MSPB Cites Selection, Other Issues with Supervisors

Federal agencies give too little weight to supervisory skills or potential when filling first-level supervisory positions, tending instead to place employees with strong technical skills in such positions even though such skills are only part of what’s needed in such jobs, MSPB has reported. It further found that agencies are falling short in using the supervisory probationary period to assess how well a newly hired supervisor is doing—in 2009, only one half of one percent of supervisors were reassigned or separated for failing to complete that probation successfully. It said that in a recent survey, only two-thirds of new supervisors even knew that they were undergoing a new probationary period and that just under half said their agency had used their performance during that period to decide if they should remain in a supervisory role.