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Return to Article: Mid-level hires rank government above previous employers

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  I consider myself a "mid-level" hire (at GS-12, since promoted to GS-13). Although I am a reinstated Federal employee, my intervening hiatus in private industry lasted well over 20 years. I generally prefer working in the private sector, but I am here because the energizing volatility of the private sector (I am talking primarily high-tech concerns) was something I could no longer financially accomodate. Federal employment to me means job security, adequate benefits, competitive pay (at least in my field), and a chance to accumulate for retirement on a more regular basis. I also have an 8-hour, 5-day work week. For those with family and other outside pursuits, this means a lot. I miss the chance to be entrepreneurial on a daily basis, but there are opportunities even in the Government bureacracy to rattle cages and make a difference. Did I mention a 10-minute commute? There are lots of reasons people elect to work where they do. For me, they are the right ones. By the way, I do consider GS-12 to -15 to be mid-level. I consider SES to be "upper level".

  Contract Specialist Posted October 19, 2007 2:34 PM
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  Duh! These people left their previous jobs for some reason, so it seems obvious that many were dissatisfied with that former job. Otherwise, why would they change? Wouldn't you expect most of them to say they were more satisfied with the job they wanted than the one they wanted to leave?

  Billy Ginnings Posted October 15, 2007 1:58 PM
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  If a GS-15 is a mid-level employee, then there is a lot of government work being done out here in the hinterlands (west of the Patomic)by us low-lifes (I mean lower grades). I realize your publication is "Government Executive" but don't forget about us Little People. My agency and the Federal Government just lost a good employee with a Master's Degree but no promotion potential above her GS-5 position.

  Kay Posted October 15, 2007 1:54 PM
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  Alot depends on the agency you work for. Job satisfaction can come at any pay rate if you like what you are doing and you have positive feedback from your supervisor. However, you can be at the top of the payscale doing what you love and have a negative environment. After awhile you will not be able to tolerate the negative environment. Something will give, either your health, your work performance, or just your overall attitude. If this happens with an unusual amount of staff then management should be looking at this. If management chooses to keep their head buried in the sand, then eventually employees will leave and what you are left with could be great, but likely it won't be.

  D Posted October 15, 2007 11:30 AM
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  The headline is very misleading. If the top of GS scale is 15, how is GS-12 to GS-15 considered mid-level? Prior to reading the article, I thought it would be about those in the GS-7 to GS-9 grades. Some who commented believe that the only issue with government service is 'deadwood' employees. That's a management issue. It's not the 'deadwood' employees, but the 'deadwood' managers who fail to do the jobs they were hired to do. It is possible to remove non-performers, but the supervisors and managers that I've encountered(with one exception) are too lazy to pick up their pens to document the problem. They just draw a paycheck as well. One's experience within the federal government depends on the culture and environment of the agency they work for. I've work in four agencies within DOD in the last 23 years and work/life balance, schedule flexibility and job opportunities were all dismal. In one of those agencies managers expected more sacrifices from the civilian employees than their uniformed counterparts. To find out how mid-level employees truly feel, it would be necessary to survey them, not GS-12s to 15s. Ask GS-7s to 9s who live in an area with a high cost of living(DC, NYC, San Francisco) about pay and I'm sure the majority of them would tell you that the pay is insufficient. I know plenty of people in that category, myself included. If I left the federal government to work in private industry, I could earn $20-30,000 more per year. Job stability(and the fact that you wouldn't be fired because your kid was sick and you had to take off) was the one reason that I and many of my counterparts remained. With the advent of NSPS, many are opting to go work for private industry. What's the incentive to remain if you can work under the same conditions for more elsewhere?

  sd Posted October 12, 2007 10:50 AM
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  I too would have loved to start as a GS-15. When I started working for the federal government 30 years ago I was hired as a GS-5, with a Masters degree. When I tried changing jobs to advance I had to accept a downgrade and essentially start over again. My how times have changed that people can be hired in now as GS-13's, 14's and 15's. In addition to the pay issues and deadwood employees I would add another problem affecting morale and working conditions is the constant meddling of political appointees in DC. I came to federal service to serve the American public and provide programs and benefits for them, now I seem to be serving some politcal ideologues agenda, which usually means dismantling programs that work for the public and replacing them with new ways to reward cronies and contributors.

