POST-OFFICE BOARDS In addition to the 778 boards mentioned above, there are approximately 8,300 boards located in post offices which represent a special situation. These are composed of 388 audit boards which issue certificates for post-office vacancies only from registers prepared by the Civil Service Commission, and are responsible for the accuracy of selections made from certificates. The balance of 7,920 post-office boards do not carry the usual board functions but serve principally as public information centers. The Post Office Department has estimated that the cost of this activity exceeds $2,250,000 annually. The situation is further complicated by the fact that this expenditure does not cover the cost of hiring in post-office jobs. The Commission itself rates papers and issues certificates of eligibles to the post office. As we have pointed out earlier, the use of the post offices and their nonaudit boards as a publicity device for agency and Commission examinations is not effective. Conclusions In analyzing the problem, the following conclusions present themselves: (1) The principles of open competition and selection on the basis of merit, indispensable requirements in our form of government, can be adequately accommodated by the board of examiner concept. (2) Cumbersome, costly, and time-consuming board procedures have forced the delegation of direct hiring authority to agencies. Since the board's purpose is to serve the appointing authority by providing qualified candidates when needed, its processes and facility of operations must be potentially acceptable to the appointing authority if it is to survive as a management instrument. (3) Unnecessary duplicate systems of personnel records, procedures, and files serve no real management purpose and greatly increase costs in money and man-hours. (4) It is frequently necessary for applicants to apply to several boards and personnel offices in the same area to receive consideration for all positions for which they are qualified. By utilizing the employment service offices as proposed in part 11 of this report, the necessity for multiple filing of applications will be virtually eliminated; there will exist in most geographic areas one central point where an applicant may obtain information concerning all Federal job vacancies in the area. (5) There appears to be no reason why the post offices should be used as employment agencies particularly since the Congress has established a nationwide system of public employment offices to perform that function. Furthermore, we can see no justification for the Post Office Department's reluctance to step into line with other Federal agencies and conduct recruiting and examining programs for their own jobs subject to Civil Service Commission inspection and audit. Recommendations (1) Full recognition should be given to the principle that agency boards are an integral part of agency personnel operations. Although the board's examining authority derives from the Civil Service Commission, it is responsible to the agency for operations and results and accountable to the Commission for legality and compliance with operational standards set by the Commission. (2) Board organization should be sufficiently flexible as to permit the establishment of a board in every appointing office, i. e., every Federal office to which appointing authority is delegated, which is not serviced completely by another board or boards. (a) The subcommittee looks forward to the establishment of a board in every appointing office to have full responsibility for the certifying of eligibles to its appointing authority. We believe this could eventually be achieved in even the smallest office, under the plan contemplated in part 11 of this report, by making full use of Employment Service administrative and clerical facilities. (b) Where an appointing office board is serviced by boards in other agencies, such other boards should be sources of applicant referral having the same relationship to the appointing office board as the Employment Service office. (3) All agency hiring should be done through the Board serving the appointing office applying principles of open competition to every job. (4) The Civil Service Commission should simplify and integrate standards of board operation into total agency personnel processes so that the board will become a true and facile instrument of the appointing authority. This should eliminate unnecessary duplication of records and achieve maximum simplicity and overall efficiency in one appointing process. (5) The Civil Service Commission should integrate audit and inspection of board operations into a total program audit of personnel management in the appointing office and in overall agency activities. In this respect, standards for the establishment of boards should be such as would reasonably guide agencies in the proper and feasible delegation of appointing authority. (6) The subcommittee believes that integration of these personnel processes as outlined above is absolutely essential. We believe that this and other proposals in our report override in large degree the arguments which have been presented to transfer responsibility for examining from the Civil Service Commission to the agencies by a change in the act of 1883. We propose, however, that the Senate restudy the desirability of such a change in light of improvements resulting from this report. (7) The Civil Service Commission should take immediate steps to transfer to the Post Office Department those examining activities which the Commission now conducts for that Department. The Commission should advise the Department as to the proper organization and operation of boards to meet the manpower needs of the Department, and designate members to serve on the boards. Though the post offices can legitimately be used to tack up notices of Federal job vacancies in places