Improving the Recruitment, Retention, and Utilization of Federal Scientists and Engineers (1993)

Alan K. ''Scotty'' Campbell, panel vice chairman, is Visiting Executive Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was Vice Chairman of the Board and Executive Vice President of ARA Services, Inc. (1980–1990), where he continues as a member of the Board. Dr. Campbell was named Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) when it was established in January 1979. Prior to that he was Chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, where he led the effort to pass the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which created OPM and the Senior Executive Service. Before entering government, he was Dean of the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and Dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Dr. Campbell is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Stephen J. Lukasik, panel vice chairman, is retired Vice President for Technology at the TRW Space and Defense Sector. Before TRW, he was at the Xerox, Rand, and Northrop Corporations. A physicist, he was Deputy Director and Director of the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 1967–1974, where he was twice awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. Subsequently, Dr. Lukasik was Chief Scientist at the Federal Communications Commission, 1979–1982, where he was responsible for management of nongovernment use of the radio spectrum.

Ernest Ambler is Director Emeritus, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (1978–1989). Dr. Ambler, a physicist, had served at NIST since 1953, becoming head of the Institute of Basic Standards

in 1968 and Deputy Director in 1973. He has received many awards and honors, including the President's Award for Distinguished Civilian Service (1979).

William M. Kaula is Professor of Geophysics and Chair, Departments of Geophysics & Space Physics and Earth & Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles (1963–). He has served at the Army Map Service as Chief, Division of Geodosy (1957–1960), at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center as a research scientist (1960–1963), and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as Chief, National Geodetic Survey (1984–1987). Dr. Kaula is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Howard M. Messner is Executive Vice President of the American Consulting Engineers Council. He was in the federal service from 1962 to 1987, holding positions at NASA, Office of Management and Budget, Congressional Budget Office, Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He was Assistant Director for Management Improvement and Evaluation at OMB (1977–1983), DOE Comptroller (1983) and Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources Management at EPA (1983–1987). Mr. Messner is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Janet L. Norwood is Senior Fellow at The Urban Institute, where she works on labor market and statistical policy issues. Dr. Norwood was Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for three four-year terms (1979–1991), appointed by presidents of both parties. She served under six secretaries of the Department of Labor (DOL) and received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Rank Award as a member of the Senior Executive Service, the National Public Service Award, and DOL's highest honor, the Philip Arnow award. She is a member of the National Institute of Statistical Science and of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Alan Schriesheim is Director of the Argonne National Laboratory and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago (1984–). Before Argonne, he spent nearly 30 years at Exxon Research and Engineering,

where he held a number of technical management positions, including Director, Corporate Research, and General Manager of Engineering Technology. He was affiliated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology before joining Exxon in 1956. Dr. Schriesheim. is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Bruce L. R. Smith is Senior Staff member, Center for Public Policy Education, The Brookings Institution (1980–). A political scientist, he was a senior staff member of the Rand Corporation (1964–1966) and Professor of Political Science, Columbia University (1966–1979). Dr. Smith served in the government as Director, Policy Assessment, Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Department of State (1979–1980).

This appendix consists of tables of statistics on federal government scientists and engineers. The data were taken from a series of reports produced by the Division of Science Resources Studies at the National Science Foundation (NSF). They were published annually through 1988. The 1989 report was drafted but not issued due to budgetary and staff shortages at NSF. More recent reports have not been attempted.

The data for the NSF reports came directly from tapes of the central personnel data file of the Office of Personnel Management. They cover all civilians employed full time by the federal government (1) who are in one of the occupational series defined as science and engineering (as listed in Table B-2) and (2) who hold at least a bachelors degree (NSF, 1989:1–2).

The tables are:

NOTE: These profiles are adapted from Appendixes B and C of a report of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Federal Personnel Research Programs and Demonstration Projects: Catalysts for Change, Washington, D.C., December 1992.

