Improving the Recruitment, Retention, and Utilization of Federal Scientists and Engineers (1993) / Chapter Skim
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3 COPING WITH THE CIVIL SERVICE SYSTEM
3 COPING WITH THE CIVIL SERVICE SYSTEM
Pages 37-56
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From page 37... ...
Accordingly, over the years, a number of special authorities have been employed to enable the government to be more successful in recruiting and retaining technically trained employees, which are described in this chapter, both to underline the need for flexibility in recruiting highly qualified personnel and to indicate the nature of mechanisms that can be usefully employed. More recently, authority to conduct personnel management demonstrations contained in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 has been used to address the problems of recruiting, retaining, and motivating scientists and engineers.
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From page 38... ...
pay rates for federal white-collar employees be comparable to pay rates in the private sector for similar levels of work. When federal pay levels nevertheless lagged, the Federal Pay Comparability Act of 1970 established regular procedures for making annual comparability adjustments in GS pay levels.
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From page 39... ...
As the GS pay levels grew more slowly than private-sector salaries generally since 1978, more and more pay disparities developed in more occupations and more localities. Eventually, better methods of comparing federal and private pay began to confirm that the disparities between federal pay levels and national average private-sector pay levels were real gaps in many local labor markets.
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From page 40... ...
For 1977 and 1991, OPM. NOTE: For 1978 through 1982, federal pay adjustments were made in October.
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From page 41... ...
Since the overall federal-pnvate pay gap was much less, even a locality pay system would not have put the government in a position to pay chemists the going rate without additional pay flexibilities.
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From page 42... ...
. OPM cited other trends as indicating problems with the civil service system: the rapid increase in the use of the special rates program in the 1980s (from ~ 1,500 in 1979 to 208,000 in 1992~; the growing pressure to adopt more and more personnel demonstration projects as a way for agencies, especially those with science and engineering workforces, to escape the constraints of the GS system; and the growth of legislative initiatives to exempt agencies from the regular civil service provisions in Title 5, United States Code, when OPM would not sponsor demonstrations (e.g., the National institute of Standards and Technology)
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From page 43... ...
The government also relies heavily on advisory committees of outside experts. Within government itself, a number of mechanisms have been used to enable agencies to recruit and retain Me scientific and technical expertise it needs to carry out critical functions, including various ways to exceed or bypass GS pay levels.
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From page 44... ...
Special Pay Systems A number of civilian white-collar pay systems have developed outside the GS (Title 5) to enable certain agencies to solve difficult hiring situations including the intelligence agencies; banking and finance agencies; congressional support agencies; and agencies run like private corporations.
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From page 45... ...
, faced with staffing an expanded VA hospital system after World War IT, was authorized in 1946 to set up an alternative pay system under Title 38 of the United States Code that allows the agency to set special rates for 12 medical occupations at any of its medical centers where higher pay is needed to 6 The Title 38 system, which includes other relevant features such as peer review boards that recommend hiring, promotion, and pay levels and awards, is described and analyzed in a report of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPP, 1991)
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From page 46... ...
In fixing individual pay levels, agencies are to consider not only alignment with other positions and incumbents with comparable responsibilities and qualifications but also private-sector pay for comparable personnel. OPM guidelines require a reasonable distribution of salaries within the pay range and indicate that pay
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From page 47... ...
should be used only in "highly unusual situations where the position is especially important to the agency and/or the qualifications of the individual are unusually high." Seniorlevel employees are not eligible for the special bonus programs their counterparts in the SES receive- performance bonuses, Meritorious Rank Awards worth $10,000, and Distinguished Rank Awards worth $20,000. 9 The ability to offer higher starting salaries was a major component of the success of the Navy's personnel management demonstration project at China Lake, although this flexibility derived directly from the broader pay intervals, or "bands," used there, and did not have to be authorized as an exception to the more rigid step and grade structure used in the General Schedule.
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From page 48... ...
A 1972 task force, for example, recommended establishment of four regular pay/job structures, including one for administrators and professionals, and it suggested that special pay schedules be considered for certain groups, including scientists and engineers in R&D as well as health care workers, attorneys, law enforcement officers, and teachers (CSC, 1972~. FEPCA includes authority to establish special pay systems for occupations, or groups of occupations, and it creates a Senior Biomedical Research Service in the Public Health Service that is exempt from Title 5 provisions in order to recruit outstanding biomedical researchers and pay them from the minimum rate for GS-15s up to level I of the Executive Schedule ($143,800 in 19921.
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From page 49... ...
Many of them had also been systematically tried out in a series of personnel management demonstrations before they were included in FEPCA. LESSONS FROM THE PERSONNEL DEMONSTRATIONS The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 included authority to conduct and evaluate personnel demonstration projects requiring waivers from various Title 5 requirements.
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From page 50... ...
The salary range for each career path is divided into four to six broad bands that each span at least two GS grades, which makes it easier to offer desirable recruits a higher starting pay level. It also dovetails with the project's performance-based approach to pay by making it possible to move high performers to relatively higher pay levels than adequate or poor performers because the pay band is much broader than a GS grade.
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From page 51... ...
] 2 OPM recently completed its analysis of the effect of flexible starting salaries, recruitment bonuses, and pay for performance on recruitment success at the demonstration labs (OPM, 199ib)
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From page 52... ...
Higher salaries, along with pay for performance, -appeared to be the main reason; demonstration labs were able to pay 2030 percent higher starting salaries than control labs for comparable positions. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
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From page 53... ...
Larger general comparability increases would have NIST overpaying some employees in some occupations while still underpaying others in one or both sites (the same problem encountered by the GS pay comparability system established in 1970~. Instead, the NIST director has opted to pay the governmentwide increase in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and rely on higher starting salaries, performance pay increases, promotions, and bonuses to redress individual pay disparities and reward deserving employees (OPM, 1990:18~.
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From page 54... ...
Finally, pay increases at NIST are strongly relatecl to performance ratings, which they are not in comparison organizations in the Department of Commerce. NIST employees at high rating levels are receiving larger pay increases, and employees with low ratings are receiving smaller pay increases, than their counterparts in the comparison organizations.
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From page 55... ...
about a personnel demonstration project begun in mid-1990 in 140 experimental and 70 comparison sites of the Forest Service and the ARS. The project is largely a testing of a comprehensive simplification and decentralization of the hiring system, but it does include recruitment bonuses and relocation expenses and use of an extended probationary period for scientists in research positions.~4 The committee heard that the recruitment incentives have been rarely used, although they were important in attracting a microbiologist and a plant physiologist.
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From page 56... ...
Unfortunately, FEPCA does not include all the devices and flexibilities being used by the demonstration projects. Additional steps needed beyond FEPCA to improve the federal government's capacity to recruit well-qualified scientific and technological personnel are recommended in the last chapter.
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