  Leonard Posted October 12, 2007 10:05 AM
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  Brilliant!! As a DoD employee since 1980, I and multitudes of others could have told the surveyors the same thing decades ago. Govt jobs are great. We can't complain about work/life balance, schedule flexibility, inter/intra-agency job opportunities, pay, health benefits, the list goes on. The number one issue is deadwood employees and it always has been as long as I can remember. Too many employees collect a paycheck (and eventually an annuity) for performance that would have them fired within a week in private industry as industry cannot allow nor tolerate performance that negatively impacts the bottom line - earnings and profits. The self-fulfilling prophecy of you can't fire a DoD/Govt employee is alive and well.

  Art Posted October 12, 2007 8:53 AM
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  The second paragraph noted the one catagory that was not as good as their previous employer was in dealing with employees who are not performing in their job.

  A very real problem; then the article goes into the old song and dance of salary. I was disappointed that you chose to ignore the problem, instead discussing pay. When an individual is ineffective it really does not matter what we pay them, it is too much.

  Every employee has a job description, every Federal employee has a rater. It is the raters of these GS-12 to GS-15 that fail to act. The same goes for a GS-5 or GS-7. The root is the raters/reviewers have not been adequately trained/mentored in the way to deal with under ineffective employees. This is crucial, when supervisors/employers fail to take corrective action, then co-workers will pick up the slack and the work load shifts causisng morale problems that could be avoided.

  What you did with this article is the same thing that those raters and reviews do, look the other way of the real problem. This would have been an ideal time to discuss what a rater can or can not do when dealing with an ineffective employee.

  Kathleen Sumrall Posted October 12, 2007 8:27 AM
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  i am not sure what agencies considers mid level as a GS-12 to GS-15? I would like to work there.

  mary Posted October 12, 2007 7:57 AM
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  Who is fooling who? Although there are indeed some notable exceptions when many federal agencies hire mid and upper level true external federal applicants, exceptions that are mentioned within this article, including agencies that hire physicians and other scientists, the undisputable fact of the matter is this exceptional level of applicant is by far, by far the exception and not the rule. And the rule and decades-long practice within the largest of all federal employers - the Department of Defense - is that it purposfully maintains near 100% levels of inbreeding in the administrative and financial management disciplines even when DoD agencies purportedly recruit outside of themselves via federal-wide and/or all sources area of consideration recruitments. The unflattering but telling fact of the matter is that regardless of recruiting 'externally,' DoD almost ALWAYS hires from within because it only and merely hires current or prior DoD staffers of some sort in the mid and upper grades in these fields. These purported 'external' recuits actually constitute de facto internal/insider hiring since the only ones who are hired (almost 100% of the time) are either current or prior DoD GS staff or recently retired DoD active duty members who had ended their active duty tenures in the very same DoD admin support offices that just 'converted' them into GS hires, or DoD contractors. In fact, I'd wager that half or more of those surveyed in this study of 'extenral' hires were indeed recent retirees from the military who benefitted from what were de facto sham external recruitments, recruitments that were cobbled together by someone within their DoD offices, persons who used and abused the federal hiring process merely to 'convert' these persons post retirement into GS positions. No one is fooling anyone!

  Michael J. Smith, MPA Posted October 11, 2007 6:57 PM
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  As a former GS-15 I take issue with the comment "pay can be a less important factor for more senior employees". Pay is important and this factor is part of why I no longer work for the Federal government.

  William Posted October 11, 2007 6:31 PM