Raising Public Employee Productivity

by Samuel M. Sperling

Across the country, government is being asked to spend less and produce more - to use taxpayer dollars more efficiently.

But government agencies are up against two powerful facts: 1) a major part of their budget goes for employee salaries/benefits; and 2) public employees, like their private sector counterparts, are under-utilized and, therefore, less productive than they could be.

By themselves, these facts do not make governmental efficiency impossible. They do suggest that public agencies need to focus more attention on the management of employee performance. Specifically, they should use the probationary period in a way that improves employee selection and performance appraisal.

Probation is an employment test. It must be both valid and reliable. Probation must appraise what the appointee actually does on the job and measure the appointee's work against a set of established, job-specific standards.

According to three knowledgeable observers, that's not the way probation is generally used in public service organizations. Consider these authorities:

O. Glenn Stahl:

"The major weakness of the trial-period concept has been its lack of effective use. Supervisors are too often inclined to let the adjustment of a new employee drift without careful monitoring." Public Personnel Administration, 8th Ed., New York: Harper and Row, 1983.

The Los Angeles City Advisory Affirmative Action Committee:

"A second highly significant fact...is that probation is not being used as it should be. Probation is a Civil Service test; it's a working test; it's the final test in a long and comprehensive selection process. And like any other employment test, probation must be clearly job-related. In most departments/bureaus, however, probation is not being used as a job-related test of employee performance. That's a fact which should concern employees and managers alike. It's a problem which must now be addressed." The Selection of City Supervisors, Part II, March 8, 1990.

Robert H. Elliott and Allen L. Peaton:

"Most of the criticism of the probationary period found in the literature falls into one of three categories: One, many organizations fail to see the probationary period as the final step in the selection process, but as something that occurs after a selection decision has been made...Secondly, because the probationary employee does not possess substantial appeal rights, management may become arbitrary in its removal powers...Third, the most often heard criticism is the probationary period is really not used by managers to terminate poor performers..." "The Probationary Period in the Selection Process: A Survey of its Use at the State Level", Public Personnel Management, Volume 23, No. 1 (Spring 1994).

The traditional approach to probation creates serious problems in the public service. It subjects appointees to the personal whims and biases of their supervisors. It requires reluctant supervisors (some untrained) to "play God" with appointees' careers. And more often than may be acknowledged, it lets poor performers achieve "permanent" status --lets them gain property rights to jobs for which they were not required to demonstrate their fitness.

Perhaps the most pernicious problem related to the popular use of probation is it lets everyone--supervisors, managers, and elected officials--defend their agency's mismanagement of the working test as standard operating procedure.

Because they don't use probation as a test, public organizations are unduly dependent on less adequate tests like the selection interview. To understand how an inadequate testing program can cripple employee selection, one need only to read the report, "Poor Hiring Decisions Lower Productivity." That report, based on a study conducted for the national Science Foundation, was published in the Jan-Mar 1979 Civil Service Journal. It was written by a teat of testing experts, Frank L. Schmidt and John E. Hunter. They conclude that improved selection procedures could increase the GNP by one hundred billion dollars a year!

Clearly, government organizations have a duty to use the most effective selection procedures available. Agencies that have not yet done so would do well to implement a Tasks and Standards probationary rating system. This would ensure retention/termination decisions are based on the appointee's performance of assigned tasks. It would also ensure that those appointees who fail to meet established performance standards are properly removed.

The probationary rating system suggested above would not cure all the ills afflicting performance management in the public service. But it would strengthen employee selection and performance appraisal. And it would raise productivity, increase efficiency, and help control the cost of government. It would, thus, seem to merit consideration.

Samuel M. Sperling, Secretary, Academy for Supervisory Development, 156-B Casuda Canyon Drive, Monterey Park, CA 91754; Phone (818) 289-8897.