The history of public personnel administration is as old as human civilization itself: Persia, China, Assyria, Egypt, and Rome all practiced strategic personnel management, some systematically and others unsystematically. But despite the longstanding practice of strategic public personnel administration, the systematic study of this field is a fairly new development in the modern world. Today, the need for strategic thinking in public personnel administration and human capital development is more urgent than ever before. Managing and coping with the challenges of transworld migrations of capital and labor, cyber-employment and virtual workplaces, and relentless global pressures for results-oriented performance all require the development of human capital as a key asset of modern governments and private organizations. Governments and public administration organizations must confront these challenges if they are to survive and thrive in the 21st century, and Strategic Public Personnel Administration provides a comprehensive analysis of the past development and current function of the field so as to give a clearly balanced picture of public personnel administration in both theory and practice. Today, strategic public personnel management is a central component of strategic governance and administration in public and nonprofit organizations. Strategic personnel administration aims to lead organizations along the right paths with the necessary people on hand to achieve strategic goals and objectives in modern governance and public administration. This two-volume set fills a major gap in the current literature, and it will serve as a key work that addresses the history, knowledge, policy, management, process, and culture of public personnel administration with a strategic perspective.

As a new administration takes office, what are the biggest issues facing the country? The Brookings Institution offers answers to that question in this volume, which continues the Brookings tradition of providing each incoming administration with a nonpartisan analysis of the major domestic and foreign questions confronting America. On the domestic front, Brookings scholars tackle topics ranging from health care and improving economic opportunity to criminal justice reform, lawful hacking, and improving infrastructure. The alliance system, the relationship with China, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria among the foreign policies issues addressed. Throughout, Brookings scholars share their individual ideas on how best to address the agenda that awaits the new administration.

This is the first report to examine key leadership issues across OECD Member countries, including the strategies and practices governments are adopting, and the lessons from country experiences so far.

Mission drives agencies, and the need to deliver better services to customers at a lower cost—whether an agency is supporting the warfighter overseas, a teacher seeking classroom resources or a family figuring out how to pay for college—is pushing every level of government to look for new solutions

From white-collar executives to mail carriers, public workers meet the needs of the entire nation. Frederick W. Gooding Jr. and Eric S. Yellin edit a collection of new research on this understudied workforce. Part One begins in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century to explore how questions of race, class, and gender shaped public workers, their workplaces, and their place in American democracy. In Part Two, essayists examine race and gender discrimination while revealing the subtle contemporary forms of marginalization that keep Black men and Black and white women underpaid and overlooked for promotion. The historic labor actions detailed in Part Three illuminate how city employees organized not only for better pay and working conditions but to seek recognition from city officials, the public, and the national labor movement. Part Four focuses on nurses and teachers to address the thorny question of whether certain groups deserve premium pay for their irreplaceable work and sacrifices or if serving the greater good is a reward unto itself. Contributors: Eileen Boris, Cathleen D. Cahill, Frederick W. Gooding Jr., William P. Jones, Francis Ryan, Jon Shelton, Joseph E. Slater, Katherine Turk, Eric S. Yellin, and Amy Zanoni