Review of Related Literature and Studies
This chapter discusses and reviews the various local and foreign literatures that have relevance on the current investigation. It further explains and expound on the subject of the study making it more interesting and well supported.
Foreign Literature and Studies
HRD is about the development of people within the organization. It is a very dynamic and evolving field in the world of business. On the other hand, it is also a very sensitive and delicate area to handle. HRD refers to organized learning activities arranged within an organization in order to improve performance, enhance personal growth and that of the organization. In the entire process of personal growth / individual development in an organization, the Performance Appraisal System plays a vital role.
The Performance Appraisal is not to be seen as a pin pointer for the faults of employees, but as an effective instrument for helping employees to grow and develop in organizational setting. Performance Appraisal is a developing subject and various changes, improvements in the area, are getting evolved. With the introduction of
Performance Appraisal, as a Development tool, now-a-days we see the overall shift from the concept of Industrial Relations (IR) to Human Resources (HR) in the organizations. More and more emphasis is being given to HR activities. Training has now become the Employer’s perspective and prime goal of training efforts are achieving higher Performance Management. Training is usually imparted to fill a ‘Performance
Gap’ as identified during the Performance Management Process or to update the latest technological developments.
There are various books, articles written on the subject of ‘Performance
Management’ by Foreign & Indian Authors. Though the conceptualism is more or less same, the practices and systems followed in Multinational Companies (MNCs) and
Indian Companies, during recent past are certainly different. Major books and articles are studied and Researcher has tried to review the same, as far as possible. This is an attempt of the thesis to bridge the gap in literature in the subject and also the genesis of
Researcher’s study.
Government’s performance directly influences the well being of citizens, especially the weaker sections who have no alternative to public services. Common performance challenges faced by the governments include focusing on results that has meaning stakeholders, improving results within resource constraints, encouraging public employees to provide better services, and ensuring public’s trust in government.
Performance management enables governments to address these challenges.
Performance management is now ongoing, systematic approach for improving results through evidence based decision-making, ensuring continuous organizational learning, and focusing on accountability for performance. The Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES) introduced by the Government of India for performance management, aims to measure performance of government departments in a fair, objective, and comprehensive manner to create a results-oriented government.
HR Systems in Practice: MNC Subsidiaries versus LOCs
This study employs the approach Bae (1997) adapted from the SHRM literature to measure measure HR systems in an Asian context. He proposed four broad functional HR system categories: HR flow (recruitment, selection, training and development), work structuring (control, teamwork, job specificity), reward systems
(wages and performance appraisal) and employee influence (employee participation and ownership). Each of these HR functions can be defined as a continuum of related
HR practices ranging from a control based work system to a high-performance work system.
Human Resource is responsible for employee experience during the entire employment lifecycle. It is first charged with attracting the right employees through employer branding. It then must select the right employees through the recruitment process. Human Resource then onboards new hires and oversees their training and development during their tenure with the organization. HR assesses talent through use of performance appraisals and then rewards them accordingly. In fulfillment of the latter,
HR may sometimes administer payroll and employee benefits, although such activities
are more and more being outsourced, with Human Resource playing a more strategic role. Finally, Human Resource is involved in employee terminations including resignations, performance-related dismissals, and redundancies.
The business’s system of personnel policies can affect economic performance.
Because personnel policies encompass such a broad range of managerial decisions and practicing including job design, recruiting and selection, training and development, reward structures, and communication systems, the number of potential theoretical mechanism that might link personnel practices to performance is very large. While a study of single personnel policy would undoubtedly allow for a more specific theoretical model of the effects of that policy on performance, limiting the scope of the investigation to a single policy would be misleading. In particular, there is strong agreement across diverse theoretical perspective that personnel policies should be highly interrelated.
