When dealing with human resources management issues, federal supervisors focus too much on short-term needs at the expense of long-term goals, according to a new Merit Systems Protection Board report.
The report, "Federal Supervisors and Strategic Human Resources Management," derives its conclusion from the agency's research on federal supervisors for the past 17 years.
"Our research has led us to conclude that most federal supervisors do a commendable job of performing the technical work of their units, but have a much harder time with the human resource management tasks that are necessary to the ongoing effectiveness of the organization," the report says.
Supervisors have trouble with three specific areas of human resources management: staffing, training and performance management, MSPB found.
MSPB studies have revealed that supervisors too often succumb to the pressures of filling vacancies quickly by restricting the recruitment of applicants or by using assessment or selection processes that get fast results, but may not produce the best candidates available.
A 1995 study found that supervisors often consider only a few candidates for a vacancy, sacrificing quality. "Managers hold a very short-sighted view of their staffing responsibilities, allowing immediate staffing needs to drive their hiring decisions when they should be focusing on the long term," the report concludes.
A 1992 study of the federal procurement workforce and a 1993 report on federal personnel offices found that supervisors often make questionable selection decisions when they place candidates from within government into vacancies.
"It is usually the best practice for supervisors to cast as wide a net as possible when searching for potential job applicants, even if the process takes longer to complete," the report says.
Training decisions, MSPB argues, are also sometimes handled ineffectively, because they often come down to "employees nominating themselves for training they would like to attend and supervisors approving these requests."
In this instance, MSPB says, the short-term goal of getting employees into training courses is met, but it takes precedence over the long-term goal of assessing training needs and developing a training strategy.
MSPB says its research also reveals considerable employee dissatisfaction with the way supervisors manage performance. For example, 44 percent of employees interviewed for MSPB's 1996 Merit Principles Survey said they didn't think supervisors took action against poor performers in a fair and effective manner. Supervisors cited time constraints, lack of upper level management support and lack of familiarity of procedures as reasons for not taking action against poor performers.
To achieve an appropriate balance between "today's human resource management requirements and tomorrow's demands," MSPB offered the following recommendations in its report:
- Corporate cultures within federal departments and agencies should encourage and support supervisors in making human resource management decisions that give weight to strategic goals for the organization as well as the short-term goals of the work unit.
- Agency managers and the Office of Personnel Management should refocus supervisory training on the kinds of human resource management actions supervisors can take that will help them shift their overall emphasis toward long-range needs.
- Agency managers need to select supervisors who have the ability and desire to manage human resources and can see the connection between the responsibility and the organization's ability to achieve its long-range goals.
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