where they are likely to attract applicants, the cost of organizing and maintaining "nonaudit" boards is largely wasted and should be discontinued. PART 10-BUREAU OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR (U. S. EMPLOYMENT SERVICE) 32 The Congress has appropriated large sums for services to provide for the employment of people. To some degree this has resulted in overlapping and duplication in federally supported employment activities. The Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933 provides in part as follows: It shall be the province and duty of the Bureau [U. S. Employment Service, now the Bureau of Employment Security] to promote and develop a national system of employment offices for men, women, and juniors who are legally qualified to engage in gainful occupations, to maintain a veterans' service to be devoted to securing employment for veterans, to maintain a farm placement service, to maintain a public employment service for the District of Columbia, and, in the manner hereinafter provided, to assist in establishing and maintaining systems of public employment offices in the several States and the political subdivisions thereof in which there shall be located a veterans' employment service. The Civil Service Commission was, of course, operating before passage of the Wagner-Peyser Act. Since passage of the act, however, there has been no attempt to transfer recruiting activities carried on by the Commission to the system of employment offices established by the act. In lieu of this, the Commission with its fifteen-odd offices and finding itself unable to cope with a Federal employment structure of 2,500,000 people, has sought to transfer part of its recruiting activities. to the agencies. The Civil Service Commission has approximately 850 people in 15 offices engaged in recruiting and examining operations at a cost of about $3,500,000 annually. The fact that these people are used for operations seriously reduces the Commission's effectiveness in vital areas of leadership, staff guidance, promulgation of standards, personnel research, etc. The Bureau of Employment Security supervises a system of approximately 1,800 offices with 17,000 people engaged in employment activities at a cost of about $80,000,000. This includes the staff in its Washington and regional offices of around 1,000 people at a cost of $5,000,000. The subcommittee has examined to see whether the Employment Service could be utilized as a principal applicant source for all Government hiring.33 Our objective has been twofold: (1) To make maximum use of Employment Service System and facilities to the extent that such use is consonant with, and can serve adequately, the principles of merit and open competition on which our Federal service rests. To a corresponding degree, the duplicating clerical, administrative, and recruiting activities of the agencies should be reduced. (2) To take the Commission out of the business of recruiting and examining operations so that their total resources could be devoted to areas of leadership so badly needed in Federal personnel management. The United States Employment Service has offices in every State in the Union, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Personnel assigned to State offices run from lows of 33 in Delaware and 39 in Nevada to 1,193 in California, 1,034 in Pennsylvania, and 2,006 in New York. 32 See p. 38 of this report. 33 A number of Federal officials have recommended this course of action. One typical comment follows: "I believe the role of the United States Employment Service could be improved generally if that agency were designated as a primary source of recruitment for Government positions rather than the Civil Service Commission." Some of the services presently available in these offices to private employers, and potentially available to the Government agencies are indicated by appendix B. The subcommittee finds that the Bureau of Employment Security has negotiated agreements with the States of New York and California to recruit, test and examine for entrance into the State civil service merit systems. In the State of New York, for example, a report dated Oct. 2, 1952, reveals a high ratio of placements to referrals. Persons applying to employment service for civil service tests_ Referred to N. Y. Civil Service Commission 5, 711 4, 811 1, 501 1, 096 The Bureau frequently negotiates recruiting and employment agreements with private employers, some among the largest corporations in the Nation. The Bureau also carries on a wide variety of research and staff services in Washington and the field in connection with tests and standards development, validation studies, occupational analysis, staff development studies, etc. Generally, the Commission and the Bureau go their own separate ways and there is very little interchange of information on test development and other staff studies. For example, the Bureau spent considerable time and effort developing the General Aptitude Test Battery covering 1,500 occupations. The Commission, working at the same time developed its own Multiple Aptitude Test Battery. Both batteries serve approximately the same purpose. The agencies and the Federal service generally suffer from this lack of coordination. The results of Bureau work are available to industry but not generally to the Government. Thus, agencies frequently have need for a type of test which has been developed by the Bureau, but they are not permitted to use it since it has not been approved by the Commission. Since Commission resources cannot meet agency needs, agencies frequently develop their own tests and run their own studies. Some of the defense agencies have developed long lists of tests of the same general nature which the Bureau has been using for years. Even field stations get into the act. Our staff, for example, found one field station with four