A shift in the federal workforce toward knowledge-based, professional occupations and away from those requiring the mastery of a specific skill or task has ushered in the need for a new civil service framework, the Partnership for Public Service argues in a new report.
“Building the Enterprise: A New Civil Service Framework,” prepared with Booz-Allen, calls for a complete overhaul of the civil service system, including reforms concerning pay, performance management, hiring, job classification, accountability and workplace justice, and the SES.
The report describes a dire situation in which the existing system encumbers the federal workforce, fails to reward good work and discourage poor work, overly complicates the hiring process, fails to hold managers accountable, and is ill prepared for a looming leadership crisis with most of senior career executives nearing retirement. Further, many of those leaders are technical experts elevated into that role by default rather than seasoned managers, PPS notes.
Part of updating the civil service system entails establishing “a set of common core principles and policies to level the playing field across the federal landscape in the competition for talent, while giving high-performing agencies flexibility to adapt aspects of their personnel systems to meet mission needs; and establishing in law the National Council on Federal-Labor Management Relations as the primary vehicle for consultation between the executive branch and employee unions on civil service policy decisions,” according to the report.
It also recommends adopting a simplified job classification system for professional and administrative positions condensing GS grade levels 5 – 15 into just five work levels, in order to help employees advance based on technical expertise and not just the number of employees they supervise.
