The basic function of any government is to provide various types of services and facilities to its citizens. The quality of services and facilities greatly depends on how satisfied government employees are, which mainly depends on varies factor i.e., the way they are paid and allocated, how quickly they are promoted, how well they are trained, etc. Well payments and better facilities for the govt. employers inspire them to provide better service delivery for citizens. The findings of this study demonstrate that there are various types of problems and challenges in Bangladeshs public sector personnel administration. The civil service recruitment system is criticized because of its lengthy process, too much politicization in recruitment and police verification, etc. Promotional system is criticized as practice of biasness, partisanship, manipulation in ACR, etc. The training systems of govt. Personnel administration is found dissatisfactory as these training isnt up to the mark, also the training content dont appear to bring advancement in the service. Additionally, training programs are dont meet international standards due to the content and master trainer involvement, also there are lack of facilities to receive international training. Promotion or career advancement in the public sector rests more on seniority and interventions from peers and canvassers than it does on continued skill improvement and qualification attainment. By completing the recruitment process in a timely manner, rationalizing the pay structure, pro-moting on merit, and updating training, we can achieve modern, improved, qualified personnel administration in the public sector in Bangladesh that is capable of providing people with fast, efficient, effective, and better public service delivery.
Article 21 of the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of the Bangladesh states that every employee in the republic must always strive to serve the people. The governments service quality depends on how qualified employees are recruited, the way they were trained, the way employee promotions are ensured, etc. As we want fast, smooth, quality government service, Good Governance, and to the cope with changing globalized the environment, we must need higher educated, the professional, competent, efficient, effective, honest, trained, & skilled government employees. Government sector employees recruitment and selection process, training, promotion process, transfer, fixation of salary, etc., are combined and called the Public Personnel Administration (PPA). Human Resource Management is the same type of functioning in the private sector. Civil service encompasses a group of the employees recruited through a BCS examination working at the different government offices to serve citizens.
The Ministry of the public administration (MPA) and public service commission (PSC) perform the main activities of Personnel administration in the govern-ment sector of Bangladesh. MPA design compre-hensive policies, principles, rules, and regulations for civil service management. It also plays a key role in the training, placement, promotion, transfer, discipline, and welfare of BCS officials (Yasmin, 2010). Per-sonnel administration in the Bangladesh deals with recruitment, training, promotion, planning, organizing, directing, and controlling procurement, development, compensation, the integration, and maintenance in the public sector organizations in Bangladesh. Personnel Administration is also one of the major instruments of the government for the managing and building the capacity of civil servants. Personnel managements primary objectives are enhancing administrative capa-city, management skills, and productivity, reducing un-employment, and achieving sustainable and balanced development (Ashaduzzaman Nour, 2015). In todays globalized world, there is no alternative to an efficient, effective, capable, and high-quality civil service if a country is to attain and ensure good governance and enhanced development. It is impossible to the attain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) without en-suring a higher qualified public administration system (Ehsan, 2008). However, due to a weak Personnel Administration framework, the civil service is featured as inefficient, non-transparent, ineffective, largely insulated from the public, unaccountable, unethical and unfair, non-responsive to societal demands, preoccu-pied with process, rules, and procedures, and mainly interested in the enhancing their status, power, income, prestige, and the sub-system autonomy (Ehsan, 2008; Karim & Karim, 2007). the Bangladeshs civil service recruitment system is the characterized by political influence, nepotism, kinship in recruitment, lengthy process, and politicize in police verification (Anjum & Mahfuza, 2021; Ashaduzzaman Nour, 2015; Ehsan, 2008; Hassan, 2022; Khan et al., 2020; Mahmood & Absar, 2015; Mamun et al., 2021; Nazirul et al., 2017). The training system is criticized for lack of competent and well-trained staff as well as the professionalism; training methods are not advanced, techniques and syllabus are outdated, and the link between training & promotion is the weaker (Ashaduzzaman Nour, 2015; Mahmood & Absar, 2015). BCS promotion is featured by political influence, contractual hiring, bias in making ACR, and the promotion for a bribe (Ehsan, 2008). Pay and allowance are featured by lower paid basic salary and other allowances, government job salaries lower than private job salaries, and no regular update of salaries with inflation and price hike (Mahmood & Absar, 2015; Mohammed et al., 2011).
