Archive
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Document Name: Chapter 3 -- Empowering Employees to Get Results Part II
Date: 09/07/94
Owner: National Performance Review
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Title:Chapter 3 -- Empowering Employees to Get Results Part II
Author: Vice President Albert Gore's National Performance Review
Date:7 September 1993 10:00:00 EST
Content-Type: text/ascii charset=US ASCII
Content-Length: 92972
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Ultimately, no one can generate results without knowing how
the "bottom line" is defined. Without a performance target,
managers manage blindly, employees have no guidance, policymakers
don't know what's working, and customers have no idea where they
may be served best. If, for example, jobless people know how well
graduates of local training programs fare when looking for work,
they can better choose which new careers and programs offer the
best prospects. Informed consumers are the strongest enforcers of
accountability in government.
Action: The administration will issue one set of Baldrige Awards
for quality in the federal government.26
For years, the executive branch has taken steps to recognize
and support good performance. In typical fashion, however, we
have created three different award systems, each administered by
a different organization. The Federal Quality Institute (FQI)
administers the Presidential Award for Quality; the President's
Council on Management Improvement administers the Award for
Management Excellence; and the Office of Personnel Management
awards the Presidential Quality and Management Improvement Awards
for tangible savings to the government of more than $250,000.
The administration will issue one set of presidential awards
for quality. The Baldrige Award Office of the National Institute
for Standards and Technology will combine the existing awards
into a new set of Baldrige Awards for public service--to go along
with its private sector award. The new award will recognize
agency and work unit quality initiatives and ideas, based on
program
performance, cost savings, innovation, and customer satisfaction.
Step 3: --Giving Federal Workers the Tools They Need to do
Their--Jobs
Americans today demand a more responsive, more humane
government that costs less. Their expectations are neither
irrational nor whimsical. Over the past 20 years, the entire way
we do things, make things, even contact one another, has changed
around us. Businesses have no guarantees, no captive markets. To
compete, they must make things and deliver service better and
faster, and get their message out sooner. No one benefits more
than customers. It's no wonder these same people now turn to
government and ask, "Why can't you do things better too?"
Transforming our federal government to do better will mean
recasting what people do as they work. They will turn from bosses
into coaches, from directors into negotiators, from employees
into thinkers and doers. Government has access to the same tools
that have helped business make this transformation; it's just
been slower to acquire and use them. We must change that. We must
give workers the tools they need to get results-- then make sure
they use them.
Employee Training
After two decades of organizing for quality, business knows
one thing for sure: Empowered people need new skills--to work as
teams, use new computer software, interpret financial and
statistical information, cooperate with and manage other people,
and adapt. Indeed, business talks about a new breed of "knowledge
worker"--people who understand that, throughout their careers,
their most important task is to continue learning and applying
new knowledge to the challenge at hand. Knowledgeable workers are
our most important source of progress. They are, quite simply,
the currency of 21st century commerce.
Business teaches us that ongoing training for every worker
is essential for organizations to work well. Not surprisingly,
the federal government under-spends on training and education,
just as it does on most other productivity-enhancing investments.
In 1989, the National Commission on the Public Service, headed by
Paul Volcker, estimated that while leading private firms spend 3
to 5 percent of their budgets on training, retraining, and
upgrading employee skills, the federal government spends less
than one percent.27
And the little we do spend is not always allocated wisely. A
well-promoted 4-day training seminar packaged to appeal to
federal agency managers may seem like a good deal. It is not,
however, always what the agency needs. The Volcker Commission
concluded:
Federal training is suffering from an identity crisis.
Agencies are not sure what they should train for (short term or
long term), who should get the lion's share of resources (entry
level or senior level)...and whether mid-career education is of
value...Career paths are poorly designed, executive succession is
accidental and unplanned, and real-time training for pressured
managers is virtually non-existent. At both the career and
presidential level, training is all-too-often ad hoc and
self-initiated.28
Perhaps most striking is the paucity of career training for
people on the lowest rungs of the civil service ladder, or for
people without the leg-up of university degrees. These valued
employees may have the most tenure in an office. They may see and
know everything. Frequently, they are indispensable, because only
they know how the system works--and how to work the system.
