ANALELE TIINIFICE ALE UNIVERSITII ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA DIN IAI

Tomul LVI
tiine Economice
2009

THE ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION IN

ROMANIAN PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Luminia Mihaela STRJERI*

Abstract
Administrative staff, it will be argued, is essential to the activity of higher education. Administrative staff make up about 44% of the Romanian public higher education workforce, working directly
with students and providing services that allow schools to function. There is a major shortfall in the
effort and attention now being devoted to the administrative staff of all kinds, despite the workload and
importance of this staff. The paper looks at some of the challenges facing higher educational institutions and then suggests the competencies which will be needed by administrative staff. The paper
suggests that there is significant scope for collaborating in meeting these challenges, through the recruitment and selection of the right staff. Staff recruitment and selection was considered as a way of
coping with change, with the increasing range of demands now placed on staff working in higher
education institutions. The paper identified a selection a five key area to be considered, and institutions are encouraged to make clear their policies on staff recruitment and then to implement them.
Key words: higher education, administrative staff, human resources, recruitment, selection
JEL classification: I20, I21

1. Introduction
Higher education institutions (HEIs), such as universities, academies and polytechnics,
are largely staff-intensive and have opperated successfully over a great number of years with
teams of support or allied staff to provide a professional back-up to the acadme [Doidge et
al, 1998, 89].
By administrative staff, we refer to both staff not directly involved in the educational
process (such as teaching staff and researchers with lecturing duties) and staff who have a
certain form of responsibility in the administrative management and/or coordination of employees in the institution.
There is a large gap between the massive need for administrative professional staff and
the present small level of attention, and this should lead some institutions to pay more attention to the other staff.
Without the work of technical, secretarial, accounting, financial administration, and
service/maintenance personnel, HEIs could never succeed. HEIs need more than ever administrative staff for several reasons. First, we have noted the dramatic increases in
* Luminia Mihaela STRJERI (lumyi@yahoo.com) , PhD student , Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of
Iasi, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

344

Luminia Mihaela STRJERI

enrollment in the public universities in the past fifteen years. The workload of many administrative and student support functions is directly related to the number of students.
A growing number of additional tasks have been imposed in the last decade. There has
been an increase in the number of mandated studies and coordination efforts that systems
offices are required to conduct. Also, they prepare and present various statistical reports,
cost analyses, and budget justifications.
Ongoing changes in government laws have required close monitoring by university
staff. The government has required HEIs to conduct institutional planning and to develop
programs as to redefine the balance of income generated from public and private sources.
The HEIs need administrative personnel to assist with all these required activities. The
quality of the administrative staff in institutions of tertiary education is thus central to their
effectiveness.
Though much has been achieved, government and institutions have been slower to
change policies and procedures for the administrative staff. Only a small level of attention
was being devoted to the administrative staff of all kinds. It is therefore timely and strategically important to undertake a review of the issues raised by the experience of the last two
decades.
The paper proceeds with the overview of the framework of the main legislature
changes on the Romanian HEIs governance and structure, thus entailing the context in
which HEIs operate.
Afterwards, the paper sheds some light on the challenges facing higher educational institutions that will entail both at the level of skills and competencies required by
administrative staff, and from the point of view of HEIs dealing with policies on the recruitment and selection of the right staff. The effectiveness of recruitment and selection is
in itself dependent on the quality of human resources planning, proper job descriptions and
staffing requirements dictated by transformation and service delivery objectives.
The present study aims to identify the key elements of recruiting and selection process
by not only identifying the elements that should be used for administrative staff recruitment
within Romanian HEIs, but by also identifying some steps that need to be taken at the national and institutional level. The five key elements of recruting and selecting the right
administrative staff addressed in this paper are given by: the institutional planning, job description, recruitment plan, selection and talent management, integration and training of
administrative staff.
In conclusion, this paper contends that the administrative staff in HEIs will play an
even more important role in the future and recruitment and selection of the wright staff is of
great significance for constantly improving and continually producing better results.
2. National context. Framework overview
Higher education in Romania is based on the 1991 Constitution of Romania (revised in
2003) and subsequent education legislation and amendments. Public HEIs are guaranteed
autonomy by the state. Central administrative authority and roles that go with it over
matters such as legislation, curricula and employment has been preserved by the state. However, devolution and decentralization in the 1990s profoundly marked more administrative
power to HEIs.
Governments, still dominant in changing governance arrangements, have seemingly
struggled to let go of public sectors; and traditional governance mechanisms were not easily,