Empirical research on Public Personnel administration in Bangladesh is still rare, and only a few studies have been published, usually on specific issues in recog-nized and credible journals. The previous studies on this issue had some limitations like studies conducted on previous data (Ehsan, 2008; Mahmood & Absar, 2015; Mohammed et al., 2011) lack of the detailed explanation (Anjum & Mahfuza, 2021; Ehsan, 2008; Hassan, 2022; Khan et al., 2020; Mahmood & Absar, 2015; Nazirul et al., 2017); Focuses on the partial components of personnel administration (Mamun et al., 2021). Thus, the current study could pioneer a comprehensive discussion on problems and challenges of public Personnel Administration in Bangladesh, which would benefit students, researchers, academics, business executives, and policymakers immensely.
Theoretical background of this study
Abraham Maslow explored his idea about personnel management in his theory "Needs Hierarchy Theory" in his book A Theory of Human Motivation in 1940-1950. Needs Theory is a well-respected professional motivational psychological theory. Maslow described his need theory as “people fulfilling their needs hiera-rchically”. Generally, human needs are physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem, & the self-actualization. According to Maslow, when the initial basic needs are fulfilled, human beings are motivated to work correctly & can increase productivity. The theory also contri-butes to personal development, human motivation, and management training (Urinov, 2016).
Frederick Herzberg described his opinion about the personnel motivation in his “Two Factor Theory.” The Two-Factor Theory of Motivation is a content model that contends that distinct factors contribute to the job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. These two factors are the hygiene factor and the motivating factor. Hygiene factors in Herzbergs model are salary, safety, security, working environment, working conditions, and other things that can make an individual unhappy at work. The absence of this factor can make people dissatisfied and is a prerequisite for satisfaction at work. Moti-vating factors in Herzbergs model are achievement, recognition, advancement, empowerment, responsibi-lity, and intrinsically exciting work, which can make moderately satisfied people highly satisfied, but have no impact on satisfaction if hygiene factors arent already in place. Hygiene factors are a prerequisite for a positive employee experience and high employee engagement. Motivating factors are necessary for individuals to achieve high levels of job satisfaction, but their absence will never result in the extreme job dissatisfaction (Urinov, 2016). Maslows “Need Hie-rarchy Theory” is justified and the relevant to this research. According to him, human beings generally want to fulfil their needs, from basic to higher-quality needs. When people reach self-actualization, they can utilize their full capabilities and potential. Maslow also emphasizes human motivation and the management training. This study analyzed that government service employee management in the Bangladesh suffers from various problems, challenges, and the absence of the employee motivating factors, like limited salary, no job safety, no adequate arrangement for the proper training, & the minimal arrangements for employee motivation work. Without motivating factors in our countrys public personnel management, government employees have lower productivity. Today, Maslows ideas and theories are regarded as the most appropriate strategies for employers seeking to create a better working environment for their employees to meet their unique organizational requirements for public and private sector organizations, especially for public sector employee management. Applying this theorys principles is crucial for Bangladeshs public personnel administration. F. Herzbergs hygiene factor and the motivating factors in the two-factor theory are very relevant in the present time to the improve personnel management. This study observed that the salaries of public sector employees in Bangladesh are too low, employees job security needs to be stronger, and the working environment needs to be modern. So, we can understand that in the Bangladesh, public personnel administration lacks a hygiene factor, which increases dissatisfaction with government jobs among govern-ment employees. In the Bangladesh government, the employee management also lacks motivating factors like recognition for a better work promotion, better performance, extra salary, bonuses for additional work, etc. So, if we want to increase employee productivity, the government should ensure Frederick Herzbergs motivational factors for employees.