Unfortunately, their abilities are rarely rewarded, despite their
desire to advance.
One staffer in the Justice Department's Civil Division
alerted Vice President Gore to her quandary:
I'm watching the role of our legal secretaries change. Less
and less of the typical secretarial duties are being performed,
simply because the attorneys do a lot of their own drafting of
documents... However, for a secretary to start to move into a
legal assistant position... or into a paralegal role, is frowned
upon... As far as training goes it's impossible... That prevents
a lot of people from...moving into new jobs that are going to be
of more benefit to the department...We've lost a good number of
secretaries who have moved elsewhere, because they cannot go any
further here.29
Employees at the top rung, too, must keep learning. Managers
and executives face the same hurdles in keeping up with
technology as do front-line workers. Technicians must stay up to
date with system advances and new techniques. The growing band of
federal export and trade personnel must learn more than foreign
languages--they need to master the language of negotiation as
well. Indeed, employees in the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative currently receive no systematic training in
negotiation skills or the cross-cultural styles and patterns they
are likely to encounter in their work--a situation the office is
now planning to correct.30
Perhaps most important, training is the key that unlocks the
power of bottom-up decisionmaking. At the Reinventing Government
Summit, General Electric Executive Vice President Frank Doyle
detailed the GE experience: "We had to educate our entire
workforce to give them the tools to become meaningfully involved
in all aspects of work. Empowerment...is a disorderly and almost
meaningless gesture unless people doing the actual work are given
the tools and knowledge that self-direction demands."31
During the National Performance Review process, almost every
one of the agency teams identified a specific learning need
critical to their agency's quality improvement and mission. In
addition, several common training concerns demand governmentwide
action.
Action: The administration will grant agencies the flexibility to
finance training needs.32
Leading corporations view training as a strategic resource,
an investment. Federal managers tend to view it as a cost. So in
government, worker training isn't even included in most budget
estimates for new systems or programs. This is puzzling and quite
short-sighted, since new workplace innovations, like advanced
software, won't transform employee productivity unless those
employees know how to use them. Although training may be the best
and least costly way to improve worker performance, government
executives view it as a "quick fix," unworthy of any planning
effort.
Perceptions are changing, however. Today's management
literature is full of talk about the value of
on-the-job-training, computer-based instruction, expert systems,
work exchange, mentors and other tools for learning. Since 1992,
OPM has been steering agencies toward more comprehensive training
initiatives.
We will grant agencies a substantial portion of the savings
they realize from decentralizing staff and reducing operating
costs (see chapter 1) to invest in worker training, performance
measurement, and benchmarking.
Budget directives further complicate an agency's ability to
train workers effectively, particularly when its own budget
office, OMB, or Congress cut line items for employee training.
Such over-specified reductions deny employees the access to
skills they need to be productive, to advance in their careers,
and to adapt to new technology.
Action: The federal government will upgrade information
technology training for all employees.33
Every year, more and more federal workers must use
computer-based information technology in their jobs. If business
is any guide, our government reinvention efforts will only
quicken the trend. Pen and paper exercises keep moving to the
screen. Lateral files now form database records. Video- and
computer-based courses make learning possible anytime, anywhere.
Money no longer changes hands; it's transmitted digitally. People
not only talk, they "message." A meeting of the minds can take
place without the bodies present.
Other chapters discuss how we will speed the procurement
process for technology and how we will deploy technology to alter
what we do and how well we do it. Here, we want to stress that
much of the federal workforce lacks the training and background
to use advanced information technologies.