The Administrative Staff Recruitment and Selection in Romanian Public...

345

or in a straightforward manner, replaced by new mechanisms [Huisman, 2009, 4]. Autonomy was a complex and slow process, accelerated only after 1996 and completed in 1999
with the passage to the global funding system for the universities and the signing of the institutional contracts [Miroiu, Brtianu, 2000,12]
As universities seek to respond to new possibilities for their operations that are opened
up by technological developments, react to competition, and adjust to changes in available
financial resources, they redefine their mission, revise their strategies and restructure their
operations [Fraser, 2005,9].
Without an efficient and adequate system of leadership and management, it is extremely difficult to provide education of a satisfactory quality. Promoting greater efficiency
in the management of HEIs has therefore became an important objective of the government.
It is believed that evaluating and reorganizing the administrative structures and developing
capacity of leaders and managers, revitalizing the governance and thereby improving efficiency with result-oriented delivery system, HEIs institutions can do more with the
resources at their disposal.
In order to improve efficiency, there was a push towards decentralization of management to the level of departments, which at the moment is only at the level of faculties in
some universities. In the past few years, however, the administrative reform has slowed
down.
The university autonomy needs to be enlarged in the right to perform entirely in the
human resources management [Brtianu, 2005, 2]. In Romania, current national trends concerning higher education governance are related to increasing the autonomy of HEIs to
establish their own policies on administrative staff (recruitment, evaluation, promotion) [Eurydice, 2008]. According to the Education Law (Law 84/1995) universities and other HEIs
are autonomous and have the right to establish and implement their own recruitment policies, within the general provisions of the in-force legislation.
Faced with new sources of competition and new opportunities for growth, HEIs are
looking to the human resources function to address two critical needs. First, the HR function
must be able to determine the need for critical skills and capabilities, enabling the institutions to more effectively source, evaluate and motivate employees in an increasingly
changing environment. At the same time, HR needs to continue to provide administrative
services that are reliable, cost-effective and responsive to the needs of higher education [The
Global Human Capital Study, 2008, 4]
In the face of challenges from national and international competitors the better institutions are investing more resources in the recruitment and selection of employees at all
levels. The way this process is organized at present owes a lot to the general employment
framework and conditions of service for university staff.
The Ministry of Education, Research and Youth in cooperation with the Ministry of
Labour, Social Solidarity and Family establish the administrative staff positions, according
to the dynamics of the education system.
The selection, recruitment and appointment process for administrative staff positions in
higher education is based on an open recruitment procedure. This means that the HEIs are
fully responsible for organising and carrying on the entire selection, recruitment and appointment process for their administrative positions. Nevertheless, the process has to comply
with the general provisions of the Education Law (Law 84/1995).
The open recruitment procedure has to be based on a competition opened to all persons
complying with the conditions established within the law for the considered administrative

346

Luminia Mihaela STRJERI

position. The results of the competition are valid only for the organising higher education
institution.
Table no 1:Distribution of the higher education employees
TeachSchool
ing
year
Staff
2007/2008 31,964
2006/2007 30,583
2005/2006 31,543
2004/2005 30,857

Administrative Staff
Auxiliary
Service, mainteaching
tenance
Administrastaff
tive personnel personnel
9,451
6,182
9,171
6,006
8,413
8,780
6,415
8,354
9,175
5,057
10,087
10,064