Study design, sample and area
The study used an explorative qualitative method to identify the problems and challenges of the personnel administration in the public sector in Bangladesh. This study conducted face-to-face qualitative interviews to collect data from the respondents. Different divisional administration offices, district administration offices, Upazila administration offices and Bangladesh Public Administration Training (BPAC) were considered as study site of this study. At the very starting we wanted to conduct a content analysis by collecting data from these offices but due to lack of available documents and response from these offices we failed to collect enough data and information to the conduct content analysis for this study. After that we decided to add print and electronic media to collect data for content analysis. So, the content analysis of this study was done collecting content from different divisional, district and Upazila administration offices, BPAC and print and electronic media. Since the study sites are far apart, it took about eight months to collect the data, from January to August of 2022. We used a qualitative research method to collect data from the respondents through face-to-face interview. In-depth interviews (IDI) and the key informant interviews (KII) methods were used to collect data from the respondents, who were recruited using both the snowball sampling method and the purposive sampling method. The snowball sampling method was used to collect data from civil service officers and other government service officers. The sample size for both IDI and KII was ensured by obtaining saturation of the data. This study develops two semi-structured guidelines to collect data from IDI and KII participants. All of the guidelines were pretested to check inconsistency and feedback from these pretests were incorporated to make them holistic. The interview schedule was fixed up based on the preferred time of the respondent, as most of the respondents were government service officials the interviewer had to wait a long to set up interview schedule (Habib and Hasan, 2021).
Bangladesh Civil Service Officers who had been working at their jobs for at least two years were eligible to become IDIs. For KIIs, the criteria for inclusion were other stakeholders, such as family members of BCS officers, scholars, members of civil society, etc. All the respondents of this were aged more than 18 years old and written informed consent was taken before starting the interview. The respon-dent was asked if he/she is comfortable to allow recording the interview & only after getting recording permission interviews were the recorded. All the recordings are kept in a secure place and are using only for the research purpose. As per the informed consent this research wont share any information to the public where respondent is identifiable. The researcher spent significant time for developing rapport with the participant after introducing themselves and outlining the purpose of the study. The interview was only initiated once the person appeared at ease. The average interview lasted between 50 and 60 minutes, not including the time it took to get to know each other. All the interviews were done in Bangla, the respon-dents native language.
In-depth interview (IDIs)
This study used In-dept interview technique to the understand civil service employees perceptions about personnel management in government service. Thirty IDIs from different divisions and the districts were conducted where all the participants were civil service officers. At first, most of the officers didnt want to talk about this type of issue because they were worried about being exposed in the newspaper and other media. But with time, the researcher become able to explain things to them through developing a strong rapport, and finally become able to conduct interviews. All the IDIs were conducted at preferred location and time of the respondents. The following questions were the main interview questions included at the IDI guideline. Guidelines: i). Explain your opinion re-garding the standard of the selection and recruitment process of BPATC. ii). Explain the effectiveness of the training method (training content, training methods and expertise of the trainer) used to train the BCS? iii). Explain the kinds of benefits officers usually gets from the training. iv). Please explain the current promotion policy of the government. v). According to you how satisfactory are the current promotion system of the government? vi). Would you please explain constr-aints/challenges or bad practice (i.e., bribery or poli-tical influences) of the current promotion systems? vii). Are all cadres have the same promotion policy? viii). Are you satisfied with the present salary and other allowances? ix) Explain the increment systems of the government service, are you satisfy with this cur-rent increment process.
Table 1: List of IDI participants.
Key Informants Interview (KIIs)
Interviews with key informants were conducted to get experts opinion and find out the problems and limitations of personnel administration in the public sector in Bangladesh. Stakeholders from Bangladesh Civil Service and other government services were included as KII participants. The list of KII study participants is shown in the following table.Table 2: List of KII Participants.
We had to suffer the finding KII participants for this study. Most of the expected KII participant refused to talk. KII recruitment process takes longer time than as usual. Face-to-face KII interviews were conducted at the preferred time and location of the respondents.
The main interview questions used in the KII guide-lines are as follows: i). Explain your opinion regarding the standard of the selection and recruitment process of BPATC. ii). how would you like to justify the BCS exam systems i.e., syllabus and the question pattern? iii). What do you think the BCS exam systems is okay or there are rooms for improvement? If yes, please share your thought. iv). Tell me your opinion about the police verification process. v). Would you please share your thought regarding viva exam? vi). Explain the effectiveness of the training method (training content, training methods and expertise of the trainer) used to train the BCS. vii). Please explain the current promo-tion policy of the government. viii) Could you please share about the conditions BCS cadre needs to meet to be promoted? ix). According to you how satisfactory are the current promotion system of the government? x). What do you think the current salary of BCS cadre are enough to meet all the necessary needs of their family? xi). Are you satisfied with the present salary and other allowances? xii). Explain some way to make a good HRM system in the public sector?