For example, from the perspective of human capital theory, personnel policies should affect business performance because certain policies are instrumental in the acquisition and development of valuable employment skills. At the same time, human capital theory also emphasizes relationships among personnel policies. While this theoretical perspective highlights the importance of training for jobs that require specific human capital, training should also be accompanied by a policy of “promotion from within”. A merit-based reward structure is at least implicitly assumed because employee and employer must share the cost of training in earlier periods and benefits of improved productivity in later periods. Furthermore, if worker ability and training are complementary, as suggested in certain job matching models (e.g., Jovanovic. 1979;
Topel, 1986), then “productive” training efforts may also coincide with more extensive recruiting to identify high ability job applicants.
Models or workplace organization rooted in psychology draw on theories of motivation and commitment (e.g., Maslows, 1954; Herzberg, 1966; Vroom and Deci,
1970). These models argue that pay alone is not an effective role in motivating the workers because it does not satisfy many human needs. These models suggest that a set of reinforcing personnel policies that encompass broad and flexible job design, extensive communication mechanisms, merit-based structures, and employee training
can promote economic performance through their effects on worker motivation and commitment (Hackman and Oldham, 1980; Kochan, Katz and McKersie, 1986, 93-96).
Institutionally-oriented analyses of labor unions suggest that personnel practices in unionized settings can promote performance when they enhance worker “voice” and reduce employee turnover. They can also reduce efficiency to the extent that they impose unnecessary restrictions on the definition and scope of jobs (Freeman and
Medoff, 1984, 162-165; Brown and Medoff, 1978, 357-360). At the same time, institutional analyses of labor unions draw attention to a consistent set of personnel practices instituted under collective bargaining including quasi-judicial grievance procedures, seniority-based reward structures, and narrowly defined jobs (Slichter,
Healy and Livernash, 1960; Kochan, Katz, and McKersie, 1986).
Each of different theoretical perspective stresses two fundamental points.
1.) Personnel practices can affect a firm’s economic performance. These theoretical frameworks emphasize different mechanisms that link personnel practices to business performance
– skill development and acquisition in human capital theory, employee motivation and commitment in psychological theories, and effective worker representation and voice in studies of trade unions. These different frameworks also share the intuitively appealing notion that personnel policies affect performance primarily through their effects on the contribution and quality of the labor input.
2.) Each of the theoretical perspective also emphasizes the logic of the systems approach to the analysis of personnel practices, although the different framework draw attention to different system policies. Estimates of the effects of individual policies on measures of performance will probably be misleading. If training and promotion from within, flexible job design and team-oriented communication systems, or grievance procedures and narrowly defined jobs are highly correlated, it will be misleading to attribute the performance effects of personnel management to individual policies. The performance models therefore include variables measuring sets of personnel policies, or human resource management systems, rather than individual policies.
China-based high-performance HR system
There’s general agreement that high-performance HR systems can lead to better organizational performance, but nearly all research on high performance HR has been based on a Western model. While some studies show that American-style HR can be beneficial to Chinese firms, it’s reasonable to question whether this is the most effective system, considering the significant differences between doing business in the
United States and China. In this study, researchers developed and tested a scale of high-performance human resource practices that are specific to Chinese firms in order to find out whether a different, but valid, HR-performance model applies to firms in
China.
Control HR can be thought of as traditional HR practices, such as getting employees to perform their duties and paying wages that are not closely tied to performance. Commitment HR also known as “high involvement” or “high-performance”
HR has the goal of improving a firm’s competitiveness by developing employees’ potential and maximizing their buyin to the company’s mission. Commitment HR practices include promotions from within, regular performance reviews, opportunities for employee input, training, and formal grievance procedures.
