Human strategy and
management in the AFs
- the Hungarian experience Dr. Ferenc Molnár
ZMNDU Center for Strategic and
Defense Studies
Aim of the presentation
Spreading information about principles, norms,
and practice concerning human resources
Topics
• Democratic foundations of the human strategy
• The human strategy and its implementation
• Providing personnel: recruitment, promotion and
evaluation
Democratic foundations of the
human strategy
• Parliament decides: size, composition, structure,
medium and long term development of the AFs
• Parliament adopts acts: Constitution, Defence
Act, The Act on Legal Status of the Professional and
Contracted Soldiers
The Act on Legal Status
It defines:
• Service–related principles (avoiding power abuses,
discrimination etc.)
• Rules of practising fundamental rights (suffrage, religious
freedom, individual freedom etc.)
• Union-like organisations
• Rules of setting up service relation (recruitment, probation
periode, the system of applications for higher positions, „unattached”
status, etc.)
• Rules ending the service relations (resignation,
demobilisation and related payments etc.)
• Rules during the service (promotion, education, evaluation of
perfomance, etc.)
• Incomes and additional benefits
• Etc.
The human strategy and its
implementation
The MoD works out the human strategy, which is based
on:
• National security, defence, military strategies
• Constitution, Defence Act,
• Existing conditions of the military organisation
The implementation ensured by :
• Laws
• Regulating and commanding activity of the MoD/GS
The guiding principles of the
human strategy
• Supporting harmony between changing tasks, conditions and
human resources;
• Supporting professional development and capacity of the
military personnel;
• Improving the humanisation of the leadership and working
mechanisms of the military organisation;
• Continuously redefining the organisational goals according to
the changing environment and integrating the related proper
solutions into the military.
The pillars of the human strategy
and the strtuctures
• The human resource planning
• The human resource management
• The human resource development
Providing personnel: recruitment
Strategic objective of recruitment: fulfilling
human resource needs of the armed forces from
young age groups, in close cooperation with other
actors of the labor market.
Providing personnel: recruitment
The declared, general requirements of selection
are widely published and available:
- at recruitment offices (every county)
- in the newspapers
- on the internet
- in MoD brochures
Providing personnel: promotion
• Preconditions for promotion have to be laid down in
documents.
• These documents well-known for both the employer
and the military personnel.
• Important preconditions: level of education (degree);
military-professional training; practice in a certain
military assignment; high-quality service in the actual
assignment; psychological, physical, and medical
requirements; and other optional conditions regulated
by law.
Providing personnel: evaluation
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•
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•
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Objective of evaluation:
supporting the objectivity of promotion, selection
for higher positions,
supporting individual development,
increasing personal output,
shaping organisational (working) culture,
ensuring information for identification of training
requests, and for the correction of assignment
request profiles.
Providing personnel: evaluation
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•
•
•
Basic principles of evaluation system:
The evaluation includes the entire personnel of the
Ministry of Defence and the HDF.
The evaluation is regular and recorded in writing.
The evaluation is to be carried out annually.
The evaluation should be rational, objective, and
cannot be general.
Summary
In Hungary, the human strategy is based on
declared, transparent laws and regulations.
The system consists of three pillars: planning,
management, development.
The human resource-related challenges:
- long lasting ones due to financial reasons and lack
of political will;
- building the “esprit de corps”.