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Is it time for a HR change?

CHCOs believe yes it is

Federal News Network Staff

December 3, 2008 8:27 pm

4 min read

By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
FederalNewsRadio

Few would argue that the federal human resources system works well. But how to go about fixing it is the biggest challenge.

The Chief Human Capital Officers Council will submit its annual report Congress later this year detailing some of the ways the civil service could be reformed.

The report also will highlight several of the CHCO Council’s successes over the past five years.

“The report is not specific by intention, but maybe we need to get a little more specific about here is a goal,” says Jim McDermott, the chief human capital officer at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Don’t take more than three. Don’t take a laundry list. Here are goals we are serious about. We could get ourselves in shape to do this.”

McDermott spoke on a panel discussing a new survey of CHCOs by the Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton released Wednesday.

The Partnership and Grant Thornton surveyed 54 political and career federal officials. More than half of them believe reform is necessary for the civil service, while two-thirds want to eliminate or significantly update the General Schedule system.

This was the second annual survey the two organizations worked on together.

The survey found that most of the respondents believe hiring and retention bonuses are useful tools. Most believe telework is important, and almost all believe alternative work schedules are significant options for employees.

Only 29 percent of the respondents believe the human resources staff have the competencies they need to be successful, and only 44 percent believe federal managers have the competencies they need to do their job properly.

Respondents also made several recommendations to the incoming Obama administration.

Some of them include:

Engage the career workforce early by providing goals, enabling feedback and letting them help determine the best ways to achieve the administration’s goals.
Actively promote cross agency collaboration on workforce issues.
Work with Congress to make the GS system more market- and performance-sensitive.
Update the federal job classification system and the 15 separate grade levels to remove artificial barriers to how talent is deployed and developed.
Ensure each agency is making the necessary investment in their HR infrastructure and workforce.
Consider proposing legislation to modify the statutory role of the Office of Personnel Management to balance its regulatory enforcement duties with its responsibility to provide advice and guidance.

During the panel discussion, the CHCOs had other suggestions as well.

McDermott says agencies too often are doing things just for auditors no matter if they make sense.

“We need to get rid of our obsession of time and attendance,” he says. “We need to let employees make decisions.”

He adds that the next administration should continue the collaboration among CHCOs that began under the current Bush administration.

Janet Murphy, the CHCO for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, adds that in-step grades should be eliminated. The money, instead, could be used for performance bonuses.

She also would like to see one template for advertising job openings for all agencies.

“We make it so difficult for a non-federal applicant to apply for a job,” Murphy says.

Luis Luna, the Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant administrator for administration and resources management, adds that training managers is not done well enough across the government.

He says too many agencies are managing using a 1950s mentality.

Luna says incentivizing employees to meet performance goals is something that needs to be considered as well.

What really needs to happen, says Ron Sanders, is a revolution.

Sanders, the chief human capital officer for the Office the Director for National Intelligence, says for too long the HR system evolved, but that is not good enough anymore.

“Too often we reform only after there has been a crisis,” Sanders says. “Eventually we will reach a tipping point and people will realize we need to level the playing field. And when that happens, we may just realize it is not as big of a challenge as we thought because so many parts already are in place.”

Sanders points to the Defense Department, the Homeland Security Department and even the Federal Aviation Administration as examples of crisises that led to HR flexibilities.

With the survey data and the clear cut need to reform, Luna says Congress, agencies and the incoming administration have an opportunity for major change.

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On the Web:

FederalNewsRadio – Pay for performance options

FederalNewsRadio – The People Piece of the Puzzle

Partnership for Public Service – CHCO report press release