The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

long opposed AFSA’s request to ensure that employees stationed abroad receive at least the same lev- els of compensation received by their counterparts in Washington, agreed to back pay comparability if the department shifted to pay for performance. In its budget request to Congress, the department re- quested additional funding in 2008 and 2009 to roll out the new system, with the goal being to begin imple- mentation this year. During his confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- tee in March, new Director General George Staples said that if the plan is approved by Congress, a transition phase to granting full overseas comparability pay would begin in April 2007. Under this plan the salaries of overseas personnel would be adjusted by one-half of the current difference between overseas and Washing- ton, D.C., pay, or 9 percent. The American Foreign Service Association’s initial reaction was positive. “We basically support it because the Foreign Service is already a pay-for-performance sys- tem,” says AFSA State Vice President Steve Kashkett. As he observes, “We already have rank in person, rather than position, and we already face fierce competition with our peers worldwide for promotion,” in contrast to the Civil Service. However, disturbing indications that the bill may grant the Secretary of State “sole and exclusive rights” to design and implement the new system, thereby stripping AFSA of its current right to have a voice at the table, have caused the association to qualify its support. For his part, Ambassador John O’Keefe — a career diplomat who served as acting director general of the Foreign Service for several months between the retire- ment of W. Robert Pearson and the confirmation of George Staples — cautions that the plan is still a work in progress. The department wants to model the system on that already in place for Senior Foreign Service officers, but has refined few of the details, he says. “It’s a reasonable management tool to say the high performers ought to get recognized for high perfor- mance,” says O’Keefe. As for the lack of controversy about it at State, he notes that “We already do it,” citing the longstanding promotion board reviews that every Foreign Service employee faces on a regular basis, and the Foreign Service’s up-or-out promotion sys- tem. “It’s not office politics. This is truly objective. It’s accepted as a fair and reasonable way of sorting out who gets promoted and who doesn’t by the vast majority of our people.” Among the rank-and-file, some officers say they see examples of favoritism in the current perfor- mance board reviews. But their main recommendation — adopt- ing 360-degree reviews, in which both the superiors and subordinates of rated employees are asked to provide comments for the review panel — is something the department is eager to implement, says O’Keefe. Not all the details have been formulated, he’s quick to add, “But if you are evaluating someone ... you need to know how well an individual gets along with col- leagues because interagency and cross-sectional coopera- tion is critical to the success of any mission and you want to see how well they are treating subordinates.” If that is the end result, most State employees will be pleased. Recruitment and Retention Even so, the Foreign Service does face many of the same problems that the Civil Service does, such as grow- ing concern that government employment is becoming less competitive with the private sector at a time when it is more important than ever to recruit top talent. Is State doing what it takes to recruit the best possible personnel, and then retain them? Some of the signs are good. The number of regis- trants for the Foreign Service exam has grown markedly since Powell launched a massive advertising push. At the same time, surveys of college graduates indicate a con- tinued interest in public service. The Foreign Service has always had a special appeal, because it offers the oppor- tunity to live and work literally all over the world. But once the sense of adventure wears off, will new recruits stay committed, as their predecessors did, and pur- sue careers in the Foreign Service? Veteran officers worry they will not, unless State does a better job of rewarding talented young officers, providing them with challeng- ing work, and employing their spouses and partners. C O V E R S T O R Y 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6 Rice is pushing for massive redeployments of officers to hardship and danger posts in the developing world as part of her Global Repositioning Initiative.