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Importance Of Public Personnel Management

Satisfactory Essays

Jada Plowden
MPA 604
Human Resources Management
09/24/17

What are the values of American public personnel management throughout its history?

The history of the American public personnel management has experienced a lot of changes throughout its existence in this country. The two dominant systems being the spoils system and the civil system, both have played a huge part in human resource and public personnel. The roles of merit, political neutrality, and patronage are significant to the two systems. Throughout this paper, the history of the two systems will be discuss and its significance and importance in American public personnel management.

History The spoils system was a civil service that was dated from post- Civil War period. It was appointments to civil servants who were friends and supporters of the political group in power. It existed during the Jacksonian Era and flourished during that time. Jackson administration wanted this to be known as a reform and efficient system where the chain of command for all public employees can from the higher parts of the government. During the Lincoln era, spoil system started to decline but workers still maintained their career service and tenure. Changes to the spoils system began after the James Garfield’s assassination. The assassination occurred because a man named Charles Guiteau believed that if he advocated and helped support for the presidency of Garfield he would have a guaranteed office position in the Garfield administration. Once the assassination happened citizens demanded for reform, this is when the Pendleton Act of 1883 came to pass. This piece of legislation was an important part for personnel management until 1979. This legislation created “civil service commission as the personnel management arm of the president.” (Personnel Management in Government, pg. 7) This service reform tended to benefit those who had less merit than others. The civil service system is an administrative part of a government or the employees of a government excluding military personnel. This personnel system was based on merit. Civil service is a body of government with the administration of the country. A major reform in the civil service system was the Civil Service

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