JANUARY - JUNE 2006

The51

Recruitment Processas a Part of Effective

ManagementPublic Administration

Human Resource•l.n

•l.n Croatia 1

Sanja Tisme, Kristina Ozimec *Original paper

UDC 331.5:06.04(497.5)Received in December 2006

Facing global trends, recognizing and retaining talented and perspectiveemployees became an important issue in every public administration reform.

Human resources management in public administration has a missionto help an institution to meet strategic goals by attracting,

maintaining and managing employees more effectively.On its way to EU Croatia also has to cope with improvements

and development of its public administration systemwith accent on HRM importance. Taking into account other

EU countries experience and new Law on Civil Servants withimplementation of government decrees (particularly Decree on Recruitment)

Croatia is raising public human resourcesmanagement awareness.

Key words: Croatia and the EU, human resource management, National development

1. Introduction

Human resources management (HRM) is rela-tively modern label for the range of themes and prac-tices involved in managing people. The system ofhu-man resources management in state and local admin-istrative bodies assumes legal framework for humanresources management, contents and elaboration ofwork description and work tasks, planning of humanresources, recruiting, evaluation, compensations, sala-ries, remunerations, carrier planning, education andtraining. The main goal of human resources manage-ment in public administration is to help an institutionto meet strategic goals by attracting, maintaining and

. Sanja Tisrna, Kristina Ozimec, Research Fellows at the Insti-tute for International Relations, Zagreb, Croatia'

managing employees effectively. To achieve its aims,public administration depends on its staff to a largedegree while identifying people as the most impor-tant asset is the first step to implementation of suc-cessful human resources management.

Accession of the Republic of Croatia into theEuropean Union demands improvement and develop-ment of public administration system. The new Lawon Civil Servants came into force in January 2006 anda number of government decrees defining differenthuman resources management procedures stemmingfrom this law are now in the process of being draftedor in first implementation phase. Main topics coveredwith these decrees are recruitment, personal and cen-tral registries, job classification and description. Re-cruitment procedures have a status of priority areawhich involves Decree on Recruitment analysis in or-

It is usually difficult to say how many new em-ployees will have to be hired in a given year in a givenjob category. The role of human resources recruitmentis to build a supply of potential new hires that the or-ganization can draw if the need arises. Human re-sources recruitment is defined as any practice or ac-tivity carried on by the organization with the primarypurpose of identifying and attracting potential employ-ees." Hence is obvious that recruitment stands betweenplanning and selection of human resources. The goalof an organizational recruitment program is to makesure that organization has a number of qualified ap-plicants to choose from when a vacancy occurs. Butthat does not mean to simply generate large numberof applicants while that usually is a great expense forthe organization when it comes to selection phase. So,when talking about recruiting the accent is on reason-ably qualified people.

52=- ~C~R~O~A~Y~IA~N~JN~T~E~·R~N~A~T~JO~N~A~L~~R~E~L~AT~I~O~N~S~R~E~V~I~EW~

der to detect main points where ministries and otherpublic bodies are experiencing problems in its imple-mentation.

According to a great deal of new directions andinstructions in the latest Decree on recruitment thisarticle attempts to research the general meaning andimportance of HRM in public institutions. It gives abrief overview of public administration recruitmentexperiences in other European countries and Croatianexperience with implementation of new Decree on Re-cruitment. Some key recommendations on recruitmentprocedures are given in concluding consideration. aswell as recommendations for possible changes in theDecree.

2. Importance of HRM Functionin Public Institutions

Human resource management is the effectiveuse of human resources in order to enhance organiza-tional performance, it refers to the policies, practicesand systems that influence employees' behavior, atti-tudes and performance.' The importance of HRM isattracting more and more attention while only recentlyhave organizations started to look at it as a tool forgaining more on profitability, quality and other organi-zational goals. Competitive challenges such as thechallenge of the new economy, the global challenge,the challenge of meeting stakeholders' needs and highperformance work system challenge will further in-crease the importance of HRM. The role of HRM hasevolved over time. It began as a purely administrativefunction but most HRM executives now see the func-tion's major role as much strategic'. HRM practiceshave not traditionally been seen as providing-economicvalue to company while economic value has usuallybeen associated with equipment, technology and fa-cilities." But HRM practices turned to be enormouslyvaluable. Staffing, compensation, training and otherHRM components have a direct influence on employ-ees' motivation and performance.

