Federal agencies commonly order employee training in response to findings of misconduct but such training is only valuable in some circumstances, MSPB said in a recent publication.
If the conduct occurred because the employees did not understand what was expected of them, training “could very well be an appropriate response,” it said. Following ethics policies, for example, is “one of the most trainable competencies. Therefore, if an employee does not know that they have to go through a specific process before publishing a book [as an example], training could be an appropriate response.”
However, training “will not likely be an effective solution” if an employee knowingly violated a rule seeking to obtain a personal benefit. “MSPB’s research demonstrates that it is very difficult to train for mental style competencies, such as integrity or conscientiousness,” it said.
“When determining an appropriate penalty for misconduct, one factor agencies should consider is whether employees were clear about the rules in the first place. Providing clear guidance of the rules can help ensure that employees are on fair notice of what is expected and enable the agency to hold employees accountable,” it said.
“Training about rules can offer employees instructions on how to navigate the system to reach their ethical goals in a manner that complies with policies. But this requires that the agency’s employees have ethical goals. The teaching of rules can enhance the effectiveness of preexisting integrity; but, integrity itself is a far less trainable competency for which there is no substitute,” it said.
Highly trainable competencies, MSPB said, include job knowledge, academic subjects, knowledge of laws, policies, and regulations; less trainable competencies include interpersonal skills, teamwork, conflict skills, diversity skills, customer skills, influencing and negotiating, partnering, and political savvy, analyzing and solving problems; while the least trainable competencies include resilience, work motivation, integrity, vision, flexibility, creativity, learning ability, decisiveness and entrepreneurship.