As early as 1978, the government said that enterprises should be able to hire and fire employees and institute bonus plans, although in practice its policies restrained enterprises from doing either. By 1984, the government was taking steps to link wages, bonuses, and enterprise performance, and, beginning in 1985, white-collar employees in universities and government organizations became eligible for bonuses, job-related pay, and pay based on tenure. In 1988 China's government issued the Enterprise Law and in July 1992 the "Regulations for changing the methods of operation of industrial enterprises owned by the whole people". The se emphasized that in China’s new form of market economy, enterprises were to make their own business decisions and be responsible for their own profits or losses, development and expansion, and legal compliance (Zhu & Dowling, 1994). Related policy changes facilitated inter-enterprise employee mobility. State owned enterprises faced critical issues on how to attract and retain key employees, as newly mobile workers began moving to privately owned
enterprises, township enterprises, and international joint ventures.
The period from
1994-2004 was thus one in which enterprise managers had to adapt their practices to the new necessities of competition. Globalization as symbolized by China’s aspirations to join GATT, the new requirements that enterprises be responsible for more of their own operational decisions and profits and losses, and the loosening of the iron position practice meant that managers had to institute HRM and other management practices that would make their enterprises competitive.
China’s enterprise managers made substantial progress in instituting modern
HRM practices. The consulting firm Watson Wyatt recently found that the firms they surveyed did fairly well in linking pay to strategy, and had scores for recruitment processes, recruitment resource investments, and employer (recruitment) images as good or better than those of enterprises in Asia Pacific (China Staff, 2003a). However, while China’s enterprises invested significantly in employee recruitment, they scored less well on issues that promote employee retention, such as building employee
’s skills, and raising morale. Here companies in China scored lower on the survey then did those in most Asia Pacific countries (China Staff, 2003a).
China’s enterprises also made significant progress in linking pay to performance. For example, based on one survey, incentives play only a "moderate" role in U.S. pay packages, but in China they play a relatively important role (Lowe, et al., 2002).
Performance-Based HR System in Korea
Many Korean firms went through fundamental changes in their management paradigms, systems and practices since the financial crisis in late 1990s. Like other managerial functions, human resource management (HRM) in Korea has changed greatly right after the financial crisis began. The direction of changes in Korean HR system was toward ‘performance-based HRM’. The concept of performance-based
HRM is characterized by the mechanism in which HR practices such as performance appraisal, promotion or compensation are tightly linked to individual or group performance. This concept is contrasted with the traditional seniority-based HR system where job security is emphasized and promotion and remuneration rules depend basically on seniority. Performance-based HRM is thought to have originated from the notion of socalled ‘best practices’, which mainly originate from the U.S. companies and are becoming the model for a great number of companies in the world (Rowley and Bae
2002). In the framework of ‘best practices’, there is one universal HR practice set which can be applied to any situations, which ensures high performance (Arthur 1992, 1994;
Huselid 1993; MacDuffie 1995; Delaney and Huselid 1996; Ichniowski et al. 1997;
Pfeffer 1994,
1998). With the trend of globalization, ‘best practices’ have obtained a wider logical foundation for application in global dimension, and the recent HR changes in Korean firms also owe their main direction to this trend. However, while U.S.-type best practices are said to be popular among Korean firms, it should be noted that the unique social and cultural contexts in a country have influence on the adoption and activation of new HR practices. Especially, considering the contrast between traditional seniority based-HRM and new performance-based HRM in Korean firms, it is expected that current form of Korean firms’ performance-based HRM would contain various unique aspects that reflect characteristics from both practices.
There is still no consensus on a term to describe current form of HR systems in
Korea. Although the term is not officially approved, ‘performance-based HRM’ is generally used among the researchers and practitioners in Korea. Terms such as ‘new
HR practices’ and ‘innovative HR practices’ are also widely used. These terms refer to a new HR system, which is different from the traditional seniority-based HRM.
Traditional Korean HRM is characterized by seniority-based HR practices and lifetime employment relying on internal labor market. Such traditional HR policies and practices have been thought to be useful for the rapid growth of Korean firms since
1960s (Yu, Park, and Kim 2001). However, these traditional HR practices were frequently criticized as ineffective and unfit for changing business environments from the 1980s. As a result, socalled ‘new HR system’ emphasizing ‘performance’ has begun to emerge since late 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, fierce international competition and economic distress especially since the financial crisis in late 1990s have demanded more efficient and flexible utilization of human resource with lower labor costs (Kim, Bae and Lee 2000).
