Week 1 - Assignment: Assess Personnel Management Approaches in Public Administration and Week 2 - Assignment: Generate Best Practices for Recruitment and Selection

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Public Human Resource Management: Strategies and Practices in the 21st Century

Recruitment and Selection

By: R. Paul Battaglio Jr.

Book Title: Public Human Resource Management: Strategies and Practices in the 21st Century

Chapter Title: "Recruitment and Selection"

Pub. Date: 2015

Access Date: February 1, 2022

Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Ltd

City: 55 City Road

Print ISBN: 9781452218236

Online ISBN: 9781483395784

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483395784.n5

Print pages: 118-149

© 2015 SAGE Publications, Ltd All Rights Reserved.

This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online

version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment and selection

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the chapter, you will be able to do the following:

• Discuss the legal environment of recruitment and selection in the public sector. • Explain the difference between disparate treatment and disparate impact. • Outline the key components of the staffing process in the public sector. • Explain the importance of reliability and validity in selection methods. • Discuss the role of e-recruitment in the future public service workforce. • Evaluate the challenges to recruitment and selection in an era of PHRM reform.

Recruiting and maintaining qualified personnel are important and challenging tasks for public human resource managers in the 21st century. As discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, the legal environment of public human resource management (PHRM) can be complex: Legislation and court rulings necessary for ensuring non- discrimination in the workplace can also make hiring in a timely manner a challenge. Economic downturns, budget cutbacks, and an aging workforce have also strained the capacity of governments to recruit a qualified workforce. In addition, many jurisdictions have embraced decentralized and deregulated elements of reform in their staffing processes to improve efficiency and responsiveness in government. As previously noted, decentralization gives managers more flexibility in recruitment and selection, with the aim of replacing the centralized, rule-bound systems that exemplified traditional PHRM practices with a more agency-specific, manager-centered system.

Diminishing public employee access to traditional dismissal-rights procedures is considered a key feature of deregulation reform efforts. Most notably, deregulation has taken the form of employment-at-will (EAW), which is seen as a means for increasing managerial efficiency by removing the cumbersome grievance and appeals processes characteristic of traditional civil service systems. Efforts to curb employee rights have increased in a number of governments (Hays and Sowa 2006; see also Bowman and West 2007; Condrey and Maranto 2001; Kellough and Nigro 2006). However, these changes have not gone unnoticed by employees, who appear to be less than enthusiastic about them. In fact, reform has had a dramatic impact on the attitudes and motivations of public sector personnel. Given these changes, it becomes apparent that recruiting the future public service will be a challenge for HR directors.

This chapter begins with an assessment of the legal climate of recruitment and selection and introduces the basics of staffing in the public sector—methods of recruitment and selection procedures. The chapter will then turn to efforts at both the federal and state levels to remove traditional merit practices and the impact these reforms have had on recruitment and selection.

The Legal Climate Regulating Selection and Hiring Practices

Navigating the legal environment of employment in the public sector can be difficult, warranting an appreciation of both past and current legislation and case law. The discussion in Chapter 3 highlighted the legal environment of PHRM, including the selection process in the public sector. In contrast to hiring in the private or even nonprofit sector, where managers may simply hire whomever they deem fit, hiring in the government is less straightforward. Public HR managers are more constrained in hiring decisions and practices, and applying for government jobs can be a lengthy process due to the time it takes to authorize a new position. Steps include securing budgetary approval, ensuring an open and fair selection process, and ensuring con-formance to public employment law. When hiring a potential employee, public HR managers must be cognizant not only of general practices but also of the court decisions regarding review and selection of candidates. In particular, a key defining aspect of American public employment is the merit system and its

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emphasis on equal employment opportunity in the selection process.

Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact

Ever since the Civil Rights Era, careful consideration has been given to upholding equal employment opportunity in the selection process. Years of discrimination against minorities and women in the staffing of the public sector led to the passage of sweeping civil rights legislation. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in selection based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or protected activity (42 U.S.C. §2000e et seq.). Title VII specifically deals with what the courts have termed disparate treatment—intentional discrimination or mal-treatment of groups and protected classes. Not all instances of disparate treatment are necessarily illegal. For example, there are bona fide occupational qualifications (e.g., gender, age) that are acceptable in specific circumstances, reviewed below. However, instances of disparate treatment might provoke the following questions:

• Were people of one race, color, religion, sex, or national origin treated differently than people of another category?

• Is there any evidence of bias, such as discriminatory statements? • What is the employer's reason for the difference in treatment? • Does the evidence show that the employer's reason for the difference in treatment is untrue and that

the real reason for the different treatment is race, color, religion, sex, or national origin? (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC] 2010).

The answers to these questions will provide guidance in determining whether disparate treatment has occurred and an EEOC inquiry is warranted. Disparate treatment is suspected when the evidence suggests intentional discrimination on the part of the employer. For example, if a minority job applicant was more qualified than a white candidate but was denied employment because the hiring manager disliked people of that ethnic group, or a minority employee was passed over for a promotion despite being more qualified than a white employee, then that person has suffered from disparate treatment. He or she has been intentionally discriminated against because of race, a protected class under Title VII. Such treatment is illegal.

Toward the end of the 1960s, however, it became apparent that the persistence of discrimination in the workplace was more pervasive than evidence of intentional discrimination would indicate. Recall our discussion in Chapter 4 of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971), which took up the issue of pervasive discrimination in selection practices. At issue in the case was the promotion policy at Duke Power Company in North Carolina, which required a high school diploma for job advancement. Given the practice of school segregation in the South at the time, a disproportionate number of African Americans did not complete high school. The plaintiffs argued that the promotion policy indirectly excluded African Americans from higher-paying jobs since they disproportionately lacked the required education. In the Griggs ruling, the Court said that Title VII prohibited employers from using selection procedures that disproportionately excluded protected classes, where such procedures are not “job-related and consistent with business necessity” (EEOC 2010). Thus, selection procedures that might appear to be neutral (e.g., requiring a high school diploma) are not necessarily legal; unequal or disproportionate consequences of such procedures may have an adverse or disparate impact on protected groups. An unintentional consequence of requiring a high school diploma at Duke Power Company was the disproportionate exclusion of African Americans from promotion. The EEOC has offered some selection procedure questions that might lead one to conclude an employment practice has a disparate impact:

• Does the employer use a particular employment practice that has a disparate impact on individuals of a certain race, color, religion, sex, or national origin? For example, if an employer requires that all applicants pass a physical agility test, does the test disproportionately screen out women? Determining whether a test or other selection procedure has a disparate impact on a particular group ordinarily requires a statistical analysis.

• If the selection procedure has a disparate impact based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, can the employer show that the selection procedure is job-related and consistent with business necessity? An employer can meet this standard by showing that meeting the selection criterion is necessary to perform the job safely and efficiently. The challenged policy or practice must

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evaluate an individual's skills as they relate to the job in question. • If the employer shows that the selection procedure is job related and consistent with business

necessity, can the person challenging the selection procedure demonstrate that a less discriminatory alternative is available? For example, would another test be equally effective in predicting job performance but not disproportionately exclude the protected group? (EEOC 2010)

While not due to a malicious intent to discriminate, disparate impact still results in discrimination and is therefore undesirable and illegal.

