TOPICS
TOPICS
Work Auditions
In his new monograph, "Good to Great and the Social Sectors," described in the January Management Matters column, author Jim Collins talks about a teacher with a surprising policy.
The teacher, who is head of the science department at a high school, tells new hires that they are not likely to keep their jobs for more than three years. Only excellent teachers can stay longer and obtain full tenure, he says. Even if they're good teachers, not great ones, they won't get permanent jobs in the department.
That method is the opposite of the one used at most schools, where tenure is granted to all but the worst teachers. The same is true at most federal agencies, where a yearlong probationary period for new hires is "a mere formality," a recent report stated.
The Merit Systems Protection Board found that new employees are largely considered full-fledged federal workers with all the civil service protections that come with that status -- even though probation is supposed to be a time to test out new candidates, and when the burden is technically on the employees, not the government, to show why they should keep their jobs.
"To look at a probationer as a candidate for final appointment and not as an employee with the full protections of federal employment may require a dramatic shift in culture and mind-sets," said the August MSPB report, "The Probationary Period: A Critical Assessment Opportunity."
Many managers think their hiring task is over once they select a candidate from the applicant pool. While good selection processes generally yield strong employees, sometimes excellent applicants do not make excellent workers.
Under current practice, federal managers generally get stuck with whomever they've hired because they don't take advantage of the probationary period, after which civil service protections for federal employees make firing a laborious task. The MSPB found that many new hires didn't even know they were serving in a probationary status. No one had told them.
One reason federal managers don't use probation to weed out mediocre employees is that their agencies don't give them the leeway allowed under the law. Agencies require managers to go through standard civil service disciplinary procedures, even though the law would allow them to more easily remove employees who are good but not great.
Another reason is that federal law only allows for a one-year probationary period -- not enough time for managers to evaluate an employee's effectiveness in complicated jobs. (Because their first year has a steep learning curve, teachers get three years.)
Regardless of the current restrictions, federal managers could take better advantage of the probationary period, according to the MSPB report. "Probationers should be notified, before accepting a job offer, that they will be probationers and what that means," it stated.
Flipping the probationary period on its head, from a time after which only the worst employees don't keep their jobs, to a time when only the best get to stay, is no small feat. The science department head whom Collins profiled gave a new teacher three years to prove herself, but decided she was not good enough. That was not easy news to tell her. But the department was better off for it -- and so were students, because an excellent teacher replaced her.
Making the probationary period mean something might not be a good change for decent -- but not great -- employees. But it could be a great change for the people who depend on an agency's services.
COMMENTS
- The problem is not the probation structure -- it is the lack of management in government. In government everyone is worried about covering themselves and not obtaining the best results. There is no reward for results even when the results are known (which is seldom). The following statement illustrates the lack of management: "Agencies require managers to go through standard civil service disciplinary procedures, even though the law would allow them to more easily remove employees who are good but not great." First, agencies do not require anything -- it is the manager that requires things. To say agencies require is simply another way to avoid criticism. When you say agencies you really mean the top managers of the agency and not the agency. You cannot attribute responsibility to the agency. Responsibility belongs to those that "run" the agency and set such policies. Second, managers set such policies because they are not judged on results but rather on not doing anything that might be considered a mistake. The government push is to avoid mistakes, not to achieve anything if mistakes are likely. There is no reward for achieving good results but there is punishment for making mistakes. Those that make no mistakes achieve little of value. Taxpayer Posted February 9, 2006 8:14 AM
- Probationary periods sound good but in reality, at least in my agency, they have no meaning. For a position in the IRS the manager calls up LR and instructs them to make the numbers justify his or her selection. Then the position is announced, the game is played, and the individual the manager pre-selected gets the job. GovExec.com reader Posted January 25, 2006 6:49 PM
- I have to agree wholeheartedly with EJC. There are absolutely no guarantees that the next hire will be better than the last. I was a teacher before becoming a fed. For science and math teachers, a school district will often find a shortage and not many candidates from whom to choose. So, at least in these disciplines, churning a teaching staff will probably be counterproductive. There is also a culture of inertia in school systems. This culture is reluctant to embrace technology, distance learning, or other forms of instruction that may eliminate or downplay the role of the traditional classroom teacher and traditional curriculum and methods of delivery of that curriculum. A young teacher who is innovative and nontraditional who may reach many otherwise disaffected students, may find himself/herself at odds with the established educational culture. Talk to any alternative education teacher and they will tell you this is very true. Education is the last work culture to which I would look for innovation and recommendations. All too often teachers succeed with their students in spite of department chairman, principals, superintendents, and school boards -- not because of them. I always find it hilarious to listen to observations and writings of authorities on education and teachers -- critics who have never set foot inside a classroom, had to write daily lesson plans, break up fights with students, and, just incidentally, motivate and challenge 150 students a day to learn. A lot of these people do a PowerPoint presentation and call it a good day's work. Teachers do upwards of six presentations a day! And it costs all organizations -- private or governmental -- to hire people. In the federal government you have the added cost of background investigations. And the taxpayers foot the bill for public hiring: schools and government. The best recommendation all around is just do a good job of the initial screening of applicants and then hire the best. And that person is usually the one you like the best anyway -- not necessarily the best qualified. One former supervisor I had told me that he would never hire anyone smarter than he was. So that statement should explain what goes on in government and education! GovExec.com reader Posted January 26, 2006 10:33 AM
Brian Friel, who covered management and human resources at Government Executive for six years, is now a National Journal staff correspondent.