Data Analysis
The interview was recorded, and it was listened to several times to the find inconsistencies and identify themes. All of the audio interviews were transcribed in Bengali and then translated to English in a Word document so that they could be put into a program called NVivo version 8, a computer aided qualitative data analysis software. Then, we care-fully looked at the data to find the emerging patterns and themes by using three steps (open, axial, and selective) of coding to the analyze the qualitative data. First, using open coding, we split the data into several parts and gave each of the different themes an "a priori" code. These themes included (1) recruitment and the selection, (2) training, (3) pro-motion, and (4) pay and allowance. Lastly, the themes were shown through quotes that fit and were explained by looking at other works.
Ethical Clearance
The Research Report Approval Committee, depart-ment of the Public Administration and Governance Studies, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Trishal, Mymensingh, gave ethical approval for this study. Before starting the interview, the participants read the written consent & signed it. Participants were also asked for permission to record their voices, and they could leave the interview at any time.
Findings
This study finding shows that Personnel administration (recruitment, training, promotion, pay, and transfer process and procedure) in the public sector in the Bangladesh is attributed to the different problems and challenges. These issues are discussed in the sequence below.
Recruitment and Selection
Civil service recruitment in Bangladesh is charac-terized by the faulty attributes like political influence, irregularities, and inconsistencies, and it takes a long time to the complete recruitment. In this regard, an applicant of 38th BCS said that:
“The BCS examination system in our country is too lengthy and it takes too much time. The 38th BCS takes about 2 years and 2 days to recruit the final candidates, from preliminary examination to final viva voce”. (KII Male, Candidate for BCS, Dhaka).
The BCS recruitment process is also criticized for 200 marks in the viva voice examination (Table 3), which can invite corruption and nepotism. Another major issue in government service recruitment is politiciz-ation. One of the scholars describes his opinion on this issue.
“The BCS recruitment methods and the question patterns are inadequate for identifying the best candidate for the Bangladesh civil service. Two hundred marks of viva create scope for political influence. The police verification system is not being fair” (KII, Male, scholar, Dhaka).
Our content analysis also finds this statement true. The details of the BCS examination process are given below in Table 3.
Table 3: Marks distribution of BCS exam.
Source: (Bangladesh Public Service Commission, 2012).
Training
Bangladesh civil service officer training programs are criticized for lack of competent and well-trained staff as well as professional competence; training methods are not advanced; techniques and syllabus are out-dated; the link between training and promotion is poor; trainers of the training institutes are not well-trained; & the government spends very little money on employee training and development programs. Regarding this issue, two respondents perceptions are given here. One scholar mentioned that
“The methods, lessons, equipment, tools, and tech-niques used to train civil servants in Bangladesh are outdated. The trainer is also not competent and the skilled” (KII, vMale, scholar, Dhaka). Another BCS officer also shared his experiences about this,
The lesson which is provided to the civil service officers of different cadres is not usable with their practical tasks and no link with the further carrier progression. Practical and update training should be provided to the officers to enrich their working skills and efficiency. (IDI, Male, Mymensingh).
Our content analysis also finds similar findings as we found in the IDIs and KIIs response. Table 4 below shows the name of the training institutes provided training to different cadre.
Looking at the training offered by BPATC we can understand that most of these training institutions only do orientation training or the basic training for different types of employees in their respective departments (Mahmood & Akhter, 2011).
Promotion
The promotion process has many problems and the challenges in Bangladeshs Civil Service. These are political influence, contractual hiring, nepotism, lack of interest in enforcing rules and regulations, bias in making ACR and the promotion for a bribe. These constraints in the promotion of govt. employee is also found in the qualitative interviews. One of the IDI participants shared his experience regarding this issue
“The Bangladesh civil service promotion system is most often hindered by political influence, higher officials biasness etc. Most of the time promotion is handled by/decided by the officers of the govern-ment ruling partys.” (IDI, Female, Dhaka).
