The Foreign Service Journal, February 2006

Foreign Service personnel overseas, but to the Service as an institution. Try as I might, I can come up with no explanation for this missed opportunity. After all, AFSA identified the locality pay issue as our top legislative priority back in 2001, and has made significant progress in educating Congress on its importance. And I certainly stressed it in my own meeting with the consultants. Low-Ranking. I was also deeply disappointed to read that McKinsey opposes lowering the low-ranking quota from 5 percent to 2 percent. Its report claims that reduc- ing the number of low-ranked employees “would send the wrong message about the department’s commitment to maintaining a high standard of performance of its employees.” But as I pointed out to the consultants I met with, the arbitrary 5-percent quota does exactly that, stig- matizing competent employees. For example, there are people who are low-ranked simply because they’re suf- fering from a serious illness contracted abroad and are physically unable to perform at the level of their healthy brethren. Setting a more realistic target would allow the system to focus on weeding out the truly poor perform- ers. Let me be clear: I favor retaining the practice of low- ranking, and have no problem with setting a reasonable target. After all, even without a quota, the department would still identify poor performers and recommend some for selection-out. But 5 percent is simply too high a requirement. I think the McKinsey researchers got it wrong because they did not bother to study the facts or learn who actually gets low-ranked. Examining real cases would have opened their eyes to the quota’s inequity. What McKinsey Gets Right The consultants rightly single out spousal employment as a potential bar to retention of the talent acquired under the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, and praise the Family Liaison Office’s recent initiatives to help overseas spouses find employment. As they note, the Strategic Networking Assistance Program, operating now at 22 posts, has seen some success. However, neither the Global Employment Strategy nor the Manpower pro- gram has yet placed any spouse in a job. McKinsey right- ly worries that the department may have raised expecta- tions that spouses will find meaningful work overseas. The lack of remunerative spousal employment is a major obstacle to retention when so many other compa- rable careers offer couples the chance to earn two incomes, contribute to two 401(k) accounts and collect two Social Security annuities. Factor in salary loss because of the lack of locality pay and you have the recipe for a serious problem. Promotion Rates. I also applaud McKinsey for calling a spade a spade regarding slower promotion rates. The DRI bulge will most definitely slow promotion rates in the near- to medium-term. As we all know, the key to keeping promotion rates steady is “flow through” at every level. There is equilibrium between the number of FS positions at every rank and the number of employees who can be promoted to that rank. The DRI bulge means there are more employees than there are positions at the mid- and senior levels. Can steps be taken to ameliorate this problem? One step would be to upgrade all those mid-level jobs that were downgraded in the 1990s. Another could be reducing time-in-class for those at the officer-counselor and minister-counselor levels to six and 12 years, respectively, in lieu of the current seven and 14 years, thus allowing greater movement across the thresh- old. (I was with USIA before joining State, and the rule there was six and 12.) Lowering the number of OCs who are promoted to MCs would also help. State should also consider granting TIC extensions for more out-of-cone assignments and training. In addition, reinstatement of the “training float” would increase the number of mid-level positions/pro- motion opportunities by 10 to 15 percent. Given that staffing demands in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (40 slots alone) have already gobbled up nearly all the train- ing positions available, there is a desperate need for a “DRI Two” initiative to restore the 10- to 15-percent cushion Sec. Powell put in place. AFSA should ask its active-duty members what they think about this issue and what suggestions they may have for alleviating the problem. But at a minimum, the department should consider upgrading all the jobs it downgraded in the 1990s. F O C U S 40 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 6 Louise K. Crane, who recently retired after 41 years in the Foreign Service as a public diplomacy officer, is the immediate past AFSA vice president for State, serving two terms (2001-2005). She served in Latin America and spent 10 years in Japan after becoming the first female officer assigned to two years of hard-language training.