Reflecting our government’s inability to progress toward 21st century human capital management practices, the Department of Homeland Security was forced to announce the untimely death of pay-for-performance Wednesday afternoon.  In his memo to employees, DHS Chief Human Capital Officer Thomas Cairns described the cause:

“The reason for this change is due to the Department’s appropriations act for fiscal year 2009, which prohibits spending funds to operate our new DHS human resources management system.” 

Tim Kaufman of the Federal Times offered a fuller explanation in his article yesterday:

“The final nail in the coffin came Tuesday, when President Bush signed into law a 2009 spending bill for federal agencies that prohibits the department from spending money on the new system. Homeland Security had sought $5 million in fiscal 2009 to fund its performance management system and had hoped to extend the system to 70,000 employees, virtually its entire nonbargaining work force, in the coming year.”

No one denies that competition for key talent and retention of high-performing personnel have been significant obstacles for Federal agencies over the past several years.  With the death of this initiative, the disparity between the antiquated system of Federal pay and modern commercial best practices will grow.  I predict that DHS will continue to lose the people they desperately need, keep the low performers they don’t, and further alienate those who could offer tremendous value to their government and country.  

It’s a simple question of motivation and market parity.  As a result of this action, the public/private divide continues.  In a time calling for increased personal and professional accountability, taking another step backward should not be an option.  Let’s see if the next administration can overhaul the system and keep the conversation going.

You won’t be shocked by the joint findings of EquaTerra and HR Executive stating that public sector HR needs to be more strategic.  This shouldn’t be a surprise given the traditional notion of the public sector lagging the private sector in progressive practices.  Because, let’s face it, HR in the public sector is hard.  

Some of the challenges EquaTerra cites are common to most HR departments, both public and private, including:

• Inadequate resources and lack of executive management attention and support that hamper process improvement efforts; 
• An inability to adequately focus on more strategic activities because of competing demands and insufficient resources;
• Ongoing attrition of skilled/affordable employees needed to address these challenges and an overall aging workforce. (pg. 4)

But others are truly public sector centric, such as:

• Competition from the private sector for employees; 
• Diminishing appeal of the public sector “brand” as a means to attract and retain skilled employees;
• More responsibilities than their counterparts of yesteryear as a result of mandates from the Federal Government and public calls for additional services, including homeland security.  (pg. 4)

If you’re still reading and haven’t fully given up hope just yet, you’re probably interested in hearing what the answer is - the big punch-line, the silver bullet shot forth from the blogosphere that offers that dreamy “ah-ha!” moment of infinite clarity and obvious action.  This blog may not have the ultimate answer, but here is some food for thought.  Perhaps the answer lies in the persistence of public sector HR to not take no for an answer.

We asked Glenn Davidson, Managing Director of EquaTerra Public Sector, to comment on how public entities can stretch tight dollars for key initiatives and transformation:

“Be creative; work smarter.  For instance, a marketing/branding strategy for recruitment, retention and driving behavior doesn’t have to be costly.  Look for alternative ways to get access to technology and services, thereby freeing up resources to do other work.”

Neil Reichenberg, Executive Director of IPMA-HR concluded that:

“This study demonstrates the challenges that public sector HR faces in becoming more strategic, especially in a time of diminishing resources. While the study results indicate that progress is being made, the journey is far from over. The HR department needs to develop innovative strategies and tools that will enable them to become leaders in total talent management within their organizations.” (pg. 19)

The underlying implication is that this is not happening.  But in fact, it is…. slowly.  Those who have a vested and external interest in public sector HR are going to continue to saber rattle and cry from the highest rooftops.  Why?  Because there are billions of dollars in services, licensing, consulting, competitive sourcing and the like to be gained if the internal HR functions could simply “get out of their own way”.  

The problem is that this type of change cannot truly exist without those who feel the pain each and every day electing to stop, take stock of their situation and say enough!  This is hard, and scary, and risky, and sometimes career limiting.  But if you don’t try, you frankly have nothing to complain about.  So take action now and let’s keep the conversation going. 

