The Intergovernmental Personnel Act* authorizes the Commission to make grants and render assistance to State and local governments to improve their personnel management to prepare people to provide better service to the public.

In administering the Act we have tried to establish a model for intergovernmental programs. For example, in our grant program, we have decentralized practically all authority to our 10 regional offices, close to where the applicants are. Regional Directors have the final say on all grants awarded in their regions.

In addition, cooperative efforts are underway with State and local governments in recruiting, examining, training, and other personnel functions.

In support of the Federal Assistance Review project, with its overall objective of streamlining and simplifying delivery of Federal services to State and local governments, we have analyzed and revised the allocation of supergrade positions to agencies, to reflect the strengthened field decision-making authority and capability.

We are also looking at requirements that may be barriers to effective decentralization of personnel and functions. We conducted a study to determine whether personnel system requirements might be inhibiting agency ability to decentralize operations in the field. The study found that present Commission requirements have little effect on agency ability to decentralize. Rather, it appears that agency practices such as failure to delegate, uneven delegation, standard organizational arrangements, and a general lack of confidence in field competence-as evidenced by the great number of detailed instructions covering field operations are more apt to be the inhibiting factors.

Although the principal matters affecting agency ability to decentralize are reserved to agency authority, the Commission will do all it can to encourage decentralization. For example, the findings of two labor-management relations studies (on the scope and level of bargaining) point to the need for agencies to centrally determine only what is necessary for effective and efficient direction and control of the agency while

*Chapter VI covers the Commission's role in intergovernmental personnel programs.

making maximum delegation of personnel management authority.

In summary, during fiscal 1972 the Commission focused on both the vital role of the Federal personnel system in decentralization and the opportunities growing out of our IPA responsibilities for furthering Federalism objectives.

Our goals remain two:

• To assist in making Federalism work better by giving maximum support to decentralization of the functions and decisionmaking of Federal agencies.

• To enhance the capabilities of State and local governments to deal with the problems confronting them by helping those governments improve their personnel management.

Improving Job Evaluation and Pay Systems

Following enactment of the Job Evaluation Policy Act of 1970, a Job Evaluation and Pay Review Task Force was established to carry out the work the Act required.

The report of the task force was submitted to the Civil Service Commission which, in turn, sent its report to the President. The President then transmitted it to the Congress.

As an immediate result of the work of the task force, the Civil Service Commission is pursuing two courses for the improvement of job evaluation and pay systems.

First, responding to the task force's major proposal, we are moving ahead to develop and test the factor ranking, benchmark method of job evaluation. (Factor ranking is essentially a technique of comparing a job to be evaluated against other benchmark-jobs under the same system.)

By way of explanation, "factors" to be used in measuring jobs for classification purposes include such things as the difficulty of the work, the nature of personal contact that it calls for, and the knowledge required. Approximately 150 common white-collar jobs from beginning level clerical work to high levels of professional responsibility will be reviewed to select and test tentative factors and factor gradations.

The second course of action involves further consultation and study on a number of other pro

posals of the task force, which would require legislation-for example, a study with a view to the development of a uniform personnel system for medical professional personnel.

Assisting Federal Agencies in Selecting and
Developing People for Personnel Work
To Meet the Needs of the 1970's

We hear a lot these days about people being dissatisfied in their work situation. It isn't that they don't want to work, but they want to work at something that gives them a sense of satisfaction.

This widespread modern phenomenon doesn't stop at the assembly line. It can reach also into administrative offices.

It poses quite a challenge to personnel administration, both in private enterprise and in public service.

Optimal conditions of employment are far different from what they once were. Evolving technology has changed the whole composition of the labor force. The people who compose it are not only better skilled, they are better educated and more sophisticated generally. As part of society, they have changed values and they have vastly

different expectations. At the same time, organizations have changed.

All these things combine to emphasize the need for people in the personnel field who have insight into the way human resources are motivated, developed, and utilized. The personne! function has advanced from a narrow concern with the mechanics and paperwork of testing, hiring, and keeping records. It must now be a systems approach to the human factor in effective organizational performance.

Thus we felt a need to give special emphasis to systems for selecting and developing people for personnel work to meet the needs of the seventies.

Moreover we recognize that the people in Federal personnel management have great influence on the staffing and hence on the substantive program management of every agency. Therefore, special efforts must be exerted to maintain the quality of this part of the work force to assure that they can make maximum contributions to effective personnel management in their agencies through imaginative and forward-looking implementation of national policies affecting personnel management.

