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Exercise Your Privacy Rights

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What's Changing

November 1, 2002

Here are the civil service reforms that are likely to be implemented at a new Homeland Security Department. All emphasize more discretion for managers and less reliance on rulebooks.

Feature	Old	New
Hiring	The Rule of Three: Managers must select from three top-rated candidates	Categorical Ranking: Managers can pick from a larger pool of top candidates
Classification	Rank in position; tightly defined job descriptions	Rank in person (lets managers move employees around more easily); loose job descriptions
Collective Bargaining	Limited negotiation rights for unions because so much is set in law	Could expand negotiable topics
Pay	15-grade, 10-step-per-grade General Schedule	Fewer grades, likely to have more steps so managers have more options to differentiate salaries
Performance	Evaluations have limited bearing on pay	Evaluations tied more closely to pay increases
Firing	Employees have 30-day appeal rights within agency, additional appeals to MSPB and courts	Appeal rights limited
Management	Laws and human resources offices drive many management decisions	More management decisions shifted to line managers

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