The Foreign Service Journal, April 2009

14 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 guage-designated positions are often tied to language training, but IRM po- sitions are rarely tied to training that will result in an LIP. One of the pri- mary reasons I pursued self-study to increase my Mandarin level from 2/2 to 3/3 was because as an IRM special- ist, I would never be sent to further training to achieve a 3/3 in the lan- guage. Had I expected to be given that opportunity, it is unlikely I would have pursued it on my own. Encouraging Language Self-Study Fortunately, the following adjust- ments to the ground rules for Lan- guage Incentive Pay could produce significant dividends, both for individ- uals and the Foreign Service as an in- stitution. Delink writing and speaking re- quirements: Currently, an officer with a score of 3+ Speaking and 2+Writing in Mandarin — thereby falling just short of the required 3/3 rating — re- ceives the same incentive pay as that of an officer who knows no Mandarin at all: none. Offering separate re- wards for achieving each component of the FSI rating makes much better sense and would undoubtedly attract more applicants. Reward the pluses: Moving from a 3 to a 4 during one’s career may not be possible, but moving from a 3 to a 3+ is certainly achievable. Giving the 3+ level a higher incentive pay than a 3 level would encourage some mid-level officers to pursue this more realistic goal over the long term through self- study. Lower the first LIP level from 3 to 2+: Currently, entry-level officers are given enough language instruction in Mandarin to achieve a 2 in speaking. Lowering the minimum LIP level from 3 to 2+ would lead to more self- study, because lifting one’s hard lan- guage level from 2 to 2+ during the two years of a first tour is achievable, if difficult. Make LIP pay retroactive: If an employee attains a higher incentive level at any time while at a hard-lan- guage post, provide back pay to him or her at the higher level for the entire tour. Because language pay is only re- ceived while the recipient is in the country, motivation levels and the amount of time until departure are in- versely related. Receiving back pay for becoming more fluent in an incen- tive language would sustain motivation levels throughout the tour. Raising Overall Capacity Based on the success seen in the in- formation technology Skills Incentive Pay program, decreasing the distance between language reward levels would likely raise overall hard language ca- pacity in the State Department. Because the current testing system already captures proficiency in suffi- cient detail, delinking requirements and rewarding the pluses in order to motivate self-study may not require major structural changes or excessive budget increases. And while lowering the first LIP level to 2+ and making language in- centive pay retroactive to the length of a tour would definitely cost more, it could be an attractive alternative to removing staff from the work force for a year or more to attend long-term training. Mark Allen is an Information Man- agement Specialist in Beijing. Since joining the Foreign Service in 2001, he has also served in Tokyo and Guang- zhou. S P E A K I N G O U T