State Government Workforces Research Articles

Patient satisfaction and an international dental graduate workforce programme

PurposeThe New South Wales International Dental Graduate (N-IDG) programme was an Australian state government workforce initiative to support rural public dental services. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate patient satisfaction following dental treatment provided by an IDG workforce.Design/methodology/approachThis cross-sectional descriptive study used a validated questionnaire survey instrument to measure patient satisfaction (n=813) following treatment provided by IDGs enroled in the N-IDG programme, compared to their mentors. Domains included dentists’ professional competency, personality and the dental surgery organisation. Analysis of closed and open question responses was performed using domain grouping, frequency and χ2 analysis.FindingsPatient satisfaction across the IDG and mentor workforce was similar and very positively skewed with differences detected across perceived treatment quality (p=0.03), clinician efficiency (p=0.05) and answering of questions (p=0.05). These results favoured treatment provided by IDGs over mentors. This study demonstrated few differences between IDGs under limited registration and their mentors in terms of perceived patient satisfaction, suggesting patient perceived parity in care.Originality/valuePatient satisfaction was used innovatively to IDGs as an indicator of dental workforce programme effectiveness.

The Aging of the State Government Workforce: Trends and Implications

The aging of the baby boom generation, combined with the success of the New Public Management in downsizing the federal government, has led to a rapidly aging federal service, a reduced flow of new blood, and a looming “tsunami” of retirements that are forcing the federal service to reconsider many of its human resource practices. Are state government workforces undergoing the same transformation? Using the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census 5% Public Use Microdata Samples and the 2001-2007 American Community Surveys, the authors find that state governments have older workers than any other sector and that the mean age of their workforce has risen nearly as much as that of the federal civil service. Thus, the retirement tsunami may hit states harder than the federal government. The authors examine the effects of this coming tsunami on turnover, institutional memory, diversity, and educational qualifications.

Choosing Public Sector Employment: The Impact of Wages on the Representation of Women and Minorities in State Bureaucracies

In the past, researchers in the field of public administration have been hindered in their ability to study trends in the representation of women and minorities in state government due to limitations in data availability. This article develops an alternative approach to examining the representation of women and minorities in state government bureaucracies over the period from 1987 to 2002. Based on estimates constructed using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey, our analysis shows that women are generally overrepresented in state government employment relative to their civilian labor force representation within a state, and African-Americans are overrepresented in many states. Latinos are typically underrepresented. We also examine the potential determinants of representation for women and minorities, and find, among other factors, private sector race and sex-based wage differentials, relative to those in the public sector, are positively associated with the representation of women, African-Americans, and Latinos in state government workforces.

Diversity Management: An Exploratory Assessment of Minority Group Representation in State Government

The workforce deficit is occurring at a time when the demographics of the population are also drastically changing. As the population of ethnic and racial minorities and older workers increases, state personnel managers face new and distinct challenges in recruiting skilled individuals within these groups. In order to effectively manage the projected increase of African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American and older workers and to maintain adequate minority group representation, diversity initiatives must be revisited. The purpose of this study is to assess whether current state government recruitment practices are sufficient to sustain job openings, avoid a human capital crisis and advance the representative bureaucracy as the demographics of the available workforce changes. Unless the government continues to build a civil service talent pool with available minority group workers, they will have to contend with a human capital crisis and a deteriorating representative bureaucracy. Recruitment strategies must go beyond traditional practices in order to reach subgroups of qualified workers. It is time to recognize that the state government workforce of the future needs to incorporate differences and encompass a broad spectrum of diversity. The human capital crisis is an opportunity for the government to create a strategic workforce plan, restructure recruitment practices and revamp the civil service examination process.

Managerial Promotions in the Public Sector

Barriers to the promotion of women and minorities into managerial positions in the New York State government work force are analyzed using two sets of data—one set consisting of those promoted through a formal competitive examination process and a second consisting of those promoted through nonexamination administrative transfer. Although it is commonly believed that the competitive examination process and the inflexible Rule of Three final selection procedure constitute the primary institutional barriers to advancement for women and minorities, these data revealed that the main barrier to promotion of women and minorities is eligibility requirements. Job titles which qualify incumbents to apply to take examinations for managerial positions are disproportionately held by White males. Even more skewed, titles eligible for administrative transfer without examination are overwhelmingly held by White males.

Civil Service, Collective Bargaining and Personnel-Related Impediments To Effective State Management: a Comparative Assessment

Based on the responses of managers in ten states, this article examines various personnel-related problems as impediments to effective state management. Substantial proportions of managers in all of the states surveyed viewed as serious problems adequately rewarding employee performance, procedures for hiring personnel required by civil service, disciplining or dismissing incompetent employees, and recruiting and retaining key staff. Interstate variation in the severity of certain personnel-related problems was also evident. While the extent of civil service coverage was positively correlated with particular personnel problems, the relationship between it and personnel-related difficulties was not always strong or consistent. The extent to which a state government's workforce collectively bargained was strongly and positively correlated with the severity of certain personnel problems. But even in states with extensive collective bargaining, only about a fifth of the managers considered various "union" problems to be serious impediments to effective management.