The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

exist? Well, there aren’t many. No matter how firm the faith might be in rightsizing, only so many rabbits can be pulled from that hat. The staffing resource base is simply too small to possess enough waste or surplus that could be mined to close the gap between personnel supply and demand. To balance the force with its mis- sion, either the size of the force or the mission must change. If a major increase in staffing will not happen, only a correspondingly major overhaul of what we do and how we do it will balance the equation. “Anti-Deficient” Staffing The first step in achieving a fundamental change in staffing the Foreign Service is to manage its human resources with the same care and consideration given to financial resources. The department has implemented comprehensive financial control sys- tems to capture actual monetary costs; nothing is left to chance. Any federal employee who makes a financial commitment on behalf of the government without having suf- ficient funding risks serious conse- quences. Obligations that require personnel should be subject to the same level of control and account- ing. We should be no less serious about staying in balance in staffing than we are about funding. Keeping human resources in balance entails recogniz- ing that time is a resource and making the connection between time and positions. Tasks require time, which comes from people. New tasks require new positions, a correlation that is routinely overlooked. For example, visa sections have already gone from taking no finger- prints to taking two per applicant, and now must take 10 F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35 A deficit of several thousand Foreign Service employees is not some- thing that can be cheaply or quickly corrected.