% AdminisTotal
%
Staff
Teaching
trative
56,768
56.31
43.69
53,782
56.86
43.14
55,487
56.85
43.15
56,496
54.62
45.38

Source: Rapoarte asupra strii sistemului naional de nvmnt 2005-2008; INS Data (2005-2008)

Higher education is a labor-intensive undertaking: human resources costs can consume

a significant portion of an institution's budget. Administrative spending is influenced by a
wide variety of factors including institutional mission, student demographics, students' preparation for college, institutional enrollment size, and the total resources available.
Differences in organizational mission probably have the most important impact on costs for
instruction and research, but they also affect administrative costs.
HEIs employ just over 56,768 people. Table 1 shows the full-time employees distributed by employment category. The table shows us that about 56% percent are teaching staff
and 44% are administrative. The increase in the various groups of administrative staff has
been minimal in the past four years.
In Romanian HEIs one of the problems is that of obtaining and then retaining administrative staff. Sometimes HEIs are frequently unable to match private sector salaries in high
demand fields such as engineering or computer science. Therefore, higher salaries in the
private sectors often tempt away qualified people from higher education. Yet now there is
also competition from private sector institutions of higher education with larger bugets and
differing reward systems Another consequence is that universities typically have great trouble retrenching or laying off staff whose contributions have become minimal and thus have
difficulty reallocating resources from low-need to high-need departments.
Retaining good staff in such circumstances is often only possible because the institution feature job protection. However, all over the world the basis on which staf are
employed is changing. Although policies on staff recruiting may be made at national or institutional levels, there is an emerging trend of granting more autonomy to institutions and
thus, in considering future change, the main focus is on what institutions should do.
3. Current challenges and the impact on recruitment and selection
HEIs are not immune from severe pressures and challenges. One of the challenges involves the tension between higher education needs and goals. This challenge, to be sure, its
not new at all [Stearns, 2009,6]. A number of higher education institutions internationally
are addressing the organizational, managerial, and cost challenges of operating [Garrod et al,
2008, 7].The changes and new demands of society and industry have brought about new
challenges to the world of higher education.

The Administrative Staff Recruitment and Selection in Romanian Public...

347

Organizational agility is not a widely held institutional value in higher education. HEIs
often are slower to react to market forces than companies whose survival depends on their
competitiveness. Structures or practices that make it difficult to communicate the nature and
scope of the problem to the appropriate stakeholders can impede problem-solving efforts.
The greatest challenge appears to be HR policies, especially those at public institutions. Designed for consistency, fairness, and equity across functional areas, these
mechanisms make it extremely difficult to craft effective recruitment and retention efforts in
this highly competitive situation. For HEIs, state legislation also impose limitations.
These daunting challenges are likely to have a considerable impact on the work and
role of administrative staff in institutions. All will be affected by a number of common
changes and trends. There is a need to be responsive and able to change (in line with the
changing policies of governments, external demands and social pressures).
For administrative staff there are equally rapid changes in management processes,
techniques and technology. Administrative staff work has changed significantly as a result
of decentralization policies. As national priorities and policies have changed, more responsibilities have accrued to managing disbursal of funds directly to institutions, and to
different levels within them. Transferring many decisions down the line has minimized
some aspects of authority, but increased advisory and coordination roles which maximize a
global view of the education system, its problems, and conditions for success in meeting objectives.
The support of administrative staff is essential to assist the Councils on such topics as
preparing institutional/program self-diagnoses, designing institutional formula funding mechanisms to distribute budgets to faculties and programs, techniques for long term
institutional and budget planning, and management of student services.
It is clear that new skills appear to be keys that play a large role in recruitment and selection. New challenges are driving the current need to update the skills requirement of
administrative staff. Among the principal challenges which affect administrative staff are
the following:
a) the growth in demand for higher education is a world wide phenomenon and has
posed a major problem for the Romanian HEIs. In institutional terms the expansion of
numbers has placed pressures on facilities of all kinds.
Table no 2: Growth of Public Education Enrollments, 1989-2008
Year
Students enrolled

