View of Public Sector Employers, Annotated Bibliography Example

Almeida, B. (2018). Recruitment and retention in the public sector: The role of pensions. Members-only Library. http://www.lerachapters.org/OJS/ojs-2.4.4-1/index.php/LERAMR/article/view/1324

The article’s author, Almeida, works at the National Institute on Retirement Security and is versed in issues to do with retirement plans and schemes such as pensions. The article reckoned that employers and employees both have increased appreciation for retirement plans, which contribute to the increased competitiveness of public companies. Notably, individuals with pensions are less likely to be absent from their jobs than employees who do not have any substantial retirement packages. The defined benefits (DB) plans were a critical retirement package associated with increased employee retention rates in the public sector. Employees within the public sector seem to value DB plans largely due to the shared value it provides to public employees, employers, and taxpayers. Retirement plans were put in place to enable public employees to cease working at some point in their lives. This point was often reached during old age when their productivity levels were low. Such employees were unlikely to get employment elsewhere; hence, having a good retirement benefits plan would ease these employees’ expenses. Due to the need to consider their future retirement, which is true for everyone, the employees exhibited higher commitment levels to organizations that offered them retirement benefits. Due to the fringe benefits offered by retirement plans, it is expected that employees in public organizations that are similar in every aspect are likely to choose those offering retirement benefits. The DB plan is attractive since it multiplies the employees’ final salary upon retirement by the number of years they served at the company and then by a set factor. The approach means that the cumulative benefits that employees are legible to are determined by their length of stay at the organization. Public companies that utilize the DB plans are more likely to get high engagement levels from their employees, which is a suitable outcome. However, there are instances where employees do not value the benefits of the retirement plans. These instances need to be given close consideration to allow the proper navigation by the afflicted companies. One of the factors is when the productivity rates of the employees increase but are not accompanied by a corresponding increase in their compensation. The second factor is when the employer has alternate options for seeking benefits, for instance, owning a stock portfolio at the company, promotions, and presence of job ladders. As such, they are not inclined to offer retirement benefits to their employees. Despite the above, it is apparent that DB pension plans play a significant role in determining the retention of workers. It was observed that workers with DB plans were 50% less likely to leave their jobs than workers without the DB compensation plans. It was also observed that employers use the retirement benefits as a recruiting strategy to identify more forward-looking and future-oriented employees. Selecting such employees early in the recruitment process increased the organizational commitment levels. The research is valuable because it explores an essential topic contributing to the employee retention levels and, subsequently, their perception of their employers. Public organizations will gain better commitment levels by implementing retirement benefit plans, particularly the DB plans. The findings will contribute to my research article since they present an alternate method of bolstering the attitudes and perceptions of public employees.

Green, D., & Loualiche, E. (2021). State and local government employment in the COVID-19 crisis. Journal of Public Economics, 193, 104321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104321

The authors in the research article are qualified in the topic under discussion. Gree is an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, while Loualiche teaches finance and economics at the University of Minnesota. Both authors are competent when it comes to issues involving economics and employment. Their insight when it comes to the economic consequences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is thereby accurate. The research investigated the widespread occurrence of job layoffs among state government employees and how the events impacted them. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a variety of pressures such that the state governments experienced a reduction in the revenues they collected while incurring increased costs associated with managing and preventing the pandemic. The low revenues meant that the state agencies needed to explore one of the potential cost-saving methods, laying off their workers. A critical finding was that states that depended heavily on sales tax experienced more layoffs.

The phenomenon was because of the reduced volume of business during the pandemic, which significantly lowered business sales and hence, the collection of sales taxes. The CARES Act implemented in response to the pandemic led to $150 million in aid to state agencies. It reduced the state government’s experience and alleviated any further job losses. It is estimated that the number of layoffs would have been drastically worse without the provision of the funds. For instance, in April 2020, an additional 401,000 workers would have been laid off. Another finding was that the state rainy day funds were often insufficient to deal with the demands of the pandemic, which led to the increased suffering of the workers employed at those agencies. Some of the states excluded from the study were Alaska since it had a more than 100% in its rainy funds. Some policies contributed to the high number of job losses at the state levels. A critical one is prohibiting borrowing capital from financing noncapital expenditures such as salaries. It prevented the state agencies from borrowing money that could be used to retain the employment of the government employees since such debt had no way of paying themselves back. The state government reported that its fiscal policy was targeted at addressing the needs of the employees. The state agencies claimed that their fiscal policy underperformed during the pandemic since they offered more support than they received. For instance, they provided employee support programs such as unemployment insurance that shielded many families against the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state was subjected to balanced budget requirements that secluded their funding patterns as procyclical. The arguments provided in the article are established since the state government was a critical player in the job market. They were also actively engaged in pandemic management, which resulted in a decline in the number of cases suffered. The increased expenditure by the governments, accompanied by their exposure to the balanced budget requirements, meant they had limited room to retain their workers. The public sector employees encountered job losses but were aware of the existing efforts by the state government to address their issues. The research will contribute to my understanding of the research topic since it explores job loss by government and state workers during the pandemic.

