Lloyd G. Nigro

Pay for Performance in Georgia State Government: Employee Perspectives on GeorgiaGain After 5 Years

In the mid-1990s, the State of Georgia launched a major reform of its personnel system. One part of the reform included a new approach to compensation called GeorgiaGain. With pay-for-performance as its centerpiece, GeorgiaGain was a comprehensive effort to modernize many of the state’s human resources management (HRM) practices. Its goals included the establishment of a state-of-the-art performance management system, implementing performance measurement and evaluation procedures that supervisors and subordinates alike trusted, setting up a competitive compensation plan, and streamlining the state’s position description and classification system. This article reports on the findings of major survey of state employees conducted early in 2000 designed to explore employees’ perceptions of the impact in areas such as job satisfaction, trust and confidence in the state’s HRM system, and the effects of pay-for-performance. Overall, employees were highly critical of the reform and believed that it had not produced the intended outcomes in most areas.

Civil Service Reform in Georgia Going to the Edge

In recent years there has been a growing interest m civil service reform designed to decentralize and deregulate the public personnel management process in an effort to overcome the perceived inflexibility, inefficiency, and lack of responsiveness of traditional civil service structures. In 1996, the state of Georgia enacted a comprehensive reform of its civil service system that in many ways went beyond the kinds of changes that had taken place in other states The state removed merit system protections from all employees hired after July 1, 1996 and placed authority for most personnel management decisions in line agencies and departments, leaving the states central personnel agency to serve primarily as a consultant to those organizations rather than as a regulator of the system This article reports the findings of a statewide survey of supervisory and nonsupervisory employees working within the Georgia civil service The findings indicate that more than three years after initial implementation ofthe reform employees are quite pessimistic about the effects of the reform on personnel management processes in state agencies

Between Citizen and Administrator: Administrative Ethics and PAR

For American public administration, the effort to legitimate administrative discretion and convincingly to integrate the exercise of that political power with democratic institutions and processes has been ongoing and closely associated with administrative ethics. In other words, the rise of the American administrative state has been accompanied by efforts to identify and to formulate rules for the wise and proper use of administrative discretion. These efforts have also prompted considerable attention to questions relating to the substance of the public administrators duties, obligations, and responsibilities. Likewise, the limitations of institutional, organizational, and legal controls have sparked efforts to identify the character traits or virtues that public administrators should themselves possess if they are to be trusted to use public authority wisely and in the public interest.

Max Weber and US public administration: the administrator as neutral servant

Compares and contrasts the writings of Max Weber and the US literature on public administration on the question of the appropriate role of the administrator in the political process. Examines the relevance of Weber’s analysis to the US experience. Concludes that Weber provides pertinent cautionary advice concerning the endorsement of an activist role for the administrator in political and policy processes.

CSRA Performance Appraisals and Merit Pay: Growing Uncertainty in the Federal Work Force

Anecdote: An SES members own plan included an objective to ensure there was improved performance in a major processing office by the end of the year. A more specific version of that objective was put into the plan of the subordinate who headed that dffice. The targeted reduction in processing errors was met. Satisfied, the individuals involved decided it was not necessary to repeat some version of that objective the next two consecutive years. You guessed it. The error rate is going right back

Civil Service Reform Under George W. Bush: Ideology, Politics, and Public Personnel Administration

This article focuses on the George W. Bush administration’s failed effort to impose radical personnel reforms on the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. We use an analytical framework suggesting three overlapping primary reasons for reform: (a) technical concerns, (b) ideological beliefs, and (c) a desire by the executive to enhance political control. The results of our analysis show that, whereas motivations for the Bush reforms were mixed, changes advocated by the administration were largely politically and ideologically motivated. As a result, they met stiff resistance from stakeholders, particularly federal employee unions and their supporters in Congress, and the reforms were ultimately scuttled. One lesson from this experience is that reformers should avoid radical changes to personnel systems based largely on ideological and political preferences. Reforms that are more incremental in nature and grounded more firmly on technical matters related to the implementation of core personnel functions will, in our view, be more likely to succeed. Yet a conundrum exists: if presidential scholars are correct, even these types of reforms may be held hostage by proposals that reflect the views of partisans unwilling to compromise in what appears to be an enduring era of polarized politics in Washington.

Self-Interest Properly Understood: The American Character and Public Administration

This article explores the relationships among Founding thought, the American character, and public administration. It is argued that the Founders expected that individualism, acquisitiveness, and a concern for reputation would be major building blocks of the regime. Madison, Hamilton, and Tocqueville saw these traits as essential to the American democracy. Currently, aspects of public administration are under attack as endangering these citizen attributes. The authors contend that public administration is necessary as a corrective of certain negative features of individualism and acquisitiveness. However, it is also argued that, to be effective, administrative policies should foster the most salutary aspects of these character traits. Several early New Deal programs are used as examples of appropriate policies. Guidelines for formulating public policies in the 1980s are suggested.

Pay-for-performance in local governments: the views of personnel directors

This article provides new information about the use of pay-for-performance in local governments by presenting findings from a national survey of personnel directors in municipalities and counties. The findings show that most respondents view pay-for- performance as a useful tool, even though it is only used in a minority of local governments. An in-depth analysis of 40 possible benefits and problems showed that PFP benefits are relatively undefined and that users do experience some potentially serious problems, though these problems appear less serious than the existing literature would predict.

Research and Demonstration Authority: The Opportunity for Continuing Reform

Certainly this is an exaggerated picture and one which does not apply equally to all agencies and programs. Yet, there is sufficient truth in it to offer a useful perspective on the recent Civil Service Reform. Creation of the Senior Executive Service may increase the influence of political executives in their policy networks. It may also increase their control over their agencies, or, as Rosenbloom recognizes, it may actually increase their distance from expertise within the programs they oversee. Nor should a greater stress upon performance appraisal and merit pay help the situation posed here, unless it is accompanied by administrative leadership which reinvests operating programs with greater resources, authority and support.