1. Navy Personnel Management Demonstration Project (China Lake)

The Navy demonstration project, begun in 1980, is being conducted at the Naval Air Warfare Division (formerly the Naval Weapons Center), China Lake, California, and at the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center (formerly the Naval Oceans Systems Center), San Diego, California. The project covers almost 8,000 white-collar employees—scientists, engineers, technicians, administrative personnel, technical specialists, and clerical staff. The project was extended twice, the last time in 1988 to run until 1995. The project's focus is to simplify personnel management and make line managers the primary decisionmakers for major personnel management issues, such as classification, compensation, and performance appraisal. The Navy hopes to enhance the effectiveness and productivity of its laboratories through this simplification and increased management involvement. To achieve the project goals, the demonstration project tests:

• A simplified classification system that consolidates job series into five career paths and combines several General Schedule (GS) grades into broad pay bands (up to six);

• A performance appraisal system that links pay to performance;

• Higher than the minimum starting salaries for new hires;

• Recruitment bonuses;

• A system which encourages changes in behavior for employees experiencing drug and/or alcohol problems by suspending penalties for misconduct and poor performance; and

• Modified lay-off procedures where performance is the primary criterion for retention.

The University of Southern California's Graduate School of Public Administration developed the original evaluation plan, but Coopers and Lybrand were contracted to do the first evaluation. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) took over as the outside evaluator in 1982 and is being paid by the Navy for the service. Fourteen reports have been published to date. The evaluations were unable to measure whether the labs' productivity and efficiency have been enhanced by the demonstration project. However, the evaluations showed that pay banding is a workable concept. Some key findings are as follows:

• The classification system is simpler and less time-consuming, permitting managers to take a more active role;

• Starting salaries for scientists have increased substantially;

• Large pay increases for good performance have greatly strengthened the link between performance and pay;

• Turnover among high performers has decreased;

• Supervisors believe they are more empowered to make personnel decisions; and

• Employee approval of the project has reached an all-time high, with 70 percent favoring the project.

2. Alternative Personnel Management System at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Congress directed OPM and NIST to jointly design a demonstration project to be conducted by the director of NIST. Covering slightly over 2,500 white-collar employees in Gaithersburg, Maryland—scientists, engineers, technicians, clerks, administrative staff, and others—the project was implemented on January 1, 1988, and was scheduled to run until December 31, 1992. In December 1991, OPM granted a 33-month extension because NIST radically revised its performance management system. The project is designed to improve hiring and retention of high-quality personnel by adopting such approaches as total compensation comparability (TCC), where compensation includes basic pay, bonuses, allowances, retirement benefits, health and life insurance benefits, and leave benefits. The director of NIST has not exercised TCC. Instead, the director opted to adjust pay based on the general federal cost-ofliving pay increases, since TCC would make salaries of some covered positions above the going market rate. NIST is conducting the project on a cost-neutral basis—that is, the costs of salary increases would not exceed the costs NIST would incur with the usual federal pay increases. NIST is testing:

• A simplified classification system that combines job series into four career paths and consolidates GS and GM grades into five broad pay bands;

• Examination of the applicants' qualifications and their employment without going through the OPM hiring process;

• A performance appraisal system that links pay to performance;

• Pay differentials for supervisors;

• Recruitment and retention bonuses;

• A flexible probationary period for scientists and engineers; and

• Sabbaticals for scientists and engineers.

The enabling legislation required OPM to fund and conduct the evaluation; OPM contracted out the evaluation aspect to the University Research Corporation. After a year, HumRRO International, Inc., became the outside evaluator in 1990. NIST has conducted one internal evaluation. These evaluations found that:

• NIST exclusively hired candidates without going through the OPM hiring process, a step that shortened hiring time;

• Time to classify jobs was reduced;

• Employees viewed the adjectival ''fully successful'' rating negatively, resulting in significant changes to the performance appraisal system;

• The quality of scientists and engineers hired remained unchanged—i.e., NIST consistently hired quality employees before and after implementation of the project; and

• Turnover was not a problem before or after the implementation of the project.

3. Department of Agriculture Demonstration Project

The Agriculture project was implemented in July 1990 and is scheduled to run until July 1995. Its purposes are to test a flexible and responsive recruitment and selection program for new hires that will facilitate the attainment of a diverse, well-qualified workforce and increase the reliability of decisions to grant career tenure to scientists. To meet these goals, the project is testing:

• A streamlined examining and selection system featuring category groupings instead of numerical rating and ranking;

• Authority to hire for locally identified shortage occupations without going through the OPM hiring process;

• Discretionary use of modified qualification standards;

• Recruitment incentives, including cash payments and reimbursements for relocation travel and transportation expenses; and

• A 3-year probationary period for scientists to allow managers to fully assess employee performance before granting tenure.

