Reader responses to Career Corner- Position description prescription
Reader responses to Career Corner - Position description prescription
DAILY BRIEFING
Reader responses to Career Corner - Position description prescription
Here are the responses we have received to the August 1st Career Corner column, "Position description prescription."
One thing employees need to identify in their appeals to either their agency or OPM is the person who originally classified the position in question. Many times, when their agency or OPM initiates contact for infomation, the same person who originally classified the position will be answering the questions. This instigates a negative perception toward the appeal system on the part of the filing employee, especially if it is denied.
-Steve Halloway
President
AFGE Local 779
I've been an Air Force classifier for 29 years, and I must compliment you on the article I just read in the GovExec.com newsletter on Aug 1st, 2000. Your advice concerning the importance of job descriptions is right on the nose! If more employees were wise to the importance of an accurate PD, and how it is truly possible to get one, we would have a much more motivated government work force.
In my earlier days at the Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) here at Wright-Patterson (I am now a GS-13 staff classifier at HQ Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB) I developed an entire course (one day in length) for supervisors entitled : "Career Development Through the Use of Good Position Descriptions." I took it upon myself to develop the course, the slides, etc., and delivered the material ONCE to an enthusiastic group of supervisory engineers at ASC. Since there was very little buy-in to the idea by the Personnel powers at Wright-Patt at the time, and since I went overseas to be a Class Chief in Wiesbaden, Germany shortly after developing my course, I was not able to build the course to the level that I thought it might have been used. However, I still believe in the importance of the job description as a management tool...even as a management DEVELOPMENT tool.
-Mike Ottensmeyer