Text n 2. Human Resources: An Organization Is Only as Good as Its Staff.

Customs is a unique organization among government agencies in that it is neither a domestic agency nor international agency. It is poised on the international borders, not only as an expression of a nation’s sovereignty, but also as the nation’s guard against external threats to health, safety, and the environment; protecting (for better and for worse) domestic industry and collecting revenue to support the government. It must be aware of the border implications of national priorities concerning domestic crime, immigration, labor, the economy, and agriculture. At the same time, it must maintain an awareness of international issues and their potential impact on the nation, and it must be knowledgeable about national obligations to trade and transport treaties and conventions. In many ways, customs organizations relate more closely with their counterparts in other countries than they do with other agencies in their own government. They frequently look to customs administrations internationally and in neighboring countries for assistance and for ideas on how to improve operations or enforcement, as well as to exchange information on emerging threats.

This text deals with the modern management of human resources (HR) in customs.

Good management of human resources is probably the single most important issue that affects the efficiency and effectiveness of customs, irrespective of its organizational structure. This cannot be overemphasized as all aspects of customs management and customs clearance, including the application and maintenance of modern information technology (IT), will require that staff is qualified to operate the existing systems efficiently and to prepare the exiting services for the introduction of new processes and techniques. In doing so, staff must be attuned to developments in international trade logistics and must adjust to shifts in emphasis with respect to customs’ mandate.

Historically, customs work consisted of the manual labor of inspecting cargo, vessels, and passengers, and patrolling long stretches of border between ports of entry. Customs management was close to higher ranking government officials, while its staff was often poorly educated, trained, and compensated. This arrangement undermined professionalism and integrity in customs.

Increasingly, government services are being held to higher standards. The imperatives of a globalized economy on customs have become clear. A modern customs administration, responsible for protecting and representing the government at its country’s borders and ports, must use a professional workforce and an enabling technology to accomplish its mission. Managing human resources at customs can be broken down into several phrases:

• defining the desired staff profile

• establishing a recruitment process that ensures that customs has the desired staff on board

• training incumbent³ staff to maintain skill levels

• ensuring that the compensation package enables customs to motivate and retain staff

• ensuring that poor performance and integrity failures are promptly sanctioned.

Staff Profile

A modern customs administration needs to define the profile of its desired staff. The general educational background of all staff should be sufficiently high to ensure that they acquire and maintain the skills required by a customs service. Such skills are bound to change over time and will increasingly require expertise in accounting, intelligence gathering, finance, investigation, analysis, training, planning, and HR management. All these functions will increasingly adopt procedures that rely heavily on the use of IT. Modern workflow analysis should be used to determine the desired distribution of personnel across the various skill categories.

Some of the major services required of customs, and the professional qualifications essential to fulfilling these requirements, include the following:

• Enforcement of domestic laws and regulations at borders. These laws and regulations should comply with all international customs conventions and standards to which the country has subscribed.

• Implementation of modern customs clearance processes. Expertise is required as is the ability to perform risk analysis and postclearance audits.

• Maintenance of open communications with the trading community. Customs must ensure that the trading community has full information regarding its obligations and that the trading community’s views are taken into account in decision making at customs.

• Enforcement of laws relating to intellectual property rights, security, drug trafficking, and, eventually, labor and human rights. While labor and human rights may not be the national priority, the need to enforce such legislation may emerge depending on outcomes of future trade negotiations. This requires the capacity to integrate the agendas of other agencies into customs procedures.

• Collection and dissemination of international trade statistics requires IT expertise and an awareness of the importance of statistics for economic decision making

• Management of customs’ HR requires sound human resources management and human resources development expertise.

Tasks to text N 2.

1. Read text N 2.

2. Make a written translation of the text under the title Profile.

3. Ask one question to each paragraph to disclose its meaning.

4. Write a summary of the text in ten sentences.

5. Give a short oral description of the text. Be prepared to answer question from the audience.