The goal of strategic management in an organi-zation is to deploy and allocate resources in a waythat gives it a competitive advantage. HR managersshould be skillful in identifying competitive issues theorganization faces with regard to human resources andthink strategically when choosing how to respond. Tobe maximally effective the HRM function must be in-volved in the organization's strategic managementprocess.' To implement chosen strategy organizationcan use some of six HRM practices that refer to a par-ticular functional area of HRM: job analysis, recruit-ment and selection, training and development, per-formance management, compensation and employeerelations.

Despite recruitment's obvious importance to thesuccess of any organization, government has a poortrack record as an effective recruiter. In contrast tothe private sector public sector recruitment activitiesare often carried out as a very complex and compli-cate procedure. Globalization trends have increasinglyforced states to redefine their role in public manage-ment and to reform the public administration system.In order to revitalize the public sector, major strength-ening of the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes andleadership abilities of human capital is needed to trans-form the public sector, particularly in developing coun-tries and countries with economies in transition. Pub-lic sector is losing its ability to attract and retain tal-ented young workers and due to decline in quality ofnew hires it is on the track of emerging crisis of com-petence.' At a time when many corporations offer vari-ous fringe benefits, inadequate salaries, the publicservice's poor public image and noncompetitive qual-ity of work life discourage many applicants from pub-lic institutions. To attract talented workers, publicagencies need to be thoughtful, aggressive and inno-vative.

Governments are realizing that managing staffin the public sector is one of the most powerful yetleast appreciated ways to achieve their political andstrategic objectives. Governments are generally thelargest employer in the labor market, which adds totheir responsibility of being a conscientious employer.

Attaining a fine balance between bureaucraticautonomy and societal embeddedness is a real chal-lenge for any public administration and requires a highlevel of leadership skills. An aloof and unapproach-able bureaucracy, out of touch with reality, is undesir-able and hard to imagine in modern world. The chal-lenge, therefore, is to develop a public service that isimpartial and professional, but also responsive to civil

JANUARY - JUNE 2006 53society and business, while being neither populist norcaptured with special interests.

When it comes to HRM, government should beaware of its role in society and promote measures suchas optimizing conditions for staffto develop, present-ing the dignity of employees and ensuring that talentsare effectively hamessed." Traditional public admin-istration, public management and responsive govern-ance are three models on which most of examples ofcontemporary thinking about HRM reform. Each ofthe three models emphasizes certain core values thatare essential in addressing contemporary HRM chal-lenges. A new HRM synthesis should build on the bestattributes of these three models. Traditional public ad-ministration is anchored in principles of impartialityand merit, public management places particular im-portance on performance management and profession-alism and the governance paradigm stresses the needto make public administration more responsive to thedemands of citizens and other stakeholders. So, theprinciples of that new HRM synthesis could be im-partiality, professionalism and responsiveness." HRMin the public sector is critical for government perform-ance and national development. When choosing astrategy for HRM reform government must keep onmind that the content and sequencing of HRM reformwill depend on the pre-existing structure of public ad-ministration in a particular country. Governments areadvised to start from where they find themselves, de-veloping and adjusting gradually rather than attempt-ing an HRM "year zero" with some international "bestpractice" model. Some countries need to start a re-form by laying the foundations for HRM by handlingand organizing necessary legal framework and ensur-

. ing that these policies are being followed and somecountries, where the foundations exist, are in advan-tage and can immediately start to build on them. Al-though acknowledging pre-existing structures of pub-lic administration is a necessary condition for success-ful reform it is not sufficient. Without understandingof political context it would be very difficult to carryout reform successfully. Hence it is important that lead-ers have a vast network of people that are committedand ready to support the reform.

3. Recruitment Experiencein Public Administration

in Several European Countries

There is no common HRM policy in Europeancountries public administration. The practice of thehuman resource recruitment and selection functionswary from country to country, from very strict bureau-cratic procedures, to modern recruitment techniques,almost similar to these applied in multinational cor-

porations. The most similar system as in private com-panies has been applied in American administration,with strong attention to recruitment and training ofpublic servants to be public managers. Europeans arestill in the line with more classical approach in re-cruitment procedures and selection criteria in a wayto fined people with more analytical skills then man-agement and leadership characteristics. The main char-acteristics in recruitment process in several Europeancountries are elaborated in following articles.

