The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

T he American Foreign Service Association’s leaders have always been good at discussing big-picture problems. I’m confident the new Governing Board will con- tinue to press for important AFSA goals — overseas comparability pay occupying the top of the list — that require congressional action, and that its leadership will ably perform the essential tasks of meeting with senior officials at the State Department and the other foreign affairs agencies, testifying before Congress and cor- recting the press when it maligns the Foreign Service. But AFSA should also pursue several internal changes that State management could effect in a few weeks or months, significantly improv- ing the workplace for the association’s members. Each of the six proposals below would improve efficiency and morale by substituting common-sense measures for existing cumbersome and self-flagellating procedures. AFSA is capable of both insisting on all these changes at the same time it pursues broader issues like overseas comparability pay. Give All Personnel Access to Assignment Information Right now, only the bureaus and Human Resources personnel have access to the assignment panel agen- das on State’s intranet. Those most affected, the bidders, are in the dark. Making agendas available to all FS personnel would enable bidders to know when panels will consider jobs they seek and let them request panel items be acted on or deferred. Currently, job seekers can know what positions will be considered only if they somehow find out what the agendas contain, a service extremely busy career development officers cannot provide for all their clients. Equally importantly, giving bidders access to panel agendas and to lists of panel decisions would let them know when jobs they seek have been assigned. Currently, only public diplo- macy cone personnel learn what jobs have already been assigned: PD offi- cers rightly consider this vital infor- mation. When panel agendas shifted to an electronic format, many in HR argued unsuccessfully that all bidders should have been given access. The result of withholding this important information has been to allow bur- eaus, which do have access to those agendas, to delay paneling positions until only their candidates remain and to manipulate panels in other ways to attain bureau goals, to the detriment of individual bidders. Speed Up Tenuring Decisions The department should accord those entering the Civil Service and the Foreign Service similar treatment in the matter of permanent hiring. Both groups are treated the same in some ways: this year, for example, both have been required to do a mandatory stint of passport adjudication. How- ever, Presidential Management Fel- lows (https://www.pmf.opm.gov/Pro gramPolicy.aspx) are fully vested in just two years, and can be hired at that point at grades up to the GS-12 level. The department also tends to give them real responsibility early, in part to entice them to stay at State. In contrast, those in the Foreign Service, who often have much better qualifications than PMFs, often are not tenured at their first review, which takes place over three years after they enter. Decisions on those deferred at first review are not made until after an additional year, and sometimes a third review is required six months after the second. As I observed during my three years as a career counselor, the process of selecting which candidates are tenured on first review is hap- hazard and unfair. Though eventually almost everyone gets tenure, super- visors, perhaps fearful of making mis- takes or of taking responsibility, often write evaluations that result in fully qualified candidates having to under- go a second review. The flaws of the few who don’t get tenure usually become obvious in the orientation course, and certainly should be apparent at the end of their first two rating periods. If it takes just two years to identify which PMFs should be vested, management should be able to tenure almost all FS 14 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 Six Simple Proposals to Improve Efficiency and Morale B Y H OLLIS S UMMERS S PEAKING O UT AFSA is capable of insisting on all these changes at the same time that it pursues broader issues.