60
H.A. KHAN
Protection of Whistle Blowers The increase of social and other media has facilitated many people to “blow the whistle” on government operations. One of the challenges of HRM in the public sector is to provide for the protection of whistle blowers. The protection of the whistle blower is important in ensuring accountability in the government. In the absence of opportunities to blow the whistle, people will resort to “Guerrilla Govt.” Guerrilla government “is a form of dissent continually carried out by those who are dissatisfied with the actions of public organizations, programs, or people but who typically, for strategic reasons, choose not to go public with their concerns in whole or in part. A few guerrillas end up outing themselves as whistleblowers, but most do not” (Oleary 2006, p. 10). The availability of Internet technology has enabled people to blow the whistle on any organization from anywhere in the world. For example, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange exposed the abuses in the US government. The public personnel manager bears a responsibility to make opportunities for employees to expose genuine abuses and wrongdoing in their agencies. Where there are no opportunities for whistle blowing, employees may resort to subversive activities or leak to the media, actions that can be damaging to the reputation of the agencies.
Conclusion A competent workforce acting in full knowledge of the global situation and interdependence between domestic and international actors is now essential, bearing in mind the challenges of globalization. The United Nations (2005) emphasizes the importance of a competent merit-based civil service exercising authority through the cooperation of different actors with integrity and the integration of communication technology. In considering the challenges of globalization, the public personnel manager needs to recruit, compensate, and train the employees with the modern technology and equip them with the tools and resources to deal with complex problems. The issues of technology, diversity, and interdependency will always be the major challenge for human resource management in the public sector. In the present situation, HRM needs to deal effectively with the challenges caused by globalization.