Applying Strict Scrutiny

Unfortunately, the Griggs decision did not settle all of the legal issues surrounding selection procedures, and by the 1980s, several cases that challenged Griggs came before the Supreme Court. In Wards Cove v. Antonio (1989) and City of Richmond v.J. A. Croson Co. (1989), the Court contradicted the decision laid out in Griggs, specifying that selection procedures would be subject to strict scrutiny. In WardsCove, the Court looked at alleged discriminatory hiring practices in a salmon can-nery operation where a large proportion of the skilled jobs were held by whites and a large share of the unskilled jobs were held by nonwhites. A lower court sided with the company, but then the US Appeals Court ruled that the plaintiffs had demonstrated statistical evidence of discriminatory hiring practices. However, the Supreme Court overruled the appeals court, citing an error in the statistical methodology used. The Court determined that to establish discrimination, plaintiffs must do more than show the proportion of whites and nonwhites in the relevant jobs. Instead, evidence must include a comparison of the racial composition of the work-force in the jobs at issue to the composition of the qualified and relevant labor pool (Wards Cove 1989). In other words, just because there are more whites than non-whites in a job does not indicate discrimination; it must be demonstrated using established methodologies.

In the Richmond case, the Supreme Court ruled that minority set-aside programs (a form of affirmative action) established by the city of Richmond, Virginia, were unconstitutional. Under the programs, the city showed preference to minority-owned businesses when awarding contracts. The Court ruled that such programs must demonstrate a need for remedial action and that no other, nondiscriminatory remedies are applicable (City of Richmond 1989). These rulings were further refined by the strict scrutiny standard in Adarand Contractors Inc. v. Peña (1995), which entails more rigorous assessment of selection procedures implemented under affir- mation action programs. There must be a “compelling government interest” in rem-edying prior discriminatory practices, and the remedy must be “narrowly tailored” so as not to infringe upon the rights of nonprotected groups.

While several of the cases cited here deal explicitly with affirmative action efforts (see Chapter 4), they also bear on selection procedures in general. Specifically, examinations and other selection procedures should be properly validated for the positions and purposes for which they are used (EEOC 2010). This point was reinforced in the decision in Ricci v. DeStefano (2009)(a case involving the New Haven, Connecticut, fire department's promotion tests. In an effort to avoid legal action, the department disregarded the results of the examination because African Americans who passed the test did not score high enough to warrant promotion. The Supreme Court ruled that concern about potential litigation alone is not sufficient grounds to avoid disparate impact.

The lesson for public HR managers is to know the law applicable to recruitment and selection. The courts give careful consideration to equal employment when considering cases where disparate treatment and/or disparate impact are alleged. Selection procedures must be job related and necessary for the proper function of government.

Recruitment for Public Service

Today's PHRM climate means that employers must use novel methods to successfully recruit employees. Economic downturns, budget cutbacks, demographic changes, and baby boomer retirements have necessitated greater attention to efficient and effective recruitment and selection processes that promote a

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performance-driven and productive public service (Choudhury 2007; Llorens and Battaglio 2010; National Academy of Public Administration 2001; Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton 2007; US Merit Systems Protection Board 2006; Voinovich 2000). The baby boomer generation is nearing retirement age, so a large portion of government staff will soon exit public service, leaving many positions empty. Thus, public HR managers must use as many innovative recruitment techniques as possible to ensure a large pool of high- quality applicants. Reforms such as decentralization and deregulation have been implemented to improve the efficiency of this recruitment and selection.

Move to Decentralized Recruitment

Traditionally, recruitment was carried out by a central personnel office that was the sole authority for determining and meeting workforce needs. For example, a personnel office in a state capital might decide how and where to recruit for a regional office or some other division or location across the state. Decentralization efforts in the 1990s, however, challenged the conventional wisdom of using central personnel offices in recruitment. Critics of a centralized approach cited the additional time, effort, and paperwork needed to overcome the distances between a central office and the locations it managed. These inefficiencies were seen as detrimental to managerial prerogatives to hire the best and brightest. Allowing agency managers at the street level to handle recruitment and selection was deemed more efficient, since those managers were more familiar with the staffing situations in their own divisions or offices and could better evaluate their personnel needs; distant personnel offices overseeing recruitment for thousands of applicants government-wide were ill- equipped to make such assessments. Thus, over the last two decades, agency-level HR directors have been given greater leeway and control over personnel decisions (e.g., selection) and have become the primary points of contact for recruitment efforts.

Recruitment Methods

Recruitment methods have also changed over the last few decades. Traditional methods have included sending recruiters to job fairs or colleges, posting job vacancies in agency hallways, buying advertisements at local media outlets (newspapers or radio), establishing relationships with college career placement offices, and relying on word of mouth (Llorens 2011, 412).

However Llorens (2011) noted that many jurisdictions are increasingly pursuing recruitment strategies that take advantage of advances in information technology—a tool vital for meeting workforce needs as the population becomes increasingly techno-logically savvy. Such e-recruitment efforts involve the use of various online or electronic resources. A number of governments have gone a step further by adopting Web 2.0 technologies and using third-party e-recruitment networks. Web 2.0 technology includes blogs, where users compose personal posts on various interests; wikis (e.g., Wikipedia), where groups compose and edit knowledge on a variety of subjects in a structured manner; social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn), where people create and update personal and professional profiles; social bookmarking applica- tions (e.g., del.icio.us), where people identify websites of interest or “favorites”; and microblogs (e.g., Twitter), where people post brief, public messages (Dixon 2010, 423).

The most common examples of e-recruitment tactics are posting job vacancies on agency or government websites and advertising vacancy information on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. For example, the website USAJOBS.gov is the official source for federal jobs; it is a central warehouse where individuals can access hundreds of federal job listings, as well as apply for those jobs directly online. Many states have similar websites listing available positions in the state government. USAJOBS.gov also has a YouTube channel that features dozens of videos of public employees working in their office environments and talking about what they do and how they serve the public, as well as practical videos on how the federal government's recruiting process works. Another example of e-recruiting is holding virtual job fairs over the Internet; candidates have the opportunity to interact with potential employers without leaving home (Llorens 2011, 413). Skype, which enables free video conference calls over the Internet, allows job candidates to be interviewed online instead of physically visiting an office.

These advances have fundamentally changed recruiting processes, as HR offices can now gather and

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disseminate information much more quickly, as well as reach many more potentially qualified applicants. Moreover, Internet-based selection methods offer significant cost savings.

Nonprofits in Focus: Recruiting Online Volunteers

Recruitment and selection in the information age has proven to be a powerful component of public sector employment (Llorens 2011; Llorens and Kellough 2007). Web-based applications are especially important for NPOs, which often have constrained budgets and can take advantage of the efficiencies the Internet provides. Although many NPOs rely heavily on volunteers, they must be as savvy in their selection of volunteers as of paid employees. NPOs have important objectives and need the right people to achieve them. Indeed, NPO recruiters have been quick to adopt web-based tools to recruit and select the next generation of volunteers (Dhebar and Stokes 2008).

So, how can on-governmental human resource managers utilize web-based applications to benefit their organizations? According to Dhebar and Stokes (2008), NGOs have begun to use the Internet to recruit a new cadre of volunteers who are eager to lend a hand from home as opposed to providing services on-site. Online volunteering allows those who may not have considered volunteering—perhaps due to remote geography or a physical disability— an avenue for contributing to NGO missions. Dhebar and Stokes suggested that careful planning, communicating, monitoring, and giving feedback are the most important components of effective use of online volunteering. Here are several timely online volunteering lessons offered by Dhebar and Stokes (2008):

Lesson 1: Plan with Clarity

• Clearly articulate your strategic basis for pursuing online volunteers. • Define assignments fully before beginning recruitment. • Keep assignments clear and product focused. • Limit assignments in duration and intensity.

