The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

that when we evaluate through CAJE we are not interested in the accom- plishments of a single individual who, no matter how fabulous, happens to encumber a particular position. What we are interested in is grading proper- ly each position, based on the supervi- sor’s and the mission’s needs. Mr. Ludwig’s third assertion is that “CAJE fails to recognize or assign value to some of the most important charac- teristics of superior ‘substantive’ FSNs ...” That’s right, because we are not evaluating an individual’s performance. We are deliberately unconcerned with how an incumbent may perform, even if that job performance is well beyond his/her position description. Rather, we are interested in the position because for years, job-grading was often influenced by an incumbent’s performance, with jobs sometimes being graded artificially high, and bear- ing no relationship to the actual needs of the position or the mission. The purpose of CAJE is to bring equity to job-grading. Historically, there was a strong, if unintentional, element of elitism in the system, with positions deemed to have no “sub- stance” graded lower than others, though they may have had enormous financial, supervisory or other respon- sibilities. Thus, CAJE is not the depart- ment’s “hidden agenda” to downgrade or eliminate positions in an effort to economize. It is, rather, an effort to correct past inequities and properly to define exactly what we need by way of staff. In this era of shrinking budgets, we need to know that we are getting our money’s worth by defining — through our job requirements — pre- cisely what we need to function, then hiring and retaining personnel whose knowledge, capabilities and experi- ence fit that need. Catherine J. Elliott Human Resources Officer Embassy Brasilia S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13 L E T T E R S