3.1. Germany

German public administration is very complexbecause of German federalism principles. One mustbe aware of many sub national peculiarities whichmore or less influence their administrative cultures."The core elements of the German civil service arerelatively uniform for the public servants at all levelsof government.

The civil servants law implies a career systemwith four career categories (administrative, executive,clerical and sub-clerical service). Recruitment forthese careers is based on career provisions, which in-clude the conditions as regards education and train-ing for the individual careers, Employment of civilservants" is being thought of as life time tenure. "Eachministry at the federal level, each state, and each lo-cal authority has the right to recruit its staff membersitself while the central unit responsible for recruitingcivil servants does not exist. Applicants are generallyappointed on the basis of their individual knowledgeand abilities. Employment is based on unlimited ortime limited contracts. Suitable candidates for vacantposts are selected through competition." 10

3.2 Austria

In Austria public administration is the respon-sibility of the federal government, provinces and themunicipalities. The Federal Chancellery coordinatesthe matters of the federal staff. "Aptitude testing for"standard posts" is required. Under this procedure,candidates who achieve the highest test scores are re-cruited. However, the score achieved is primarily acriterion for objective assessment, and only in the sec-ond instance an instrument which serves to identifythe "best-qualified candidate". The recruiting depart-ment may invite the top-ranked candidates to an in-formal interview, which conducts the direct superiorand a representative of the human resources depart-ment. 1n some cases, there are interviews instead ofaptitude testing for "special posts". This procedureapplies to all candidates who apply for posts requir-ing a special degree of expert know-how and skills(e.g. computer experts, engineers, specialist staff) or

54 CROATIAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEW

who are considered as being in short supply owing tothe situation prevailing on the labor market. Candi-dates for these posts do not undergo aptitude testing,but will be invited for a job interview. In addition, alarge number of institutions have different recruitmentprocedures laid down in other federal laws.""

3.3. United Kingdom

The main role of the civil service in Great Brit-ain is to help the Government of the United Kingdom,the Scottish Executive and the National Assembly forWales to formulate policies, carry out decisions andadminister public services for which they are respon-sible." Each department is responsible for recruitmentby itself with the exception of senior civil servants.Civil Service Commission is responsible for provid-ing an adequate framework based on the civil servicerecruitment principles. According to Act that regu-lates Civil Service Order in Council 1995 and Diplo-matic Service Order in Council 1991 the Civil Serv-ice Commissioners are required "to maintain the prin-ciple of appointment on merit on the basis of fair andopen competition in recruitment to the civil service;prescribe and publish a recruitment code on the inter-pretation and application of the principle; incorporatein the code certain restricted circumstances in whichexceptions to the principle can be made; approve ap-pointments at the most senior levels in the Civil Serv-ice: and audit the recruitment systems of departmentsand agencies for compliance with the code."!' TheCommissioners have the right to ask departments topublish information on their recruitment process.

3.4. Poland

"The Polish system of HRM has a number ofsignificant deficiencies which limit its ability to re-tain talented staff. The salary system is complex andis operated in an opaque and a highly discretionarymanner by local managers. The overall HRM systemlacks strong central control and while some ministriesare much better than others in this respect generallyspeaking leadership is weak, modern techniques ofmanagement are lacking, and not enough resource ormanagement time is devoted to personnel issues.Chronic politicization of the system affects staff qualityparticularly at senior levels. A positive element of thesystem is training where the CSO has been able toimplement a basically sound training strategy. Recruit-ment of high quality staff does not seem to be a prob-lem because, although salaries are not competitive withthe private sector,job security and opportunity for selfdevelopment combined with a currently very weaklabor market mean that there are always a large numberof well qualified candidates for each post. A worry-

ing feature of the recruitment situation is that it is clearthat most new entrants do not see the public sector asa long term career but as a step to better prospects inthe private sector. The main ~hallenge for the systemat the moment is considered to be the retention of highquality staff. The government has recently announcedmajor changes to HR systems that include (1) the abo-lition of Office of the civil Service whose role was tosafeguard the independence of the civil service and(2) new arrangements for the selection of civil serv-ants which could demotivate existing civil servants(by opening up these positions to outside competitionfor the firs time) and could make the system vulner-able to greater politicization by placing a large meas-ure of responsibility for the selection of candidates inthe Office of the Prime Minister. "14

3.5. Bulgaria

The general principles relating recruitment areexpressed by the law. Reform of Bulgaria's civil serv-ice began with the adoption of the 1998 Law on Ad-ministration. According to the Administration Act,certain qualifications are required for being recruitedto public administration and recruitment is based oncompetition. Needed qualifications cover both edu-cation and working experience. Based on a uniformspecification, each Administration unit prepares itsown guidelines and tutorials which consist of func-tional characteristics of departments and pay and jobdescription of each position. All civil servants regard-less to category are appointed to office by the head ofthe relative administration.

