Environmental change requires organizations based on participation, flexibility, a customer service culture, deregulation, decentralization and delegation. These require an approach that considers HRM as a strategic entity that serves as a catalyst for organizational and personal development efforts throughout the public sector. The Civil Service Directorate, head of Costa Rica's Civil Service system since 1953, has responded by decentralizing authority to operating agencies while retaining its central role as policy coordinator and technical advisor to agency managers, strengthening the culture of participative and decentralized decision-making, and improving customer service.

Until recently, the context of Costa Rican public administration was relatively tranquil and unchanging. Public employees generally considered themselves beneficiaries of lifetime employment. But as the concept of "permanent" employment becomes less meaningful, civil servants and professional associations are developing a notion of careers that is based more on professional competencies than legal entitlements. This means separating our concept of "careers" from a particular organization, and focusing instead on personal development within a broader profession. According to Fernandez Caveda[1], the important thing is to develop one's career on the basis of this new reality, enhancing the autonomy and initiative needed to provide services flexibly in a variety of situations, working across and through different organizations. From an HR perspective, this means focusing on competencies that will be important for the future, not the entitlements of the past. But all this still takes place within the context of a public administration dependent on synchronous public policymaking and administrative action.

This article was originally published as: "El Servicio Civil de Costa Rica y su Responsabilidad Historica como Gestor del Cambio Organizacional" in Violeta Pallavicini Campos and Ferdinando Goni Ortiz (eds.), 2000. Memoria del Congreso Internacional: Avances y Desafios de la Administracion de los Recursos Humanos al Inicio del Tercer Milenio. San Jose, Costa Rica: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, pp. 61-68. Permission to translate and reprint in Public Personnel Management is given to the IPMA by the author and by the sponsors of the Congreso Internacional.

Being able to do this presupposes organizations that have the following characteristics:

* Relatively flattened and organized by processes, rather than hierarchical

* Simplified, flexible and efficient

* Focused on achieving concrete results rather than duplicating functions best performed by others

* Flexible and capable of decision-making at all levels through appropriate delegation, deregulation, and decentralization (rather than having rigid centralized control over administrative processes)

* Structured on the basis of multidisciplinary work teams rather than departments

* Including advisory groups for each process

* Operating in a paradoxical environment defined by limited citizen confidence, but not total distrust

* Administratively focusing on proactive citizen service rather than passively waiting for people's requests

Redefining the Human Resource Management Function: The Theoretical Context

Organizations frequently ask themselves, How can the HRM function add value and offer results that help achieve the organization's objectives? This is understandable, because HRM is often viewed as conservative, bureaucratic and slow to change -- exactly the opposite of what is needed.[2] The answer lies in rethinking the designs of organizations by creating decentralized teams composed of internal consultants who solve problems, have a generalist orientation, and work within structures that tend to be more horizontal than vertical.[3] It requires a fundamental transformation of personnel administration, from its traditional role of making policy and protecting the merit system, to an emergent role as strategic partner, change agent and administrative expert[4], providing services that support the institutional mission.

This transformation is not easy. A considerable body of research indicates that current Costa Rican agency HR departments are likely to have these characteristics:[5]

* The HR structure is designed for centralized and relatively static organizations.

* Specialization and technology have achieved high-quality service delivery.

* HR departments' structures and procedures were largely designed before the current emphasis on restructuring public agencies.

* Employees typically lack the competencies or abilities needed to transform the organization.

* There is no clear relation between organization mission and employee contributions.

* There are no clear, systematic and viable policies to assess employees' behaviors or the results of their work.

* There is no clear link between organizational objectives and pay policies or other aspects of personnel management.

* It is uncertain how the changing needs of consumers or clients affect organizational mission and culture, if at all.