Furthermore, BCS employees promotion is also the criticized for discrimination in promotion of different cadres. An IDI participant in the education cadre men-tioned in this regard
“There is no unique policy for promotion in all cadres of Bangladesh civil service." Some cadre officers are promoted to the first grade after 22 years on the job, while others are promoted after 27 years or more. Some cadres have a large number of first-grade posts, while others have very few first-grade posts.” (IDI, Male, Dhaka).
Pay and Allowance
Bangladesh civil service officers and other govern-ment service officers basic salaries & other allow-ances are unsatisfactory. There are significant limit-ations, such as lower paid basic salary and other allowance, government job salary lower than private job salary, no regular update of salary with inflation and price hike, no time scale, no regular mohargho vata, low amount of increment, no 0% interest house and car loan, the salary structure is not related to performance, equal pay for unequal tasks, & so on. A BCS officer shared his view in this matter
Table 4: Name of the institutions responsible for arranging training for different cadre.
Source: (Kabir & Baniamin, 2012).
"Before the 8th pay scale by the Bangladesh govern-ment, we faced a miserable life with great financial scarcity, but after the 8th pay scale, we lead our lives in an average condition and still now the salary structure is not satisfactory. Our government does not routinely adjust salary with price hike, and inflation. Further-more, the government have no allowance scheme (Mohargho vata) to compensate the employee.”(IDI, Male BCS officer, Dhaka)
A family member of a BCS officer also share her notion regarding this,
"As a family member we can realize how they have to struggle with current market to fulfill the needs of the family. (KII, female member of the BCS officer family, Mymensingh)
A civil society member also the shares her notion regarding the pay and allowance system of the govern-ment
"The government should adjust pay and allowance of government officers on a regular basis aligned with inflation, price hike, and the current rate of the daily necessary commodity price." (KII, Female, Dhaka).
This study found that Bangladeshs Public Personnel Administration (PPA) has suffered different problems and challenges. These are political influence in recruitment; politicization in promotion, training that has no link with promotion, underpaid salary, and allowance, etc. However, a discussion of these issues is presented in more detail below.
Fig. 1: Problems of public personnel administration.
Recruitment and Selection
The most important function of Personnel Adminis-tration is recruiting and the selecting people for Government service. As mentioned above, Bangla-deshs Ministry of public administration (MPA) and public service commission (PSC) act as the central agencies for personnel administration. The Ministry of Public Administration makes the recruitment rules, determines the procedure for recruitment, the quali-fications for the applicants, the age limit, the exam syllabus, and other elements of the selection process for BCS cadre officials, and also compiles job vacan-cies list on behalf of different ministries, department, division, etc. and request to circulate to public service commission through the newspaper to the search competent candidate (Karim, 2007). After circulation, PSC conduct 3 steps examination; preliminary examin-ation 200 marks, written examination 900 marks, and 200 viva voice marks (Bangladesh Public Service Commission, 2012). After accumulating written exa-mination marks and viva marks, the PSC finally publishes the qualified candidates names through their website & newspaper. Then the names of selected candidates go to the police for the verification. The candidates who have no allegation against the state and are not convicted in the court become qualified for police verification, and Government finally publishes their name in the Bangladesh gazette. In the Bangla-desh Civil Service (BCS) examination, Bangladeshi citizens with an academic graduate degree and age 30 (32 for freedom fighter son/daughter) are eligible to appear at the BCS examination (Ara, 2021).
