With the advancement of ageing and shrinking population, Japan would experience various issues in the labour market in the near future. Indeed, some industrial sectors have already taking measures toward the changing... [ view full abstract ]
With the advancement of ageing and shrinking population, Japan would experience various issues in the labour market in the near future. Indeed, some industrial sectors have already taking measures toward the changing demography and public sector is not an exception to this issue. National Personnel Authority (NPA), a Japanese government agency responsible for the recruitment, training, and human resource management of the national civil servants, conducted an extended survey in 2017 for the first time to analyse the motivation and attractiveness of public services, hoping to use the result in order to improve the working conditions as well as issues related to human resource management of public service (NPA, 2017). As the co-creator of public service, the motivation of public servants is important and thus the paper focuses on this issue.
The paper would analyse the survey result, which pictures the current situation of the Japanese national public service (Kudo, 2016). Major motivation to become public servants is the possibility to contribute to the realization of better society and the Nation and to serve the public interests. The other strength of public service is, many respondents reminded, that it is rule-bound and thus implemented with equity. They are generally satisfied with their personal evaluation through objective evaluation criteria and thus with the promotion and rewards.
The survey, however, also showed new issues and challenges, mostly due to the reduction of the number of public servants in the past, and to the need of new skills and competences. In order to attract talented graduates, NPA is considering various options, including improvement of work-life-balance, use of ICT and smart working, and introduction of various recruitment ways, which then would be followed by more sophisticated capacity development plan and human resource management.
The paper employs quantitative as well as qualitative analysis, mainly semi-structured interviews to the NPA managers. The paper first explores some literature reviews on PSM and related fields, and then analyses the survey results using the major theories.
Creating and co-creating value through teaching and education in public management