Given these factors, it is clear that genuine reforms can only occur in the context of an inclusive and strategic vision for HRM within the organization. Success requires managers to proactively implement HR functions as an element of leadership. It is also essential that employees continually develop new competencies, which they can do only if the organization encourages new forms of learning based primarily on self-development and knowledge sharing. All this means constantly monitoring the organization's environment (political, economic, legal, and technological), critically analyzing the factors related to success, and developing the tools to function in a global environment. In sum, the HR function must retrain itself as an internal consultant, master new technologies, and introduce them at different levels of the organization. Though the traditional HR functions (such as selection, training, performance evaluation and pay) will not disappear, they will be transformed and joined by others.[6]

The Civil Service System in Costa Rica

The Civil Service Statute grants Costa Rica's Civil Service Directorate (the Direccion General de Servicio Civil, or DGSC) authority to maximize public management effectiveness and establish the policies and procedures needed to enhance strategic HRM within the executive branch. Because it understands that organizational efficiency cannot be achieved without participation and cooperation, the DGSC has redefined its mission to include proactive facilitation of public management reform. Beginning in 1991, the DGSC intensified its efforts to resolve the paradoxes presented by its environment and its customers. To the extent allowed by resource constraints and organizational conditions, the DGSC has decentralized its technical and administrative functions to the HR departments of other executive branch agencies within the civil service system, reserving for itself a role of assessment, control and technical support.

Perhaps the most relevant of these efforts has been to increase its responsiveness as a central personnel agency developing an administrative model that allows sufficient oversight without overly controlling executive agency practices. Once the need to change from central control to cooperative HRM with other executive branch agencies became evident, the DGSC began to analyze its structure and functions from two perspectives. On the one hand, what HRM model should agencies under the civil service system adopt? On the other, how should the DGSC itself respond to the issues presented by decentralization?

In attempting to address these issues, the DGSC faces challenges. The reward system is defective because it does not enable discrimination among levels of employee performance. In the short term, we need strong managerial participation to set objectives and evaluate results. From a long-range perspective, we need more participative organizational planning.

Our desired HRM model asks managers to resist hoarding information. Instead, they are encouraged to use it to promote initiative and collaborative decision-making, thereby increasing employee satisfaction and service quality. This also tends to strengthen the confidence and openness that, in truth, have not always characterized the relationship between managers and civil servants within the organization. An "open door" managerial culture makes possible a direct and constructive relationship between both groups.

Naturally, trust and respect for the DGSC by employees and managers is the key to achieving a participative, team-based management culture. Many unwritten terms and conditions of employment can be maintained over time and circumstances, only if trust and communication exist. Properly designed and used, cross training and delegation can provide civil servants with the experience needed to do their jobs with confidence. Some tasks that previously might have been given to managers are now entrusted to others, thereby providing task variety and job enrichment. These, in turn, demand effective, confident employee involvement and participation. Perhaps the future model of public organizations is like that of the mind a networked collection of specialized centers that constantly incorporates new subjects.

Most of what has been discussed above is a mixture of objective and emergent realities. Long-term DGSC employees traditionally have a well-developed service ethic and high ethical standards that have enabled them to vigilantly protect what have been the agency's core values since its creation. They have largely succeeded despite chronic resource shortages. The limits of individual discretion and initiative depend more on the supervisor's confidence than on the specific level of the position in the hierarchy. Ideally, this will increase over time.

Change as a Way of Life

Change itself is only a condition, not a value. It requires organizations to confront varied types of change under a range of conditions, clarifying some and making others more problematic. Until now, the gradual pace of change allowed the DGSC to meet customer demands through incremental and piecemeal responses. This is no longer possible. In its effort to establish a service-oriented culture and respond appropriately to demands imposed by the environment of Costa Rican public administration, the GDSC now faces an organization-wide change process that includes structural modifications such as reducing the number of sub-units, changing the distribution of power by eliminating deputy managers' positions, and changing the organizational culture to emphasize public service and problem solving.

Human resources are unquestionably important. Without them, the DGSC would be a mere abstraction. This realization is perhaps the most important aspect of the actual change strategy, which consists of assigning appropriate roles to human resources in the various executive branch agencies comprising the civil service system, so as to support and facilitate the reform process of the Costa Rican State.

