MSPB Looks at Hiring Improvement Efforts

MSPB has issued a report examining what agencies have done to improve the much-criticized process that agencies use for hiring—both from outside and inside the government—saying that the government needs to move beyond the recent emphasis on speeding up the process and making it cheaper. Following is the executive summary of the report.

In November 2003, Congress granted the Department of Defense (DoD) the authority to establish a new civilian human resources management (HRM) system. While the pay for performance aspect of this new system has received the vast majority of attention, the legislation also allows DoD to virtually redefine its hiring process to better meet its mission needs. DoD’s progress could even set the precedent for Governmentwide reform.

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has conducted numerous studies over the years that address various pieces of the Federal hiring system. Given that reform of the Federal hiring process is nearing the forefront of civil service discussion, this perspectives report brings together some of the key issues presented in these past reports. Specifically, the purpose of this report is to inform reform efforts by: (1) summarizing key findings of recent MSPB research on hiring issues, (2) articulating the Board’s perspective regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the Federal hiring system, and (3) identifying and promoting hiring practices that support merit-based selection.

Findings

The Federal Government operates a merit-based hiring system. The key purpose of the system is to identify, attract, and hire the candidates who can best meet the needs of the organization and support the public’s interests. Not only is this good public policy, but making good selections can also lead to higher productivity, increased employee morale, improved teamwork, and reduced turnover—all of which contribute to organizational performance.

The Pendleton Act of 1883 formed the basis of the Federal competitive, merit-based hiring system and was meant to combat the evils of the “spoils system.” Over the past 120 years, the Government has incrementally added rules, regulations, and shortcuts to the system to make it faster, cheaper, and in some cases, more effective. While these are worthy goals, what has resulted is a long, complex process that too often makes it difficult to hire the best person for the job. Ultimately, the current hiring system frequently does not work in the best interests of applicants, mission accomplishment, or the public.

The time may be right to achieve significant reform—to not only attempt to meet the objectives of “faster” and “cheaper,” but also to balance those objectives with a strategy toward “better” processes and outcomes.

Better Recruitment. The length and complexity of the hiring process already detract from the Government’s ability to attract quality candidates. Therefore, agencies need to be able to market their jobs to applicants. Unfortunately, this is not one of Government’s strong points. The Government too often uses poorly written vacancy announcements and passive recruitment strategies, and it focuses recruitment efforts primarily on short-term workforce needs.

Better Assessment. The quality of employee selection depends on the criteria and methods used to distinguish the high-potential applicants from the rest. Currently, the Federal Government tends to rely on assessment tools that are not good predictors of performance. For instance, Government has gravitated toward the use of training and experience assessments that are not rigorously applied. These tools may help save time or money, but they are less likely to result in quality selections than tools that are better predictors but more costly to develop.

Better Management of the Process. Managing the hiring process well is as important as the process itself. Unfortunately, increasing mission demands and dwindling resources make it difficult for selecting officials and HR staffs to carry out this responsibility. Agency leaders tend to view hiring as an HR function, rather than a business function. Automation could be used more effectively to manage the hiring process. Finally, fragmented reform efforts are creating a system of “have” and “have-not” agencies—some receiving increased funding or flexibilities for human capital initiatives while others do not.

Better Merit-Based Decisions. To address inefficiencies and inequities in the Federal hiring system, the Government has created a number of sanctioned alternatives to the competitive examining process. For instance, the Federal Career Intern Program and other excepted service hiring authorities do not require traditional competition in which applicants are rated and ranked. However, some of these alternatives can impede fair and open competition and advancement based solely on relative ability. In addition, they can result in unsound hiring decisions and can actually create disincentives to invest resources in good recruitment and assessment practices.

Recommendations

It is time to look at hiring reforms in a systematic, rather than incremental, way. If the Government is to reform the hiring system, it needs to get back to the basics. That means preserving the original values behind merit-based hiring and divesting the system of rules and processes that are superfluous to those values. Reform should therefore seek to accomplish three goals:

1. Provide agencies the flexibilities they need to effectively manage;
2. Ensure employees and applicants receive the protections promised by the merit system principles; and
3. Provide the public a high-quality Federal workforce working toward their interests.

Many of the recommendations in this report do not require regulatory change, but they will require that agencies look at hiring with a greater focus on quality.

Federal departments and agencies should—

• Manage hiring as a critical business process, not an administrative function. This means integrating discussions of hiring needs, methods, and outcomes into the business planning process.
• Evaluate their own internal hiring processes, procedures, and policies to identify barriers to quality, timely, and cost-effective hires. Agencies will probably be surprised to see that many of the barriers they face are self-imposed.
• Employ rigorous assessment strategies that emphasize selection quality, not just cost and speed. In particular, use assessment instruments that have a relatively good ability to predict future performance. Using assessment tools in succession can make the assessment process even more effective in managing the candidate pool and narrowing the field of qualified candidates.
• Improve efforts to manage the applicant pool while making the process manageable for applicants. This means better recruitment strategies, improved vacancy announcements, more communication with applicants, and a timely, understandable application and assessment process.
• Properly prepare HR staff and selecting officials for their hiring responsibilities. Ensure they have the training and expertise to carry out their hiring responsibilities in a timely, high-quality manner, and hold them accountable for those responsibilities.
• Plan carefully when implementing automated tools designed to support the hiring process. Do not assume that technology alone will fix already-broken processes. For instance, automating an assessment tool that is a low predictor of job success will not improve the tool’s predictive ability.
• Evaluate success. Continually evaluate the hiring process to ensure it is meeting organizational long-term and short-term needs.

The Office of Personnel Management should—

• Work with agency Chief Human Capital Officers, Congress, and the Administration to develop a Governmentwide framework for Federal hiring reform. This framework should provide agencies with the flexibilities necessary to address agency needs while also preserving selection quality and employee and applicant protections.
• As part of Governmentwide reform, streamline and consolidate appointing authorities to simplify hiring procedures. A smaller number of flexible authorities will make the process more transparent and understandable. Coupled with valid assessment processes, they can speed the process while still ensuring merit.
• Better assist agencies to develop and implement valid and practical assessment tools. Agencies should have better access to the best selection tools, regardless of internal expertise or financial capability to develop them.
• Work with the Attorney General to petition the district court to sunset the Luevano consent decree and its related special hiring programs. The decree and its “temporary” hiring authorities have had many negative effects on Federal recruitment and assessment. It is time to establish a sunset date for the decree and focus on developing valid and practicable assessment tools for entry-level positions covered by the decree that better predict performance and reduce adverse impact on minorities.
• Expand efforts to develop competency-based qualification standards. A competency-based qualification system will help agencies make better determinations on whether applicants are a good fit for the job by emphasizing performance, potential, and quality of experience rather than just length of experience.