Lesson 2: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

• Seek matching services that specialize in volunteers with profiles of interest to your organization. • Determine the screening mechanism at your matching service. If the service does not have an

adequate screening mechanism, be prepared to introduce one yourself. • Phrase the assignment posting to clearly connect the work to its impact on your organization's goals

and programs. • Date assignment requests so potential volunteers know how long the assignment has been posted. • Request that filled assignments be pulled (or marked as “filled”) to reduce the number of late

applications. • Timely communication is key. Be sure to check email daily and keep volunteers up to speed with new

developments. • Be prepared to provide clear and specific feedback in a timely manner, informing volunteers of their

assignments.

Lesson 3: Monitor and Learn from Results

• Monitor volunteers’ performance and provide regular, informal feedback, detailing how well volunteers performed.

• Maintain data on assignment completion and retention rates and review the data periodically. • Prepare a standard evaluation form for all volunteers to respond to when they end their assignments. • Dhebar and Stokes also provide a number of useful electronic resources for facilitating online

volunteering: ◦ http://www.idealist.org—Idealist's volunteer board lists international volunteer opportunities. ◦ http://www.mentornet.net—MentorNet's e-mentoring service connects students

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(undergraduate, graduate, doctoral) and faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers with potential mentors.

◦ http://www.onlinevolunteering.org—UN Volunteers, sponsored by the United Nations, promotes networking between development organizations and volunteers.

◦ http://www.serviceleader.org/vv/—Sponsored by the Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the University of Texas at Austin, ServiceLeader.org provides resources for organizations looking to use technology in volunteer management.

◦ http://www.volunteermatch.org—VolunteerMatch.org encourages civic engagement among the nonprofit, volunteer, and business communities in the United States.

In an NPO setting, employees are often paid below market, and volunteers are not compensated. Therefore, these practices will help to ensure high morale and good performance. These suggestions can easily be applied in a public sector setting as well.

Preemployment Screening Practices

While the potential for e-recruitment efforts is limitless, the extent to which e-recruitment has effectively reached underrepresented groups (e.g., minorities) is still unclear (Cober et al. 2000; Kim and O’Connor 2009; Llorens and Kellough 2007; West and Berman 2001). Consequently, public HR managers, and everyone involved in the recruitment and selection processes, should be mindful of technology's potential to introduce disparate treatment and disparate impact into preemployment and employment. Public HR managers need a thorough understanding of what recruitment and selection practices are acceptable and what practices are illegal. Table 5.1 reviews considerations such as race, creed, and national origin, as well as information that is often solicited by application forms, in terms of what an employer may legally ask an interviewee. For each factor, the table includes examples of both acceptable and illegal questions.

Table 5.1 Acceptable and Illegal Employment-Screening Questions Subject Acceptable Questions Illegal Questions

Name What is your full name? Do you have relevant work experience while using another name?

What part of the world is your name from? Have you ever changed your name? Do you prefer to be called Mr., Ms., or Mrs?

Residence What is your full address?

How long have you lived at your current address? If you have lived in a foreign country, what was your address there? With whom do you reside? Do you rent or own your home? (Exceptions may exist in jurisdictions that have residency requirements.)

Race, creed, national origin

Are you legally able to work in the United States? Whom would you like to be notified in the event of an emergency? What languages do you speak or write fluently (if foreign language fluency is job related)? Are you a member of a trade organization that represents your profession?

What is your race? What political organizations do you belong to? What country does your family come from? Where are you a citizen? What is your previous foreign address? What is your birthplace? What is the name of a relative to be notified in case of emergency? What is your native language? (Exceptions: Information on race and national origin may be solicited on a form kept separate from the application. A bona fide occupational qualification [BFOQ] may apply to national origin, e.g., if a casting agent seeks an Italian to play an Italian character in a movie.)

Sex, marital status

Do you have relevant work experience you gained while using another name? Can you meet the work schedule for this job?

Are you male or female? What is your maiden name? Have you changed your name? What is your sexual orientation? Are you married?

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Are you pregnant? How many children do you have? Do you have child care? Do you plan on having any more children? (Exceptions: A person's sex may be requested on a form kept separate from the application. A BFOQ exception may apply to sex.

Age Can you submit proof of legal age to work upon employment? Are you at least 18 years old?

What is your age? When were you born?

(A BFOQ exception may apply.)

Health and physical characteristics

Is there any reason you would not be able to perform the responsibilities and tasks of this position? Can you perform the essential job functions?

Do you have any disabilities? Have you had certain diseases? What is your height? What is your weight? Have you ever filed a workers’ compensation claim?

Can you perform the job tasks with or without accommodations

Religion Can you meet the work schedule for this job? What is your religious affiliation? What religious holidays do you observe? Of what groups are you a member? (A BFOQ exception may apply for a religious organization, [e.g., religious nonprofit].)

Education

What academic, vocational, or professional institutions have you attended? What were your areas of study? Degrees earned? Diplomas or certificates awarded?

Is the college you attended a historically black college? What was your grade point average or class rank? What were your dates of enrollment (to elicit age)?

Financial status

What are your salary requirements? What is your credit rating? Do you have any garnishments, debts, or other liabilities? What are your assets?

Criminal record

Have you been convicted of a crime related to the duties and responsibilities of this position?

Have you been arrested? Have you been convicted of any crime?

Military service

What was your occupation while in military service? Did you receive training related to this job? In what arm or branch of the military did you serve? When were you discharged? What was your rank?

Have you been dishonorably discharged from the military? What was the type of discharge? What were your years of service (to elicit age)?

Experience

What is your work experience, including names and addresses of previous employers and dates worked? What type of position did you hold? What was your reason for leaving? What is your salary history?

Inquiries that focus on experience not required for the job.

Sources: Adapted from Buford and Lindner 2002, 192–93; Witt and Patton 2004, 50.

Employers may consider residence when the agency has a residency requirement (e.g., some public safety or law enforcement agencies require new hires to live within the city limits). Employers may also ask an applicant to provide information on race, creed, and national origin for purposes of record keeping, especially for EEOC purposes. However, the records with this information must be kept separate from the application process. While the employer can ask whether an applicant can work the job's scheduled hours, the employer may not ask the applicant for information about personal or family arrangements. Age and physical abilities may be considered only insofar as they bear on the applicant's ability to perform essential responsibilities and tasks of the position. Salary requirements are a permissible consideration, but an applicant's financial situation or history is not. Convictions for a crime related to the duties and responsibilities of the position are job related and may be inquired about, but other convictions may not.

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The hiring manager may ask certain job-related questions about military service. Moreover, veterans may be entitled to preferences in appointments and exemptions from reductions in force in accordance with the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944 and Title V of the US Code (US Office of Personnel Management [OPM] 2013). These veterans preferences in hiring may vary from state to state, so HR managers in state or local governments should consult the hiring practices of their jurisdictions.

Needless to say, interviewing and recruiting candidates for jobs in public service can be challenging. Merit and nondiscrimination policies in public employment, while time-consuming, ensure an effective and fair selection process. The primary organizing purpose for setting out such specific parameters for what may and may not be considered in the hiring process is to ensure job-relatedness with respect to the position being advertised. Any inquiries that focus on a characteristic or an experience not relevant to the job are not permissible.

Bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQ) are the exception. If an employer can demonstrate that a particular protected-class characteristic (e.g., being older) is a BFOQ for the job in question, the usually discriminatory practice (e.g., asking an applicant how old he or she is) is legal (Walsh 2007, 184). Many of the factors listed in Table 5.1 may fall under the BFOQ exception. For example, mandatory retirement ages for pilots or bus drivers are not considered to be age discrimination and are permissible for public safety purposes; good eyesight is necessary for these jobs, and eyesight deteriorates with age. An BFOQ may also be involved when an applicant's religious affiliation is reasonably necessary for an organization's function. For example, Catholic institutions or universities may require executive officers (i.e., presidents, chaplains, faculty members) be members of the Catholic Church. Such a religious requirement is generally not considered necessary for custodial or clerical positions, however. It should be noted that considering race and color is never per-missible; there is no BFOQ for these characteristics (Walsh 2007, 184).

Selection Procedures

The goal of recruitment and selection is to fill the ranks of the public service with a qualified workforce—locating candidates and identifying the best person for the job. It is necessary for human resource managers to be apprised of future workforce needs so that they can make sound decisions about current staffing. While Chapter 12 covers the topic of HR strategy in detail, the topic deserves attention here, given its link with selection. Strategic HR planning should determine the appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities required for each position. This discovery phase is crucial to job analysis—the crux of any classification system in the public sector— which is discussed further Chapter 6. A proper job description makes identifying potential candidates a much easier task.

There are several methods for reviewing candidate applications and winnowing down the group to a list of qualified applicants. Determining the appropriate method is crucial not only to select the best person for the job but, as noted above, to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Therefore, a review of the range of potential screening tools, followed by a discussion of how to choose the most appropriate tools, will be useful.

Selection methods generally focus on one of three functional bases: the individual, simulation, and examination. Table 5.2 provides an overview of the three groupings of selection procedures and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

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Table 5.2 Types of Selection Procedures

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Individual-Based Selection Procedures

The most commonly employed selection methods are individual based, involving the evaluation of biographical data and the more formal interview (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology [SIOP] 2012b). Biographical data include a wide assortment of information, including the applicant's skills, leadership abilities, job-related knowledge (such as information technology expertise), and interpersonal skills. Biographical data may also include the candidate's education, job experience, and interests—items typically identified in a résumé or curriculum vitae. Interviews are used to gain greater insight into a candidate beyond what can be learned through biographical data alone. Interviews may take place face-to-face, over the telephone, or via video on the Internet (e.g., Skype, Adobe Connect, Google Hangouts). Job-specific questions should be developed with the goal of assessing candidate expertise. It is during the interview that an HR manager might ask about the factors listed in Table 5.1, as they relate to the job.

Simulation-Based Selection Procedures

Simulation-based selection procedures include assessment centers, work samples, and physical ability tests (SIOP 2012b). Assessment centers are generally designed to assess interpersonal skills, communication skills, planning and organizing skills, and analytical skills. The candidate is put through a series of “real- life” scenarios during which the hiring agency observes and assesses the person's ability to perform job- related tasks. Examples include coordinating a staff meeting, processing paperwork, dealing with a problem employee, or communicating with a client. Employers may either coordinate assessment center activities in- house or contract with a professional consultant. Typically, assessment centers are staffed by raters who are adept at analyzing candidate behaviors as well as skill sets.

Like assessment centers, work-sample exercises assess job-related requirements. However, they focus on more mundane organizational tasks such as writing a memo or entering data on a computer.

For jobs that demand more strenuous activity, physical ability tests may be used to ensure that the applicant is capable of performing the tasks of the job. Often utilized by law enforcement or other public safety organizations, physical tests might assess a candidate's ability to perform activities related to strength, dexterity, or endurance. Police officers and firefighters are often required to complete periodic physical exams so that their ability to carry out the demanding aspects of their jobs can be evaluated.

Examination-Based Selection Procedures

Examination-based selection methods use written tests to assess job-related knowledge, skills, and abilities. They include job knowledge tests, cognitive ability tests, integrity tests, and personality tests (SIOP 2012b). Job knowledge tests, the most straightforward of the examination-based tests, assess candidates’ knowledge in a number of job-related areas such as computer programing or public budgeting. For example, you might be interested in whether or not a budgeting candidate is knowledgeable about specific accounting methods that can be used to put together a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Cognitive ability tests seek to establish a candidate's aptitude for the job based on a number of verbal, mathematical, and analytical questions. Such assessments test higher-order analytical skills and hope to determine a candidate's critical thinking and reading comprehension abilities.

Integrity tests are used to evaluate a candidate's ethical compass. Factors that might be evaluated include an individual's capacity for honesty, dependability, trust-worthiness, reliability, and sociability. Such assessments are particularly useful for law enforcement and public safety agencies that require confidentiality and loyalty in certain jobs; for example, a district attorney must be able to handle sensitive and confidential information that is shared during a criminal case, or a police officer must be willing to report bribery or other wrongdoing.

Similarly, personality tests are employed to assess a person's proclivity toward assertiveness, ability to handle stress, emotional stability, and service orientation. Like the previous methods, personality tests aspire to predict a future candidate's success on the job.

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Using Selection Procedures

Which method is appropriate for the organization may depend on the type of opening (supervisory or nonsupervisory), the number of openings, the potential applicant pool (labor market), and the factors raised in Table 5.2. Generally speaking, when assessing on-the-job skills, simulation-based methods are preferred, while assessing job knowledge requires an examination-based method. Individual-based methods are used to review biographical information (e.g., résumés). The public sector HR managers must consider some additional factors when deciding to implement any of the selection methods.

First, several of the selection methods may be vulnerable to race or gender bias. Recall from our review of the Griggs decision in Chapter 4 that education alone was not an adequate criterion for promotion, especially given the history of discrimination in education against African Americans in the South. Therefore, great care should be taken to remedy any issues that may result from race or gender bias embedded in the selection method. In fact, recent court decisions (e.g., Ricci v. DeStefano 2009)have stressed the importance of using empirical evidence to show that a selection procedure is not biased. In this regard, evaluating the reliability and validity of any method used is important to ensure that it is statistically sound (this will be discussed further in the next section).

Many of the selection methods are labor and time intensive, requiring resources to adequately implement. For financially strapped public sector agencies, cost-effectiveness may be an overriding criterion. Weighing the costs and benefits of the appropriate selection methods is difficult, especially when public HR managers must also take into account constitutional and public values. For example, while one method may be less time-consuming to administer, it may not stand up to legal scrutiny as well as an alternative method would. Finally, other aptitudes besides knowledge, skills, and abilities may also be useful to consider in the selection process. Recent scholarship (Guy and Newman 2004; Guy Newman, and Mastracci 2008) suggests that emotional capacity—caring, negotiating, empathizing, relationship building—may also be an important aspect of job performance. Personality tests, such as those that assess a person's emotional quotient, may be useful when hiring for nursing or social worker positions, for example, which require regular, sensitive contact with other people.

Assessing Reliability and Validity of Selection Procedures

As mentioned in the previous section, HR managers in the public sector need to ensure that a selection method shows validity and reliability.

Instrument reliability is more easily measured than validity, but it is by no means an acceptable substitute for validity. Reliability simply represents the stability and consistency of a selection procedure. For example, we would expect an individual's results on a reliable selection examination to be roughly the same each time that individual takes the test. However, validity—a much more statistically rigorous method—is a more important tool for assessing adverse impact and job-relatedness.

Validity is concerned with inferences or judgments that may be built into the instrument and its ability to predict performance on the job (OPM 2012a). Demonstrating validity is not only important for selecting qualified applicants but also for maintaining a selection process that protects against EEO liability (Shafritz et al. 2001).

