The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

28 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL functioning. We did not deal with this aspect largely because AAD is far less qualified to address it than to address the other issues. We believe politicization does affect the specialist corps, although probably less than the officer corps given the greater degree of specificity about degrees, experience and certificates required for many staff specializations. We would strongly sup- port a study by AFSA, or another qualified group, of problems facing Foreign Service specialists. Strengthening the Civil Service ADAR starts from the position that it is as necessary to mod- ernize and strengthen the Civil Service as the Foreign Service. It recognizes that too many senior Civil Service employees find themselves trapped without a satisfactory career path or career mobility, facing constrained rotation opportunities. State Department efforts to increase rotations—a principle the report supports—have run into two problems. Abroad, rotations have not always kept to their intended purpose of returning better-trained personnel to the Civil Service; nor have they fully observed the agreements negotiated with AFSA. Domestically, conversion of FS positions to CS has created zero-sum turf fights with the Foreign Service, because once a domestic position is converted, it is permanently lost to the Foreign Service. The report makes a number of recommendations for the Civil Service, including better professional education and development and large steps to deal with the major problems. One is to take control of senior Civil Service positions out of the bureaus and manage them centrally so that there is a larger universe for career mobility. The second is to establish a new option for Civil Service employees, a “Career Policy Program” for domestic positions that incorporates rank-in-person, mobility and up-or-out competitive promotions. These would allow qualified Civil Service employees to bid on up to 10 percent of Foreign Service domestic positions on the yearly list of openings. This new competitive service within the Civil Service component would give employees the chance to broaden their experience through rotations and expand their oppor- tunities for advancement. At the same time, it would respect the norms that govern Foreign Service assignments, is of a dimension that should not create inordinate assignment problems for FSOs, and avoids the difficulties that ensue when Civil Service employees who have no finite assignment length encumber Foreign Service positions that normally have defined tours of duty. Acceptance of this recommendation will require a large effort to review position classifications at State strategically. Tackling the Broader Issues In working through the issues in the report, larger underlying issues emerged. First, there is no clear definition in the depart- ment of the separate and complementary roles and missions of the two services, further adding to confusion, competition and squabbling. Second, over the years State has had to deal repeat- edly with inadequate funding, repeated crises and personnel shortages. Department managers have been creative in devel- oping ad hoc fixes and workarounds to meet the challenges. But the result has been that systematic personnel management has gradually been submerged in so many exceptions and changes that there is very little “system” left. Accordingly, we have recommended a very substantial overhaul of State’ management practices going well beyond the issues in our report, not only to modernize and make the system efficient, but to accommodate the need for greater flexibility and agility in the Civil Service components of the State Depart- ment that changing times require. Clearly, much that needs doing requires money. Some may believe our recommendations are unrealistic in the current budget climate. Our rejoinder is that vision is essen- tial for long-term change. It is in recognition of this fundamen- tal challenge that the first and most central recommendation in ADAR is this: The Secretary and the State Department should continue to press the Office of Management and Budget and Congress for resources—positions, people and the funds needed to support them—to restore to American diplomacy the ability to play its critical role in the country’s national security . n Systematic personnel management has gradually been submerged in so many exceptions and changes that there is very little “system” left.