4. Croatia's Public AdministrationRecruitment Model

Current state of the art in implementation ofthe Decree on Recruitment is tested through the Cen-tral state office for administration and four ministries:The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Inte-gration, The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry andWater Management, The Ministry of Economy, La-bour and Entrepreneurship, The Ministry of Finance.

4.1. Central State Officefor Administration - CSOA

Overall comments on the Decree on Recruit-ment with regard to information received from the em-ployees implementing the procedures in ministries andother state administration bodies (for example stateadministration offices at the level of counties) are:

* positive attitude towards elaborating the activi-ties related to procedure of employment;

JANUARY - JUNE 2006 "55

.: *act'ivities are very clear and transparent and ex-plained in details; ", . '*,'the new attitude enabling transparency and uni-formity of implementation in all ministries and statebodies is positive;

* the engagement of a member of Central StateOffice for Administration or a delegated employeeenables the control of the process and additional ob-jectivity of election,

However, soine limiting factors in the imple-mentation Of the Decree have also been pointed out:

* the procedure is too long;* the role and contents of examinations are un-

clear, especially related to civil service examination* the method and contribution of psychological

testing are unclear, in the event of special procedure,

The following specific problems were pointedout:

a) Advertisingb) Forming of the selection boardc) Testingd) The CSOA representatives or authorized rep-

resentative in the selection boarde) Courts

4,2, The Ministry of Foreign Affairsand European Integration

The Ministry has a well-developed HRM func-tion. Based on the Civil service Law from 2001 theyhad developed a clear and detailed recruitment pro-cedure according to the modem methodology. The sys-tem was continuously upgraded to meet ministries re-quirements.

The HRM department didn't have a case of re-cruitment process following the new Decree and theyhave no experience so far. But they have some com-ments on the Decree which will be elaborated in thefinal report.

For the last ten years the Ministry of ForeignAffairs and European Integration has had a very sys-tematic job advertising procedure. Psychological test-ing, general knowledge examination and the knowl-edge of foreign languages were introduced at the be-ginning of 1990-ties. The tests are continuously be-ing upgraded, and the process improved according tomodern HR trends. In the first years the HR serviceprepared the tests and undertook examinations, buttoday some tests are being ordered from the Slap com-pany and from other specialized experts (until recentlythe history and geography tests were prepared by HRDepartment) .

The Ministry, due to covering a specific field,evaluates highly the foreign languages examination

in the evaluation of candidates - especially the knowl-edge of rarely known languages (Turkish, Dutch ... ).Foreign language tests were prepared by professorsfrom the Faculty of Philosophy, and some by the Min-istry's staff(B.A. in languages). All the tests were writ-ten tests and were therefore standardized and evalu-ated. Moreover, the questionnaires on interest andmotivation were introduced which were prepared byHR service, so that the applicants were asked to writean essay on where and why would they like to work inthe Ministry of Foreign Affairsand European Inte-gration. ., ".', ' ,

In the last coupleof years, apart from examina-tions, interviews are being conducted by the selectionboard consisting of5-6 persons. At the most some 450candidates applied to advertisements of vacancies andall that complied to formal conditions were examined.When the tests were statistically processed, almost twothirds of the candidates were invited to individual in-terviews. All advertisements of vacancies were con-ducted by strictly determined dynamics and independ-ently of the number of candidates were concluded inthe period of 60 days (as it was prescribed by the pre-vious Law).

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and EuropeanIntegration has not yet had an advertisement of va-cancies according to the new Decree on Recruitment.Although the proposed examination procedure gen-erally complies with the previous practice, several un-finished statements in the Decree were pointed out,as well as some limiting factors which make the choiceof the best candidate for certain position impossible,

4.3. The Ministry of Agriculture,Forestry and Water Management

This Ministry has approximately 500 employ-ees, Based on the analysis done under the CARDS2001 project in 2004, the recruitment administration(issuing tenders, administering tests, issuing decisions)are the main and it can be said the only activity of thedepartment. Because of the high turnover of employ-ees, HRM Department assesses the new process as avery lengthily and cumbersome (especially the test-ing procedures).