1989/90
164,525

1995/96
250,836

2003/04
421,553

2005/06
521,144

2007/08
524,500

Sources: CNFIS and INS data

Enrollments in the public sector increased greatly between 1990 and the early 2000s,
as shown in Table 2. Enrolments in public HEIs increased 1.6 times between
1992-2000, whereas enrolments in private HEIs increased 1.8 times in the same
sub-period of reference [Korka, 2006, 2].
Public higher education continues to grow, estimates for number of students in higher
education range between 785,506 and 1 million of which about 524,500 are in public institutions [CNFIS data]. Enrollments have also grown rapidly in the much newer private sector
of higher education, which at the end of 2008 academic year was enrolling one-third to one
half of all Romanian higher education students.

348

Luminia Mihaela STRJERI

There is an inevitable fear that more means worse and quality will suffer as mass
higher education becomes a reality. This questioning adds new pressures to administrative
staff not only through the new accountability and reporting procedures, but also through
having to be more explicit about the way they conduct themselves and more formal in the
way they evaluate the effectiveness of their work. As a consequence, the forecasting (planning), advisory and communication responsibilities of administrators have increased
substantially.
b) economic and financial crisis. The main challenge faced now by most HEIs is to deal
with the economic crisis [European University Association, 2009, 4]. Not only do governments talk to one another about funding, but the growing globalisation of higher
education imposes similar burdens and threats on every institution.
Financial constraints in Romania mean that government can no longer fund higher
education to the same extent as previously. Their response has been to call for continued efficiency savings (or simple cuts) in institutional budgets. Another government response is to
expect institutions to generate more of their income from non-governmental sources such as
industry or commerce. Approximately 64 percent of public HEIs funding comes from the
government, while 36 percent is raised from its own funds including fees, scientific research, external projects, micro production, and student accomodation [Ministry of
Education and Research, National Council for Higher Education Financing, 2006].
This places new demands on administrative staff who are expected to master entrepreneurial skills in converting their specialist knowledge into market-oriented services. In
difficult economic times, higher education needs to follow progressive human-resource
practices, while recognizing that financial realities require doing so in a creative way. Higher education needs to pay attention to all employees. One irony of the situation is that
institutional budgets for human resource activities are often the first to be cut, just when
they are most needed, in times of severe financial difficulty.
c) Technological change are echoed for administrative staff who find themselves under
equal pressures to be more cost effective, flexible in work practices, more technically
alert and more sensitive to what their customers want. An important costs of technology in colleges and universities are staff costs. Increasing use of computers and other
digital technology has allowed HEIs to simplify jobs such as typing, filing, scheduling,
bookkeeping, and processing forms. The result is a decline in clerical and secretarial
staff and an increase in those who manage and support computer systems.
This trend has disturbing implications for the future. The jobs that have experienced
the least growth over the past few years are the ones that are most likely to be contracted out
to private companies or swept away by increasing use of technology.
For administrative staff there are also new competencies required: information technology skills are now taken for granted; similar financial pressures mean that cost awareness
and sensitivity to the need for value for money in all administrative processes have to be in
the bloodstream; customer sensitivity is a key skill, now that budgets are so often devolved
to faculty level and central administrators find that they have many academic clients to
serve; flexible working practices become essential as management costs are being continually trimmed.
For academic support staff in libraries, resource and computer centres there are matching demands. The new technologies require mastery of new techniques and software in
searching for information and a changed role in supporting users of these support services.
Just as roles and responsibilities for managers and teaching personnel will almost certainly

The Administrative Staff Recruitment and Selection in Romanian Public...