The DGSC is convinced that decentralization is the key to increased effectiveness and responsiveness. If these are indeed its goals, it must first look at the overall HRM system, and then at individual personnel functions. It makes sense to develop a system through which HR managers in decentralized agencies can be delegated autonomy and decision-making authority -- and within which they can make decisions in the name of the central personnel agency (DGSC).

Directing the HRM system is closely related to employees' creativity and innovation, as well as on the quality of service and opportunity to respond that it provides to HR departments in other agencies. That means that both groups must posses the tools necessary to work together.

Working as a Public Employee

Public administration occupies the middle ground between two worlds -- high-level policymaking and resource allocation, and the varied and contradictory interests expressed by group or individual interests. Viewing government as a system for administering public goods so as to satisfy citizens' complex and diverse ranges of necessities and requirements implies that public employees carry a heavy responsibility, and must do so with pride. It means a great responsibility, because maintaining effectiveness means "benchmarking" the quality of service delivery. It requires pride, because this is the basis for responsible public service.

Ideally, public administration comprises individuals in a range of positions who effectively translate general policy mandates with innovation and dedication to service.

Achieving adequate and sustainable performance in an institution like the GDSC depends on the ability to generate financial, technical and other material resources from sources beyond normal budget appropriations. This means generating off-budget revenue through innovative and aggressive marketing of training programs, technical assistance and information services to other public and private organizations. This follows the trend in contemporary public management that organizations transform themselves from passive resource consumers to innovative revenue generators. The DGSC has the depth and breadth of experience needed to provide high-quality training on techniques, processes and procedures appropriate to HRM in a range of Costa Rican organizations. Our comparative advantage -- increasingly recognized and appreciated -- is our ability to use the lessons learned from our internal reorganization process to help ensure the survival of public management and the civil service system.

To make all this happen, the HR administrator's agenda for the next few years includes at least the following points:

* A permanent commitment to fight all forms of corruption, seriously investigating its causes and fighting them fundamentally;

* While labor agreements should also protect workers, their principal management objective is to increase administrative effectiveness;

* Consolidating and reinforcing decentralization and deregulation implies aggressive technology transfer throughout the organization, and assigning personnel where they are really needed from an overall government perspective;

* Assigning career civil servants to managerial positions through performance-based and time-limited contracts, rather than for indefinite periods without clear performance standards;

* Implementing performance-based pay and other incentives for productivity, and using team-based rather than hierarchical structures; and

* Providing appropriate guidelines for assessing organizational reform and retraining of workers based on public policy objectives.

Notes

[1] Alberto Fernandez Caveda (1998). La Funcion de Recursos Humanos en Tiempos de Cambio. Barcelona: Gestion 2000.

[2] Robert Cardy and Gregg Dobbins (1995). [inverted question mark]Cual es el Futuro de la Gerencia de Recursos Humanos en las Organizaciones? Alajuela: INCAE. Translated by Professor Guillermo Edelberg for the course on Human Resources Management, INCAE, 1997.

[3] Jose Joaquin Arguedas Herrera (October 26-29, 1999). Aportes para el Establecimiento de un Modelo de Gestion de Recursos Humanos con Enfoque Corporativo. First Human Resources National Congress. Dr. Rodolfo Piza Rocafort, CCSS, San Jose, Costa Rica.

[4] Dave Ulrich. (1997). Recursos Humanos Campeones. Buenos Aires: Granica.

[5] Ma. Del Pilar Loria Jimenez (1994). Tecnologias de Administracion de Recursos Humanos en Costa Rica. San Jose, Costa Rica: DGSC.

[6] Dave Ulrich, Michael Losey and Gerry Lake (1997). El Futuro de la Direccion de Recursos Humanos. Barcelona: Gestion 2000 - AEDIPE.

Guillermo Lee Ching
Director General
Civil Service Directorate
Republic of Costa Rica
San Jose, Costa Rica

Guillermo Lee Ching's educational background includes an undergraduate degree in Business Administration (specializing in Human Resources) from the National University, a BA in Business Administration from the Costa Rican Technological Institute, and postgraduate studies at the Metropolitan University of Mexico. Currently he works as the General Director of the Costa Rican civil service system (Direccion General de Servicio Civil -- DGSC).