The popularity of U.S.-type best practices increased after the financial crisis in the 1990s because Korean firms had to adopt ‘global standards’, which induced fundamental paradigm shift in HRM. Thus, it seems that current pattern of the changes in
Korean firms’ HRM is characterized as the new ‘transformation’ rather than as only continuous gradual improvement from the past HR practices (Park and Noh 2001). The traits of the paradigm shift in HRM are summarized as following:
(1) from internal labor market-based to external labor market-based,
(2) from group?seniority-based to individual?performance-based,
(3) Best Practices and Performance-Based HR System in Korea 5 from peoplebased to work-based,
(4) from staff-based to line manager-based,
(5) from domestic-based to international-based,
(6) from vertical structure-based to horizontal structure-based,
(7) from generalist-based to specialist-based one.
Although there exists such a paradigm shift, it does not mean a thorough replacement of the old paradigm with the new one, but means the coexistence of two paradigms (Jeong 2000). Actually, researchers debate over whether the change is a
fundamental paradigm shift or a transient change, and over whether it is a part of global
HR convergence or the emergence of newly unique Korean pattern (Park and Noh
2001; Yu, Park, and Kim 2001).
These detailed characteristics of individual current HR practices reveal that each system contains mixed traits of old and new, thus making it difficult to conclude about the identity of HR changes in Korean firms now.
Recruitment and selection. Recruitment patterns have changed from mass recruitment of new graduates to recruitment on demand, and from generalist orientation to specialist (Bae and Rowley 2003). Mass recruitment of new gradates two times a year (in spring and fall) was an appropriate form in traditional Korean HRM relying on internal labor market and job security. However, changes in business environments have required recruitment on variable demands, and a lot of Korean firms have accepted this new recruitment practice (Lee 2002). Workers who used to stay with a firm for a long time-frequently all of their careers-also began to change employers more often (Jung et al., 2003; Park and Noh 2001).
Another change in recruitment is that experienced ones with special skills are preferred over new recruits (Jeong 2000). In the past, most jobs were assigned or substituted internally due to the rigid organizational culture. However, increasing global competition, growing importance of specialist owing to technology development, increased importance of lifetime job over lifetime employment induces the horizontal mobility of workers among companies, with emphasis on external labor market and flexibility in staffing. It is also remarkable that Korean firms are trying to open doors to women since the late 1990s and more and more women are entering into labor force.
Since the financial crisis in 1990s, the increase in female labor force participation has been greater than that of man and the female labor force participation exceeded 50% in
2005 for the first time in history (Jung 2006).
Training and development. With increasing emphasis on
‘performance’ in HRM, training and development is also under the influence of current performance-based
HRM trend. Specifically, many companies emphasize training specialists with specific skills related with corporate strategy rather than training generalists. They operate training programs that are intended to form a specialist pool (Noh et al. 2003). As a result, for workers, new pattern of training and development increases their employability, and for companies, it contributes to the improvement of employee capability and firm performance by tightly liking the training programs with corporate strategic aims.
Companies also spend more money to train employees and are found to be very strategic in choosing whom to train. Fourteen percent of regular workers received some form of training in 2003, but only 2.7% of part-time workers had such opportunities (Lee
2005). Companies also report good return on training expenses and plan to expand their training budget over time (Lee 2005).
Local Literature and Studies
An HRMS, the abbreviation for Human Resources Management System, is a system that lets you keep track of all your employees and information about them. It is usually done in a database or, more often, in a series of inter-related databases. This option is for managing employees regarding the details like employees cards HR console, add new employee to company, edit employee information, search employee by project design and department, and enter employee code view information. It is a project research on implementation of HRMS in Local Government Unit (LGU). This system provides user with data to support the routine, repetitive human resource decisions that occur regularly in the organization to make it more effective it should be integrated with the information system with the organization.