349

evolve in years to come, it is likely that administrative staff will be required to fulfill different functions, as well as to adapt their skills and performances to new exigencies.
d) the demands of the labour market are changing dramatically and inevitably affect
those institutions which seek to be responsive to national or regional demand. Universities now operate in a global market place and thus recruit on an national basis.
Patterns of employment are also changing in new, very uncertain environments.
Effective management demands new skills within institutions. In seeking to achieve
this they must learn to adapt commercial management techniques sensitively to the academic environment and never forget the mission of the institution they serve.
The technical skills needed by todays administrative managers call into question some
of the traditional management structures and job specifications. Leadership skills will be essential as will communications and persuasive skills in convincing administrative staff of
the need for changes to long established habits. Because their responsibilities are at a more
detailed level they will need to have more tangible competencies. Among them will be the
following: people management skills; numeracy and understanding of financial and cost issues; IT awareness; sensitivity to new developments in the external environment, such as
competitive threats.
The solution to these challenges starts with a well-defined recruitment and selection
process. In these times, it is particulary crucial that the recruitment and selection of diverse
administrative staff be equitable and responsive to the demands of this changing environment.
4. Administrative Staff Recruitment and Selection
This paper has identified the scale of the problem and has described the workload and
importance of the administrative staff. Aiming to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals by attracting, retaining and developing employees, Human Resource
Management (HRM) functions as the link between the organization and the employees
[Pomoni, 2009, 1]. Accordingly, HRM needs to be treated appropriately. It is clear that HEIs
have not devoted enough attention to this topic, and that much more has to be done if the
human resource capacity of our higher education institutions is to be fully and effectively
utilised.
HRM covers activities such as: strategic HRM, resourcing (human resource planning,
recruitment and selection and talent management) performance management, learning and
development and performance evaluation. [Armstrong, 2009, 4] Effective human resources
management requires compliance with equal employment opportunity statutes and other applicable state laws. Establishing fair and workable policies, procedures, and training
programs are important to recruiting and retaining competent staff.
These include diverse HRM activities, while assuming also strategic planning such as
the primary tool. There is also a need for well articulated policy frameworks both at the institutional and the national level. These would have to be both broad-ranging, inclusive and
clearly prioritized. These policies should be backed up by strong institutional commitment
and form a key part of national and institutional resourcing policies.
Resourcing should contribute to a culture of professionalism, but it is felt that there is
still a need to define the relevant elements and the differential weighting between planning,
recruiting and selecting. Resourcing can also be seen as a strategy to retain high quality
staff in higher education institutions.

350

Luminia Mihaela STRJERI

HEIs should be concerned not only with development of the environment in which resourcing occurs as well as with the development of policies who play a role in facilitation of
resourcing. In order to meet all of these goals, we identified a selection a five key area to be
considered, as set out in the following process:

Figure no. 1. Five key elements of Recruiting and Selecting the Right Staff

In considering any strategy for human resources management an institution must consider all its staff; administrative and support personnel can play crucial roles in helping
students to learn, and in enabling and facilitating an environment that favours learning. If
administrative staff are committed to the goals of an institution, they can be valuable partners in working with academic colleagues.
1. Planning. This element tries to combine human resources management with strategic management within HEI, in order to achieve a continuous improvement in the way the
public institutions act, as well as an increasing quality of the public services they deliver.
The role of human resources is becoming a major one: human resources policies are
being included in institutional strategic documents, such as Strategic Plan, as a way of increasing the performance and the efficiency of public institutions and as a basis for the
modernisation strategies that will be elaborated at the institutional level. The strategic plan,
is an instrument for leading the university for a period of time of 4 years. Elaborating and
implementing a strategic plan requires a new way of thinking human resources needs, in
which there are strategic objectives, strategies and metrics of evaluating final results.
A key task of HEIs is to focus attention on the relationship between administrative resourcing and institutional objectives. Staff skills and competencies should be aligned clearly
with organizational needs.
2. A job description is a key document in the recruitment process, and must be finalised prior to taking any other steps in the process. HEIs should determine the real
competencies needed for the position in question and reflect these in the job description.

