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Federal human resources shops are slow to change

By Alyssa Rosenberg arosenberg@govexec.com July 28, 2008

Government human resources offices need to make significant changes to the way they do business to provide greater value to the agencies they serve, according to a new report released by EquaTerra, a Texas-based consulting firm.

Only half of the 135 human resources professionals who work in federal, state and local governments interviewed by EquaTerra said they thought their organization's executives saw the HR department as a strategic asset. Sixty-one percent of the 315 private sector HR workers said they thought they were viewed as a strategic asset.

"For me that was a very telling self-assessment," said Glenn Davison, managing director of EquaTerra's public sector division. "There's a lot that needs to be done to achieve that enviable goal of being seen by the overall organization as adding significant value.... The overwhelming majority of HR organizations don't have a strategic plan of any sort. How do you get strategic if you don't have a strategic plan?"

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Both public and private human resources professionals EquaTerra surveyed said the people working in their HR departments generally were good at their jobs, but respondents also expressed dissatisfaction with the information technology available to them. Despite that, many organizations are not moving quickly to address those weaknesses, in large part because of concerns about cost of new systems. Fifty-four percent of public-sector respondents told EquaTerra that a lack of resources was the most significant barrier to overall HR transformation.

Only 16 percent of public-sector respondents identified inability to build a strong business case for transformation as a barrier to implementing new technology and processes. Davidson said that was somewhat ironic, given that wide-ranging retirements in government make having strong human resources organizations more important than ever, and turnover in HR offices provide those agencies an opportunity to reassess their processes and technologies.

"You're losing skill sets as people retire who are operating legacy systems," Davidson said. "[Human resources leaders] are at least now beginning to look at what their options are."

EquaTerra's report said one critical, and underexplored, option would be to consider outsourcing more human resources functions, either to shared service centers within government or outside contractors. The report found that only 5.5 percent of public-sector respondents had outsourced a portion of their recruitment process, defined as the steps between posting a job listing and bringing an employee on board.

Onboarding has come under more scrutiny recently. In May, the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton jointly released a report saying that the government had no consistent technical or cultural approach to bringing new employees into their organizations. In June, Monster Government Solutions launched a new product that would consolidate hiring and onboarding functions.

Davidson said efforts by outside nonprofits and companies were filling a creative void left by the Office of Personnel Management. The government's lines of business initiative were an important step in the right direction, he added, but OPM had to do more to encourage agencies to come up with innovative solutions to meet their specific needs.

"OPM should be just a wonderful resource that you can tap to determine best practices, best policies, best use of technology," Davidson said, "as opposed to necessarily serving as the HR cops, just enforcing certain policies and practices."

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  • The Human Resource Department role is NOT to protect the employee despite the title. It is to protect the government from any action against an employee that violates the civil service rules, both in U.S. Code (Title V) and the newer NSPS. However, recent experience revealed gross incompetence in fulfilling that role. In two cases managers took adverse action against employees; merely issued orders to have the machinery of government result in their removal from Federal service. In both cases the agency manager who issued the order was proven to have violated basic rules and procedures sufficiently enough to expose the agency to legal action. In one case a congress person reminded the agency of the employees fifteen year military service and in the other the blatant violation of rules resulted in the agency finding for the employee in a mitigating circumstance that allowed the agency to "save face" and prevent further legal action. In neither case did a competent person within the agency's HR Department have the knowledge and or expertise to go back to the manager and remind him that his request for adverse action was in violation of basic rules. They merely processed the request. They failed in what is their primary duty, to protect government when it is exposed to legal action. A follow-up of those in the agency's HR Department exposed employees who held titles but not the appropriate education and/or training for the task. Secondarily, the name Human Resources is a misnomer. It implies employee protection which is not there. It is only the unions (which this agency did not have) when stepping in for the employee, often saves the government as well. The Human Resource Offices should be called Government Resources and its people should have the appropriate credentials for the job, not just fill a billet. joan salemi Posted August 4, 2008 9:00 AM
  • In my informed opinion (16 years at a DoD installation that had their own inhouse personnel office) the HR office (o/t/a the Old gals' network which complemented the Old boys' network) were very efficient in that they did exactly what the corrupt management wanted them to do, such as illegal accretion of duties promotions, losing important paperwork that would have proved management wrongdoing, and using the system to punish management enemies (such as losing paperwork, automatically disqualifying employees for promotions without even reading their applications, and making EEO precomplaint process a joke for the agrieved employee). Yes, don't ever change - the powers that be don't want you to. Julia Chase Posted July 31, 2008 3:20 PM
  • We have undergone so many changes in the last 10 years, it is amazing that we operate as well as we do. We have been downsized (half our staff) and soon we will face another downsize; nearly half of the remaining staff will be retiring in the next 5 - 10 years. Upper management has just recently realized the employees who will fill those vacancies lack the skills to perform those jobs. Many of the employees are now receiving training they should have received long ago. The average lay person has no idea what it entails to implement a new HR program. We underwent a change of personnel systems several years back and it was a nightmare. It has taken years to iron out the problems. The programmers cannot keep up with all of the changes that our lawmakers enact. Adding a change to a program is major undertaking. As anyone who works with computers knows, one tiny change can start a domino effect and elements change that you did not want to change. As it turns out, we were unable to utilize the new system as it was intended and now use two different systems that have to communicate with each other. This compounds the problems. The new system has given operations managers the false impression that once they submit their request, it is done. Wrong! HR personnel have to go behind and "work" the request, then another personnel function has to ensure that it applies to the other personnel system. You see, the other system is the old one and it still governs pay. It does not matter what the new system shows, if it is not in the old system, it hasn't been done. These are just some of the challenges we in HR face on a daily basis. HR in Texas Posted July 30, 2008 9:10 AM
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