The applicants are tested on their knowledge of the Bangla, English, Mathematics, General knowledge, Daily Science, Mental ability, and other compulsory and elective subjects (Annual Report of Bangladesh Public Service Commission, 2013). The last time, there was a 55% quota for freedom fighter sons/daughters and other underprivileged groups of a state member, but from 2018 the government of the Bangladesh abolished all types of quotas for B.C.S. recruitment. Now the B.C.S. recruitment system has no reservations for any group of people (Islam Sayedul, 2018). The candidate selected for the appointment must stay on probation for two years and attend the foundation training during this period (Anjum & Mahfuza, 2021). A civil service employee can perform his/her job until 59 years old. After 59 years, he or she has to go for post-retirement leave (PRL) are the findings of the content analysis of this study. However, civil service recruitments in Bangladesh have been characterized by irregularities, inconsistencies, political intervention, it takes a long time to finish recruitment, and recruitment methods must be more standard (Ashaduzzaman Nour, 2015; Bhuiyan, 2011; Ehsan, 2008; Hassan, 2022; Mah- mood & Absar, 2015; Karim & Karim, 2007; Mamun et al., 2021; Nazirul et al., 2017). BCS recruitment process takes a long time to complete its entire process. It takes about 3 years to complete recruitment from circulation to final recruitment (Ara, 2021). Due to the long recruitment process meritorious graduates lose their interest in joining the civil service. Police verification process in governmental jobs in Bangla-desh is also politicized in all the political regimes. Generally, governments want their followers to join in the civil service and other governmental services. Generally, police give negative reports to candidates who do not support the ruling party or other political ideologies (Ara, 2021), which is also a finding of this study. For this reason, the meritorious candidate is demotivated to join in the government service. Many academic scholars and other people raise questions about the method of the selection process in the BCS examination. This study finds that the syllabus of the BCS preliminary examination is not a standard one to select 1st class government officer, Distribution 200 marks for the viva examination in BCS calls biasness, nepotism, and corruption which is also aligned with other studies (Ara, 2021).
Training
The Ministry of the Public Administration determines what the training courses will cover and gives that responsibility to the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC) (Ashaduzzaman Nour, 2015; Hassan, 2022). All civil service cadre officers get basic training at BPATC (Jacobs, 2009). In addition to the BPATC, there are additional training institutions in Bangladesh that the provide training for civil service employees and other employees of the autonomous governmental organizations. Most of these training institutions only do orientation training or the basic training for different types of the employees in their respective departments (Mahmood & Akhter, 2011).
We found that the governments training program for BCS officers has been criticized for lack of competent and well-trained staff as well as professionalism; training methods are not advanced, techniques and syllabus are out-of-date, the link between training and promotion is weak, trainers at the training institutes are not well-trained, and the government spends very little of its annual budget on employee training and develop-ment programs. With the bilateral agreements of donor countries or multilateral organizations, it occasionally starts special training programs for certain government employees. When these possibilities arise, the Minis-trys top officials or the department heads select the trainees without examining their training or employ-ment requirements. Typically, trainees are selected based on their links to high-ranking officials or the political leadership of the relevant Ministry. At the end, the top officials are chosen by the political leadership of the relevant Ministry (Hassan, 2022; Jacobs, 2009; Mahmood & Absar, 2015).
The main problem with government training programs is that training doesnt seem to be very helpful for employees as these activities dont seem to have any impact on their career path or getting promotion (A M M Shawkat Ali, 2007; Anjum & Mahfuza, 2021; Ehsan, 2008; Khan et al., 2020; Mohammed et al., 2011; Siddiquee, 2003; Zafarullah, 2000; Zafarullah Habib & Huque Ahmed, 2012).
Promotion
Promotion of B.C.S. officer from grade 9 to grade 4 of all cadres was the designed by a committee named "Departmental Promotion Committee.” 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-grade officers in all cadres and was designed by a central committee named the "Superior Selection Board." The Superior Selection Board (SSB) com-prises the head of the cabinet department and the chief secretary, establishment secretary, finance secretary, law secretary, controller, and auditor general. Our countrys promotion system for civil service officers is criticized for various types of the anomalies. The anomalies are political influence, contractual hiring, nepotism, lack of the interest in enforcing rules and regulations, bias in making ACR, promotion for a bribe, etc. these findings are also aligned with the findings of this study.