The Administrative Staff Recruitment and Selection in Romanian Public...

351

Too often job descriptions are generic and dont describe the real needs of the position.
Good job descriptions include a short list of core comptenecies required for the job.
This category encompasses three organizational design features: job structure, job classification, and organizational structure. Regularly updating job structures (perhaps every
two years) helps to ensure that the needs of specific departments are being met. Job reclassification supports flexibility in the deployment of staffing resources and appears to be a
factor in retention because it increases job and career development opportunities.
Currently, in Romanin HEIs jobs are not analyzed scientifically and job descriptions
are not systematically developed. Thus, there is lot of ambiguity and conflict which are personally frustrating to employees and also organizationally unhealthy. In the new dynamics
of the environment, the HEIs should look for much more job clarity than is made available
now. The job description should carry out the HEI's mission, support changing environments and allow staff to develop new skills and expertise.
3. Develop and implement a recruitment plan, identifying recruitment resources that
aid in assuring a diverse pool of applicants. Recruitment and selection should be seen and
treated as a top priority of the institution. HEIs should have detailed policies in place to inform the objective, fair, equitable, consistent and responsible application of recruitment and
selection practices; have standardized methods and procedures in place to ensure compliance with the constitutionally prescribed values and principles as well as national norms and
standards regulating HR in the higher education.
4. Selecting employees with the correct skills can add value to a institution and recruiting workers at a wage or salary that the institution can afford, will reduce costs. Employees
should therefore be carefully selected, managed and retained, just like any other resource.
The workforce of the future will need a whole spectrum of knowledge and skills to deal with
technology and the globalization of knowledge [UNESCO, 2008, 373]. It also will need to
be agile and flexible, to adjust to continuous changes, both economic and social. The activity of any institution depends to a large extent on the quality of its staff.
The HEIs will be under greater pressure to locate people with required aptitudes and
skills, and to select a candidate that will be successful in performing the tasks and meeting
the responsibilities of the position. The primary concern is finding the right talent, as talent is certainly critical to innovation, change and high performance; acquiring talent is
fundamental when it comes to using this as a source of competitive advantage. The workforce itself has become more global, thus organizations that excel at talent management
will continue to enjoy competitive advantage [Lawler III, 2008,5-6].
5. Once the persons are selected carefully they also should be placed properly and
should be given continuing training to update their knowledge and skills and to save them
from obsolescence. Thus, proper identification of training needs and selection and development of training methodologies assume added importance. Initial training for administrative
staff in institutions is not universal and it is recommended to have completed a training before being confirmed in an administrative post. Gaps in training will immediately reflect in
activity, as knowledge and skills are more critical factors underlying performance.
Higher education institutions need to have clear strategies covering administrative
staff. In many cases HEIs have much to learn about how to plan, develop, promote and then
deliver staffing programmes. These would be integrated with their human resource strategies so that selection and promotion criteria, career planning and staff appraisal processes
were all influenced by the strategy.

