South Africa Public Sector: HR, Strategies, SETAS Report

This report delves into the critical role of Human Resources (HR), strategies development, and the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETAS) within South Africa's public sector. Employing a qualitative research design, the study utilizes interviews and questionnaires to gather data, exploring the significance of HR in transforming the South African economy, the effectiveness of HR departments, and the impact of SETA in skill development. The methodology includes action research, emphasizing the importance of addressing ethical considerations such as informed consent and confidentiality. The findings are analyzed using content analysis, focusing on key themes like HR significance, development strategies, and SETA's contributions. The report also addresses potential research challenges, including time constraints and data access, while highlighting the importance of trustworthiness and researcher objectivity to ensure the validity and reliability of the study. The study aims to provide actionable insights into HR practices and their impact on the public sector in South Africa.

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 1
Importance of HR, Strategies development and the Sector Education and Training Authority
(SETAS) in South Africa
Author’s Name
Institution
Course
Professor
City and State
Date

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 2
Importance of HR, Strategies development and the Sector Education and Training Authority
Methodology and method for the collection of data
To understand the significance of HR, Sector Education, Training Authority (SETAS)
and development strategies in South Africa’s public sector, an appropriate methodology has to be
applied. Applying the right methodology or research design can help acquire key information or
raw data that will guide the researcher on arriving at logical conclusions. Human resources play a
significant role in South African economy. Equally, evaluating strategies development will help
collect relevant information in South African public sector. The major role of SETA explains the
methods that should be used for training and development of procedures to equip employees with
skills and knowledge (Mohamed, and 2017, P.40). SETA informs the best practices that should
be followed to improve service quality as well as productivity.
Qualitative design
To better address the importance of SETA, HR and strategies development, the research
shall use qualitative design. Namey (2019) state that qualitative researchers’ major interest is to
understand the meaning people have constructed. In this case, the author implies the qualitative
researchers investigate how society makes sense of its world and the experiences they have in the
world. This is research also seeks to give meaning about SETA, strategies development or
importance of HR. Besides, this research is not interested in quantitative data and that makes a
qualitative method more suitable for the research. When conducting research, flexibility is
important. Now that qualitative method provides enhanced flexibility, it was prudent to use it
(Tai, and Ajjawi, 2016, p.176). Nevertheless, for the purpose of collecting data, the research will
use interviews and questionnaires.

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 3
Interviews
Interviews are commonly used methods of data collection in social sciences or in arts.
Interviews allow the researcher to have a sit down with respondents to gather information which
can help them analyze the phenomenon under study. According to Peters, and Halcomb (2015,
p.22), semi-structured interviews are preferred by researchers because it predefines questions or
topics. When a researcher has some predetermined questions, they would collect information that
is crucial in their study. It helps the research do a deeper probe as the participant responds and
gives powerful data (Flick, 2018, p.6). The success of the research on the importance of HR,
Strategies development and the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETAS) in South
Africa will be determined on the kind of questions the researcher will ask.
Interviewing may be challenging if one is a novice researcher, however, it would help me
collect data in details (King, Horrocks, and Brooks, 2018, p.86). It will help me interrogate my
interviewees in detail to get all the critical information. Interviewing will allow the interviewer
and researcher to delve into practical issues, a situation that will enhance data collection. Thus,
for this research semi-structured interview shall be carried out. It will be challenging to get
respondents or people who will be ready to undertake the research. However, I will contact
human resource managers in both the private and public sector to give me an opportunity to
interview them. I will be flexible in terms of time, to allow the interviewees to select the
appropriate day for the interview. In the interview, the following questions shall be asked.
Questions Responses

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 4
In your view, does HR have any significance in
the public sector?
What key role do you think the HR plays in
transforming or reforming South African
economy?
Are public institutions doing a good job in
churning out honest and competent HR
managers?
How independent are the Human resource
departments in South Africa, especially in the
public sector?
South Africa being a diverse nation, what is
HR doing to foster diversity in workplace or in
the public sector?
What strategies do HR managers employ to
develop skills and knowledge?
Do you think SETA is playing any meaningful
role in South Africa’s public sector?
These questions are not the only ones that will be asked. They will guide the researcher’s line of
interviewing. There is a possibility of the researcher losing track or line of questioning, but these
questions will prevent that. In every question, there shall be follow-up questions to every answer

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 5
that will try to interrogate further the interviewees’ thoughts, opinions, experiences, and
perceptions.
Use of questionnaires
This research seeks to gather as much data as possible. Since the interview will be used to
collect data from a few participants, it will critical to issue questionnaires. The questionnaires
will have a list of questions which the participant will respond as they deem (Quinlan, Babin,
Carr, and Griffin, 2019, p.8). Hence, this research will ask open-ended questions to allow the
respondents to answer questions as they want. Open-ended questions give an informant a leeway
to respond to issues asked the way they understand. Although the respondents may sometimes
give irrational or poorly structured statements, they can be efficient when dealing with literate
informants. Meyerhoff, Schleef, and MacKenzie (2015 p.87) state that the questionnaires should
be properly structured and at the same time use a simple language. The researcher’s main
objective of issuing questionnaires to the respondents is not to prove to their fluency in a
particular language, but to ask rational questions in simple language. Hence, my research shall
ask simple questions which to some level will incorporate questions asked during the interviews.
The questionnaires will be administered to people in the public and private sector. Some
of the respondents will be employees. In all probability, for one to become an employee
especially in the public sector they must be scrutinized effectively. On the contrary, the
experiences people go through during their selection process may differ. In the questionnaires, I
will ensure that the confidential details are kept private. The employees that will reveal they were
not hired on merit but because they had friends, relatives or parents who are influential shall not