An assertation that a selection instrument is valid must be based on solid empirical evidence. This point is made clear by the EEOC:

Under no circumstances will the general reputation of a test or other selection procedures, its author or its publisher, or casual reports of its validity be accepted in lieu of evidence of validity. Specifically ruled out are: assumptions of validity based on a procedure's name or descriptive labels; all forms of promotional literature; data bearing on the frequency of a procedure's usage; testimonial statements and credentials of sellers, users, or consultants; and other non-empirical or anecdotal accounts of selection practices or selection outcomes. (Biddle Consulting Group 2012)

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Evidence for the validity of selection procedures can come in several forms. Content validity demonstrates that a particular selection method (e.g., interview, biographical data such as education) measures the knowledge or skills that are critical to performance in a particular job.

Empirical validation (or criterion-related validity) goes a step further, demonstrating that selection tools are statistically significant predictors of performance on the job. For example, we would be interested in validating whether or not the selection metrics used to hire a new employee are predictive of their scores on annual performance evaluations. (If an applicant is successful in passing a test and then is hired, is she also successful in her performance on the job? If not, then the test may not be testing the right factors or criteria.) Such predictive validity of the selection procedure is desirable given its reliance on statistical analysis (Shafritz et al. 2001). Comparing the predictive power of one instrument to that of another leads to a higher predictive validity for a selection procedure (OPM 2012a). In other words, trial and error is a positive approach to building a more effective selection process.

Many jurisdictions have moved away from written tests as a method of selection. Cases concerning examinations, such as Ricci and the Luevano consent decree, have heightened fears that improperly used written tests will have adverse impact. The Luevano decree, which resolved a class-action suit that was filed in 1979, is now known as Angel G. Luevano, et al., v. Janice R. Lachance, Director, Office of PersonnelManagement, et al. The plaintiffs alleged that the Professional and Administrative Career Exam (PACE), which the government had been using to fill about 120 occupations at the GS-5 and GS-7 levels, had an adverse impact on the employment of African Americans and Hispanics for reasons that were not job related (OPM 2012b). To avoid the courts, the federal government established a consent decree eliminating the PACE exam and promoting programs that would enhance diversity among underrepresented groups. As a result, content validity—measuring whether the content used in the selection procedure aligns with the content necessary for the doing the job—is a justifiable criterion for choosing a selection measure (SIOP 2012a). Examining a selection procedure's content validity requires demonstrating the relationship between the selection procedure and job-related work behaviors, critical tasks, requirements, or outcomes. When public sector HR selection practices emphasize knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), content validation is important evidentiary support for the instrument being employed.

Showing that a particular selection procedure assesses critical job-related characteristics and predicts performance in that job is crucial to the validation process (Goldstein Zedeck, and Schneider 1993; SIOP 2012a). For public HR managers, sound practice is to measure both the reliability and validity of selection procedures.

Employee Recruitment and Selection in an Era of PHRM Reform

Recall from our discussion in Chapter 1 that decentralization of PHRM is a significant component of recent reform efforts (Coggburn 2000; Kettl 2000; Thompson 2001). In a move to enhance responsiveness and efficiency, decentralization efforts have transferred the responsibility for selection and recruitment functions within public agencies to frontline managers. The goal is to replace the perceived intracta-bility of centralized, rule-bound systems and traditional PHRM practices with more agency-specific, manager-centered systems. During the 1990s, reforms in selection and recruitment spearheaded by the Clinton administration's efforts under the National Performance Review (NPR) led to the elimination of the Federal PersonnelManual and enactment of the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act in 1994 (Naff and Newman 2004). The personnel manual stipulated a lengthy centralized approach to selection that focused on following strict hiring guidelines. The Clinton administration's reform efforts provided agency managers with greater leeway in personnel decisions. The 1994 act provided federal agencies with greater authority not only over hiring but also over reductions in force. Advances in technology (e.g., e-recruitment) have also streamlined the recruitment and selection process over the last two decades.

Initiatives at the federal level have continued the impetus for deregulation and decentralization in recruitment and selection processes, especially by means of online tools. As noted earlier, federal agencies leverage USAJOBS to recruit a qualified applicant pool. Further, legislative exemption from Title V of the US Code has provided many agencies the ability to develop more flexible systems (Woodard 2005, 113). Instead of having to use the traditional methods of outlined in the Federal Personnel Manual, federal agencies may employ

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a variety of e-recruitment mechanisms specifically suited to their hiring needs. For example, the US Peace Corps has moved away from sending representatives to job fairs to leveraging social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), thereby reaching a new generation of candidates (Llorens 2011).

State governments have also decentralized decision making, investing it in agencies (Selden Ingraham, and Jacobson 2001). For example, many states have restructured their central personnel offices into consulting organizations that then aid agencies in their personnel decisions. The state of South Carolina did away with its central personnel office as part of a larger government reform effort in 1993 in order to afford state agencies greater authority over hiring, transfers, pay, and discipline. The former central personnel office was streamlined and remade as a consulting body for agency HR managers (Hays Byrd, and Wilkins 2006).

Hou et al. (2000) asserted that decentralization at the state level has increased the support, planning, and supervision responsibilities required of central state personnel offices due to the greater need for coordination among subdivisions. Thus, while decentralization may be more efficient at the agency level, Hou's research suggests that there are other consequences and that a better balance between centralization and decentralization may need to be found (see Selden and Wooters 2011).

In fact, over the last decade, decentralization has not proven an unmitigated success, and governments have had to find other solutions. Shared services, a blending of both centralized and decentralized approaches to PHRM, may be a viable alternative. Governments electing a shared service approach reap both the efficiencies of centralized rule making and the flexibility of agency-tailored recruitment and selection. For example, the state of Washington embarked on a shared services initiative in 2009 that established a human resource management system (HRMS) that allows employees to access personal data and request leave time (State of Washington, Department of Human Resources 2011).

Privatization has also influenced public sector recruitment and selection. At the federal level, the Competitive Sourcing Initiative (CSI), implemented in 2001 under the administration of George W. Bush, has encouraged greater reliance on the private sector. USAJOBS is one example of the federal government's outsourcing the operation and management of its workforce recruitment system to a private firm (Llorens and Kellough 2007; Shafritz Russell, and Borick 2007, 423). A variety of privatization initiatives at the state level have also influenced recruitment and selection functions. The firm Convergys, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, operates a number of personnel functions that have been awarded to the firm by the states of Florida and Texas (see Battaglio and Condrey 2006; Coggburn 2007; Condrey and Battaglio 2007). In the case of Florida, Convergys was awarded a $350 million, nine-year contract to administer many transaction and process functions related to HR, benefits, payroll, and staffing (Battaglio and Condrey 2006, 31–32). In Texas, Convergys was awarded an $85 million, five-year contract with the state Health and Human Service Commission to provide many HR-related functions such as performance management, recruitment and selection, benefits, payroll, and compensation and classification administration (Coggburn 2007, 319).

Like decentralization, privatization has not been the panacea proponents touted it as. In the case of Florida, HR privatization initiatives proved more costly and time-consuming than initially anticipated. Operational problems included employees failing to receive pay and being dropped from their health insurance. For public HR managers, the lesson is clear: before pursing privatization of personnel functions, the costs and benefits must be weighed very carefully.

Decentralization and privatization efforts, as well as other reforms such as EAW, have the potential to exacerbate recruitment and retention problems (Battaglio 2010; Battaglio and Condrey 2009; Coggburn et al. 2010; Condrey and Battaglio 2007). In an EAW setting, job security is no longer a viable recruitment incentive for public sector employment. Consequently, HR directors and public managers will need to learn novel methods for marketing public sector employment, as well as motivating and retaining employees. The federal government, for example, has authorized agencies to employ student loan repayment incentives to recruit younger employees carrying ever-increasing levels of educational debt (OPM 2008). Web 2.0 technologies will also be vital for reaching the next generation of public service employees.