people assigned to give typing and stenographic tests twice a week to applicants and work the rest of the week developing tests. A fully staffed Employment Service office is within one block of this agency, and is performing both activities for their industry customers. While recommending the wider use of Employment Service offices, 34 34 One example, a large defense agency: "The U. S. Employment Service is informed of jobs for which we are recruiting directly and actively. In some instances the same information is given as is given to the Civil Service Commission, plus quarterly national clearance orders. Recruiting problems are discussed regularly by some installations with local and State managers. For some of our installations, an applicant anywhere in the United States can find out about our critical shortage vacancies by applying to any employment service office. At present, however our cooperative arrangements with U. S. E. S. vary. Based on the service given, we would like to see an increase. "The Employment Service has given us assistance in both national and local recruiting, including recruiting in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska. It can give us testing services on many types of jobs and provide us with test information for our consideration in selection. It provides office space as a normal practice for our field-going recruiters and gives them advance publicity. Service provided by local offices varies in quality, some of it not being up to the standard of effectiveness which we would like to obatin. "It is felt that the proper role of the U. S. E. S. would be to provide to our installations, upon request, exactly the same services which are provided to industry. It is further felt that the U. S. E. S. is much better equipped and has wider spread facilities for the provisions of recruitment assistance to our organization than has the Civil Service Commission and that responsibility for such assistance should be transferred to it. This responsibility would be that of assistance on request and would not include responsibility for controlling appointments." Federal officials have been equally frank in pointing out deficiencies in the Employment Service system. Thus, one official says: Employment Service could do a much better job of keeping agencies advised of labor surpluses on a nationwide basis. An extreme view is expressed by the personnel director of a Washington agency: We do not see how the role of the United States Employment Service could be improved under existing conditions. The Employment Service is organized on a State basis and the Federal office in Washington finds it extremely difficult to force through an accepted national policy. Many individual field offices have been extremely helpful to our recruiting teams and we have used such offices on occasion for recruiting trips. These offices do not stay open after hours, however, and in most cases cannot be opened on Saturday and Sunday. A number of local offices have been downright hostile and a few have not hesitated to openly state that they are concerned only with filling local needs. This dissenting view, we believe, must be weighed in the light of the fact that the agency's only contact with the Employment Service has been in connection with field recruiting trips from Washington. Its field activities in the continental United States are limited. Notwithstanding, the subcommittee felt that the problem of jurisdictional control of Employment Service offices, deserved careful consideration. In this connection, the Bureau of Employment Security, which provides funds, staff direction and program control for the offices advised us as follows: The headquarters office of the Bureau is organized to formulate policy; to establish minimum standards of operation; to recommend methods of organization and management; and to evaluate the operations of State agencies based on the standards of operations. The regional offices of the Bureau are branches of the headquarters office. Each regional office has the responsibility to determine whether minimum standards are being met by each State in the region; to provide technical assistance in matters of organization and methods of operation; and to evaluate the operations of the State agencies. Methods of control exercised by the Bureau of Employment Security include the budgetary process and the evaluation of local office operations by the headquarters and regional offices. Bureau policies and minimum standards of operations are included in the Employment Security manual with definitions which pertain to the reporting of Employment Service activities. Evaluation of local office operations are conducted by headquarters and regional offices and a standard outline is used for this purpose. A copy of this outline is attached. Other visits to State agencies are made by staff members of the headquarters and regional offices for other purposes such as providing technical assistance. On such visits, the staff members have opportunity to observe the degree of compliance with Bureau policies and minimum standards. If offices are not meeting the minimum standards established, or if they are not following the policies of the Bureau, the matter is discussed with the State director. This has practically always resulted in necessary corrective action being taken. In the event that such action were not taken, the Bureau would have the authority to withhold funds from the State. Recommendations The recommendations of the subcommittee with respect to wider use of the Bureau of Employment Security and system of Employment Service offices in Federal hiring activities have been covered partially in the earlier portions of this report. We contemplate a maximum use of these facilities and redirectioning of the entire Federal employment structure as described in part 11 of this report. 31101-53-5 |