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Wa-ter Management is undertaking advertising of vacan-cies for trainees. There are approximately 500 candi-dates which are currently being examined. Based onthe experience in implementation of the new Law andthe new Decree on Recruitment, the Head of HR De-partment thinks that the Law and the Decree are welland precisely written, but they do not apply to exist-ing conditions in the majority of Croatian ministries,which requires additional human and financial re-sources for the implementation of demanding exami-

56

nation procedures envisaged by the Decree. Further-more, the goal of the procedure is not fulfilled (objec-tivity and selection of highly qualified staff in civilservice).

The former employment procedure was mainlybased on satisfying formal conditions of advertisingof vacancies, the first selection according to receivedCVs by HR service and the department the candidateis applying for, and finally interviewing several cho-sen candidates.

4.4. The Ministry of Economy,Labour and Entrepreneurship

The Ministry of Economy, Labour and Entre-preneurship is currently undertaking the advertisingof vacancies for trainees. The candidates are now be-ing tested. The employees of HR Department thinkthat the Decree is pretty complicated in general and ithas made it difficult to find good staff for the Minis-try. amely, having in mind law salaries and limitedpossibilities for career advancement it is hard to getgood trainees and experienced employees, and theyare additionally eliminated by such complicated test-ing procedure.

The former procedure of finding new staff be-gan with the Ministry's decision on advertising of va-cancies. The advertisement was then published in Of-ficial Gazette and a daily newspaper (most oftenVecernji list), members of the selection board chosenand they looked through the received applications, andthose who complied with formal conditions (mostlyall) were invited for interviews. There was a six monthprobation period, if the candidate did not show to beappropriate, he/she was given notice of dismissal.

The staff of HR Department of the Ministry ofEconomy, Labour and Entrepreneurship has stated thatsome parts of the new Decree make the procedurecomplicated and cause additional costs, without of-fering qualitative changes in the choice of the candi-date. They think it is useless to examine and inter-view all applicants to advertisements of vacancies whosatisfy all formal criteria. In their opinion the proce-dure is too long and useless.

4.5. The Ministry of Finance

Compared with most other ministries, Minis-try of Finance has well-developed HRM service witha significant number of staff engaged in a range ofHRM activities as required by the Law, including re-cruitment, transfers, records keeping, training courseadministration, grievance and dispute handling andpersonnel administration. However, there is still astrong focus on administration and routine proceduresrather than strategic HRM.

The Ministry of Finance has so far had a simi-lar procedure of testing candidates who had appliedto announcement of vacancy (knowledge of Englishlanguage, the use of IT, expert knowledge like account-ancy or public finances) and therefore has experiencein with interviews, facilities to undertake the inter-views and enough staff who can monitor testing pro-cedures and correct the tests.

The basic difference is that, according to thenew Decree on Public and Internal Advertisements,common knowledge on civil service system is beingtested, which has not been done before.

Several months ago the Ministry invited appli-cations of vacancies for trainees and for extraordinaryadmission procedures. Based on the previous experi-ence, HR Department staff does not have many ob-jections to the procedure set by the Decree on Publicand Internal Advertisements. Although the procedureis time consuming and requires well prepared workplan according to phases, the results so far are good,the first selection has been made and there were notmany obstacles.

5. Conclusionand Recommendation

The importance of HRM in New Public Man-agement is inevitable. After showing positive effectin private sector, public institutions decided to importand adopt some of HRM strategies as well. Humanfactor become the most important asset in the last dec-ade and with globalization trend and exchanged viewon public institutions HRM became important part ofevery public administration reform. Governments allaround the world are getting acquainted with HRMterms and making plans and proposals for new recruit-ment process.

Every country will sooner or later have to facewith implementation of HRM strategies in public sec-tor and the sooner it recognizes potential value ofHRMit has a greater chance to raise staff effectiveness andretain talented, educated and motivated employees.As we can see from the reports of analyzed countriesthe situation in public HRM in highly developed coun-tries such as Germany, Austria and United Kingdomis at high level. These countries have started with pub-lic administration reform very early recognizing needfor managing public personnel. In those countriesevery public institution is responsible for recruitmentof its staff but the conditions, under which recruit-ment must be done, are regulated by the law and usu-ally some additional documents. The situation in Po-land and Bulgaria is still in the phase of acceptingHRM values and preparing effective reforms. Al-though these countries have a lot of works to do onreforming public administration and establishing ef ..

