Social issues of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine personnel management

Introduction

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU), like any other state law enforcement agency, is interested in high-quality personnel capable of performing the tasks assigned to the SBGSU. An important positive indicator in this respect is the stability of staff, negative – is the turnover of staff. If the turnover is high, it is necessary to find the reasons. Search and studying the causes of staff turnover is one of the important tasks of the SBGSU leadership and the heads of its bodies (units). The quality of personnel depends on the effectiveness of border management of the country, which in turn affects the state of security of society and the state, the security of the state border (Patrick, 2006; Kuryliuk & Khalymon, 2020).

Permanent monitoring of the completeness of the units and the state of affairs is an indispensable element of staffing and personnel policy for the future.
SBGSU’s personnel management covers many different stages of work with its staff – from the selection of candidates, their study and enrolment in SBGSU – to ensuring their completion of the service and not only. The extent to which each employee will associate his or her life with SBGSU, his “professional” longevity depends on how well is he or she protected and actually secured in social and legal terms, how all issues of social and, above all, social and domestic character are resolved.

Training of specialists for SBGSU bodies (units) and, in particular, national servicemen, requires significant financial expenditures of the state budget. However SBGSU needs theoretically trained personnel who are knowledgeable in the specifics of the activities at the state border and in certain professional areas, have the necessary skills and experience and, most importantly, practical experience. The professional qualifications of the personnel depend on the effectiveness of activity of both the SBGSU as a whole and the direct unit in which he or she serves and performs the relevant duties. The longer he or she performs his or her duties, the better professional he or she becomes.

Taking into account the particularities of military service at SBGSU and the locations of most border units, which are located mainly in rural settlements with a small number of local inhabitants, social issues are one of the most sensitive and important. The desire of SBGSU personnel to serve for 25 years before the right to retirement benefits occurs requires adequate motivation and ensuring for resolving all social issues.

In order to study the social issues of SBGSU personnel management, the following tasks have been defined:

1. To summarize the results of scientific researches on the practice of solving social issues of personnel management in law enforcement agencies of Ukraine and other foreign countries.

2. To formulate a list of socially important issues for SBGSU servicemen that can be selected to assess their attitude to service in SBGSU bodies and satisfaction with the level of social and legal protection.

3. To determine the real status of solving socially important issues based on the analysis of the results of the survey of different categories of SBGSU officers.

4. To formulate possible directions for further actions of the SBGSU management to eliminate the causes and preconditions of staff turnover, taking into account the state of solving social and, above all, social and domestic issues in SBGSU bodies.

Review of the Literature

Studies on human resource management are increasingly focused on the effectiveness of human resources systems rather than individual human resource management practices (Combs, Liu, Hall, & Ketchen, 2006). Interest in strategic human resource management has generated a number of empirical studies that have examined the impact of human resource management practices on organizational efficiency (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2003). Human resources management is gaining popularity in the public administration researches (Boselie, Harten & Veld, 2019; Filippus & Schultz, 2019). Unfortunately, this cannot be said about human resources management practices in the area of our country’s border security. We can only see some scientific publications dedicated to this topic.

According to M. Malanchii (2017), personnel are one of the most complex management entities in any organization. Unlike other factors that affect the quality of the operational and combat missions, such an object has the ability to make decisions independently, critically evaluate the requirements that are assigned to it, and the tasks that are assigned to it, has subjective interests and opportunities. Today, without staff, capable for functioning at all spheres no military or law enforcement organization will be able to achieve its intended purpose. Nowadays, personnel are not only the most important element of any process (production, military and security, etc.) but also a major strategic resource. No matter what are the latest weapons or technology, border security means, it is impossible to succeed without trained personnel.

In historical retrospect, the problem of SBGSU staffing has existed for more than one year. As early as in 1991, after Ukraine’s proclamation of independence, one of the tasks of the young state was to establish the protection of its borders and, accordingly, to assign such duties on a sufficient number of personnel at that time of the Border Troops of Ukraine.

The departmental edition (2007) stated that the formation of the Ukrainian Border Troops was carried out from the remnants of the units and parts of the Western Border District, which were located at the territory of Ukraine and protected the state border and economic zone of the former USSR. The number of personnel of the units was 16 799, including officers – 2 156, warrant officers – 3 154, sergeants and sergeant majors – 2 601, soldiers and sailors 8 888 (State Border Service of Ukraine: History and Present).

In order to provide the needs of the state and the Border Troops of Ukraine, it was envisaged to gradually increase the number of personnel and bring its number to the level of 45,000 by the end of 1992 (increase almost in 2,7 times).