Decentralization has caused friction because of its failure to provide uniform guidelines. This is especially true for smaller jurisdictions that lack the resources to embed HR functions within each agency. Shared service

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models that provide both uniformity and flexibility in the delivery of HR functions may be a viable alternative to decentralization alone. Privatization is clearly troublesome for maintaining morale, as the process entails replacing public employees with private contractors. (The issue of motivation in the public service is discussed at length in Chapter 8.) Declassification methods such as salary broadbanding have also been used as recruitment strategies; broad pay scales that allow hiring managers to offer higher starting salaries to potential employees are an attractive tool. Unfortunately, broad-banding has the potential to create pay inequities, because new employees may make more than senior staff. Performance-based pay, which promises bonuses to employees as a reward for productive behavior, has also been used as a recruitment strategy. Such bonus mechanisms, however, have often been underfunded and deficient (as discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6), thus thwarting the recruitment strategies behind them.

Conclusion

In the face of budget shortfalls and economic uncertainty, many governments have opted to reform their HR functions in a bid to make their jurisdictions leaner. Therefore, public HR directors must be adept at selecting the recruitment and selection procedures that garner the largest pool of qualified applicants for the respective job. HR directors face the challenge of balancing efficiency, cost, and fairness in their recruiting tactics. For example, some selection procedures may be more cost-effective but also carry a risk of race bias. The pursuit of firm legal footing is no small task, and HR managers need access to the right tools for recruitment and selection as well as a knowledge of the legal framework for implementing such procedures.

The Ricci v. DeStefano (2009)(case raises a number of questions for both public and private sector employers to consider. According to Peffer (2009), employers in both sectors will be hard-pressed to prevail in Title VII disparate treatment lawsuits. Employers will need to demonstrate solid evidentiary support for any decision to remedy past discrimination or ameliorate disparate impact. Peffer concluded that the Supreme Court unfortunately provides little guidance to assist employers in assembling such evidence. Even when employers are able to demonstrate job-relatedness or business necessity for selection practices, plaintiffs may prevail if they are able to provide evidence of viable alternatives that would have diminished the impact on minorities (408). According to Peffer, the Ricci decision poses a dilemma for employers:

When employers reject employment practices or procedures such as examinations as a result of reasonable doubts about their reliability (disparate impact), they can be held to have engaged in discrimination because of race (disparate treatment). Again, the employer is left with little direction in how to overcome this conundrum. (409)

The lesson for employers is that they must continually review and validate their selection procedures to ensure that they are fair and job related. Moreover, employers should make every effort to explore all alternatives to identify those that have the least impact on minority and other protected-class applicants.

In addition, given the expanded possibilities in the information age, public HR managers will be tasked with assessing which of the new recruitment mechanisms are most optimal for their particular organizations. Innovative IT recruitment methods tapping Web 2.0 technologies and third-party e-recruitment may be viable alternatives for HR directors who want to enhance their abilities to garner a larger pools of qualified applicants in a cost-effective manner.

According to Selden and Wooters (2011), a shared services model of PHRM creates a centralized service function that treats employees and agency-based HRM professionals as internal customers. This approach is designed to enable a government to better leverage existing resources; reduce duplication of HRM activities across state agencies; and provide more consistent, higher-quality services to internal customers by concentrating existing resources and streamlining processes.

References

Adarand Contractors Inc. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200 (1995). Battaglio R. Paul Jr. 2010. “Public Service Reform and Motivation: Evidence from an Employment At-Will

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Environment.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 30: 341–63. Battaglio R. Paul Jr., and Condrey Stephen E.. 2006. “Civil Service Reform: Examining State and Local Government Cases.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 26: 118–38. Battaglio R. Paul Jr., and Condrey Stephen E.. 2009. “Reforming Public Management: Analyzing the Impact of Public Service Reform on Organizational and Managerial Trust.” Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory 19: 689–707. Biddle Consulting Group. 2012. Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures. Section 5: General standards for validity studies. http://uniformguidelines.com/uniformguidelines.html#20. Bowman, James S., and West Jonathan P. eds. 2007. American Public Service: Radical Reform and the Merit System. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis. Buford James A. Jr., and Lindner James R.. 2002. Human Resource Management in Local Government: Concepts and Applications for HRM Students and Practitioners. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western. Choudhury Enamul H. 2007. “Workforce Planning in Small Local Governments.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 27: 264–80. City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989). Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, as Amended through 1991, 42 U.S.C. §2000e et seq. (2009). Cober Richard T., Brown Douglas J., Blumental Alana J., Doverspike Dennis, and Levy Paul E.. 2000. “The Quest for the Qualified Job Surfer: It's Time the Public Sector Catches the Wave.” Public Personnel Management 29: 479–95. Coggburn Jerrell D. 2000. “Is Deregulation the Answer for Public Personnel Management? Revisiting a Familiar Question: Introduction.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 20: 5–8. Coggburn Jerrell D. 2007. “Outsourcing Human Resources: The Case of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 27: 315–35. Coggburn Jerrell D., Battaglio R. Paul Jr., Bowman James S., Condrey Stephen E., Goodman Doug, and West Jonathan P.. 2010. “State Government Human Resource Professionals’ Commitment to Employment at Will.” American Review of Public Administration 40: 189–208. Condrey Stephen E., and Battaglio R. Paul Jr. 2007. “A Return to Spoils? Revisiting Radical Civil Service Reform in the United States.” Public Administration Review 67: 424–36. Condrey, Stephen E., and Maranto Robert eds. 2001. Radical Reform of the Civil Service. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001. Dhebar Beatrice Bezmalinovic, and Stokes Benjamin. 2008 “A Nonprofit Manager's Guide to Online Volunteering.” Nonprofit Management & Leadership 18: 497–506. Dixon Brian E. 2010. “Towards E-Government 2.0: An Assessment of Where E-Government 2.0 Is and Where It Is Headed.” Public Administration & Management 15: 418–54. Goldstein Irwin L., Zedeck Sheldon, and Schneider Benjamin. 1993. “An Exploration of the Job Analysis- Content Validity Process.” In Personnel Selection in Organizations, edited by Schmitt Neal, and Borman. Walter C. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 401 U.S. 424 (1971). Guy Mary E., and Newman Meredith A.. 2004. “Women's Jobs, Men's Jobs: Sex Segregation and Emotional Labor.” Public Administration Review 64: 289–98. Guy Mary E., Newman Meredith A., and Mastracci Sharon H.. 2008. Emotional Labor: Putting the Service in Public Service. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Hays Steven W., Byrd Chris, and Wilkins Samuel L.. 2006. “South Carolina's Human Resource Management System: The Model for States with Decentralized Personnel Structures.” In Civil Service Reform in the States: Personnel Policy and Politics at the Subnational Level, edited by Kellough J. Edward, and Nigro Lloyd G., 171–202. Albany: SUNY Press. Hays Steven W., and Sowa Jessica E.. 2006. “A Broader Look at the ‘Accountability’ Movement: Some Grim Realities in State Civil Service Systems.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 26: 102–17. Hou Yilin, Ingraham Patricia, Bretschneider Stuart, and Selden Sally Coleman. 2000. “Decentralization of Human Resource Management: Driving Forces and Implications.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 20: 9–22. Kellough, J. Edward, and Nigro Lloyd G. eds. 2006. Civil Service Reform in the States: Personnel Policy and Politics at the Subnational Level. Albany: SUNY Press. Kettl Donald F. 2000. The Global Public Management Revolution: A Report on the Transformation of Governance. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Kim Soonhee, and O'Connor Jennifer G.. 2009. “Assessing Electronic Recruitment Implementation in State