As I strolled to my local coffee shop and took in an uncharacteristically quiet morning in downtown Washington, DC, I began to wonder about the history of the fourth of July as a national work holiday.

Thanks to James Heintze of American University for his extensive research on the topic. Enjoy your day today everyone and let’s keep the fireworks going! Take it away James:

The act of Congress establishing Fourth of July as a holiday, but without pay, for federal employees and the District of Columbia occurred in 1870. Senator Hannibal Hamlin (Dem. Maine, and previously vice president under Abraham Lincoln) introduced a Senate Bill (referred HR no. 2224), issued through the Committee on the District of Columbia, Forty-first Congress, Session II, on 24 June 1870, and titled “Legal Holidays in the District.” Hamlin presented his rationale for the bill: “There are no legal holidays here, and this bill merely provides for what I think are the legal holidays in every state of the Union.” Apparently there was no opposition to the bill which “was reported to the Senate without amendment; ordered to a third reading, read the third time, and passed.” It was reported in the Congressional Globe, Friday, June 28, 1870, and was printed as Chapter 167:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the following days, to wit: the first day of January, commonly called New Year’s day, the fourth day of July, the twenty-fifth day of December, commonly called Christmas day, and any day appointed or recommended by the President of the United States as a day of public fast or thanksgiving, shall be holidays within the District of Columbia, and shall, for all purposes of presenting for payment or acceptance for the maturity and protest, and giving notice of the dishonor of b ills of exchange, bank checks and promissory notes or other negotiable or commercial paper, be treated and considered as is the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, and all notes, drafts, checks, or other commercial or negotiable paper falling due or maturing on either of said holidays shall be deemed as having matured on the day previous. Approved, June 28, 1870.

On June 29, 1938, by joint resolution of Congress (HJ resolution No. 551; pub. res. no. 127), the Fourth of July was legislated as a Federal holiday with pay for its employees:

Resolved by the Senate and House of representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that hereafter whenever regular employees of the Federal Government whose compensation is fixed at a rate per day, per hour, or on a piece-work basis are relieved or prevented from working solely because of the occurrence of a holiday such as New Year’s Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, or any other day declared a holiday by Federal statute or Executive order, or any day on which the departments and establishments of the Government are closed by Executive order, they shall receive the same pay for such days as for other days on which an ordinary day’s work is performed. Section 2. The joint resolution of January 6, 1885 (U.S.C., title 5, sec. 86), and all other laws inconsistent or ion conflict with the provision of this Act are hereby repealed to the extent of such inconsistency or conflict. Approved, June 29, 1938.

On January 14, 1941, it was brought to the attention of Congress by Robert Ramspeck, Chairman, Committee on the Civil Service of the House of Representatives (see 77th Congress, House of Representatives Report No. 532), that the 1938 Federal holiday law failed to specify that employees of the Government of the District of Columbia also have the Fourth of July designated as a holiday with pay. Harry B. Mitchell, president of the United States Civil Service Commission responded back on April 7 that his office, as well as the Bureau of the Budget, had no objection to amending the 1938 law to include District of Columbia employees. On May 13, 1941, a “Holiday Leave for Per Diem Employees of the District of Columbia” amendment was enacted with the following change made to the 1938 law:

In compliance with paragraph 2a of the Rule XIII, of the Rules of the House of Representatives, changes in existing law are shown as follows (present law is in roman and new matter is in italics): (Act of June 29, 1938, 52 Stat. 1246) “That hereafter whenever regular employees of the Federal Government or of the district of Columbia whose compensation is fixed at a rate per day, per hour, or on a piece-work basis are relieved or prevented from working solely because of the occurrence of a holiday, such as New Year’s Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Armistice Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, or any other day declar4ed a holiday by Federal statute or Executive order, or any day on which the departments and establishments of the Government or of the District of Columbia are closed by Executive order, they shall receive the same pay for such days as for other days on which an ordinary day’s work is performed.”

