Report urges pay, personnel reform

Pay reform, performance management and a greater emphasis on recruiting and retaining employees are critical to overhauling the federal civil service, according to hundreds of public servants, scholars and business leaders cited in a new report from the PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for the Business of Government. Participants in four forums held over the last year and a half by PricewaterhouseCoopers said the new administration must create a new civil service model for the 21st century. The report is a compilation of ideas and suggestions from the nearly 200 leaders from government, industry and academia who participated in the forums. There is widespread concern in federal circles over approaching retirements in the senior ranks of government: Forty-five percent of those currently serving in the Senior Executive Service are expected to retire by the end of fiscal 2005. And, earlier this month, the General Accounting Office for the first time included workforce issues on its list of federal management problems that require serious attention. Participants in the PricewaterhouseCoopers forums agreed on the need for better workforce planning and suggested several improvements to the civil service system, including compensation reform, more training and development programs for employees and a streamlined hiring process. "New technology, new ways of organizing work, new means of delivering public services, and an increasing reliance on a temporary workforce have redefined the nature of public work. The structure and systems for acquiring and developing human capital have not kept pace," said the report, "Toward a 21st Century Public Service: Reports from Four Forums." Forum participants said the Office of Personnel Management should provide agencies with more discretion and flexibility to meet their own individual human resources needs, giving them greater authority to develop their own classification systems and use pay banding systems. Participants suggested shortening the hiring process, giving agencies greater flexibility around starting salaries, and promoting wider use of recruitment bonuses. The participants also suggested that to attract people to government service, OPM should launch an active recruitment program that could include sending political appointees and senior executives to college campuses and offering college students scholarships in exchange for government service. Recommendations also focused on retaining employees and identifying future leaders early in their careers. Good management should be rewarded and recognized; promotions should be based on merit, not longevity, the report said. At the same time, future leaders require more training and learning opportunities, such as sabbatical exchange programs with the private sector, in order to keep them interested in the public sector, the report said.