The Civil Service as an Employer of Choice in Belgium: How Work Orientations Influence the Attractiveness of Public Employment

Because of labor market shortages, the lack of attractiveness of government employment will have a major impact on the recruitment of employees for governmental organizations. In defining this attractiveness, we follow the lead of Herzberg and his intrinsic-extrinsic model of motivation. A three-factor solution is extracted from the factor analysis and used in explaining the attractiveness of an employer. When applied to public service employment, this model seems to lose some of its strength compared to private sector employment. Instead, affiliation with politics and policies explains a large part of the attractiveness of government as an employer. This conclusion suggests that the concept of public service motivation could be an important variable in the recruitment process.