In 1999, it was determined that the number of employees under an employment contract should be 3,000. At the same time, the indicators of the number of personnel of the Border Troops of Ukraine in the number of 45,000 people did not meet the needs of that time and it was envisaged to increase them by 5,000 more during the period 2003-2004 (On the general structure and number of the Border Troops of Ukraine). This task remained relevant in the future.

As it was stated in the departmental edition (2007), after the adoption by the Supreme Council of Ukraine on 03.04.2003 of the Law of Ukraine “On the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine”, which came into force from 01.08.2003, the new law enforcement agency of special designation became the assign of the Border Troops. During the organizational and structural changes, the operating structure of SBGSU was optimized. After this reform, the ratio of SBGSU structural elements was: 1,05% – SBGSU Administration; 1,15% – regional governing bodies; 81,1% – border protection unit; 16,7% – are security bodies. The limit staffing level in 2004 was determined at 48,000 and by the end of 2005 – 50,000 (State Border Guard Service of Ukraine: History and Present).

In quantitative terms (upon condition of 48,000 of personnel), it looks this way: SBGSU Administration – 504 people; regional governing bodies – 552 people; border protection units – 38 928 people; security bodies – 8 016 people.
Today, according to part two of the Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On the State Border Service of Ukraine”, the total number of SBGSU is 53,000 people, including 45,000 servicemen (On the State Border Service of Ukraine).

According to data reported in the scientific article by M. Malanchii (2017), SBGSU employed: 38,950 persons, from whom 7,253 persons (19% of personnel listing) were officers; 21 021 persons (54%) – were junior staff; 3 648 persons (9%) were involuntary service employees and 7 028 (18%) were non-military employees in January 1, 2017. SBGSU staffing totalled 76% of the planned staffing. Despite a significant staff shortage at SBGSU, there was a significant staff outflow during 2016. In particular, in 2016, a total of 7 750 people were dismissed, including: 6 779 persons in connection with the dismissal of servicemen call into service according to 4-6 waves of mobilization for a special period and who had served their prescribed terms of service; 971 persons – for other reasons, 929 persons – for negative articles. Thus, the total turnover of release was 19%, which means that every fifth worker left the SBGSU during the year. However, in 2016, 4 585 persons were enlisted for military service under contract, of which: 2 568 persons were recruited from the stock fund through recruitment centres, (86% from planned indices); 1 946 mobilized military personnel; and 71 conscripts. On the whole, the recruitment turnover was 11% and the total turnover was 31.66%. Such staff turnover rates are sufficiently high and indicate excessive staff turnover, which has a negative impact on staffing, indicates employee dissatisfaction with the working conditions, inadequate discipline (dismissal on negative articles) and lack of effective measures for securing personnel. This requires a number of stabilization measures (Malanchii, 2017). Personnel problems are also inherent to border guards of foreign countries. For example, the world leader of the United States of America is experiencing an acute problem with recruiting new border patrol personnel (Nowrasteh, 2017). Member of the House of Representatives Michael McCall points out that work at the border patrol is very difficult. “You are in a very difficult environment, because some migrants even throw stones at you” (The Border Patrol’s recruiting crisis). Shortly after taking office, the US President signed an order to hire 5,000 border patrol agents. But, unfortunately, the border patrol cannot hire the necessary number of people to fill the vacancies. Even Congress provides funding for the hiring of 21,370 agents, more than 1,800 positions remain vacant (The Border Patrol’s recruiting crisis).

Media also occasionally reports the outflow of SBGSU personnel, in particular on the amount of cash security that causes this outflow. So, O. Torop claims that according to the agency data, 1 300 contactors were dismissed in 2015, about the same number in 2016. And in 2017 and 2018, that number doubled – 2,912 and 2,557 servicemen. Officially, SBGSU states that there are no problems with the personnel outflows. But the real state of conditions is the renewed call to military service for conscripts in recent years. In 2018, when 2 750 conscripts were called up to the Border Guard Service; there would be a record 4,000 during only the 2019 spring call. The total number of border guards remained unchanged – about 50,000. For comparison, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which is five times larger, will call for the military service 9,000 people in the spring. Obviously, it is planning to solve the problem of incomplete border through the conscripts. In 2008, the Border Agency completely abandoned the conscript call and turned to contract service. This was due to the reform of the agency into a law enforcement structure, in accordance with European standards. However, with the beginning of the fighting in Donbass, problems with the manning arose and the call for the military service was resumed. During the first months of this year, in January and February, 405 servicemen were released. And if for the Armed Forces of Ukraine this is not such a large number, then for the border troops it is tangible (Torop, 2019).