Compared to the private sector, the federal government
invests few dollars and scant time in technology training.34
Federal agencies provide insufficient incentives to motivate
their workforce to seek technology training, scarce opportunities
to obtain training--even when it's desired and necessary--and
rarely incorporate technology training in the strategic planning
process. The longer we wait, the farther behind we fall.
This foot-dragging costs the taxpayer dearly. We do things
the old way, not the cheaper, more efficient way. Or we start
doing things the new way, but we don't go far enough: We buy
computers for our workers, but not the training to use them
properly, so the software and hardware investments are wasted. We
invest in new systems, and our people can't make them work.
Training should begin with top nontechnical managers, to
help them focus on uses, management, planning, and acquisition of
state-of-the-art information technology. By May 1994, OPM and GSA
will jointly develop and administer information technology
training for non-technical managers and presidential appointees.
The New York City Department of Personnel, already in the
technology training business, offers a useful model of monthly
half-day sessions for executives covering ten topics: strategic
planning, reengineering, implementing systems, electronic mail,
video conferencing, voice-enhanced technologies, geographic
information systems, database management, imaging, and
multi-agency complaints and inspection systems. Our effort will
help every senior manager earn a certificate that signifies his
or her level of technology competency. Parallel training and
certification efforts will target Senior Executive Service
members and information resource managers.
Anyone who has grappled with computers--from the basics of
word processing to the complexity of expert systems--knows that
we often learn best how to use software by finding a technology
"pal": someone who knows the ins and outs of a particular
software application and is willing to share that knowledge. To
spread information technology training and use in the entire
federal workforce, the existing Federal Information Resources
Management Policy Council will help motivated agencies set up a
program of collegial assistance for a wide range of technology
applications. We will tap the cadre of techno-proficient
individuals spread across the federal government to provide
occasional on-line help or personal assistance on demand to their
struggling colleagues.
Finally, starting late in 1993, new contracts for
technology acquisition--or those in early stages--must include a
provision for training. If agencies work together, they can cut
such training costs dramatically. When Texas contracted with four
statewide technology training firms to train state employees, it
cut the price to $60 to $110 a day per worker for a wide range of
skills. An even larger customer, the federal government should be
able to land an even better bargain.
Action: Eliminate narrow restrictions on employee training to
help develop a multiskilled workforce.35
The Government Employees Training Act (GETA), which
authorizes agencies to manage and determine their training needs,
defines training as a tool for "increasing economy and efficiency
in government." The rules written behind this 1958 wording
severely limit how agencies can use training today. Training too
often is ad hoc and seldom linked to strategic or human resource
planning. Managers generally are not able to get the information
to determine the return on their training investment. Even worse,
existing restrictions dictate that any training be related to an
employee's official duties--thus ensuring that our Justice
Department secretary does not become a paralegal. These rules
keep federal employees single-skilled in a multi-skilled world.
By early 1994, OPM will draft legislation to amend GETA on
three fronts. OPM will redefine the objective of federal training
as the "improvement of individual and organizational
performance." It will relate the use of training to achieving an
agency's mission and performance goals, not to a worker's
official duties. And OPM will seek to end the distinction between
government and
nongovernment training, giving public employees access to the
best training services available, no matter who provides them.
Clarifying the purpose of training in GETA will reinforce
the need to use training to improve performance and produce
results. Removing the distinction between government and
non-government training will deregulate the in-government
training monopoly, introducing competition that will improve the
quality of learning opportunities for federal employees. And
linking training to an agency's mission will ease employees'
efforts to become adept at all the skills they need as empowered
workers. We urge Congress to join in the quality effort by
passing these important amendments early in 1994.
Management Information Systems
Management isn't about guessing, it's about knowing. Those
in positions of responsibility must have the information they
need to make good decisions. Good managers have the right
information at their fingertips. Poor managers don't.
Good information comes from good information systems.
