Skilled Labor

As the number of Hispanic Americans increases, the federal government needs to serve and communicate with a rapidly diversifying population. According to a new report from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, if agencies want employees with leadership and language skills, they should be willing to pay workers more.

"In order to communicate effectively with non-English-speaking members of the public, an employee with foreign language skills must be proficient in both the oral and written form of the second language," the agency's Hispanic Work Group said in the report. "The skill and proficiency required to accomplish these functions in a second language on a daily basis places added responsibilities and larger workloads on the employee," who deserves compensation to match the effort, EEOC concluded.

Language classes and proficiency skills aren't the only things EEOC wants agencies to consider paying for, as they begin building a workforce that looks like the rest of the country.

The report cited some examples of best practices, including the U.S. Postal Service, which automatically guarantees pay raises for employees who are accepted into any accredited leadership training programs.

"Some agencies focus on developing a single employee for a particular position and fail to adequately develop and/or consider other employees from that agency or other agencies," the report noted.

Pay incentives would reward employees who sought out leadership training opportunities. But additional pay also would make it more viable for financially strapped employees to participate in training programs that otherwise might take them away from other sources of income or important duties at home. In addition, extra financial rewards would provide an incentive for young employees to work hard to become eligible for leadership programs.

Look at it this the same way: Student loan repayment programs cannot compensate for higher salaries in the private sector, but they can eliminate a burden that could make younger workers think twice about taking federal jobs.

That kind of compensation program could be especially important. A new survey commissioned by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service revealed a gap between what undergraduates think they will make in their first year after college -- $49,000 -- and the actual starting federal salary -- which ranges from $30,000 to $38,000 -- for employees with bachelors' degrees.

And by extending loan repayment to continuing education programs, employees can continue to build their skill sets without worrying about whether their investment in tuition will pay off with future promotions and pay raises.

At a time when questions remain about the viability of federal pay-for-performance programs, financial incentives pegged to specific skills and education programs could allay concerns about whether positive performance evaluations, and by extension, pay raises, will be tainted by favoritism. It might be complicated to set a precise value on fluency in Spanish, the long-term benefits of a leadership class, or a specific graduate degree. But once those values are determined, it will be difficult to argue that the people who have or pursue those skills and are rewarded for their efforts are being rewarded unfairly.