Such number of dismissals indicates low motivation to serve. Motivated workers are the cornerstone of all organizations, as work motivation is one of the most important factors in an individual’s and organization’s activities. This is important for both the private and public sectors (Anderfuhren-Biget, Varone, Giauque & Ritz, 2010), and obviously this is relevant for SBGSU. Pannell (2015) states that company executives do not understand that remuneration is an effective mechanism in the fight for quality staff, especially in retaining and attracting talented staff (Pannell, 2015). Not only SBGSU has problems with staff turnover, but also the National Police of Ukraine (Martselyak, Karelin, Koropatnik & Kalyuzhnyi, 2020) are experiencing acute staff shortages, especially at the regional level.

In view of the abovementioned, it should be emphasized that the problem of staff turnover in SBGSU does exist, and there may be some reasons.

Methodological Framework of the Research

The methodology of the empirical part of our research is based on general scientific methods of scientific knowledge, the main of which is the method of systematic analysis. This method combines subjective and objective moments of knowledge. It is a program of formation and practical implementation of theory (Berezin, Miroshnikov, Rozhanets, 1976). In addition, during the study methods of empirical data processing (analysis, synthesis, comparison and generalization) to compare and interpret data obtained from other studies have been used.

The study was conducted at the SBGSU National Academy and is a continuation of previous research in 2017-2019. During the survey, the respondents were officers who hold or held various positions in SBGSU bodies (units) in such areas of professional activity as: border service (guarding of the state border section); border control; investigative activity; logistics and engineering support; information and analytical activity; communication and automated control systems; scientific and pedagogical activity, etc. Such officers directly carry out the tasks of operational and service activity and have experience of military service in various parts of the Ukrainian state border, including with the countries of the European Union. Some of them, taking into account the experience of their service, may act as experts on the protection of the state border of Ukraine.

The study was aimed at identifying, severance and examining social character causes that create the preconditions for staff turnover and the emergence of problematic issues in SBGSU personnel management.

The study used a specially designed questionnaire to assess the quality of the respondents and to determine the status of solutions for each of social issues. The questionnaire included a list of questions that characterize the respondents regarding: place of service (structural link) at SBGSU; the structural unit in which they serve; positions; the direction of professional activity; gender; age; length of service in calendar years; the number of positions held during the service period; the number of times that the places of service has been changed; marital status; children; provision of housing. As well as questions about whether they are satisfied with military service at SBGSU bodies and the current level of social and legal protection of SBGSU staff, and which of the components of SBGSU staff’s social and legal protection are needed to be improved?

These groups of questions are formed on the basis of the analysis of the results of scientific researches on similar topics, as well as personal views of the author’s team. The survey was conducted during the stay of such officers at the Bohdan Khmelnitsky National Academy of SBGSU (Khmelnitskyi city) who were personally authors of the study. In the questionnaire forms, the respondents were asked to indicate the answer in figures, to choose the suggested answer to each question or to submit their answer. The poll was anonymous.

Results and discussion

In total, 112 respondents were interviewed, among them serve at: SBGSU Administration – 2, SBGSU Regional Directorates – 27, State Border Protection bodies or Maritime Guard bodies – 20, State Border Protection units or Maritime Guard units – 34, SBGSU National Academy (pedagogical staff and students) – 23.
Respondents’ answers are presented below in the relevant tables by numerical indicators that characterize the number of responses by options and the percentage of respondents who preferred such answers.

The results of the obtained data analysis show that respondents are divided by gender: 93,7% of the respondents are men; 6,3% are women (see Table 1).

Table 1. Gender.

Table 2. Position (or equivalent to it).

According to the directions of professional activity, the interviewed respondents are classified as follows: for 33,9% the main service activity was or is a border service (guarding the State border sector); for 18% – border control; for 47,3% – investigative activity, for 3% – other professional activities (see Table 3).

Table 3. Direction of professional activity.

According to the age of the surveyed respondents they are classified: among the total number of the surveyed 37,5% are 23-30 years; 30,3% – 31-35; 22,3% – 36-40; 9,8% – 41 years and older (see Table 4).

Table 4. Age.

Respondents are classified in terms of military service in calendar years: 4,5% have up to 5 calendar years; 16% – 6-10; 58,9% – 11-20; 17,9% – 21-25; 3% – 26 and more (see Table 5)

Table 5. Terms of military service in calendar years.