Generally, the ruling party creates pressure to promote the officer who belongs to the political ideology of the ruling party rather than the best-qualified candidate for promotion. For this reason, it causes clashes between officers and also the causes dissatisfaction among the officers is the findings of this study. There is a practice in our civil service that includes contractual re-cruitment and the lateral entry recruitment. People recruited into the civil service get access to the civil service at a maximum time. These types of recruitment are not transparent. This type of recruitment hinders regular officer promotion in the civil service and causes late promotion for the regular officers. Many competent candidates cannot go to a higher post. Lateral entry system recruitment also the demotivates regular civil service officers. It is often found that higher-posted civil service officers generally offer promotions to their relatives and their favorite people rather than competent and qualified candidates for promotion. As a result, junior and lower-grade officers are often promoted more quickly than senior and competent officers. We also found apathy toward maintaining specific rules and the regulations. If the higher-posted officer is often dissatisfied with the lower-grade officer, the higher officer does not provide a better report in ACRA. As a result, the lower-grade officer are often deprives of getting fair promotion. Promotion at the senior level is kept outside the purview of PSC and done by a government committee. Discrimination in promotion in different cadres is a great challenge for civil service. Some cadre officers are promoted to first grade after 22 service length, while others are promoted after 27 years or more. Some cadre has a large number of first-grade posts, while others have very few first-grade posts. It creates anxiety and dissatisfaction among different cadre employees. The officer who does not follow the ruling partys political ideology goes to Officer in Special Duty (OSD). As a result, our country deprived them from their service, and the officers remained mentally upset. These findings of this study regarding the promotion in the civil services are also found by previous studies (A M M Shawkat Ali, 2007; Ehsan, 2008; Khan et al., 2020; Siddiquee, 2003; Zafarullah, 2000).
Pay and Allowance
The government settles basic salary and the other allowances of civil service and other government employees by the recommendation of the pay com-missions formed different times. The latest pay commission in our country was established in 2015. The employee of civil service and other government offices are now paying their salaries, the allowance, bonuses & other benefits according to the recommend- ations of the 8th Pay Commission (Mahmood & Absar, 2015). The government of Bangladesh has released its 8th national pay scale, which consists of 20 salary grades. Bangladeshs pay scale ranges from take 8,250 to take 78,00 for different categories of officers and staffs basic salaries. Every employee is given a house rent allowance ranging from 50 to 65 per cent of their basic salary. Other benefits include medical allowance, travel allowance, car benefits, tiffin allowance, edu-cation assistance allowance, fatigue and recreational allowances, costume facilities, bleaching allowance, workload allowance, hill and inaccessible allowances, housing construction loans, retirement allowance, and pension facilities, etc. are the findings of the content analysis of this study, and are aligned with previous studies. The public sector is more likely to the offer employees insurance coverage during employ-ment and the upon retirement (Anjum & Mahfuza, 2021; Hassan, 2022).This study found that the salary and other allowances for civil service officers and other government service officers are characterized by various limitations. These are very low basic salary & other allowance despite the market price, government job salary lower than private job salary, no regular update of salary with inflation and price hike, no time scale, no regular mohargho vata, low amount of the increment, no 0% interest house and car loan, the salary structure is not related to performance, equal pay for unequal tasks, and so on, and these are also aligned with previous studies.
The pay and allowances of first-class governmental officers should be structured so that they and their family members can cover all living expenses, medical expenses, education expenses, and other expenditures. However, in our governmental job system, salaries are too limited to cover the abovementioned expenditure (Ehsan, 2008). Moreover, government job salaries should be higher than private-sector salaries, but in Bangladesh, private-sector salaries are higher than government ones (Anjum & Mahfuza, 2021). From liberation to now, the salaries and allowances of the government officers have never been satisfactory. This type of problem invites bribe-taking and other cor-ruption among government employees (The Daily Star, 2022). There has yet to be a regular update on the government salary structure in Bangladesh. The last 8th pay commission declared salary structure in 2015. In 2022, almost 7 years have passed, but there is still no update to the salary structure of the government employees. All commodity and service prices have increased by two or three times within this time frame, but salaries have not. Even salaries have not increased due to inflation and global market price increases. In our country, government service employees increment needs to be expanded and even lower than in the private sector are the findings of this study and these also found trues at the current situation (The Daily Star, 2022). The centralized pay structure in the public sector also makes it difficult to link pay with per-formance, bringing inefficiencies. As a result, organi-zations are losing competitiveness in the long run (Anjum & Mahfuza, 2021; Bhuiyan, 2011)
Even though this study tried to find out as much as possible about the topic, it still has some limitations. Due to a limited budget, this study focused only on qualitative data and didnt conduct a quantitative survey. This means that the sample size was small, and there was bound to be some bias between the parti-cipants and the researchers points of view. Due to the sensitive nature of the research topic, researchers had trouble gathering data. A lot of government employees are also reluctant to share information owing to the professional obligations. We had finally gathered thorough information on this subject. Even though we did the study with a variety of civil service officers, academics, and people looking for work, we know that our findings about the problems and challenges of personnel administration in the public sector in the Bangladesh need to be looked into more in a popu-lation-based survey
Research Implications
This study has revealed some suggestions to improve quality human resource management in the public sector in Bangladesh.