352

Luminia Mihaela STRJERI

The critical role of the human resource department was underscored repeatedly. Each
institution should establish a to develop and monitor institutional staff recruitment policies,
provide a programme of short courses and workshops to their human resources managers.
Institutions should consider running workshops on human resources topics using national
experts; sponsoring surveys of good practice outside HEIs identifying ideas which might be
imported; promoting the development of performance indicators or management statistics
allowing institutions to compare their human resources activities with each other.
The current personnel systems and practices should be adequate to meet some of the
emerging demands in the management of human resources.
5. Conclusions
Higher education in Romania has been transformed over the last two decades. Higher
education has to constantly change and adjust to a wide variety of situations. The HEIs are
experiencing unprecedented growth and demand for their services and they are under great
scrutinity with higher standards of accountability by state, legislators and others.
Recognizing the dynamics of the environment, HEIs must devise new and more stringent strategies initiating and managing change at the staff level in terms of changing pattern
of skill requirements, organizational structure, etc, and the implication of these on techniques like personnel recruitment and selection. Of necessity, Romanian HEIs will have to
strive to improve further the quality of their staff. They should focus not only on the competence of their staff, but also give time to stressing the need for commitment to the
organisations goals and to promoting a capacity to change.
Many factors play a role in the success of an institution, but none is as important as the
quality of staff. The institutions have acquired more autonomy for managing their staff. Selection, recruitment, employment contracts, and career advancement are managed to a
greater degree at the institutional level.
It is certain that the administrative staff in HEIs will play an even more important role
in the future. Little has been written within the higher education context about recruitment
and selection of administrative staff, though they form about 44% of the workforce in HEIs.
These individuals range from quasi-academics who perform research and carry out technical
and teaching functions along the teaching staff, to whose who support the quality of learning
experience- such as cleanears, maintenance and catering staff.
This study brings together some trends, challenges and current thinking about administrative staff in higher education, their role and how to attract skilled people and use their
expertise to the fullest. It is a study about how to do these things, but it also explains why is
it worth to taking administrative staff recruitment seriously and commiting effort and resources to this group.
The reconsideration of the role of administrative staff, in the context of the educational
system and of providing labour force, is crucial, especially considering the need of improving the quality of the education process.
In the same time it necessary to reanalyse the level and quality of the qualifications
required by administrative staff and their harmonization with the demands in the labour
market. This process includes: the adaptation or elaboration of recruitment plans and policies, the evaluation of competencies for individuals for particular categories of staff, the
elaboration of quality control mechanisms for administrative staff, etc.
It is important to consider the impact of a well-organized recruiting function because it
is possible that great recruiting is a result primarily of efforts by management and employees - and having a well-organized employment function could actually have good impact on
the way the HEIs opperate. In particular, it would seem evident that a more structured ap-

The Administrative Staff Recruitment and Selection in Romanian Public...

353

proach to recruitment has to be taken in order to obtain rapid and significan progress in this
area.
Great emphasis should be placed on recruitment of the right staff, accomplished by
searching for highly skilled and qualified personnel. Most of the impact of having qualified
people comes primarily from great recruiting (as opposed to having effective development,
retention, compensation programs).
A well-designed recruiting process attracts the individual whose value system, talents,
and skills will match those of the institution.The improvement of managerial processes in
education and professional and technical formation can be accomplished only through an
enhancement in recruiting staff administrators responsible with mobilising resources and
participative management.
The labour market become so dynamic that flexibility appears to be the key in this arena. The ability and the willingness to modify job structure, job classification, and
organizational structure as often and as quickly as necessary are important elements in a
successful recruitment and retention strategy for administrative staff.
Every institution should prepare a recruitment plan as part of its human resource strategy. This should state clearly what policies are as regards the steps and activities involved. It
should define the roles that categories of staff are expected to fulfil and the institution needs
of those roles. Institutions should review their institutional policies relating to selection and
promotion criteria, confirmation of contracts after probation and award of tenure and consider whether they should be linked to with strategic, operational and work planning.
Responsibility for recruting administrative staff should be clearly defined; one model is
for human resources departament to be given managerial responsibility for helping members
of their staff develop recruitment plans, using central institutional or external providers as
necessary.
For government there are several ways they can achieve effective staff employment
strategies. If they are in a position to control such matters centrally, they should modify the
national systems of recruitment and promotion in order to stress the importance of selecting
the right staff by making it some mandatory changes at certain stages. If institutions are responsible for such matters, governments can make it clear that staff recruitment has their
strong backing by asking to see human resource strategies as part of their reviews of institutional strategic planning. They could even consider penalising those institutions which have
not given proper consideration to human resources activities in their planning and funding.
Another approach is to establish a staff recruitment guide at national level, preferably
with the backing of the human resources managers, to support HEIs institutions and act as a
forum for the discussion of staff recruitment policies and mechanisms for collaboration. Ensuring that public institutions have an adequate advisory and support service is a proper
national function.This guide must include all levels of staff, identify the roles that are assigned for each in promoting the activities of education, ensuring that institutions have an
adequate administrative workforce for constantly improving education process and continually producing better results.
All administrative staff participating in the educational process must be selected using
proper identification of knowledge and skills; this aspect must be taken into account and determine new ways of thinking human resources needs, in which there are strategic
objectives, strategies and metrics of evaluating final results.
References
Armstrong, M., Armstrongs handbook of human resource management practice, 11th Edition, Kogan
Page, London, 2009

