The Drivers Of Turnover And Government Employees Professional Staff Proportions In Russia

Abstract

The article develops the methodology of social actions theory on the example of identifying the turnover government employee and professional staff structure groups proportions optimization mechanism in Russia public sector. There gives an epistomological and empirical analysis of a government employees social actions role in the forming of their optimal turnover and professional staff structure groups proportions drivers in Russia. The article proves that the integral driver of social actions to retain the share of each government employees professional group in the total structure in executive bodies is the employees work experience. The article shows that the driver of employees intendments to change their jobs in terms of the value preference for accepting offers and the search for a better job, performs the dominant evaluative orientational function of social actions that forming the employees professional groups proportions. The article argues that turnover government employees is a final stage of the social actions on forming the staff in structure professional group proportions. The authors upgrade calculation method of government employees turnover. The model #01 demonstrates between which professional groups of Russian employees there are antagonistic, contradictory or concerted social actions. Over the model #02 the employees turnover influence on intra-structural mechanism of the professional groups social actions of maintaining their share in the total structure of executive bodies reveals. The arguments in favor of the findings application there are given.

Keywords: Employees turnoverGovernment employeesGovernment bodiesProfessional groupsSocial actionswork experience

Introduction

The profound changes in the technological structure of the public sector, the polarization of professions to more advanced, socially and financially attractive (finance, ICT) that positively different with traditional ones upon non-prestigious positions, where incomes are stagnating (Mau, 2016), had exacerbated the professional staff structure groups proportions optimizing problem in the total structure of civil government employees.

Under the influence of the ongoing changes in the social environment, from the public sector it is required to apply such management and interaction paradigms that correspond to the current trends of reform and to nature character of these transformations (Curry, 2014).

To optimize the staff structure proportions of the government service in Russia, a functional approach was proposed to the vertical structuring of posts groups (Aleksandrov, 2015). However, drivers impact on social activities of professional groups in the formation of the staff government employee structure proportions in empirical research, as a rule, is not studied. For this reason, there are no scientifically defined proportions of the staff structure in the public service professions, that causes disorganization of role standards, a decrease in the level of both professional and official behavior (Gogoleva, Balabanova, Efendiev, & Komarova, 2017). This work is an attempt to overcome this gap and includes professional and industry perspectives.

Problem Statement

Currently, the structuring of the staff civil government employees in the government bodies is carried out on professions and positions. The nature of the work performed, its quantity, mastery and competencies of the employees, scope of powers granted techniques of creation and transfer of labor results, compliance with the professional and functional qualifications and service requirements of the position serve as the classic drivers for the representative of the employer during formation of the civil government employees professional staff (Shavelson, 2013).

On the contrary, the key drivers for employed at civil government service are the content, intensity and working conditions, its social significance, the reality of the volume of work performed, rotation and career growth, the qualifications of managers (Kamneva & Polevya, 2017). The employees inconsistencies identification with these drivers requirements is the most important reason for staff turnover in the civil government service.

An important problem is the insufficient study of the professional groups social actions mechanism influence on the formation of optimal proportions in the structure of the staff civil government employees. This problem requires research in this direction.

Research Questions

It is generally recognized that the drivers of the proportions formation in the staff professional structure of civil government employees are under the complete control of the public authorities of employer representatives. However, the official statistics show that even the ministries and their departments staff filling were varied from 74% to 97% in 2016 (Chislennost' i ukomplektovannost' dolzhnostej, 2016). Imbalance in the public sector between the demand and staff filling employees in professions is even greater. The existing imbalance indicates not only the lack of optimal proportions in the professional groups structure of Russian civil government employees, but absence also a scientific understanding of their proportions formation mechanism.

To a much lesser extent, representatives of the employer in Russian government bodies are controlling staff turnover caused by the drivers such as the dissatisfaction of 36 percent staff civil government employees with the nature and content of their work (Kamneva & Polevya, 2017). From the standpoint of a social approach, the civil government service staff turnover is a kind of social actions that carried out within the framework of the behavior institutional model that determines their nature and society permissible boundaries. Exceeding the permissible limits is an indicator of how the staff is understaffing and nonoptimality professional proportions of civil government employees are.

These issues made up the main research question of the current study.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research is to develop elements of the social groups actions theory in the public sector by regulating the employees turnover and professional groups proportions in the staff of government bodies.

Research Methods

In the field of social significance and measurement of staff turnover mindset methods of research are applied (Allen, Hancock, & Vardaman, 2014), an examination of the differential impact of worker turnover (Eckardt, Skaggs, & Youndt, 2014), meta-analytic review of employees turnover (2013), employees turnover challenges in management solutions (Ozoliņa-Ozola, 2017).

The Division of Labour in Society theory (Durkheim, 1911) and General Theory of Action (Parsons & Shils, 1951) form the concept core of the research. For its formulation, the scientific research epistemic analysis method, recognized in the field of social group actions, is applied.

