Human resource management functions in secondary schools of Ethiopia: practices and challenges

Purpose – Human resources appear to be the primary factors in any organization's success or failure, as they make use of other resources like money, machines, materials, procedures, information and time that allow organizations (schools) to operate efficiently. To that effect, the effective management of resources, particularly the human part, often requires serious attention. Therefore, this study aimed at examining the practices and challenges of selected Human Resource Management (HRM) functions (induction, performance appraisal and motivation) in secondary schools in Enebsie Sar Midir District. Design/methodology/approach – To address this purpose, a concurrent parallel mixed-method research design was employed. Data were collected from 262 secondary school teachers and 12 interviewees selected through the proportional random sampling method and purposive sampling techniques, respectively. Findings – The findings of the study revealed that all the selected HRM functions were not practiced to the expected level due to several challenges, such as the absence of competent and supportive leadership and supervision practices, a lack of effective recognition for good performances, low salaries, a lack of adequate nonsalary incentive/benefit mechanisms and so forth. MANOVA showed that characteristics such as the teachers' educational setting (school), gender and other demographic characteristics of teachers do not substantially impact the linear combination of HRM functions. Originality/value – Although good school leadership involves setting up induction programs, to the best of our knowledge, no prior work has specifically investigated these functions in the context of Ethiopia.