The Department of Agriculture projects that over the life of the project, 5,000 new hires—including white-collar and blue-collar positions at randomly selected units of the Forest Service and the Agricultural Research Service—will be covered by the demonstration project. The project has not been operating long enough for an evaluation.

4. Department of Transportation/Federal Aviation Administration Demonstration Project

The project—implemented in June 1989 and scheduled to run until June 1994—covers 2,100 white-collar employees in several air traffic control facilities in the Chicago, New York City, Oakland, and Los Angeles areas. It tests the use of retention allowances or bonuses of at least 20 percent of base pay, to attract and retain well-qualified, full-performance-level personnel to control air traffic, operate and maintain airway facilities, and certify and inspect aircraft and operators in the four hard-to-fill locations.

5. PACER SHARE: A Federal Productivity Enhancement Program (terminated)

PACER SHARE was implemented in February 1988 by the Air Force's Directorate of Distribution at the Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan Air Force Base, California, and ran until February 1993.

In 1991, the project was amended because the Directorate reorganized, a step that brought approximately 60 percent of the 1,700 participating employees under the management of the Defense Logistics Agency. The goals of the project were to increase organizational productivity and enrich the quality of worklife by adopting the principles of total quality management. The concepts being tested were:

• A simplified classification system that consolidated 66 job series into 6 broad categories and combined white-collar and blue-collar pay grades in 4 broad pay bands;

• A group performance rating instead of the individual performance rating;

• An incentive system that motivates and rewards organizational productivity by sharing any cost savings realized equally between the agency and employees (cost savings are realized only if the same work is performed for a lower labor cost or more work is performed for the same labor cost);

• A flexible on-call employment program geared to adjust to changing workload and budgets; and

• Revised supervisory grading criteria which reflect job responsibilities and the difficulties of carrying them out instead of the number and grades of subordinates.

The Defense Manpower Research Center, a component of the Rand Corporation's National Defense Research Institute, was the outside evaluator for the first 3 years of the project. The Navy Personnel Research and Development Center was the external evaluator for the remainder of the project. OPM published an Implementation Report in August 1989, while Rand published its baseline report in 1990 and the first-year evaluation in 1991. Some key findings for the first year are as follows:

• Employee morale worsened during the first year of the project. The low morale was attributed to uncertainty about how pay and promotions were to be determined under pay banding and the inability of the sponsoring organization to pay productivity gainshares;

• No conclusive evidence was found that PACER SHARE led to cost savings (the cost/benefit aspect of the project was the main focus of the evaluation for the first year); and

• Error rates in shipping orders were maintained during the first year (a period of great change because of the project's implementation as well as DOD's downsizing), but it took longer to ship the orders. The decline in timeliness was partly attributed to difficulties in implementing a new automated warehouse system at the time.

6. Department of Transportation/Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airway Science Curriculum Demonstration Project (terminated)

Implemented in 1982 and extended once in 1987 (for the purpose of validating the results), the project was terminated in 1991 by mutual agreement of FAA and OPM when it became clear that FAA would not be able to hire enough candidates and obtain meaningful data to validate the results. The project, which was implemented immediately after the air traffic controllers' strike and their subsequent dismissal in 1981, tested an alternative selection process for four major FAA occupations: air traffic controller, aviation safety inspector, electronics technician, and computer specialist. The purpose was to facilitate the rebuilding of FAA's workforce after the strike. The project tested the use of an FAA-developed Airway Science curriculum (which was being offered by some colleges and universities) as an alternative to the traditional testing process conducted by OPM. The performance of graduates of the Airway Science curriculum was to be compared to that of traditional hires to determine whether Airway Science graduates perform better in their jobs.

FAA was responsible for conducting the evaluation, closely monitored by OPM. FAA contracted with Research Management Consultants, Inc. (RMCI) to perform this function. RMCI has published one report. After one year of testing, the staffing level of air traffic controllers had increased, but the results were not conclusive for the other occupations (i.e., personnel hiring for flight standards and airway facilities did not significantly increase). It appears that the retention allowance was a factor in employee decisions to transfer to participating facilities.