Human resources Management system exists in every country, but it differs from one country to another. HRIS particularly in developing countries are usually not reliable.
This paper will be discussing some aspects of HRMS, especially in the field of Local
Government Unit (LGU). This paper will future look into a literature review on LGU and then will discuss composition of labor force, Labor force policy and Planning, Trade
Union, data available on employment, unemployment, labor force participation rate.
Nowadays, Human Resources was a playing a great role for businesses core advancement and innovation that can lead them to success. But not all these perspective is quite act in the same way. There are some prove articles that deeply elaborate how and why that does we need HR in our economic cycle of living.
News Written by N Peri Sastry - human resource management is undergoing a massive transformation that will change career paths in as-yet uncertain ways. Employers are placing greater emphasis on business acumen and are automating and outsourcing many administrative functions, which will force HR professionals to demonstrate new skills and compete for new, sometimes unfamiliar roles. Job titles and functions will likely remain in flux for some time; say business leaders, academics, HR consultants and HR professionals. But they feel that some of the standard niches — such as HR
generalist and benefits specialist
— will become less common and less important, giving way over time to new ones such as HR business analyst.
Below is the list of some successful Local Human Resource Management
Systems:
1. Astra Human Resource Information System
Astra Human Resources Information System (AHRIS) is a user friendly webbased employee information management system. The system automates and improves the delivery of HR services, including managing the employee records, facilitating requests for leaves, overtime and training, tracking the employees' performance and skills, and allocating and managing the company's resources.
Astra (Philippines) Inc. is a Software Development company providing high quality services and products for the global market. We offer a wide range of outsourcing services from engineering custom software to development and delivery of mobile and web-based content. As the product Research and Development arm of the
Astra Group of Companies, we also create core software products and development tools.
Astra (Philippines) Inc., as a Product Research and Development company, has a primary goal of developing innovative world-class software and hardware solutions; and bringing out the best from its customers, partners, people, and the society.
With the AHRIS, you can:
Centralize employee records, maintain electronic personnel files
Reduce HR paperwork, avoid missing or losing forms
Automate HR workflows such as performance appraisals, leave and overtime application processing
Perform better employee performance management and training needs assessment
Engage your employees! True multi-user and role-based access extends the HR services directly to the employees, even to remote sites and satellite offices.
Work online through the browser, on your intranet or the internet.
Employee Records Management
Store, organize, update, and view employee profiles, contact information, employment information, travel records, etc.
Complete records tracking including position and employment history, resource allocation, and travel records
Upload documents such as scanned IDs, passports, birth certificates, etc.
View organizational charts
Attendance Management
Real-time attendance tracking of all employees
Easily view vital information such as absences, tardiness, overtime and under time.
Generate statistical reports
Enable supervisors to view attendances of subordinates
Resource Management
Tracks the allocation of the company's resource or assets such as laptops, desktop PCs, conference rooms, etc.
Company Documents Repository
Publish company documents such as policy manuals, training materials or application forms etc.
Performance Management
Use both performance goals and job-based competencies to evaluate employees
Identify training programs that can address deficiencies
Self Service (e-Kiosk)
Training Management o Manage internal and external training program information and schedules. o Map training programs to competencies addressed. o Manages training applications and approvals, and training history.
Leave Management o Manage leave credits information, leave applications, approvals, completions and verifications
Overtime Management
Memos and Notifications o Create memo and events such as reminders, birthday, appointments. o Receive notifications of upcoming events and action item alerts
AHRIS is configurable and customizable
Let Astra customize AHRIS for your very specific needs.
With available add-on modules/customization: o Payroll System o DTR, Project Time Allocation o Time Capture Device Integration
Further improve HR with these future add-on modules: o E-Learning Management System. Integrate training needs assessment, training and performance management o Social Networking. Build community spirit in your company.
