Employment relations a Foreign Ministry: A Small Island State's Case (Kingdom of Tonga)

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

Employment relations a Foreign Ministry: A Small Island State's Case (Kingdom of Tonga)

Introduction

 

Background of the project

This project will case study the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the effects of having a centralized HRM system as opposed to having its own HR Unit in the Ministry. A special focus will be made on the recruitment and selection of employees for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is a way of managing people because human resources use their skills and expertise to enable organisations to achieve its goals and objectives. Ensuring that organisations human resources is utilised effectively, gives an organisation 'value for money' and 'competitive advantage' (Potter et al, 2008:3).

As explained by Przwieczerska, there is a difference between HRM in the public and private sector. The public sector HRM is still functioning in the 'old style personnel management' and very much emphasizes on 'employee welfare'. The private sector HRM on the other hand emphasises on 'strategy and performance' (Potter et al., 2008:10).

There are only two areas of employment in Tonga that is continuously growing, the public service and the overseas labour markets (Hess, 1996). It is therefore important to investigate the effects of having a centralized HRM system to ensure that the policies and practices in place are working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The results of this project will also illustration to us how it this system is working out for other Ministries.

The focus on recruitment and selection stems from the fact that if the Ministry is to achieve 'competitive advantage' from its human resources, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service Commission (the centralised HRM unit) must ensure that it employs the most suitable candidates for the positions advertised.

Background of the case analyse organisation

Tonga is the last remaining Kingdom in the South Pacific, a Polynesian Kingdom which was never brought under foreign rule. Tonga lies in the heart of Polynesia, it's capital Nuku'alofa lies 747 kilometres south east of Fiji and 1996 kilometres of Auckland, New Zealand. It has 170 small islands and 36 are inhabited, its sea area stretches over 700,000 square kilometres but the combined land area of all its islands comes to approximately 700 square kilometres (Eckert, 1993).

Its population is about 100,000 and the number of civil servants employed in the public sector is approximately 5,000. The Government of Tonga have around seventeen (17) ministries of which there are almost thirty (30) head of departments, and five (5) units that are independent but are all under the Prime Minister's office (Government of Tonga, 2009). All the Government Departments HR functions are held by an office that is called the Public Service Commission. The Public Service Act was established on the 1st July, 2003, it was one of the initiatives of the ...