According to the number of positions they occupied during the service period, respondents are classified: 13,4% held 1-2 positions; 33% – 3-5; 45,5% – 6-10; 8% – 11 or more (see Table 6).

Table 6. Number of occupied positions.

According to the number of places of service that were moved during the period of service, respondents are classified: 5,4% changed their place of service 1-2 times; 19,6% – 3-5; 54,5% – 6-10; 20,5% – 11 times or more (see Table 7).

Table 7. Number of places of service.

Respondents’ answers to the question about marital status are classified: 78,6% – are married; 14,3% are single (not married); 4,5% – was married but currently are divorced; 2,6% are in consensual marriage (see Table 8).

Table 8. Marital status.

The analysis of the obtained data shows that 10 respondents were married in the past, 5 of them continue to be divorced (they were married for 5-9 years), 5 are married for the second time.

Respondents’ answers to the question of whether their family lives with them are classified as follows: 60,7% – yes; 39,3% – no (see Table 9).

Table 9. Does your family live with you?

An analysis of the data shows that of the 91 respondents who are married or in consensual marriage (see Table 8), only 68 live with their family (see Table 9). Speaking about the other 44 surveyed, 4 of them are with families at intervals of once a week, 15-1 times a month, 15 are rare, and 10 are difficult to answer when visiting family.

Respondents’ answers to the question of whether they have children are classified as follows: 45,5% – have 1 child; 19,6% – 2 children; 7,1% – 3 children; 27,7% have no children (see Table 10).

Table 10. Number of children.

Respondents’ answers to the question of whether they are provided with housing are classified as follows: 7% – are provided; 12,5% – are provided with official (departmental); 3,6% – are provided not at the place of service; 76,8% are not provided (see Table 11).

Table 11. Housing providing.

Respondents’ responses regarding their satisfaction with military service in SBGSU bodies are classified as follows: 7% are completely satisfied; 43,8% are more satisfied than not satisfied; 12,5% are not satisfied; for 36.6% of respondents it is difficult to answer this question (see Table 12).

Table 12. Are you satisfied with military service in SBGSU bodies?.

Respondents’ answers regarding their satisfaction with the current level of social and legal protection of SBGSU staff are classified as follows: 4,5% are completely satisfied; 33% are more satisfied than not satisfied; 42,9% are not satisfied; for 19,6% of respondents it is difficult to answer this question (see Table 13).

Table 13. Are you satisfied with the current level of social and legal protection of SBGSU staff?.

Respondents’ responses to SBGSU’s social protection components that need improvement are classified as follows: 75% consider it necessary to improve cash security; 37,5% – rewarding with a premium for service results; 48,2% – logistics; 83,9% – provision of housing; 32,1% – pension provision; 19,6% – career promotion (career prospects); 41,9% – social and living conditions; 14,3% – the procedure and terms to furloughs; 36,6% – general terms and conditions of service; 0,9% – health care (see Table 14).

Table 14. Which of the social protection of SBGSU staff components are needed to be improved?.

Based on the interpretation of the results of the obtained data generalization of the (see Table 1-11), it was found that: the vast majority (93,7%) of the interviewed respondents among officers are men; almost half (47,3%) are managers (heads) (23,2%) or deputy managers (heads) (24,1%) of SBGSU bodies (units); the majority of respondents (47,3%) are engaged in (or were engaged in) investigative activities; the average age of the respondents is 33 years; they have an average of 17 years of military service in calendar years; during this time, they usually held 8 positions and changed 6 places of service (approximately every 3 years); 78,6% of the respondents are married, but only 60,7% of all respondents live with their families; the majority of respondents have one child (45,5%) or no children at all (27,7%); 76,8% of the respondents are not provided with housing, that force them to search and rent accommodation.

Based on the interpretation of the results of the obtained data generalization (see Table 12-14), it was found that: a small majority of the interviewed respondents were completely satisfied (7%) or more satisfied than they were not satisfied (43,8%) with the military service in SBGSU bodies; SBGSU staff are less satisfied with the level of social and legal protection: fully satisfied (4,5%) and more satisfied than not satisfied (33%); 83,9% of respondents consider that, among the proposed components of social and legal protection of SBGSU staff, the most needed to be improved is housing provision; 75% – cash security; 48,2% – logistics; 41,9% – social and living conditions, etc. That is, it confirms their dissatisfaction with the state of social and legal protection of SBGSU staff in practice.

