Potential for the Use of Personnel Reserves in the Civil Service

In the context of new global challenges and consequently the increasing complexity of socio-economic issues, it is necessary to revise traditional personnel management practices in government bodies and seek predictive mechanisms for the professional and personal development of civil servants that can reduce the vulnerability of the state apparatus to external shocks. In this context, working with personnel reserves in the civil service is particularly important as a tool for retaining and promoting specialists within government bodies who are capable of effectively solving professional tasks in their official capacity. The aim of this article is to analyze the potential of personnel reserves in government bodies based on assessments of the contingent of employees. The key research method was face-to-face semi-structured interviews with civil servants of federal executive bodies (n=9). The results of the study demonstrated a formalistic assessment to identify promising employees interested in a long-term career. The opinions of civil servants reveal a position of career passivity (low assessments of career advancement prospects, difficulties in career advancement, and a lack of active career planning). The overall perception of the effectiveness of personnel reserves demonstrates ambivalence. On the one hand, the high effectiveness of this technology in government agencies has been expressed; on the other — restrictions on entry of ordinary employees into the reservists (“only for insiders”) have been noted, and the connection between being in the reserve and a subsequent career in government has been questioned. The existence of barriers to entry into the reservist contingent as well as reduced opportunities for rotation illustrate the existence of systemic dysfunctions in the work of HR departments. The conservatism of HR culture, noted in some cases, highlights the need for centralized HR work as a tool for standardizing HR management processes in government agencies, ensuring transparency of employee promotion trajectories, and establishing a unified career planning framework.

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