Management information systems have improved in lockstep with
every advance in the telecommunications revolution. New
management information systems are transforming government, just
as they have business, in two ways. They can make government more
productive--the benefit we discuss in this chapter--and let us
deliver services to customers in new ways, which we take on in
chapter 4. Indeed, today's systems have enabled businesses to
slim down data processing staffs, while giving more employees
access to more accurate data. This shows up on the bottom line.
If federal decisionmakers are given the same type of financial
and performance information that private managers use, it too
will show up on the bottom line--and cut the cost of government.
Sheer size alone would make the federal government difficult
to manage, even under the best of conditions. Unfortunately,
federal employees don't work under the best of conditions.
Indeed, when it comes to financial information, many are flying
blind. It's not for lack of staffing: Some 120,000
workers--almost 6 percent of non-postal service civilian
employees--perform budget, accounting, auditing, and financial
management tasks.36 But when OMB surveyed agency financial
reporting systems last year, it found that one-third were more
than a decade old, and only 6 percent were less than 2 years old.
One-third failed to meet Treasury and OMB reporting standards.
Two-fifths did not meet their own in-house reporting
standards--meaning they did not provide the information managers
wanted. And more than half simply lacked the computer power to
process the data being entered.37
We all know the potential costs of lagging systems: They
contributed to the $300 billion savings and loan bailout,38 $47
billion in nontax delinquent debt, $3.6 billion in student loan
defaults, and so on.
Fortunately, the process of updating our management
information systems has begun. In 1990, Congress passed the Chief
Financial Officers (CFO) Act.39 It designated an OMB deputy
director as the federal government's chief financial management
officer. The Office of Federal Financial Management was charged
with establishing financial management policies across the
government and monitoring agency audits. The act also created
chief financial officers in 23 agencies. The OMB deputy chairs a
CFO Council to deal with improving financial management across
government.
But we need to do more--and quickly.
Action: The executive branch will create a coherent financial
management system, clarify responsibilities, and raise the
standards for financial officers.40
Vastly improved financial management is critical to the
overall effort to reform government. First, it will save
taxpayers money. Trillions of dollars flow through the federal
government in any year; even a small improvement in managing
those funds could recover billions. Second, we need accurate and
timely financial information if managers are to have greater
authority to run federal agencies, and decisionmaking moves to
the front lines. Greater responsibility requires greater
accountability, or the best-intentioned reforms will only create
new problems. Finally, better financial management will present a
more accurate picture of the federal budget, enabling the
President, Congress, and agency leaders to make better policy
decisions.
By the end of 1993, OMB and Treasury will sign a formal
agreement to clarify their respective policymaking and
implementation roles, to eliminate regulatory confusion and
overlap for their governmental customers. OMB, working with
Treasury and the CFO Council, will charter a governmentwide
Budget and Financial Information Steering Group to oversee the
stewardship of financial planning and management data for the
federal government. In addition, by Spring, 1994, OMB will work
with the existing Joint Financial Management Improvement Program,
which currently develops and publishes financial system
requirements, and consult with Treasury and the agencies to
define exactly what constitutes an integrated budget and
financial system. At the same time, working with Treasury and the
CFO Council, OMB will develop a long-range strategic plan for
linking broad budget and financial information needs to the work
of agency managers and achieving performance goals.
Finally, we will insist on higher qualifications for chief
financial officers. After all, many federal agencies are larger
than Fortune 500 companies. Americans deserve financial officers
with qualifications that match those in our best companies. By
March 1994, working with accounting and banking groups, the CFO
Council will create a continuing education program for federal
financial managers. At the same time, OMB guidelines will clarify
the precise financial functions the CFO should oversee, trimming
responsibilities like personnel or facilities management that lie
outside the CFO's main mission.
