribution of the thesis: This is the first time, a analytical tool like SWOT is applied to government agencies in Vietnam that paves the way for application of other techniques such as Balance Score Card or Management by Objectives in the public sector. This study provides empirical evidence on the opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses of government agencies of a locality in Vietnam as a scientific basis for developing policies for retaining high quality people. Key words: SWOT, Human Resource Management, High quality Human Resource, Retaining Staff, Public sector.1 The model employed.2 Application of SWOT model.
A logical framework for this thesis. Method for developing questionnaire. Overview of the data 5.2 Results and discussions 5. Developing strategic options for retaining high quality staff.
Conclusions, contributions and directions for further research. Contributions of this thesis 7. Shortcomings and suggestions for further research References Appendix 1: Questionnaire. Appendix 2: Detailed Data.
LIST OF TABLES Page TABLE 1: POSTIONS OF THE RESPONDENTS 27 TABLE 2: GENDER STRUCTURE OF THE RESPONDENTS. -27 TABLE 3: WORKING AREAS OF THE RESPONDENTS. -28 TABLE 4: WORKING TENNURE OF THE RESPONDENTS.28 TABLE 5: RESULTS OF THE OPPORTUNITIES „31 TABLE 6: RESULT OF THE THREATS (%). TABLE 7: RESULT OF THE STRENGTHS (%) TABLE 8: RESULTS OF THE WEAKNESSES (%).
LIST OF FIGURE FIGURE 1: SWOT MODEL FOR ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING FIGURE 2: SWOT MATRIX. FIGURE 3: THE LOGICAL FRAMEWORK. : ¬ FIGURE 4: SWOT MATRIX FOR DEVELOPING STRATEGIC OPTIONS. Abstract A number of policies have been developed to attract and retain high quality human resource in government agencies.
However, these policies are often lack strong scientific bases. In addition, the implementation of these policies do not has strategic focuses. Instead of focusing on the strengths of government agencies, these policies focus on the weaknesses. These policies do not utilise the opportunities in order to reform human resource practices in the public sector.
Therefore, the effectiveness of these policies is usually low. In order to overcome these above shortcomings, this thesis used the SWOT model to analyse the current settings of managing civil servants in government agencies and then, based on the results, to develop strategic options for managing civil servants. This approach would lead to better policies and measures for managing civil servants. Based on various secondary sources of information, the authors proposed opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses in the managing and utilization ofcivil servants.
These opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses were then verified by surveying views of civil servants. Results of the survey showed that government agencies now are in a quite difficult situation when having more weaknesses than strengths. However, they are having more opportunities than threats. From the SWOT analysis matrix, the authors developed five strategic options for retaining high quality human resource.
Strategies of priority include SO strategy (maximising strengths and opportunities), WO strategy (minimising weaknesses to maximising opportunities) and ST strategy (maximising strengths to minimising threats). Although difficult but WT strategy (minimising weaknesses to minimising threats) need to be considered. The reason is that this strategy helps overcome two main current weaknesses of government agencies which are low salary and excessive staff. Unless these two weaknesses are overcome.
it is very difficult to successfully implement other strategies. These two strategies can be successfully executed with certain conditions (opportunities) such as support of the society or strong political determination. These strategic options showed that the focus of managing civil servants is not to attract high quality people but how to retain them into the government system. These strategies proposed in this thesis, if successfully implemented will help create a working environment that values competency and performance, and recognizes contributions of civil servants, positively re-enforcing efforts and good behaviours.
Rationale Brain drain from government agencies has been recognised recently. This is a new phenomenon that needs much more research. Although regular statistics on brain drain is not available, there is consistent evidence that this phenomenon is on the rise. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, 16.000 civil servants had left government agencies during 2005-2008 (Pham Cuong, 2008).
This figure is only estimates and the real magnitude of brain drain can be much higher. The reasons for civil servants to leave have not been systematically studied. Government offiices do not practice exist interviewing as companies often do. To response to the brain drain, local administrations often have various policies and measures.
The core of these policies is to provide an cash allowance to highly educated groups such as outstanding graduates, professors and PhD holders, or specific groups that are in serious shortage such as medical doctors. These groups are also eligible to benefits suclh as housing allowance, travel allowance or buying houses at discounted price etc. However, the local administrations do not pay attention to how to utilise the capabilities of these high quality people. Therefore, the effectiveness of these attracting policies are not high.
The provinces can only attract few people and among those who came, many left shortly because they can not utilise their capabilities. Recent programs such as the Program in Attracting Outstanding University Graduates and Young Scientists or the Regulations on Attracting. Training and High Quality Human Resource include terms and conditions on the utilisation and training of human resource although these policies are only in the term of committeemen. Measures on combating brain drain are often not strong enough and not focusing on the key causes of the problems.
Government agencies tend to focus more on attracting than retaining high quality staff but keeping people seems to be more important. Unless having relevant ways to manage, utilise people, once being attracted, people would not stay. Measures on keeping and retaining tend to be general and not strategic. In many cases, there has not sufficient understanding about the opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses of government agencies so the measures could not utilise opportunities and alleviate threats; could not make use of the strengths and reduce weaknesses.
The result is the low effectiveness of these measures. In such context, to clarify the existing environment and conditions for managing civil servants is crucial in developing proper measures for retaining high quality staff. Research Questions These thesis will help answer two following questions: 1. What are the opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses in retaining high quality human resource? 2.
What strategies for retaining high quality human resource government agencies should take given their existing environment? 2. Research purpose The proposed of this thesis is to identify and assess the opportunities, threats, strengths and! weaknesses in retaining high quality human resource of government agencies and basied on that, to propose relevant strategies for retaining them. The target group of this thesis is high quality human resources. They have crucial contributions to the performance and development of an organization.
Therefore, they play important role. In public organizations in Vietnam, they are in two groups: leaders/managers and highly competent professional officials. This study is not going to define specifically these groups because that is not neccessary. However, one way to define it is the position rank for leaders managers and the level proffesional seniority of pro ffesional officials.
the first group may include leaders/managers down to the 7 head of functional units of functional City’s department, heads of functional units of district's people committee and heads of units of service delivery agencies.1 The model employed This thesis use the SWOT (opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses) model to analyse the employment environment in the government agencies. The SWOT model helps identify cpportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses for an organization in order to develop competitive strategies. In the current context, government agencies have to compete with other sectors for qualified human resource. Therefore, they need appropriate strategies for retaining high quality human resource.
SWOT was first used at Harvard university for case analysis. In the early of 1950, Harvard’s professors employed SWOT to study competitive strategies of companies in relationship with the environments in which they operate.