The empirical part of the professional groups stability study in the total structure of the employees staff, as well as the determination of their service length impact in the public sector of Russia on the professional groups proportion in the total structure of civil government employees is based on an analysis of official statistics as at October 1, 2016 for six time experience periods and the employees structure who replace public office and civil service positions in nine aggregate groups of specialties and areas of basic professional higher education training in the context of two government branches (Federal and State bodies of the Russian Federation), as well as two levels of government (central and territorial).

The "Quits" & "Total Separations" Data of U.S. Bureau of laboratory Statistics for cross-country comparison with the Russia civil government employees turnover are used.

The instrumental part of the study on the impact models construction the social actions of professional groups and work experience for the share they occupy in the total employees staff is based on the least squares method application the "Regression" of the Microsoft office Excel software package. In the average level of Russian civil government employees turnover calculating, the method of interval estimates polynomial integral for work experience in the civil government service applied by authors.

Findings

The employee turnover and professional staff structure proportions as social drivers in Russia government employee are an important area of research from both theoretical and practical point of view (Shinwoo, 2017).

Theoretical findings

Traditionally, the research problems of optimization the employees turnover and their staff structure proportions, attention is focused on the economic, managerial or psychological aspects of the phenomenon (Gogoleva, Balabanova, Efendiev, & Komarova, 2017; Ozoliņa-Ozola, 2017; Siebert & Zubanov, 2009; Okatenko, 2010; Aslanov, 2014; Kovaleva & Hashcheva, 2016; Curry, 2014; Zhang, 2016).

For the drivers nature adequacy knowledge of employee turnover and professional staff structure proportions in public government they should be considered as a social phenomenon in context of Durkheim and Parsons theories.

For the proportions optimizing of civil government employees professional structure the key driver is the nature of the social connection between their functions and the government bodies internal structure (Durkheim). The instability of the social connection of the function with the structure is caused by their quantitative growth due to the increase the social acts volume either innovations in the function. Under the social connection weakening of the function with the government bodies structure, it becomes more complex and flexible, more active and continuous.

The dominant in the Total staff structure of the civil government employees professions cannot be formed without the labor division progress, because their share cannot be kept in balance in the absence the of functions specialization deepening (Durkheim, 1911).

The general driver of the employee turnover is social actions. According to the social action theory (Parsons, 1937), to activate social actions need the special drivers: cognitive, catechistic (meeting the needs) and the estimated orientation. The government employees coordinating these drivers so that to distribute the attention and actions of groups between different objects and their possible modalities, depending on various circumstances of meeting and taking into account the requirements of different dispositions of the needs.

The government employee estimated orientation manages the alternatives evaluation process that arising in an employment activity particular situation for compliance with available norms, standards and criteria. The estimation is ending by choosing of the most appropriate for government employees model and direction of action (behavior), that inherent to the value orientation (Parsons & Shils, 1951).

The professional staff proportions optimization

In 2016, of the nine enlarged the government employees groups of professions in Russia, the "humanitarian and social Sciences" and the "Economics and management" groups were structurally dominant. The first group share was 27.7% and the second group share was 43.5%. In the sum it accounted for 71.2%, ranging from 63.5% in Executive bodies of the State entities to 79.6% in the Federal bodies.

The balancing of the first professional group share among the others eight groups is maintained not by specialization deepening in the possible eleven humanitarian and social areas, but the implement need to a large of social acts volume, mainly in the jurisprudence direction, which attracted 83% of employees to this professional group. The high homogeneity of the first group is indicating its susceptibility to the internal instability due to the strengthening of weak disturbances by the similar reactions multiplication of employees social behavior.

Maintaining the balance share of the second professional group among the others eight, is due to the deepening of employees specialization to the following eleven areas: Government and municipal management, Management, Finance and credit, Banking, Insurance, Commerce, Logistics, Commodity science, Economics, Economic statistics, Bookkeeping and others with additional specialization in economic sectors and functions. The reliability of structural stability inside the second group is keeping by a statistically acceptable variation of the specializations shares that not exceeding 33 points from the average level of 4.0 percent's among subgroups.

The shares stability in the government bodies professional structure of the others seven employees professional groups at the level of 0.4 to 3.9% are maintaining by the fundamental differences and the nature in their work activity.

The strength and the direction of social interactions with which each professional group affects at the maintenance of proportions among themselves had been determined (table 01 ).

Table 1 -
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The social actions of the G1 group to maintain its share in the total structure of the Russia Executive bodies are in antagonism with the actions of all other professional groups and are particularly acute with the G2, G3 and G7 groups.

The social actions of the G2 professional group to retain its share in the total structure of the Executive bodies are in sharp antagonism with the G1 and G6 groups, but weakly marked contradiction with the G3, G4 and G9 groups. However, the G2 group actions is strictly unidirectional with the G5 group actions, and moderately agreed with the G7 and G8 groups actions.

