Employee Retention in the Civil Service Ministry of Saudi Arabia - Dissertation Example

The literature led this research to the complex background and history of the bureaucracy and civil service of Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of Civil Service of Saudi Arabia evolved from a simple government entity into a complicated agency but with traditional functions beginning to become a professional government department responsible for creating a staff that can provide effective human resources for the kingdom.

This paper dealt with the subject of the Ministry of Civil Service of Saudi Arabia. As the research went on, with respect to the literature review and the survey research involving questionnaires submitted to a sample of 161 participants from the Ministry, it was found that the subject could encompass several departments. This means HRM practices and the effects on employee retention could not just be confined to the Ministry of Civil Service as a department but also to the other departments or ministries of the government of Saudi Arabia in the sense that the Ministry’s power goes beyond that.

HRM practices have been broad but when it comes to the bureaucracy the practices and functions of HRM are specific considering that the history and evolution of the Ministry of Civil Service and the various departments of the government of Saudi Arabia are complicated and unique. It did not originate the way other government departments do but the Ministry and other departments started not governed by a central government. Somehow they tended to function independently, run by members of the Saud family and answerable to the king or the autocratic government. (Hertog, 2010, p. 3)

Hertog (2010) argued that despite being autocratic, the government has formed and developed departments and ministries with professional managers and employees running them.
1. Introduction
The concept of the bureaucracy of Saudi Arabia is not a simple subject matter. It is a complicated agency and to delve into one department means to look into different angles. This is because the Ministry of Civil Service did not start as a government agency with all the traditional functions and employees working on one particular goal and objective. The Ministry evolved into what it is today, a department with professional people and bureaucrats working with careers to nurture, and who are answerable to a supervisor or career manager as in the traditional bureaucracy. In the past, the agencies of the government were working independently from one another making it too difficult for a centralized government to handle.