On September 22, 1959, an act was passed by Congress (H.R. 5752, Public Law 86-362) that if the Fourth of July and any other established holiday occurs on a Saturday, “the day immediately preceding such Saturday shall be held and considered to be a legal public holiday, in lieu of such day which so occurs on such Saturday, (A) for such officers and employees whose basic workweek is Monday through Friday, and (B) for the purposes of section 205 (d) of the Annual and Sick Leave Act of 1951 (65 Stat. 681), as amended (5 U.S.C. 2064 (d)). The act also provided for a day of release for employees “whose basic workweek is other than Monday through Friday.”  (James Heintze, American University)

A few months ago, Inflexion posed a question about human resources member-based forums, asking “With whom do you associate?”  The response from the HR industry was swift and overwhelming, with hundreds of messages pouring in from all over the globe.  What was immediately clear is that both HR professionals and corporate sponsors are struggling to sort through the value propositions of dozens of competing Human Resources Professional Organizations (HRPOs).  This is confounded by the fact that there are well over 200 such HRPOs in the US alone, ranging from the Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) and Human Resource Planning Society (HRPS) to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and WorldatWork.

Inflexion would ask that you take 5 minutes to complete our short poll of views.  We will apply the findings from this survey to our broader research initiative comprising profiles and comparisons of over twenty-five leading HRPOs.  Your voice is critical to the success of this groundbreaking study and we thank you in advance for your participation. 

Should any questions or comments arise, please email us at research@inflexionadvisors.com.  Let’s keep the conversation (and industry innovation) going.

First announced in a report yesterday afternoon by Government Executive, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has halted it’s $290 million contract with Hewitt to deploy the highly touted RetireEZ program for electronic retiree processing.  This was corroborated by a press release issued by OPM announcing the suspension publicly.  Per the release:

“OPM issued a stop work order for the implementation of the calculation engine, one of the three components of the modernization project known as RetireEZ.  In addition to the stop work order, OPM issued a show cause notice to Hewitt giving them 10 calendar days to respond to the performance issues OPM raised.” (OPM)

Commenting on the stop work order, a former OPM employee stated:

“I know that testing of RetireEZ has been going badly.  What Hewitt was trying to do was take an off-the-shelf program and squeeze the government computations out of that.” (GovExec)

A Hewitt spokesperson responded by stating:

“We successfully delivered on our first live date with OPM on Feb. 25, 2008 and as of the date of the stop work order, we were on track to deliver on successive dates as required by our contract.” (GovExec)

Director Linda Springer announced Wave 1 of RetireEZ on her desk page, and on February 25th, approximately 26,000 active employees from the GSA, OPM, National Archives and other agencies went live with the system.  All federal employees were to have been transferred to the system by February of 2009.  It is unclear how the stop work order will effect this timeline, with OPM conveying that the data conversion and change management portions of the project are continuing unabated.  RetireEZ’s home page states that the site is currently down for maintenance.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

Today’s guest post is authored by Chris Connolly, Director of Client Services for Convergys Employee Care.  Chris is a long-time advocate of alternative work schedules (and an extremely bright guy).  If you have questions or comments, Chris can be reached directly at chris.connolly@convergys.com.  Take it away Chris!

Filling my tank near the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC this past weekend, I waited nervously as the $4.25/gallon offering approached a $100 total.  I never thought I would worry about the credit limit on my Exxon Card, and I swear that just last week I could count “one-Mississippi” while the digits on the meter clicked off $1 increments…I fear those days are gone.

Having a little time to contemplate this situation, I began wondering when gas stations might start offering a fourth payment option at the pump: Cash, Debit, Credit or Hedge (i.e, pre-purchase X gallons of premium for $3.25 a gallon and draw down from this purchase over the next year).  Thinking I might have stumbled onto a million dollar idea, I  went home and performed the obligatory Google search only to find out that others had beaten me to the concept:  

• Chrysler is offering a program called “Refuel America” which locks in the price of unleaded at $2.99 for three years if you purchase a “qualifying (read slow-moving-gas-guzzler) vehicle”.   
• Also check out the Gasoline Price Protection Program (G3P) concept at the WTLTrading blog.