Discussion

The survey results indicated that a small majority of respondents were generally satisfied with the military service in SBGSU bodies, but the overwhelming majority were not satisfied with the current level of social and legal protection of SBGSU staff. The reason for this is, first of all, the lack of housing providing, which causes them to search and rent accommodation. In addition, in our opinion, factors such as frequent change of positions and places of service (approximately every 3 years) adversely affect the turnover of personnel and their marital status.

It gives us reason to emphasize the need to solve socially sensitive and important service issues. It is important, in our opinion, to pay attention to these issues constantly. An appropriate level of social security must be achieved and thus create the preconditions for the stability of SBGSU staff. Even in the USA, there are problems with social protection. Thus, Chris Harris, an agent and former union representative, now a pensioner, said, “it’s hard to recruit people from big cities when they can be in or near remote cities, such as in Douglas, Arizona, or in Lordsburg, New Mexico. Poor housing, health care, poor quality schools are probably not a job for a man”, Harris says. “It’s hard to sell” (The Border Patrol’s recruiting crisis).

In his research, M. Malanchii (2017), for example, focuses on organizational issues; in particular, in order to prevent the staffing of the SBGSU from being reduced, a number of retention measures were taken during 2016, namely: manning of conscripts was conducted; modernization of the manning system was carried out, due to which it was possible to significantly increase the recruitment indices in comparison with the previous years, which made it possible to actually retain the staffing decrease by 4-15% instead of the projected reduction of staffing by 10-15% at the beginning of the year. However, he points out, it is impossible to solve and examine the issue of effective personnel management only in terms of staffing levels maintenance and without having formulated the overall concept of improving the efficiency of the personnel management system at SBGSU, which would take into account factors that significantly influence the development of the personnel management system. He proposes five key areas for reforming SBGSU’s human resources management, which should have a positive impact on its development: decentralization, that is, empowering local leaders at the local level; reform of the management system of the structure and number of personnel; improvement of the manning mechanism of the border protection units and reserves of the SBGSU Head; improvement of the staff training system; change of approaches to management of existing personnel resources (Malanchii, 2017).

However, it is obvious that the basic premise of such views is that the experience, values, and personalities of high-level managers significantly influence their understanding of the situation with which the organization faces and their choice on organizational strategies (Zhao, Sheehan, De Cieri, & Cooper, 2019).
We fully support the need for changes in approaches to managing the available human resources, as one of the main areas of SBGSU personnel management reform proposed by M. Malanchii (2017). This confirms our findings regarding the negative impact of unreasonable and frequent staff rotation in the guise of offenses prevention, which has become a threatening dimension and has a negative impact on staff turnover. But this is the only problematic issue and does not solve the whole range of social issues that are important to SBGSU staff.

75% of respondents believe that SBGSU’s cash security needs improvement. It is worth noting here that insufficient cash security is one of the triggers that provokes further dismissal or instigates border guards to corruption. The United States Border Guard Service representatives also holds the same opinion, noting that the release coefficient of the border guard discipline or effectiveness rate is much higher than law enforcement officials at other major US federal law enforcement agencies (The Border Patrol’s recruiting crisis). These disappointing statistics are also caused by the fact that the US Border Patrol receives less cash security than other law enforcement agencies (The Border Patrol’s recruiting crisis). It is obviously, that the level of payment for work affects job performance (Bockerman, Bryson & Ilmakunnas, 2013).

Among the feasible opportunities of the police personnel providing guaranteeing and protection of policeman rights, the material, and social, professional and psychological conditions of their activities occupy one of the important places (Kaganovska, Buhaichuk, Vasyliev & Serohin, 2020).

Conclusions

The generalization of the scientific research results on the identification and resolution of social issues of personnel management in law enforcement agencies of Ukraine and other foreign countries, allowed us to formulate a list of socially sensitive and important issues for SBGSU servicemen, which were selected to assess their attitude to the service in their SBGSU bodies and their satisfaction with the solution of such issues. Based on the analysis of the survey results of different categories of SBGSU officers, the real state of resolving social issues was determined and the possible directions of further actions of the SBGSU leadership to eliminate the causes and preconditions of staff turnover in SBGSU bodies were formulated.

Based on the results of the obtained data analysis, it is concluded about the main factors that lead to the fact that a large number of military personnel do not want to continue contracts for military service at SBGSU after the completion of the first contract at a young age. This circumstance is of great importance for resolving staffing issues and determining which issues should be given greater attention in the future, including the legislative level. This is important for ensuring the stability of SBGSU personnel, improving the overall level of its professional skills and, accordingly, ensuring the security of the state border, improving the effectiveness of counteracting illegal activities and management of the state border of Ukraine security in modern conditions.