A survey of 74 authorities from the city administration to federal authorities has examined the areas of personnel planning, recruitment and development. The current status quo at the time of the survey (2016) as well as the trends were scrutinized.
Read the summary below as an "executive summary" or request the entire study.
Personnel planning
The demographic development and the lack of specialists are major challenges for public personnel management.
Personnel planning instruments are becoming increasingly important. Most of the age structure analyzes as well as absenteeism analyzes are already being used today. Although fluctuation analyzes are currently used less frequently, they are increasingly planned for the future.
Slightly more than half of the surveyed seized concrete actions to encounter the future shortage of spezialists or skilled workers. The other respondents have not taken any personnel policy measures yet, but plan to take action in the future. The clear majority of the HR professionals want to give more weight to the topic in the future.
Personnel recruitment
The amount of external applications in older career groups has slightly declined.
Public authorities address their potential employees by print media and on the internet. Especially here, are their own websites and online job portals used. Social media platforms still occupy a marginal position, but will become more important in the future.
The post remains the most widely used application channel. Web forms have been used very little until now. The trend is moving away from applications by post towards applications via web portal.
The most frequently used criteria and methods of personnel selection are the application documents, certificates and assessments like structured job interviews. Performance tests and assessment exercises are used to a lesser extent. In the test area are currently paper pencil processes being carried out. However, the trend is moving significantly towards online and tablet based tests.
Personnel development
Professional career programs are currently still subordinated to the public administration, but more than half of the oublic entities plan to implement such a program.
Only a small proportion of the public sector have a modular, standardized executive qualification program. About one third of respondents offer at least obligatory seminars on individual topics
Slightly less than half of the surveyed have a program to qualify high-potential leaders. The other respondents do not currently have such a program, but want to introduce one in the future.
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The study was implemented by Benjamin Haarhaus (Perseo GmbH) in cooperation with Michael Ahr (Institute for Administrative Consulting). The survey was conducted by means of an online survey in the period from July to August 2016. Upon request, the entire study can be sent.