354

Luminia Mihaela STRJERI

Brtianu, C., Reengineering the Romanian Universities, Journal of University Development and Academic Management Vol.2, Nr.3-4, pp.43-45, 2005
Doidge J., Hardwick B., Wilkinson J., Developing support and allied staff in higher education, Kogan
Page, London, 1998
European University Association, European universities Looking forward with confidence, Prague
declaration, 2009
Eurydice, Higher Education Governance in Europe. Policies, structures, funding and academic staff,
Comparative
Study,
2008
at
http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/showPresentation?pubid=091EN,
accessed on July 10, 2009.
Fraser, K. - Education Development and Leadership in Higher Education: Implementing an Institutional Strategy (Staff and Educational Development), RoutledgeFalmer, London and New York,
2005
Huisman, J., International Perspectives on the Governance of Higher Education, Routledge, New
York, 2009
Garrod, N., Macfarlane, B, Challenging Boundaries: Managing the integration of post-secondary education, Routledge, London, 2008
Guvernul Romniei Ministerul Muncii, Familiei i Egalitii de anse, Programul operaional sectorial dezvoltarea resurselor umane 2007-2013, Adoptat prin Decizia Comisiei Europene C(2007)
5811/22.11.2007
Guvernul Romniei, Programul Naional de Reforme, Raport de Implementare, Octombrie 2007
Raportul de ar 2007 elaborat pentru Conferina minitrilor educaiei semnatari ai Declaraiei de la
Bologna.
Korka M., Trends in the Development of the Higher Education Sector and of the Quality Assurance in
Romanians HEIs, World Bank Seminar Quality assurance in tertiary education, Svres, France,
June 18-20, 2006
Lawler III, E., Talent, Managing People your Competitive Advantage, John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2008
Miroiu, A., Brtianu, C. (eds.), The Policy of Quality Assurance in Higher Education, Editura Paideia,
Bucharest, 2000
Pawowski, K., Rediscovering higher education in Europe, Studies on Higher Education, Bucharest,
UNESCO, 2004 at http://www.cepes.ro/publications/pdf/Pawlowski.pdf, accessed on July 11,
2009.
Pellert A., Managing people in universities: Prerequisites for successful human resources management, Managing the university Community: Exploring good practice, EUA Case Studies 2007
Pomoni, C., The Importance of Human Resources Management - HRM - In Modern Organizations,
2009 at http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christina_Pomoni, accessed on July 13, 2009.
Robert L. Mathis, John H. Jackson, Human Resource Management Twelfth Edition, Thomson SouthWestern College Pub, U.S.A., 2008
Rotaru, Anton, Prodan, Adriana, Managementul resurselor umane, Editura Sedocm Libris, Iai, 1998
Stearns, P., Educating Global Citizens in Colleges and Universities, Routledge, New York, 2009
The Global Human Capital Study 2008, Unlocking the DNA of the adaptable workforce, U.S.A, 2008
UNESCO-CEPES European Centre for Higher Education, Higher Education in Europe, Employability, Mobility and the Labour Market, Vol.XXXIII, No.4, Routledge, 2008