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Governments: Issues and Challenges.” Public Personnel Management 38: 47–66. Llorens Jared J. 2011. “A Model of Public Sector E-Recruitment Adoption in a Time of Hyper Technological Change.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 31: 410–23. Llorens Jared J., and Battaglio R. Paul Jr. 2010. “Human Resources Management in a Changing World: Reassessing Public Human Resources Management Education.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 30: 112–32. Llorens Jared J., and Kellough J. Edward. 2007. “A Revolution in Public Personnel Administration: The Growth of Web-Based Recruitment and Selection Processes in the Federal Service.” Public Personnel Management 36: 207–22. Mesch Debra J., Perry James L., and Wise Lois R.. 1995. “Bureaucratic and Strategic Human Resource Management: An Empirical Comparison in the Federal Government.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 5: 385–402. Naff Katherine C., and Newman Meredith A.. 2004. “Symposium: Federal Civil Service Reform; Another Legacy of 9/11?” Review of Public Personnel Administration 24: 191–201. National Academy of Public Administration. 2001. The Quest for Talent: Recruitment Strategies for Federal Agencies. Washington, DC: National Academy of Public Administration. New York State Department of Civil Service (NYDCS). 1998. Quality Standards/Innovative Applications: Award-Winning Performance from New York State's New Civil Service. Albany: State of New York, Department of Civil Service. Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton. 2007. “Federal Human Capital: The Perfect Storm; A Survey of Chief Human Capital Officers.” http://ourpublicservice.org/OPS/publications/ viewcontentdetails.php?id=119. Peffer Shelly L. 2009. “Title VII and Disparate-Treatment Discrimination versus Disparate-Impact Discrimination: The Supreme Court's Decision in Ricci v. DeStefano.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 29: 402–10. Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009). Riccucci Norma M. 2006. “Civil Service Reform in New York: A Quiet Revolution.” In Civil Service Reform in the States: Personnel Policy and Politics at the Subnational Level, edited by Kellough J. Edward, and Nigro Lloyd G., 303–14. Albany: SUNY Press. Selden Sally Coleman, Ingraham Patricia Wallace, and Jacobson Willow. 2001. “Human Resource Practices in State Government: Findings from a National Survey.” Public Administration Review 61: 598–607. Selden Sally Coleman, and Wooters Robert. 2011. “Structures in Public Human Resource Management: Shared Services in State Government.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 31: 349–68. Shafritz Jay M., Rosenbloom David H., Riccucci Norma A., Naff Katherine C., and Hyde Al C.. 2001. Personnel Management in Government: Politics and Process. 5th ed. New York: Marcel Dekker. Shafritz Jay M., Russell E. W., and Borick Christopher P.. 2007. Introducing Public Administration. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman. Sinnott George C. 1998. “Civil Service—Bully, Bully.” Albany: New York State Department of Civil Service. http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/formans/CivilServiceBully.htm. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). 2012a. Sources of Validity Evidence. http://www.siop.org/_Principles/pages13to26.pdf. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). 2012b. “Types of Employment Tests.” http://www.siop.org/workplace/employment%20testing/testtypes.aspx. State of Washington, Department of Human Resources, HR Leadership & Shared Services. 2011. “HR Shared Services Update: 2/2/2011.” http://www.dop.wa.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Strategic%20HR/ SharedServices/SharedServicesUpdate.pdf. Thompson Frank, and Malbin Michael J.. 1999. “Reforming Personnel Systems in New York State: Interview with George C. Sinnott.” Rockefeller Institute Bulletin, New York. http://www.cs.state.ny.us/pio/ rockefellerbulletin.htm (no longer online). Thompson James R. 2001. “The Civil Service under Clinton: The Institutional Consequences of Disaggregation.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 21: 87–113. US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). 2010. “EEOC Fact Sheet.” http://www.eeoc.gov/ policy/docs/factemployment_procedures.html. US Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). 2006. Designing an Effective Pay for Performance Compensation System. http://www.mspb.gov/netsearch/ viewdocs.aspx?docnumber=224104&version=224323.

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US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 2008. “Pay & Leave: Student Loan Repayment.” http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/student-loan-repayment/. US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 2012a. “Attracting the Best Talent: Assessment; Assessment Strategy Design.” http://www.opm.gov/hr/employ/products/assessments/considerations.asp. US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 2012b. “Outstanding Scholar and Outstanding Bilingual/ Bicultural Programs (Luevano Consent Decree).” http://www.opm.gov/luevano_archive/luevano-archive.asp. US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 2013. “Veterans Services: Vet Guide.” http://www.opm.gov/ policy-data-oversight/veterans-services/vet-guide/#2/. Voinovich George V. 2000. Report to the President: The Crisis in Human Capital. Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia, Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate. Vonnegut Michi. 1999. “New York State's New Civil Service.” Paper prepared for nomination for the Eugene H. Rooney, Jr. Innovative State Human Resource Management Award, National Association of State Personnel Executives, Lexington, K Y. Walsh David J. 2007. Employment Law for Human Resource Practice. 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: Thomson West. Walters Jonathan. 2002. Life after Civil Service Reform: The Texas, Georgia, and Florida Experiences. Armonk, NY: IBM Endowment for the Business of Government. Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio, 490 U.S. 642 (1989). West Jonathan P., and Berman Evan. 2001. “From Traditional to Virtual HR: Is the Transition Occurring in Local Government?” Review of Public Personnel Administration 21: 38–64. Witt Stephanie L., and Patton W. David. 2004. “Recruiting for a High-Performance Workforce.” In Human Resource Management in Local Government: An Essential Guide, edited by Freyss Siegrun Fox, 33–58. Washington, DC: International City/Council Management Association. Woodard Colleen A. 2005. “Merit by Any Other Name—Reframing the Civil Service First Principle.” Public Administration Review 65: 109–16.

Additional Resources

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) http://www.opm.gov Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP) http://www.siop.org US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) http://www.eeoc.gov USAJobs http://www.usajobs.gov

: Decentralization, Declassification, and Efficiency: Recruitment and Selection Reform in the State of New York Civil Service

In September of 1995, New York governor George Pataki set out to improve the state's civil service system, widely deemed antiquated, by implementing decentralization and declassification methods for streamlining the lengthy HR process. To do so, he instructed Civil Service Commissioner George Sinnott to head up a task force, which included directors of state operations and representatives from the Governor's Office of Employee Relations and Budget and sought input from the public employee unions, to carry out a comprehensive overview of New York's civil service system (Sinnott 1998). The joint labor-management task force's efforts produced New York's New Civil Service reform initiative, the first successful personnel reform in the state in over a century.

Past reform efforts had failed as a result of insurmountable political, legal, organizational, and procedural obstacles (Vonnegut 1999). For over 100 years, no significant changes had been made to the state civil service laws. Attempts at reform were often rebuffed by political opponents and public employee labor unions. One of the main reasons these efforts did not succeed was that reformers failed to consider the interests of the 70-plus state agencies, nine employee labor organizations, the legislature, the budget, and the courts. Emphasizing incremental changes to administrative reform efforts instead of more drastic change, the New Civil Service succeeded where previous efforts failed by championing a collaborative approach that elicited the feedback and cooperation of all of the stakeholders in the system— the unions, agency-level HR reps, and members of the legislature.