)

JANUARY - JUNE 2006

ficient recruitment procedure they have laid the im-portant foundations.

It is obvious that Civil Service Branch encour-ages the implementation of Human resource manage-ment initiatives, but the change cannot happen over-night. Though, the more effective staff managementpractices in public administration the better.

The analysis of procedures of recruitment ofnew employees in four pilot ministries in Croatia andprocedures stipulated in the new Decree on Recruit-ment have shown that only MFAEI had partially un-dertook somewhat similar procedure (uniform CV, ex-aminations, etc.) for recruitment of civil servants andtrainees. The opinion is that the procedure used bythe MFAEI so far is in accordance with modern re-cruitment procedure, more logical and better organi-zationally than the process set by the new Decree.

Three out of four pilot ministries (all exceptMFAE1) are in one of the stages of advertising va-cancy. Although there are some inconsequent and un-explained parts, it is obvious that the procedure ofadvertising the vacancy can be implemented in ac-cordance with the new Decree on Recruitment. How-ever, the key problem the ministries are facing is in-sufficient resources (human and financial) for theimplementation of the envisaged procedure.

According to experiences so far, the main goalof the selection of the best candidates for a certainpost by advertising the vacancies that are nowunderway through the procedure of knowledge, for-eign language, IT skills and psychological testing isnot accomplished. Namely, the procedure has showna number of gaps that allow manipulation, especiallythrough the system of scores and general knowledgeexaminations.

Therefore, current practice has shown the fol-lowing:

- The new Decree on Recruitment is feasible inpractice,

- The procedure is very demanding, as regardsfinancial and human factors,

- The ministries are in general not well equippedand have not planned resources in their budgets forthe implementation of such recruitment procedure,

- The final expected objectivity in the selectionof the right candidate is not accomplished.

Recommendations and suggestions for upgrad-ing the process can vary from maximally simplifyingthe recruitment process through personal interviewsof candidates with internal selection board (based onthe Labour Law) to changing some parts of the proce-dure.

If the decision is made to carryon with selec-tion examinations, the following should be considered:

- What is the point of examination on the civilservice ifthere is the obligation to pass the state exam?

57

- What is the point of examining trainees whocome to "be trained for a year"?

- On its path to EU Croatian civil servants areobliged to know/speak foreign languages (especiallyEnglish) and have IT knowledge, so that should bestated as a formal condition

- What is the point of psychological testing offirst five ranking candidates at the end of the proce-dure (since psychological testing is one of the firstselection criteria in modern HR management)?

It is suggested that the CSOA (because of itswell equipped premises) with additional qualified staff(certified psychologists) should become the 'exampool' so as to simpl ify the process of preparation andevaluation of examinations to the ministries initiatingthe procedure of recruitment. This approach was con-sidered in earlier stages of planning the process ofadvertising the vacancy / appointment to civil serviceand it has not been accepted. However, CSOA shouldprepare unified standard forms (CVs, invitations for·selection examination, application decline letters, etc.)for all ministries and other state administration bod-res.

On the other hand, considering the specificwork, tasks and fields of each ministry. a certain levelof autonomy should be given to the ministries in evalu-ating specific priorities of work, the issue not enabledby the new Decree (for example, the level of knowl-edge of foreign language is not of equal importancefor the work in MFAEI and MAFWM).

With regard to the expected result of this analy-sis - development of recommendations on three levels(i) change of the Decree (ii) change of the process or(iii) change in training, it is possible to conclude thatthe majority of pilot ministries have already imple-mented or are in the process of implementation of ad-vertising the vacancy, so they do not need any training.What would be of help is strengthening human resourcedepartments through primarily employing new staff -an issue that is not part of the CARDS 2003 project.The change in the procedure and adjustments in thescope of legal framework are something occurring byinertia as a result of attempts to even partially adjustthe Decree on Recruitment to specific needs of the gov-ernmental body undertaking it. It is recommended toprepare a standard format ofCVs and other documentsrequired in the process of advertising the vacancy instate administration bodies.