Liss-Levinson, R. (2022). How COVID’s impact on the public sector workforce has evolved, and why it matters. National League of Cities. https://www.nlc.org/article/2021/08/16/how-covids-impact-on-the-public-sector-workforce-has-evolved-and-why-it-matters/

The author, Liss-Levinson, is a Ph.D. holder in Economics. He is also the Senior Research Manager at the MissionSquare Research Institute, making him a reliable source of information for the study. The article begins by talking about the massive changes that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was an increase in the number of daily infections, with some figures showing a doubling in the infection rate of the virus. For instance, on June 30^th, 2021, the CDC reported the new daily cases to be 13,434. A month later, the cases increased to 72,493. Notably, despite the increase in the number of cases, the vaccination rate was still below par, and could not expect to keep up with the growing number of cases. During this period, the number of administered vaccines decreased significantly. State and federal government employees have been recruited to combat the COVID-19 pandemic to the frontlines. They contributed a lot to the management of the disease and the prevention of its worsening. However, the increased engagement of these employees led to the experience of fatigue and low levels of morale. Due to the findings, the MissionSquare research Institute conducted various studies to investigate the effects of the pandemic on the workers in terms of their finances, quality of life, safety concerns, and employment outlook. More than 70% of the state and government workers were vaccinated by May 2020. The major influencing factor was personal protection since they worked in high-risk jobs. The employees showed positive morale, which increased from October 2020 to May 2021, where the morale rate of the individuals was 56%. Another employee attitude that was investigated was their perceived job outlook. The state and federal employees were more concerned about keeping their families safe from the disease. More than 80% of the employees maintained this stance. The financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was also critical to the investigation. More than 40% of the government employees reported that the pandemic had negatively impacted them and their families. A significant statistic that demonstrated this was that one in three of the employees had to take on extra debt to enable them to survive during the pandemic.

Further, 38% of the people with an emergency fund withdrew money from it for the sake of the COVID-19 pandemic. A large majority of the employees, 76%, reported that the pandemic impacted their jobs regarding the nature and type of work they were engaged in. Out of these, 31% say they have encountered massive difficulties adjusting to the changes. A significant change experienced by the workers is the change to in-person work. The shift has caused an increased fear among the workers; they perceive that their job positions put them at risk of infection with the virus. The article is relevant since it described the economic impacts faced by the state and federal employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, it demonstrates the effect on their families. The pandemic came with a major change to the job roles of different individuals in the workforce. The research will contribute to the research topic since it provides pertinent quantitative data on the effects of the pandemic on state employees.

Moon, M. J. (2000). Organizational commitment revisited in new public management: Motivation, organizational culture, sector, and managerial level. Public Performance & Management Review, 177-194. https://doi.org/10.2307/3381267

The author, Moon, is a distinguished professor in the Department of Public Policy and Management. His insights on the topic are reliable and will contribute to understanding the issue under research. In the article, new public management emerged as a critical issue that needed to be addressed to increase the productivity rates of employees as well as promote market efficiency. One of the approaches to the new public management (NPM) involves pay-for-performance, where the employees in an organization are motivated by tying job achievements with monetary rewards. It makes them more likely to engage in job improvement efforts. The application of NPM leads to increased levels of organizational commitment, which is a factor in the number of employees engaged with the company in terms of performance and productivity. Although NPM is tailored to the private sector, it can be applied to public organizations to drive employees’ increased level of organizational commitment.

Organizations that implement NPM are expected to benefit due to the increased levels of productivity and performance. A significant difference in the motivators of organizational commitment was observed between public and private employees. Public employees encountered substantial challenges when adopting external motivators as a source of obligation. Implementing internal motivating systems was more appropriate for the workers. In contrast, private workers were found to be more amenable to the effects of external motivators as compared to internal ones. The research revealed that most government employees are not appropriately motivated by the pay-for-performance services compared to employees in the private sector. As a result, public institutions that decide to invest in the system will not experience sufficient returns from the program to warrant the significant time and monetary investment. One of the main contributors to the lack of motivation of the public employees is that public institutions are marked by a high rate of complacency where employees are not expected to be pushed to increase their output level compared to private sectors. Another finding was that the organizational commitment varied depending on the level of management of the workers. Managers in middle management roles have a lower commitment to the organization than high-ranking managers. It was also described that the commitment gap between top and middle managers in the public sector was lower than those in the private sector. The phenomenon created the opportunity to increase the homogeneity levels of the employees in public institutions than private ones. The researchers called for an in-depth investigation into the role of motivation in the organizational commitment levels of public workers. The research was significant in that it pointed out the factors that public employees considered vital in managing their commitment levels. Public institutions can implement the above initiatives to improve the commitment levels, which will result in the increased perceptions and attitudes of the employees. The research contributes to the research topic since it provides public institutions with fundamental recommendations, which, when applied, will lead to a massive increase in employees’ attitudes and productivity.

References

Almeida, B. (2018). Recruitment and retention in the public sector: The role of pensions. Members-only Library. http://www.lerachapters.org/OJS/ojs-2.4.4-1/index.php/LERAMR/article/view/1324

Green, D., & Loualiche, E. (2021). State and local government employment in the COVID-19 crisis. Journal of Public Economics, 193, 104321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104321

Liss-Levinson, R. (2022). How COVID’s impact on the public sector workforce has evolved, and why it matters. National League of Cities. https://www.nlc.org/article/2021/08/16/how-covids-impact-on-the-public-sector-workforce-has-evolved-and-why-it-matters/

Moon, M. J. (2000). Organizational commitment revisited in new public management: Motivation, organizational culture, sector, and managerial level. Public Performance & Management Review, 177-194. https://doi.org/10.2307/3381267