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From the beginning of the civil service reform initiative, the administration worked extensively with the employee unions. Commissioner Sinnott's close involvement of the unions in the process gave them a “seat at the negotiating table,” and successfully allayed any misgivings labor might have had. This approach enabled the state of New York to move forward with the New Civil Service (Thompson and Malbin 1999). The collaborative process was reinforced by establishing the reform policy as part of sunset legislation; in other words, if after the reform was implemented there was evidence of abuse, the legislation could be terminated.

The labor-management partnership successfully lobbied a joint legislative committee for passage of the reform package. The key elements of the New Civil Service reform initiative were legislation allowing for the transfer of employees from one agency to another, improvements to testing and test-reporting procedures, more detailed applicant lists that gave managers more flexibility, a new public management internship program, a reduction in and consolidation of the number of state position titles, IT improvements, and more open communication between state and local agencies regarding personnel changes (New York Department of Civil Service [NYDCS] 1998; Riccucci 2006; Vonnegut 1999; Walters 2002). These initiatives dramatically shifted a civil service system that had been rooted in tradition and mired in gridlock.

On March 29, 1996, the proposals agreed upon by the joint labor-management task force were adopted by the state legislature. The reform legislation authorized the Department of Civil Service (DCS) to transfer employees between agencies when budget shortfalls necessitated reductions in force. Instead of dismissing public employees outright, the DCS could institute a strict hiring freeze but then provisionally transfer the affected employees to open positions within the civil service. Additionally, early retirement incentives with multiple windows were implemented, giving senior employees the option to retire early instead of being laid off. These measures reduced the state workforce by 6,000 positions in fiscal year 1996, with the number of involuntary separations limited to just 235 employees. These numbers were especially significant when compared with the layoffs that had occurred under the previous retirement system (NYDCS 1998; Sinnott 1998). New York's reforms have been recognized nationally as a model for state HR management (Riccucci 2006); such publicity can be a powerful recruitment tool.

With respect to recruitment and selection, the New Civil Service legislation drastically changed the status quo. Improved testing methods allowing for more frequent testing provided employees with the opportunity to compete for permanent status, a right that was required by law. Relying entirely on internal resources, the DCS also developed and administered test batteries using rigorous state-of-the-art selection methodologies. Updated recruitment and selection procedures took advantage of technology to benefit both employees and managers by providing them with a more timely and efficient method of promotion and movement from provisional to permanent status (NYDCS 1998; Sinnott 1998). Following implementation of reforms, managers were much better able to plan for agency recruitment needs, and state employees were able to optimize their chances for promotion.

Provisional employees—employees holding a nine-month appointment while awaiting testing—were not considered to be in permanent status and thus were unable to receive the same benefits as permanent employees; however, they had the right to pursue and attain permanent status and could do so by passing the state civil service examination. Under the previous program, the selection system was inadequately monitored, and there was a backlog of over 600 open positions for which no promotion tests had been scheduled. This led to many competent provisional employees being unable to take the state exam and effectively denied the right to gain permanent civil service status. Moreover, as they languished in provisional status, questionable provisional appointments were allowed to circumvent the law. An advantage of promoting from within is that provisional employees already have the experience of working in the state agency, so they form an ideal and ready talent pool from which to hire; they can transition more smoothly to permanent status than someone who is new to the agency. By December 1998, two years after passage of the reform legislation, of the 140,672 Competitive Class employees in state service, only 0.7 percent remained in provisional status—a 79 percent reduction from previous years (NYDCS 1998; Riccucci 2006; Sinnott 1998).

Another technological improvement is a civil service website that gives candidates prompt results from their exams. The new website provides applicants with “employee test profiles,” giving candidates a summary of their exam performance for each subject area, and provides state offices with up-to-date lists of candidates eligible for appointment. These improvements to recruitment and selection technologies help the DCS

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1.

2.

3.

improve efficiency and to hire and promote based on merit, one of the fundamental principles and best practices of civil service (NYDCS 1998; Sinnott 1998).

Civil service rules in the state of New York apply not only to state agencies but also to local counties and municipalities, which are frequently audited by the state DCS to ensure compliance. For example, Onondaga County (Syracuse), New York, has reported that the New Civil Service's comprehensive reforms in testing and scoring and technological improvements have streamlined the hiring process, facilitating more timely and predictable notice to potential new hires about the status of their applications (Battaglio and Condrey 2006). The streamlined process has eliminated many of the provisional hires not only at the state level but also at the local level. A more efficient testing process has allowed exam results to be posted in as few as 60 days; employees used to wait for results for nine months. Moreover, efficient testing has positively impacted recruitment at the local level. In many cases, competency exams were held only on certain scheduled dates—and sometimes only once a year. Local HR directors are now able to administer these tests on demand and provide potential employees with more timely results. This development has been particularly helpful for local authorities in the competitive recruitment market for information technology jobs, as qualified candidates may accept jobs offers from the private sector rather than wait for a slow-moving government decision.

Additionally, the use of broadbanding with regard to test scores has given local authorities a great deal of flexibility. With broadbanding, hiring managers can select from applicants who have earned a wide range of scores rather than only from applicants who have earned scores within a narrow range, and managers can consider factors besides test scores.

Local authorities have also seen a significant impact from improved outreach by the state civil service system. Commissioner Sinnott appointed outreach units at the state level to serve as liaisons to local offices, supplying the local offices with training and other needs. This outreach has increased communication between local and state authorities.

Reform efforts in New York have brought this state's civil service into parity with other states’ civil service systems. This is a considerable achievement given the long history of impediments to reform in the state (Riccucci 2006). This case stands in stark contrast to the antimerit values emphasized in more radical reform efforts, such as those in the states of Georgia and Florida. Additionally, scholarship (Mesch Perry, and Wise 1995) suggests that local HR managers in New York have appreciated the paring down of excessive rules and regulations that has accompanied implementation of the New Civil Service. This has enabled local managers to function more efficiently and to focus on achieving their organizational mission within a competitive environment.

Since passage of the reform, the state still experiences fragmentation in its ability to carry out HR functions, although not nearly to the extent as under the prior system. Overall, the reforms have been viewed positively by both those within the New York civil service system (employees, unions, politicians) and national recognition bodies (e.g., the Society for Human Resource Management and the American Society for Public Administration) (Riccucci 2006).

For HR managers involved in reform, communicating with affected stake-holders is key. Keeping employees, politicians, and the public informed is critical to avoiding costly obstacles (e.g., protests, work stoppages) to positive reforms.

Discussion Questions

Why was the state of New York able to pass comprehensive legislation in 1996 but unable to do so over the previous 100 years? With regard to recruitment and selection, what changes were made? What was the impact of these changes? Do you believe these changes improved recruitment and selection for the state? What changes might you have recommended? Whom might you have involved or excluded from the reform discussion? Is it better to compromise in order to achieve reform or better to maintain purity of vision? Did the players in the New York reforms sacrifice efficiency in order to appeal to a broader

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audience? What role, if any, did state leaders have in passage of the civil service reform legislation? Regarding the characteristics of reform discussed at the outset of the text (see Table 1.1), how might you characterize the reforms discussed in the state of New York? Did the New York reforms go far enough? Are there any drawbacks to increased managerial flexibility at the agency level?

Exercise: Using Web 2.0 Technology in the Recruitment and Selection Process

Assume you are a newly hired HR manager in the city of Washitonia. The city manager has asked you to review different approaches to implementing an updated recruitment and selection tool that taps online efficiencies. Having recently earned your master's of public administration (MPA), you are eager to approach the task based on your knowledge of PHRM. With that in mind, what might an updated candidate recruitment and selection process look like? What technologies might be involved in such an approach? In your opinion, are Web 2.0 technologies a good means of recruiting qualified candidates? Why or why not?

http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483395784.n5

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