But back to the issue you raised Mark.  I am hopeful that employees and employers can discover opportunity in the energy and economic challenges that we face today.   The impact of fuel prices on the average commuter may help produce the momentum to bust through the paradigm that we’ve been stuck in for over 40 years.  Rather than waiting for the oil companies to discover new supplies, build more refining capacity, or offer “incentives” to pre-purchase their highly profitable commodity, employees might start asking their employers for the option of an alternative work environment (aka work-at-home and/or telecommuting).  If you want to begin developing a business case for reducing your commuting expenses,  check out the calculators at the following sites:

• Arlington County VA’s “Car-Free Diet” calculator
• Commute Solution’s “True Cost of Driving” calculator

Both tools demonstrate how an average commuter can save several thousand dollars per year by working at home just one day per week.  Many states (Virginia being one) offer significant incentives to businesses for developing and deploying telework/alternative work site solutions.  The reduced demand on highways and other municipal infrastructure helps subsidize these government incentives.  The benefits to employees, taxpayers, employers and the environment could be significant if we begin to approach our daily commute less as a requirement and more as a choice.  Let’s explore the alternatives.  

It started with the oil crisis of 1973, this simple idea that work week compression could make a positive impact on both our planet and pocketbook.  It never really captured the nation’s attention in a systemic and sustainable way, but like oversized sunglasses, bell-bottom jeans and dance competitions, some things from the 70s are bound to make a comeback.   

Welcome to May of 2008.  The average price of gas is $3.75 per gallon.  Oil is $126 a barrel.  And consumer confidence?  According to Director Lynn Franco of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center, April’s Consumer Confidence Index was anything but groovy:

“This month’s decline in Consumer Confidence was the result of yet another sharp decline in the Present Situation Index. This continued weakening suggests that not only has the feeble level of growth in the first quarter spilled over into the second quarter, but that economic conditions may have slowed even further. And, not only are lackluster business and job conditions eroding confidence, but rising gasoline prices are undoubtedly heightening concerns… Looking ahead, consumers’ outlook for the economy, the job market and their income prospects remains quite pessimistic and little changed from last month. Or, in other words, the glass remains half empty.”

So now you’re saying to yourself, “Thanks Mark!  Great start to my Monday morning.  Real uplifting stuff.”  Sorry about that.  But here’s the good news - many employers have been heeding the cry for relief by deploying alternative work schedules (AWS).  

• Saving Energy: Marion County (Florida) just approved a 4-day work week measure, which by their estimates will save about $250,000 in electricity through the remainder of 2008.  
• Saving Oil: Calculations by energy site The Oil Drum estimate that taking one commute day off the books would save about 8.3 million barrels of oil.  
• Saving Employees: If you want to take this idea to the fullest, embrace the work of CultureRx and their Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), which declined voluntary turnover rates by 90%.

All good stuff, but what do the academics have to say about AWS?  According to the Sloan Work and Family Research Network (Boston College):

• Fifty percent of employees who have high access to flexible work arrangements on the job report high levels of life satisfaction (Bond, Thompson, Galinsky, & Prottas, 2002, p. 39).
• According to the National Study of the Changing Workforce, “employees who have more access to flexible work arrangements report fewer mental health problems” (BTG&P, p. 39).
• 32% of wage and salaried workers with high availability of flexible work arrangements report no interference of job and family life (BTG&P, p. 38).
• 34% of wage and salaried employees who have high access to flexible work arrangement report “low levels of negative spillover from job to home” (BTG&P, p. 39).