According to the multiple regression model # 01, relative to the social actions of the G1 professional group by nine branches with levels of government power: G1 = 97,805 - 1,025×G2 - 1,996×G3 - 1,840×G4 - 2,623×G5 + 0,545×G6 + 1,835×G7 + 0,875×G8 - 0,791×G9 (in percentage) it was found that the positive drivers of the G1 group share maintaining in the total structure of the Russia Executive are the G6, G7 and G8 groups actions. Its lead to instability, development, innovation, weakening of the group's function connection with the structure, which becomes more complex and flexible, more active and continuous.

On the contrary, the negative drivers regarding the actions on retaining of the G1 professional group share in the total structure of the Executive bodies are G2, G3, G4, G5, and G9 groups. It’s they enhance the group's resilience by strengthening its relationship with the total structure.

The calculated data obtained by the model # 01 is strictly coincide with the initial data and allow optimizing the proportions of professional groups according to the isoperimetric criterion of 100 percentage limit.

The employees turnover optimization

The government employees work experience is an integrate driver of professional groups social actions that aimed at retaining of their share in the total structure of the Executive bodies. The social actions power is radically distinguishing in stages of work experience. At the final phase it can be defined that named the employees turnover.

On average, 70.5% of civil government employees are think about the service leaving, of them in the Federal bodies from 58 to 83%, and in the ministries only 15%.

The dominant driver (70-76%) of the employees estimated orientation for the change intendments their jobs serve the value preferences on suggestions and the finding a better job (Ozoliņa-Ozola, 2017).

It is proposed the rate of employees turnover (LFE) calculation in the Russian government bodies on the method of polynomial integral interval estimates of the civil government employees service length that by the authors developed:

at SM2BY = SM1×N1,

where LFE – the average annual leaving flow employees of civil government employees from the staff, in percentage; SM – staff movements, in percentage; BY - beginning of year; YE – year-end; N – interval length, years; i – interval index.

The results of the LFE calculations on the branches and levels of Russian government bodies by authors entered in table 02 .

Table 2 -
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According to table 02 data, the government employees work experience driver has the social actions strength maximum impact on the professional groups for maintaining its share in the Executive bodies total at the initial stage of inputting from 1 to 5 years, and the minimum influence at the fixation stage of from 5 to 15 years. The social actions activity is significantly strengthened again at the mature and the final stages of the work experience.

In all government bodies of Russia, the average employees turnover at 2016 was equal to 12.8%, while in the U.S. government only 9% (U.S. Bureau, 2018).

The next multiple regression model # 02 is reveals the social actions influence intra-structural mechanism of professional groups on the LFE due to their share maintaining in the total structure of executive bodies: LFE = 198,882 - 1,922×G1 -2,237×G2 - 4,002×G3 - 2,498×G4 + 0,0×G5 -8,426×G6 + 8,455×G7 + 0,587×G8 - 1,724×G9 (in percentage),

where Gi – are the professional groups according to table 01 .

The social actions of the G1, G2, G3, G4, G6 and G9 professional groups to increase their share in the total structure of Executive bodies lead to decrease the employees turnover in average. The social actions of the G7 and G8 groups cause the employees turnover average rate growth but the G5 professional group social actions only do not affect on the employees turnover average rate.

The calculated data obtained by the model #02 is strictly coincide with the initial data. The model #02 allows the civil government employees turnover to optimize, based on the proportions of their professional groups according to the turnover user-defined criterion.

Conclusion

The results of the research prove that the drivers of turnover and professional staff structure proportions of government employees in Russia should be considered as a social phenomenon in the drivers context of deepening the social division of professions by specializations as also the social action theory. Their actions support the proportions stability between professional groups.

The social actions strength of civil government employees professional groups differs radically in stages of work experience. The government employee work experience is an integrate driver of professional groups social actions aimed at maintaining their share in the total structure of the government executive bodies.

The authors have proved that employee turnover is the final phase of the professional groups social actions for their shares maintaining in the total structure of the government service.

Having summarized the correlation results of the inter-groups interactions empirical research on government employees professional groups it has been confirmed that the professional groups social actions of each may be in antagonism, contradiction or be consistent with the other professional groups actions.

The modeling of the employees turnover and the professional staff structure proportions is important to theirs levels optimize.

The obtained results are proposed for the government employee turnover calculating method upgrading and for the now used optimization techniques, as well as designing their prospective proportions in the total structure of the civil government service.

Acknowledgments

The article is prepared as the results of studies that carried out according the state order due to expense of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation budgetary funds in 2018.

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30 December 2018

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Future Academy

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Cite this article as:

Abramov, V. L., Zhigun, L. A., & Lapenkova, N. V. (2018). The Drivers Of Turnover And Government Employees Professional Staff Proportions In Russia. In V. Chernyavskaya, & H. Kuße (Eds.), Professional Сulture of the Specialist of the Future, vol 51. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 360-368). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2018.12.02.38