The Merit Systems Protection Board has issued a report warning agencies away from attempting to train employees on relatively subjective competencies and suggesting they prioritize those same qualities in job selection.
In "Making the Right Connections," MSPB recommends that agencies use "pre-training preparedness training" to help supervisors and employees determine whether a particular course of training is likely to be successful before committing resources to it.
It also said selection officials should not assume that just because a candidate’s resume lists several courses that the individual possess the competencies those courses might imply.
Said the report: "Hiring officials should be especially wary of training experiences that targeted less trainable competencies," listing "mental style" and "motivation" among them.
Otherwise, it’s a good idea to prioritize those kinds of competencies when making hiring and promotion decisions.
Relatively few employees seek out this kind of training – about 3 percent (of 2 million feds) – but MSPB found that course attendance for less trainable competencies is sometimes imposed as a requirement.
According to survey responses, training that addresses personal traits or characteristics is seen as enjoyable, is recommended by other employees, and is assumed to improve job performance unless workplace barriers prevent such improvement – but agencies should take a more critical view, MSPB said.
The utility of categorizing the complex issues of character, work ethic and job suitability as relatively un-trainable "mental style" remains unclear however.
It seems more likely that questions of motivation and disposition are more unquantifiable than un-trainable – or maybe they take longer than a seminar to acquire, suggesting that the question of whether and how to pursue more subtle and subjective socials skills, agile thinking, diplomacy, etc., is best left to supervisors and employees.
