Return to Article: Personnel leader sets deadlines for hiring reform
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84148
I wonder if this law is going to apply to Congress as well as the Executive Branch? Oh, wait- that's a rhetorical question! Can you imagine Ted Kennedy doing all of these things and following all of the new rules and report requirements? Somehow, I think our Imperial Congress is going to exempt themselves entirely. They will continue doing it the easy way while pontificating about how us low lifes in the Executive Branch should improve and report our new successes to them. With the reports, they will be able to crow about their great legislative sucesses! I am impressed!
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83778
I work for one of the components of Homeland Security -- I will keep my name and component anonymous. I am also a Human Resources Manager and have performed staffing/recruiting functions for years. I applied for a position a few months ago which reports directly to the Head of HR for the Component. I received the typical email notification st I made the cert. However, I've since found out that the position was filled months ago, yet I never received a final email notification that it was filled! Hard to comprehend that this poor service would happen considering the position is a direct report to the Head of HR for the entire component.
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82890
Good evening Dan, ever wonder what would happen if the military wouldn't hire you? Let's say you're gay or a lesbian and you're denied entry into the military, or kicked out. Yet, when you go to compete for a government job, the vet preference kicks in and you can't compete for the job. It seems so unAmerican to this father of gay son. Let's hope the law changes so my son can serve and the vet preference can help him compete right along side you. God Bless all of America. Jerome Garcia
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82272
I work for the VA and hope to see reforms implemented in it's hiring process prior to my retirement in 2017...Guess I can alway hope!
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81796
One thing OPM can do is require all agencies that within 30-45-60-90 days of advertising a job, that all applicants, or at least those deemed qualified are notified of a decision: hired, come in for interview, etc. How many times does one apply for a position, maybe receive an email notification that you are "qualified" or "referred" and then one never hears back from the agency? And if there is a name and phone number to contact, repeated calls to that name and number result in many voice mail messages and no return calls. How about treating those of us already working for the feds with some respect and consideration when we apply for another job at another agency? It is disrespectful to a candidate especially when one is on the cert list, but never gets called for an interview or anything. Months go by and maybe you get an email saying, thanks, but announcement closed, thank you for your interest. And don't get me started on how federal agencies continually disrespect disabled veterans in the hiring process.
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81776
Its so tiring hearing about vet preference and its impact on "career CS". Look these man and women are vets and the law is very specific as to where they are in the hiring pool. Got a problem with Vet preference than enlist the military is always hiring. Otherwise quit complaining you have done zip/nada nothing for this country to justify your initial hiring or promotion. We already have agencies trying to get around vet pref with presidential interns which is just a disguise for affirmative action, quotas and every excuse under the sun not to hire a vet
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81756
Dear Mr. Berry,
I thought we all work for "Government" until I realized a person that was hired with me was promoted 5 times; she is neither bright nor nice. Then I started monitoring the hiring and promotion process. I noticed almost every time someone is dead, a long list of employees are being sent condolences; ABC died who is the mother of so and so, aunt of so and so, cousin of so and so, etc. Then I realized we don't work for Government, we work in my area director's family business! They not only manipulate the hiring process; they have a gang locally and in Chicago human resources that puts their relatives' name in the list;they "select" their relatives and they get the jobs and promotions. My Supervisor's nephew and his wife was just hired in another office. They trick the system by hiring each other's relatives; Soon I will bring a suit against this Agency and hopefully the truth will hit the fan. I won't be surprised if Regional Commissioner himself is part of the gang. Wait till their personal accounts get subpeonaed, then truth shall set all of us FREE.
If you mean business Mr. Berry do something about it.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
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81747
Mr. Berry, I hope that you will be consider and helpful to hire more disable peoples.
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81746
Mr. Berry, I hope that you will be consider and helpful to hire more disable peoples.
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81690
To AF HR:
First, stand up and use your name. Don't continue to be afraid. Second, look, and the AF is the DOD poster child in this regard, if DOD or AF hiring 'managers,' almost all of who are DOD/AF one agency careerists to the person, perceive that they are entitled to gaining a so-called 'conversion' and doubel dip into the literal same desk and chair from their safe admin support military positions into a very same admin support civil service position on the following Monday after their retirement from active duty on the preceding Friday (and after a sham surmised external to DOD recruitment is cobbled together at US taxpayer expesne solely for their personal self-financial driven benefit), then these 'leaders' ought to get current public law and policy changed to be comport with that entitlment-dripping mentality.
Because there is are little things called The Merit Systems Principles and Prohibited Personnel Practices in the federal government to help combat these obviously self-serving and self-financial driven tendancies.
And they ought to be more honest and forthright about it. If these 'managers' buy into that self-validating nonsense that excellence is only gained and/or demonstrated in merely DOD orgs, or that the 'best and the brightest' are only and merely among those that just retired from the all volunteer military from admin support roles, whose members joined 20 years ago to avoid the minimum wage jobs and livestyles they faced at the time, or that skill sets are not portable and translatable, then they ought NEVER EVER again opt to abuse US taxpayer funds and recruit their US taxpayer funded positions in the higher pay ranges outside of the insular and hyper inbred confines of DOD and AF.