Action: Within 18 months the Federal Accounting Standards
Advisory Board will issue a comprehensive set of credible
accounting standards for the federal government. 41
A recent GAO audit of the Internal Revenue Service unearthed
$500,000 of overpayments to vendors in just 280 transactions and
a video display terminal that cost only $752 listed at $5.6
million on the IRS books. Other GAO efforts found the Army and
Air Force guilty of $200 billion in accounting mistakes, NASA of
$500 million, and widespread recordkeeping problems across
government.42 In 1990, Congress concluded that "current financial
reporting standards of the federal government do not accurately
disclose the current and probable future cost of operating and
investment decisions including the future needs for cash and
other resources." In other words, if a publicly-traded
corporation kept its books the way the federal government does,
the Securities and Exchange Commission would close it down
immediately.
It's not that we have no accounting procedures and
standards. It's that we have too many, and too many of them
conflict. Even worse, some budget and accounting practices
obscure the amount and type of resources managers might leverage
to produce savings and increase productivity.
We must agree on stricter accounting standards for the
federal books. We require corporations to meet strict standards
of financial management before their stocks can be publicly
traded. They must fully disclose their financial condition,
operating results, cash flows, long-term obligations, and
contingent liabilities. Independent certified public accountants
audit their accounts. But we exempt the $1.5 trillion federal
government from comparable standards.
Currently, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board
(FASAB), established in October 1990, develops and recommends
federal accounting standards for OMB, Treasury, and GAO--which
together must approve them. Although we need almost a dozen sets
of standards, only one has been approved using this process in
more than two and a half years. We need to quicken the pace.
The administration will give the Federal Accounting
Standards Advisory Board an 18-month deadline to release and get
approval of all 11 sets of standards. If it fails, the
administration will replace it with a new, independent board with
greater powers.
Action: The Administration should issue an Annual Accountability
Report to the Citizens.43
The ultimate consumer of information about the performance
of federal organizations should be the American public. As
agencies develop output and outcome measures, they should publish
them. The customer service standards required by the President's
directive on improving customer service, outlined in chapter 2,
will be a first step.
A second step will be a new report card on the financial
condition of the federal government. For the last 20 years, our
government has issued "prototype" financial statements, but no
one can assure their accuracy. Put simply, they would never pass
an audit. We believe Americans deserve numbers they can trust. By
1997, we will require the Department of the Treasury to provide
an audited consolidated annual report on federal
finances--including tax expenditures, hidden subsidies, and
hidden contingent
liabilities such as trust funds and government-sponsored
enterprises.44
The Treasury and OMB will develop a simplified version of
the government's financial condition, to be published for public
consumption in 1995. Rather than a detailed, unreadable financial
account, it will be a straightforward description of the money
spent and its effects on achieving goals. We will call this the
Annual Accountability Report to the Citizens.
Information Technology
A few years ago in Massachusetts, a disabled veterans
caseworker who worked to match veterans with available jobs took
some initiative. He decided to abandon his sole reliance on the
state's central office mainframe computer and take his personal
laptop, loaded with readily available software, on the road.
Suddenly, he was able to check a database, make a match, and
print a resume all during his first contact with an employer.
Quickly, he started beating the mainframe. His state
administrator took notice, and managed to squeak through a
request to the Department of Labor's Veterans Employment and
Training Service for grant funding and permission to reprogram
dollars in the fall of 1990. Soon after, 40 Massachusetts
caseworkers were working with laptops. In just one year,
Massachusetts jumped from 47th in the nation for its veterans job
placement rate to 23rd.
Although this story screams success, it is unfortunately the
exception, not the rule. Normally, the Labor Department has to
approve the purchase of something as small as a $30 modem in the
field. Massachusetts got the funding only because it was the end
of the fiscal year and money had to be spent.45
The point stands: When workers have current and flexible
technology to do their jobs, they improve performance. We need to
get more computers off the shelf and into the hands of federal
employees.
Action: The administration will develop a strategic plan for
using information technology throughout the federal government.46
Transforming the federal government is an enormous, complex
undertaking that begins with leadership, not technology. Yet, in
helping to break down organizational boundaries and speed service
delivery, information technology can be a powerful tool for
reinvention. To use that tool, government employees must have a
clear vision of its benefits and a commitment to its use.