2. myHRBuddy: Human Resource Information System myHRBuddy is a Human Resource Information system and Payroll software designed for today's executives, HR professionals, and accounting staff who need an easy way to manage personnel information. myHRBuddy was designed with an in-depth understanding of the administrative tasks done by HR and Finance departments. The benefits of using myHRBuddy range from increasing your organization's productivity to empowering employees.
The benefits of using myHRBuddy range from increasing your organization's productivity to empowering employees.
Fully-customizable
Web-based software
Supports the Japanese language*
Unlimited number of users
Outputs reports to Excel or PDF
Integrated company calendar
Encrypted user login and password
Posting of announcements, news and features
Easy to define levels of user access
Access restrictions can be applied to menus, windows and individual fields
Supports multi-shift 24x7 operation
Self-service feature
How can myHRBuddy help your company/business.
Increases productivity
Transforms your HR from policy police to strategic human capital resource partner
Cost efficient through its modularized design - buy only what you need
Reduce cost by automating routine HR Tasks
3. SunFish HR Philippines
SunFish HR has been developed with globalization in mind and an adaptability that allows deployment in countries and offices all around the world with no constraints.
SunFish HR is available in Philippine language, meets Philippine legislative requirements, and we have Malaysian partners ready to assist with implementation.
SunFish HR is available in the following packages,
SUNFISH HR PROFESSIONAL VERSION
A benefit of SunFish HR Professional Version (Administrative Functions) includes the following:
Employee Information incl. ESS/MSS
Time Attendance
Payroll
Organization Structure
Basic Career Admin
Reimbursement
Loan
Customizable Dashboard Summary
Decentralize or automate HR administration tasks so HR department can work more efficiently and productively.
Self-service for leave, overtime, reimbursements requests >> better interaction, speedier processing
One integrated HR administration system to eliminate duplication and optimize efficiency
Reduce payroll processing time and effort and eliminate payroll errors
Dashboard shows graphical reports and KPI's for actionable executive information.
SUNFISH HR ENTERPRISE VERSION
A benefit of SunFish HR Enterprise Version (Administrative and Strategic Functions) includes the following:
Employee Information incl. Employee Survey and On-boarding Process,
ESS/MSS
Organization Structure
Time Attendance
Payroll
Reimbursement
Loan
Customizable Dashboard Summary
Career Administration incl. Career Planning, Career Path, Succession
Performance & Competency Management
Human Asset Value, Individual Development Plan, Balanced Scorecard
Training, eLearning
Recruitment
Budgeting include all the benefits of Sunfish HR Professional Version plus -
Standardize processes across multiple companies and locations for maximum efficiency
Quickly understand and react to HR problems through detailed and customizable reports
Enable the HR department to provide strategic support of the company's business objectives
Identify high performing employees and set their performance as benchmark for others
Analyze and adjust effectiveness of recruitment process to optimize candidate quality
Analyze and adjust effectiveness of training programs to optimize results for the business
Easy analysis of data for proper HR financial planning
The above stated Systems are some of the currently and existing system that is currently generated and implemented here in the Philippines. Us this we undergo this research, we hereby to use this sample articles to be our leading guide to compare with our main research for it is output made more successful and standardize.
Compensation. Compensation is an area in which the most important changes have been taking place in Korean firms after the financial crisis (Yu, Park, and Kim
2001). Traditionally, seniority has been an important element in determining base salary and annual increase in Korean firms, but this system has been criticized continuously because it did not reflect the performance of employees or companies. Since mid-
1990s, firms have moved from a seniority-based system toward performancebased one with Yeon-bong je (Korean-style merit pay) and group incentive system such as profit sharing, and the financial crisis significantly accelerated this trend. Actually, the 2000
survey of Korean firms by Korea Labor Institute (KLI) reveals that companies that adopted Yeon-bong je from 1998 to 2000, which is right after the financial crisis, occupy
78.3% of all companies that adopted it (Park and Noh 2001). However, although the overall direction of the change in compensation system is from seniority to performance,
56.6% of Korean firms in 2002 still have Ho-bong table (pay table that reflects seniority).