The change of Decree is going to be most de-manding if it in any scope even occurs. But in anycase, the minor but required change is the definitionof the specified timescale of the advertising period ofmaximum 60 days. If the changes are to be under-taken, some minimal changes which will not influ-ence the basic idea of the Decree on Recruitment arerecommended:

58 CROATIAN 1TERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEW

BIBLIOGRAPHY

- To consider the significance and the role ofexamination on civil service to the level of generalinformation

- To begin the procedure with psychologicaltesting as a first step of candidate elimination, and tointroduce the elimination criteria based on the resultsof individual examinations

- To enable a certain level of autonomy in theprocedure considering the specific knowledge andskills required by certain state administration bodies.

All these questions and dilemmas are open andrecommendations given in order to achieve the mostefficient vacancy advertising and implementation pro-

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List of DocumentsCivil servants Law, Narodne novine, 27. 07. 2005.Critique of Recruitment Procedures by M, Pinder, CARDS 2003(July 2006)Decree on constitution and way of work of Committee for civilservice, Narodne novine, 18. 01. 2006.Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, Situa-tion analysis and recommendations for support: human re-sources management by M. Pinder (July 2006)Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Situationanalysis and recommendations for support: human resourcesmanagement by M. Pinder (July 2006)

1 The article present the results of the project "Support to publicadministration reform in Croatia" financed by British Council.The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Brit-ish Council for overall support,2 HRM practices include analyzing and designing work, deter-mining human resource needs (HR planning), attracting poten-tial employees (recruiting), choosing employees (selection),teaching employees how to perform their jobs and preparingthem for the future (training and development), rewarding em-ployees (compensation), evaluating their performance (perform-ance management) and creating a positive work environment(employee relations)3 Strategic management is a process to addressing the com-petitive challenges an organization faces.4 Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B., Wright, P.M. (2003).Human resources Planning and Recruitment. McGraw -Hill.S The strategic management process consists of two interde-pendent phases: strategy formulation and strategy implementa-tion. Strategy formulation is the process of deciding on a strate-

cedures and obtaining the best candidates for the workin civil service. However, since the pilot ministriesare in the middle of the process of advertising vacan-cies according to the new Decree, they change theirstandpoint on the use the Decree and on the imple-mentation of the very procedure. The standpoints ofHR Departments staff, based on current experience,are more positive, the identified problems are realis-tic and deriving from the praxis, recommendations forimprovement and increased efficiency of the proce-dure are very concrete and are related to key dilem-mas. •Ministry of Finance, Situation analysis and recommendationsfor support: human resources management by M. Pinder (July2006)Ministry of Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship, Situationanalysis and recommendations for support: human resourcesmanagement by M. Pinder (July 2006)Minutes from the meeting - Consultative Work Meeting, CARDSproject, 12 May 2006Procedure for Selection of Personnel in the Republic of Croatiaby Kristina Ratkovic (June 2006)Public Administration Reform and Capacity in the EU-8, Poland,2006.Public Administration Reform: Support to the Reform of the CivilService, Establishment of Human Resources, Management andDevelopment Capacity in the Croatian Civil Service, The Euro-pean Union's CARDS programme for Croatia, 4 November 2004Rulebook on civil servants evaluation, Narodne novine, 27. 02.2002.Support to Implementation of the Civil Service Reform Pro-gramme: Inception Report, The European Union's CARDS pro-gramme for Croatia, 27 March 2006Technical Requirements Checklist Matrix, Supply of HRM/D ISfor Croatia Civil Service, Europe AidTerms of Reference, Support to Implementation of the Civil Serv-ice Reform Programme, European Commission CARDS 2003programme Republic of CroatiaWorld Public Sector Report 2005: Unlocking the Human Poten-tial for Public Sector Performance

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NOTESgic direction by defining organization's mission and goals, itsexternal opportunities and threats, and its internal strengths andweaknesses. Strategy implementation is the process of devis-ing structures and allocating resources to enact the strategy anorganization has chosen.6 Noe, RA, Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B., Wright, P.M. (2003).Human resources Planning and Recruitment. McGraw -Hill.7 Hays, 1998.8 World Public Sector Report 20059 World Public Sector Report 200510 http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/docu ments/U N/UNPAN023309.pdf11 http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN023301.pdf12 http://www.sstaffs.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=131913 http://www.civilservicecommissioners.gov.uk/publications_and_forms/htmllrecruitment_code/authority.aspx14 Public Administration Reform and Capacity in the EU-8, Po-~nd,2006. •