A panel convened by the National Academy of Public Administration has released a report on employee recognition and compensation programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calling for a budgetary and accountability framework for awards, work-based criteria for senior-level pay, and expanded use of IT in its awards programs.
While the study mainly focused on awards and pay, the panel also called for serious consideration for reintegrating strategic human capital functions and HR operations within CDC, rather than continuing with a current arrangement where those are provided by the Department of Health and Human Services.
“HHS’ decision to consolidate and centralize the HR function has resulted in critical limitations and disconnects that hamper CDC in the effective accomplishment of its mission and in the strategic and tactical management of its multi-sector, multi-dimensional workforce,” the panel wrote.
CDC managers say staff in the Atlanta HR center are doing a good job, but they also say understaffing and attrition there have cut into its ability to provide a full range of HR services and led it to become mainly a personal processing operation, the panel said.
It said the AHRC is seeking to increase personnel from 94 to 113 in fiscal 2008, but that is still short of the 200 employees that provided HR services to CDC in 2002, forcing CDC to fill strategic and policy gaps.
CDC’s Office of Career and Workforce Development has not yet been able to pick up the slack, and the report said the division of ownership between policy and implementation is “awkward . . . particularly for achieving a comprehensive approach to management accountability.”