Agencies Are Poaching Executives From Other Agencies to Avoid Messy Hiring System

Federal agencies are struggling to recruit employees from the private sector into their workforces, so they have turned to a new candidate pool: other federal agencies.

Nearly half of career federal executives said they were approached about a job by an agency outside of their own between 2013 and 2014, according to a survey released Thursday and conducted by Vanderbilt University’s Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. About four in 10 political appointees said the same.

Federal executives moving around various agencies is not inherently problematic, said David Lewis, a co-director of the survey, as a diverse experience helps create a “big-picture perspective.” In fact, the Obama administration has emphasized the importance of moving Senior Executive Service members across various agencies throughout their careers. What is troubling, Lewis said, is that the practice of poaching from other agencies has become a workaround of a system too difficult to bring in employees from outside government.

About 42 percent of respondents agreed their agency is unable to recruit the best employees, while 37 percent disagreed. To help solve that problem, executives are increasingly looking at employees already in government. Some parts of government, such as certain regulatory agencies, have hiring flexibilities and can offer higher pay than other federal entities, which Lewis said gives them a recruiting advantage.

Ideally, Lewis said, federal agencies can strike the right balance of recruiting top talent while also allowing for lateral movement once employees join federal service.

“I’d like to see the world in which it’s easy to identify the talent outside the government and bring it in, and see what happens in terms of career mobility,” Lewis said. “Because if you’re able to bring the right people in the front door on a regular basis, you’re an organization that can sustain some churn or turnover.”

The survey also reinforced some more well known problems in government. Just 40 percent of federal executives said non-managers at their agencies are promoted solely based on performance and ability. When the U.S. Census Bureau posed the same question to private sector executives, three-quarters said promotions were only merit based.

Seven in 10 non-managers said under-performing managers were rarely or never dismissed, while 64 percent of managers said the same of non-managers. Executives who said they had a strong understanding of “key statutes” related to managing the civil service, however, thought under-performing non-managers were dealt with appropriately much more often. They similarly said promotions were more merit based.

Lewis said that managerial training must be improved, especially for political appointees. While 72 percent of career executives said they had received sufficient training and guidance on how to properly hire, promote, reward, discipline and dismiss employees, just 45 percent of political appointees said the same.

The survey had 3,551 respondents and held a margin of error of 1.8 percent. 

(Image via Jirsak / Shutterstock.com)