Recruitment Challenges of a Government in Exile: A Case Study

Public sector organizations are complex and complicated set of interconnected units. In this paper, the Public Service Commission (PSC), a unit of the Tibetan Government in-exile based in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India is chosen as the case to study the complexity and complication of leadership challenges at this organizational unit, primarily focusing on the staff recruitment processes. Before the leadership challenges associated with recruitment process are identified and analyzed, a brief history, accessibility to the PSC, and the dominant organizational culture are shared to better understand the context and purpose of the case study. Next, my personal recommendations are provided to help address some of these recruitment challenges. INTRODUCTION Public sector organizations are complex and complicated set of interconnected units such as finance, education, and human resource. This complexity and complication are generally uniform across the public sector organizations in South Asia. In this paper, one unit of a public sector organization and its complexity is analyzed and discussed. This organizational unit is unique as well as identical to many other public sector organizations. It is unique because of its current status as the government in exile, and identical because of its similarity with many other public sector organizations in South Asia. The Public Service Commission (PSC), a unit of the Tibetan Government in exile based in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India is carefully chosen as the case for this paper to study the complexity and complication of leadership challenges at this organizational unit primarily focusing on the staff recruitment processes. These leadership challenges are discussed below and relate to literature as well as personal experiences as a former employee of this unit. The introduction of PSC is briefly discussed below. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION In the last few decades, the PSC steadily grew into one of the fully functioning autonomous bodies of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). Immediately after his arrival in exile in India, his holiness the Dalai Lama re-established die Tibetan government in exile in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie on April 29, 1959. Though Tibetan refugee people consider their central office as the Tibetan Government in Exile, it is officially known as the Central Tibetan Administration due to some political reasons. Initially, up to 1972, the responsibility for recruitment and appointment of CTA civil servants was under the Home and Security Department and later, under the Department of Personnel directly supervised by Kashag (Tibetan cabinet members). However, Tibetan exile charter was promulgated in the early 1990s with articles mandating the establishment of three autonomous institutional bodies within die CTA to facilitate complete democratization of the exile polity. Thus, die PSC was born with its rules and regulations set by the Tibetan Parliament in Exile (Tibet.net, 2009). As per the provision of the charter for Tibetans in exile, a chairman and two to four members of the PSC are appointed by the Head of State on recommendation of a special committee for a term of five years (Tibet.net, 2009) . The members shall meet at least once in a month and should have two-third quorum of the total members to hold a meeting. The PSC also has a secretary and few CTA staff members, appointed and working as per the rules and regulations of CTA services. The PSC has following broadly defined statutory powers and duties: * Recruitment and appointment/re-appointment of CTA officials and staffs * All capacity building and promotion related matters * Retirement related matters * Handling of disputes related to staff grievance * Demotions, dismissals, resignation, and premature retirement matters * Framing of code conducts and otiier related rules in connection with these functions * On top of these, it has the sole responsibility to recruit talented officers and office staff to efficiently man the CTA offices. …