1) It is crucial to stop the Political influence in BCS recruitment, promotion, transfer, etc. Merit-based recruitment, promotion, and training, etc. system should adopt in Bangladeshs civil service.
2) PSC should work independently and focus to recruit neutral, competent, and the professionally successful, honest, meritorious people in the administrative body of PSC.
3) Salary structures of the govt. employee should be rationalized and made practical. Still, now after the 8th pay scale in the Bangladesh, the salary structure of private sector organizations is much higher than the government service structure. Due to the low salary structure, many competent and meritorious people are not interested in joining this service; to them the pay structure should be more competitive, logical, and practical.
4) Candidates with good academic results in SSC, HSC, Graduation, and Post-Graduation should be prioritized in recruitment.
5) PSC should take necessary steps to make the exam systems linked with the job requirements. A strict law and punishment system should also implement for the question leakage. In previous times, the people who were involved in the leakage of the BCS questions got emancipated through various loopholes.
6) The government should update and implement a practical future plan for training civil service officers.
7) Every government office should be modernized. This should ensure the enough office furniture, computer and internet facilities, and other office decorum.
8) Corruption in different sector of govt. HRM i.e., recruitment, assigning training, and in promotion should be strictly prohibited. There should be a parliamentary accountability committee and a departmental corruption reduction cell.
9) The BCS recruitment process should be comple-ted in a shortage possible of time.
10) Government should allocate funds for the training of civil service officers. Competent trainer should be recruited sufficiently; and the training content should be updated based on the needs. Computer and ICT based training should be provided for the office. BPATC and the other training institutions need to be more capable. The necessary books, journals, research papers, magazines, & news-papers should be sufficiently available.
11) Contractual basis Recruitment and lateral entry should be stopped; these types of recruitment create anxiety in human resource management.
12) Internal Cadre deprivation should be removed. We know that at present time, the promotion sys-tem in different cadres is not unique. Some cadre promotions are done in due time, but promotions in most of the cadre are not done in due time. For this reason, in our civil service, we have a huge anxiety among the different cadres. A holistic promotion policy should be developing to ensure good promotion practice among the all the cadre service.
13) ACR should be authenticated, and promotions should be granted based on ACR.
14) Training lesions should be linked with the next promotion and further career progression.
Human resource management in the public sector in Bangladesh is characterized by the various types of constraints & problems that need immediate correction to make the public sector employees more efficient, improve public service delivery, and ensure good governance. The constraints and problems like lengthy recruitment process, pelletized police verification, no effective training, biasness in promotion, no unique rule for all cadre promotion, no due time promotion, politicize promotion, poor salary and allowance of government employee, low increment etc. should be taken into the account to make a standard Human Resource Management in public sector in Bangladesh. Additionally, based on the present finding this study has some recommendation- recruitment system should be fast, politicization in recruitment should be stopped, training method should be linked with the carrier progression, promotion should be merit based, a holistic promotion policy should implement for all cadre, biasness in ACR should be stopped, salary and other allowance should be standard, and the salary structure of govt. officers should update on a regular basis.
We are cordially thankful to all those who helped us in the successful completion of the present study.
The authors declare no conflicting interest in the paper.
Academic Editor
Dr. Sonjoy Bishwas, Executive, Universe Publishing Group (UniversePG), California, USA.
Department of Public Administration and Governance Studies, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Trishal, Mymensingh-2224, Bangladesh