So If you have AWS policies, it may be time to dust them off and begin to promote their utilization.  If you don’t, look to a variety of sources (including the Office of Personnel Management) for assistance.  At a time when employees need to look to their employers for solutions, taking this proactive and empathetic step can make all the difference.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

This story is fairly typical and should have been entirely predictable:  

1. - I enter the DMV in Washington, DC and step into the queue.
2. - The counter employee (who I did not identify as “on duty” given her disinterested elbow-lean and gaze into space) literally screams at me to come forward.
3. - After I convey my need, she turns (with no visible signs of comprehension) and silently waits for her colleague to become available to answer my question.
4. - Now two employees are yelling at me, between moments of angry staring.
5. - Following some sarcastic commentary on my part, I leave without my issue having been resolved.

Shocking, I know.  Unfortunately, this plays into so many preexisting stereotypes that it’s hard to have expected anything but this outcome.  That being said, I am 100% certain that each of you have had a similar experience either at your local DMV, with your cable provider, your cellular company and/or at the local mall.  As consumers of a wide variety of goods and services, we constantly encounter this sense of complete and utter customer disinterest.  As professionals in the HR industry, it’s our duty to try and overcome this employee apathy in some systemic way.  Here are some ideas to consider:

• Max McKeown of Management Issues suggests that, “Those who become apathetic (or give up) do so because they see the situation as a problem they have personally caused or something that happens everywhere (pervasive) and always.”  McKeown believes, “A leader’s task is to provide evidence that effort is worthwhile and that things can be better – both generally and particularly. In so doing, they will succeed in overcoming apathy, beating boredom, and restoring purpose to people’s lives.”
• Joanna Brandi of Customer Care Coach thinks that service givers are suffering from what she calls “E.D.S. - Empathy Deficiency Syndrome”.  Among a variety of suggested improvements, Brandi emphasizes that, “it is the manager who is really the connection between the customer and the company. When a manager understands and communicates the importance, the lifetime value, of the customer to the company, people begin to understand why delivering great service should be something they want to do. It’s the responsibility of today’s managers to get people excited about interacting with the customer.”
• Babson Insight’s J.B. Kassarjian has a different point of view, offering that, “The current conventional wisdom suggests that involvement and participation are critical to getting buy-in for any change, and the key is empowering your people. Unfortunately this is more likely to produce cynicism and confusion than to produce measurable change. The optimism of a single dynamic to overcome employee apathy, release creative potential, and mobilize human talent to ease the road to renewal, is in fact a hollow promise.”  He adds that, “to be real it has to be earned, it cannot be bestowed.”

The fact of the matter is that there is no silver bullet in addressing this issue.  It takes time, emphasis and the proper behavioral motivation to be applied in a systematic way to each individual stakeholder.  Many forgot the simple WIIFM rule (”What’s In It for Me?”), and if you can’t provide your front line employees with an answer to this most basic question, I fear this behavior will continue to plague our service industry.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

After weeks of deliberation, the good people at FedPitch have announced their Top 20 Finalists.  For those unaware of FedPitch, it is a competition initiated by 13L and co-sponsored by a variety of non-profit entities including the Council for Excellence in Government, the Partnership for Public Service, Young Government Leaders, and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.  The intent is to identify innovative concepts that materially improve some facet of the federal workforce experience.  

Several weeks ago we debated the merits of this initiative in a point/counterpoint with our resident OD expert Dr. Shannon Flumerfelt.  Given that making a difference requires direct and overt participation, I went ahead and submitted a concept for consideration.   Imagine my surprise when I was selected to present.

So, if you would like an excuse to visit Washington, DC, come on down to the National Mall during the afternoon of May 7th to witness FedPitch in person.  Yours truly and 19 other finalists will have two minutes each to pitch their concepts without props, notes or other presentation wizardry.  I will personally endeavor to make my speech as compelling as possible, although those who know me well will chuckle at the idea that I am only allowed to talk for 120 seconds.  It should be a fun time and I truly hope that the winning idea sees the light of day.

Let’s keep the (short) conversation going.