New recruitment and retention flexibilities are needed to address the personnel concerns of the federal financial management community, but existing and often unused authorities can provide temporary help, according to a new publication.
"Recruiting and Retaining Financial Management Employees--Useful Tools," a joint product of the Chief Financial Officers Council and the Interagency Advisory Group of Federal Personnel Directors, seeks to dispel the myths associated with hiring and retaining financial management employees.
Many financial managers believe that the federal pay scale for entry level financial personnel is not competitive with private industry, according to the guide. But what they often don't realize is that special salary rate authorizations are available for financial specialists in certain areas of the country. In the metropolitan Washington area, for example, entry level accountants are eligible for special-rate pay.
Financial managers, the guide says, should also remember that agencies have discretionary authority to make a lump sum payment of up to 25 percent of basic pay to a newly appointed employee or to an employee who must relocate to fill a position that would otherwise be difficult to fill.
The guide also notes that managers can help make sure they get accountants with the necessary knowledge and qualifications by writing accurate and precise job descriptions.
"The manager must use care to explicitly define the specific job tasks and thus the knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform those tasks," the guide says. "Careful deliberation and precision will ensure that people with the skills most pertinent to the position will qualify."
Managers can also avoid losing experienced personnel who feel the government is a "career dead end" by offering expanded training opportunities, improvements in working conditions, alternative work schedules and time off as an incentive award.
The publication encourages financial managers to stress the variety of benefits afforded to federal employees, as well.
Kenneth Bresnahan, acting chief financial officer for the Labor Department, and Evelyn White, deputy assistant secretary for human resources at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who helped write the guide, described it as an "interim step."
The group that worked on the publication has already started talks with the Office of Personnel Management on ways to provide financial managers with more personnel flexibility, Bresnahan and White wrote in the guide's introduction.
OPM Director Janice Lachance said the guide "is an example of the kind of proactive thinking and problem solving that is needed to reinvent government services."
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