Also the fixed wage determined with Ho-bong table occupies as much as 65.7% in total wage. These practices show that seniority still matters in Korean firms’ compensation practices (Jung et al., 2003).
Evaluation. Related to the expansion of performance-based compensation, performance evaluation is another area that went through substantial changes in Korea.
Traditionally, evaluation was not quite important under the seniority-based compensation system, and it was mainly used for the promotion decision. However,
Korean firms began to apply evaluation results to both employee development and compensation decision. Management by objectives (MBO) plays a key role for the evaluation of individual performance, which applies to both compensation decision and individual development in Korean firms. The adoption rate of MBO rapidly increased from 35.0% in 1998 to 49.0% in 2000 (Yu, Park, and Kim 2001). Also, most of the
Korean companies make use of both performance appraisal and competency appraisal in HR decision-making. For decisions related to compensation and promotion, the result of performance appraisal plays a more important role, and concerning individual development, that of competency appraisal is more important (Park and No 2001).
Additionally, more and more Korean firms are adopting 360-degree appraisal and feedback system. In particular, upward appraisal has seen increased adoption for compensation decision and leadership development (Yu, Park, and Kim 2001).
Organization structure. The direction of recent changes in organization structure in Korean firms was toward a more flat structure. Traditionally, Korean firms’ organization structure was characterized by long hierarchy and concentration of authority atthe top. This often brought about negative effects including stagnant and bureaucratic attitudes (Cho 2000). Recently, Korean firms are flattening the structure by reducing the grade system and decision making procedure and by delegating authority
to employees down in the hierarchy (Yu, Park, and Kim 2001). Team-based work system is a very significant trial to flatten the traditional hierarchical structure. Under the teambased system, long grade hierarchy is removed, and decisionmaking line is simplified into two steps: a team leader and team members. The 2000 survey of Korean firms by KLI presents that 80% of respondent companies adopted team-based work system (Park and Noh 2001). Self-supporting accounting system in business units and outsourcing of some HR functions have also influenced recent structural changes in
Korean firms as well.
Employment adjustment. After the financial crisis, many Korean firms began to abandon lifetime employment principle sand adopt flexible employment principles. While adjustment can come via reduced hiring, the speed of employment adjustment co uldn’t be fast enough under the lifetime employment system. Therefore, firms have also used dismissals and so-called ‘honorary retirement plans’ (Bae and Rowley 2001). The 2000 survey of Korean firms by KLI demonstrates that 66% of respondent companies answered that they implemented employment adjustment since financial crisis, and especially in 1998, almost one third of Korean firms had employment adjustment (Jung et al. 2003).
The use of a contingent labor force (e.g., part-timers, temporary workers and leased workers) became widespread after the crisis. Accordingly, the Law on Protecting
Dispatched Workers was enacted in February 1998 to regulate and control the use of contingent workers (Bae and Rowley 2003). It is even argued that temporary and parttime workers now outnumber full-time workers (Burton 2000).
Employment adjustment mainly aims at cost reduction rather than productivity improvement or HRM efficiency, and it is doubtable that it has the ultimate positive impact on firm and national competitiveness (Jung et al. 2003).
Synthesis and relevance to the study
The study of local and foreign literatures as part of related studies reiterates the importance, benefits and advantages of enhancing the current system of monitoring of employees within the Human Resource Departments of certain LGU Offices and thus, the design, development, and implementation of rated evaluations of their attendances and salaries in an integrated environment with Human Resources Management System should speak for itself. In today’s technology there is no doubt that computerization in any endeavor particularly in government offices is a must to make efficient and very good evaluations of employees.