Common elements for any selection and development undertaking were reviewed, including skill inventories, training needs, mobility, and recruiting.

We believe that a centrally developed career program incorporating these elements would be desirable. The requisite features of such a program were identified, and a proposal was distributed to agencies for comments. The initial reception was mixed but generally positive.

During fiscal 1973, the reactions of agencies will be reviewed, proposals modified as necessary, and finally recommendations made for dealing with all aspects of a career program for personnel people.

The goal is to provide a mobile, steadily developing personnel work force, with broad perspectives, alert to the constant changes in the working environment, to the requirements of agency management, and to the expectations of the people who make up the job market.

Evaluating and Reporting Budgetary and Economic Consequences of Federal Personnel Programs

Personnel costs are a big factor in the national budget, and even minor changes in pay or benefits have a significant impact. The initial effect of any change, though large, is comparatively easy to gage; but there are secondary and tertiary effects that are obscure, diverse, and extremely complicated.

Our initial efforts explored the feasibility of making a thorough analysis of the budgetary and economic impact of proposed changes in Federal personnel policies and in the system itself. We are now concentrating on refining our prototype to provide more useful and accurate reports and analyses for future policy planning.

These summaries of the seven projects of a fundamental nature selected by the Commission for major emphasis in fiscal 1972 are necessarily general. Some of them are of such scope that fiscal 1972 saw them only well started. For others-for example, the scope of bargaining and the appellate review projects we anticipate completion and at least the beginnings of benefits in fiscal 1973.

The Civil Service Commission is convinced that the time given to planning for the future is an essential ingredient of responsive personnel management. We look to it to produce better service to all our publics.

475-377 O-73-2

chapter III

It was mid-August 1971, when President Nixon announced his new program to stabilize and revitalize the economy. As most people well remember, it was ushered in by a 90-day freeze of prices, rents, and salaries. Federal employees' pay was frozen just like that of workers in the private sector.

Well, not quite like everybody else's. Government pay is controlled by an intricate network of laws and regulations that apply to various Federal pay systems. Some of them cover white-collar salaries, others blue-collar pay. Still others govern the periodic within-grade increases that go at stated intervals to employees whose performance merits them. Predictably, there arose a great many questions unique to Federal employment. To be sure that Federal workers got the same treatment as other people, the Commission turned to the Cost of Living Council for decisions on such questions.

Thus was fairness assured.

To put a complex situation as simply as possible, here is what happened:

• About 200,000 Federal employees were anticipating within-grade increases between August and November 15. About 100,000 wagesystem employees were scheduled to get rate boosts during the same period. Following the 90-day freeze period-specifically in December 1971the Economic Stabilization Act Amendments made certain types of pay adjustments retroactive to the original due dates. Among them were both the frozen within-grade increases and the delayed wage system increases. So Federal employees who had these particular pay adjustments coming lost nothing by the freeze but a little time.

• Under the economic controls, the January 1972 salary increase for Federal white-collar workers was to be deferred for 6 months, as were normal pay increases for wage-system employees. However, the Economic Stabilization Act amendments provided that the white-collar pay raise

would be effective in January, as originally scheduled. This new legislation also directed conformity with Pay Board guidelines for the private sector, which generally limited pay increases to 5.5 percent. On January 11, the 6-month delay in wage adjustments was canceled, to provide equitable treatment for Federal blue-collar workers. Their raises, too, were to be consistent with the 5.5 general guidelines in effect throughout the economy. Existing laws did not provide for the increases to be retroactive, but the Commission corrected this by proposing the legislation which became the Prevailing Rate Equalization Adjustment Act of 1972, thus assuring retroactive pay for more than 200,000 wage-system employees.

Blue-Collar Legislation

The Coordinated Federal Wage System was established in 1968 by administrative authority. After two and a half years of thorough testing, the Civil Service Commission decided the time had come to place the system into law. A legislative proposal for this purpose was submitted to the Congress in April 1971. An earlier bill that had originated in the Congress was vetoed because it contained a number of unacceptable and inflationary provisions.

Several proposals, including the one submitted by the Commission, were introduced and considered by the Congress. In July 1971, the House passed a bill which, in a slightly different version, was approved by the Senate in June 1972.*

Special Salary Rates-Still Shifting

There are times when the Federal Government is priced out of the market by competition in

*Public Law 92-392, approved Aug. 19, 1972 fixes in law the main features of the Coordinated Federal Wage System. They will be detailed in the Commission's 1973 Annual Report.