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 6
be condemned. Their identities shall not be revealed to protect the privacy rights of the
respondents.
Action research
Summarily, the methodology to be used in this research is action research. Action
research is instigated to a problem or as a reflective process of progressive problem-solving. This
research is a reflective process and at the same time seeks to solve in the human resource
management, training and developing in South Africa. Since it is a research that is seeking to
solve problems and evaluate processes used to sole problem, it is vital to carry out action
research. This research can only be important to the South African people if it highlights
strengths and weaknesses impacting the operations of human resources.
Epistemological stance
I am from the school of thought that believes research is a source of knowledge. The
research collects information that educates or informs other people about the phenomenon
affecting their daily lives. I believe that employees and human resource managers shall be the
source of knowledge in understanding the phenomenon under study. An interview with human
resource managers will give first-hand data that will inform me as a researcher the exact thing
that each organization is doing to train and develop their workforce. HR practitioners are a
primary source of data that the research should heavily rely on, unlike secondary data. The
literature on the same topic will also provide critical information about the research. However,
the primary data obtained from the HR professionals, employees and SETA shall be more
important and reliable because it is first-hand information.

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 7
Threats to reliability and validity of the research design
Researcher’s bias can threaten both the reliability and validity of the research design
used in this study (Cypress, 2017, p.254). Qualitative design heavily relies on interpretation a
researcher gives to data collected. In any event, the research is biased it will extremely difficult
for this research design to remain reliable and valid. The moment the researcher allows bias to
dominate the research; it is at that particular time that the study loses its validity and reliability.
Gunawan (2015, p.11) discloses that a lack of trustworthiness in the research can compromise
qualitative research design. As a consequence, I will have to foster trustworthiness in this
research to ensure that, it maintains its reliability and validity.
Procedure for selecting participants
This research will use purposeful sampling to reach out to specific people like managers
in the HR departments and SETA for an interview. Several interview requests shall be sent to the
relevant authorities and those will schedule an interview shall be my main source of primary data
for this research. For questionnaires, they shall be sent to some specific employees and each of
the responses they give shall be taken seriously.
Problems to be encountered when accessing data
In a nutshell, I have only two problems that I will encounter when gaining access to data.
The first problem will be interviewees having little time for my interview. Another problem will
be delays in returning questionnaires. Some respondents will take a too long time before
returning the questionnaires and that affect my timelines for the research.
Ethical issues

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 8
The arising ethical issues to be considered in this research shall include: informed consent,
confidentiality, and independence (Hunter, and Gough 2018, p.344)
Discussion
I intend to analyze the data collected from the research using content analysis. The
interviews and questionnaires shall provide qualitative data, which I believe can be analyzed
effectively by content analysis (Stemler, 2015, p.1). In this analysis, I will analyze the ideas or
themes such as the importance of HR, HR development strategies and SETA. This method shall
also hold group ideas together and consolidate evidence efficiently for each topical issue raised
in the research.

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 9
References
Cypress, B.S., 2017. Rigor or reliability and validity in qualitative research: Perspectives,
strategies, reconceptualization, and recommendations. Dimensions of Critical Care
Nursing, 36(4), pp.253-263.
Flick, U., 2018. An introduction to qualitative research. Sage Publications Limited.
Gunawan, J., 2015. Ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research. Belitung Nursing
Journal, 1(1), pp.10-11.
Hunter, R.F., Gough, A., O’kane, N., McKeown, G., Fitzpatrick, A., Walker, T., McKinley, M.,
Lee, M. and Kee, F., 2018. Ethical issues in social media research for public
health. American journal of public health, 108(3), pp.343-348.
King, N., Horrocks, C. and Brooks, J., 2018. Interviews in qualitative research. SAGE
Publications Limited.
Meyerhoff, M., Schleef, E. and MacKenzie, L., 2015. Doing sociolinguistics: A practical guide
to data collection and analysis. Routledge.
Mohamed, W., Miles, M., Alli, A., Sera, P. and Ewerts, H., 2017. Water Supply to Big Cities:
Training and Development Initiatives Implemented by South Africa’s Largest Water
Board: A Focus on the City of Johannesburg (Gauteng province, South Africa).
In Annales des Mines-Responsabilite et environnement (No. 2, pp. 40-43). FFE.

IMPORTANCE OF HR, STRATEGIES DEVELOPMENT & SETAS IN SOUTH AFRICA 10
Namey, E., 2019. Qualitative Methods and Mixed Methods. {Accessed May 7 2019].
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1008&context=scelcresearchday
Peters, K. and Halcomb, E., 2015. Interviews in qualitative research. Nurse Researcher
(2014+), 22(4), p.6.
Quinlan, C., Babin, B., Carr, J. and Griffin, M., 2019. Business research methods. South Western
Cengage.
Stemler, S.E., 2015. Content analysis. Emerging trends in the social and behavioral sciences: An
Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, pp.1-14.
Tai, J. and Ajjawi, R., 2016. Undertaking and reporting qualitative research. The clinical
teacher, 13(3), pp.175-182.