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81683
I agree with the previous post regarding the DoD system. Supervisors seem to have so much leeway that they become very shortsighted in terms of personnel hiring. The system does not work, and is often abused, ultimately to the detriment of the service. Worst case I have seen is where a supervisor tried to have his wife promoted into an office he was leaving. I thought nepotism was illegal, but who is watching the henhouse to prevent it? I just don't see if from where I sit. It is interesting for me to note that the fairest hiring action I have seen was one where we went outside of the government for interns, and personnel rated the system based on an AQUA (spelling?) test. The quality of the candidates chosen was very good. Maybe I am wrong, but sometimes supervision can get too much power with regard to hiring actions.
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81670
The subject keeps coming up. And again, there's not a single word concering examining the veterans' preference laws. Everyone agrees, me too, that the government should hire the vets, and allow them to compete within their own group separate from other applicants. But the program is run in a way that blocks literally EVERY attempt at getting an outside hire, especially in any entry level position. Not one politician in this whole country will risk even mentioning that a review of the current practices might be beneficial. Mr Smith is correct about much of the already-determined hiring in DOD, but that is not alwas just a buddy club. Those exiting military know those jobs - would you rather have someone hit the ground running next Monday or start all over with a new hire on a cert from which you really have no choices but 1 of the first 3 names to hire?
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81662
Time for Mr. Berry's researchers to quit relying on very OLD perceptions. The current literature does not support the supposed fact that happy people are productive people, most often the opposite is true, those that are productive are happy. Hertzberg and others have also proven that there are factors that do not improve employee morale, but at best reduce employee dissatisfaction (hygiene factors). These are the work-life balance factors he is seeking. Apparently, under the miss guided notion that OPM and other emplooyees will be happier and then more productive employees if they have modern and clean restrooms. Silly man. There is simply no correlation between hygiene factors and productive employees.
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81660
Mr. Barry, if you are going to handle this like your boss did Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, Cap and Tap, bailouts, and of course his new car company - GM er-r-r ObaM......God help us!
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81651
It would be a major improvement in the application/hiring process to convert it to something similar to the Department of Defense's system. Employees' personnel folders become resumes posted automatically. They are notified of positions that they qualify for via email, and are given opportunity to apply easily. The current OPM process is too complicated.
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81648
At least in our little corner of the Dept of the Army, the issue is almost exclusively with the servicing (and I use the term loosely) civilian personnel offices -- who take on average four to six months to: 1) issue the position description provided by the hiring official and not use some canned PD from their library; 2) collect and "assess" the resumes submitted by the candidates; 3) provide the hiring official a list of "qualified" candidates; and 4) inform the selected individual he or she has been selected and offer the position. Mr. Berry can bloviate all he wants about his "improvements." They won't change what our problems are.
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81647
Berry, like Obama, seems to be whipping up a ton of issues that for the most part are correct. I would rather to see them addressed in a orderly, systematic fashion, but if they can pull off this fix 100 years worth of issues at once, more power to them. I will be disappointed if 4 or 8 years from now when Obama moves on if all this stuff is half done and ignored rather than some of it being completely fixed.
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81634
Mr Berry:
Big tasks.
If the USA's premier recruitment process consulting firm can assist OPM or any federal agencies in any way, let me know.
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81632
All new appointees want to have a major shakedown and make a big impression. Let's hope it's an improvement!
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81628
Ii is interesting to note the phenomenon of the pendulum swinging back yet again. So OPM is now moving back toward use of centralized registers and away from the delegated examining business model giving authority to agencies to conduct their own examining programs, which was itself created in the first place due to chronic agency complaints about slow and poor quality service back in the days when OPM monopolized the competitive examining function. I also note use of that trusted bureaucratic standby - when newly installed in office, reorganize and blame your predecessors for the dysfunctional organization you claim to have found in place. (OPM's last iteration of this tried and [un]true approach was in 2003.) Anaolgous initiatives in the past, e.g., OPM's "Pledge to Applicants," also announced with great fanfare by OPM in 2003, go unmentioned or are simply and quietly renamed (the current in-term is "rebranded") with, of course, no credit or attribution given to one's derided predecessors. Lastly, if Mr. Berry indeed believes that sitting down and studying an organization chart for any period of time will somehow "tell you [what an agency was focusing on]," I think he needs some basic instruction in the concepts of organizational design. No doubt, his succesors will embark upon the same behavioral pattern with regard to his "legacy," once the political version of the "Wheel of Fortune" has turned one more time. We have only to wait for the pendulum's reverse motion.
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81605
I know that I've made these statements before, but they remain relevant and absolutely spot on. The hiring 'problem' in the largest of all federal agencies - DOD - is NOT, repeat IS NOT process related. The indisputable 'problem' with the largest of all federal employing agencies is DOD's hyper insular 'we take care of our own' organizational culture.
And this culture is manifested and indefensibly demonstrated by DOD's near 100% rate of inbreeding in the 0300 and 0500 series (and most likely others) in the mid and upper pay ranges even with purported external to DOD recruitments, meaning federal-wide or DEU area of consideration recruitments.
Unless and until this reeking 100% self-financial driven rotten egg is dealt with, talking about or even changing the mere process by which DOD recruitments are announced or filled will not change anything.
At the end of the day, if DOD hiring 'managers' preposterously perceive that skill sets are not portable (Note: THEY ARE!), and worse that they ludicrously buy into the self-validating nonsense that that excellence is only demonstrated by or gained within and among only and merely current or prior DOD staffers (GS or mil or contractor), then they ought not EVER use and abuse US taxpayer funds and recruit at the deep end of the pool.
Mr. Berry, if you want to change something, then change this dregs of public administrative management practice that is systemic in almost every single corner of DOD.
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