Streamlining of NRC Hiring Process 
Eliminates Competitive Opportunities

NTEU Announcement:  In an effort to streamline the NRC hiring process, the agency has eliminated the requirement to use competitive procedures for selection of a employees into supervisory positions. The change allows selecting officials to eliminate the use of rating panels when advancing an employee into the supervisory ranks.

Besides rating panels, rating factors have been eliminated in some cases. These streamlined changes of Management Directive 10.15 (Merit Staffing) affect new employees who can be uprooted and begin their federal career without even having the position's knowledge, skills and abilities identified to confirm they are a "good match" for their position. If not a good match, the new employee faces a rough 2-year probationary period with a chance of being fired without justification. The agency gains with a quicker hiring process giving the agency a trial & error hiring mentality, while employees loose competitive fairness, sacrifice uniformity and face others being selected to a position for which they may have been amongst the best qualified if a rating panel was used.

The statute, 5USC7106(a)(2)(C), provides management with rights associated with selection from a properly ranked list of candidates. NTEU has negotiated a procedure in the Collective Bargaining Agreement to properly and fairly develop this ranked list called the best qualified list (BQL) through a process involving a rating panel that remains unchanged for bargaining unit employees.  This procedure has been successfully used at the NRC for decades with the rating panel minimizing aspects of preselection by ensuring that only the best-qualified candidates are presented to the selecting official. NTEU though critical of this change for non-bargaining unit positions retains control of the merit selection process for the majority of vacancies through statutory negotiation rights. The Union has no authority over the supervisory selection process nor the process for newly hired employees which has undergone this drastic change.

Contact Dale Yeilding in the NTEU office (301-415-3600) with questions or comments on the agency merit selection process. Read more on this topic below which includes quotations from James McDermott (HR Office Director) in a recent Government Executive article, annotated with critical NTEU comments.

Government Executive Magazine Quotes James McDermott

Dale Yeilding, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), Chapter 208 President comments on quotations from James McDermott (Director of Human Resources for the NRC) regarding fair vs. streamlined hiring practices reported in a recent Government Executive magazine article. 

Rating Panels Gone - James McDermott does away with rating panels which establish the best qualified candidates to be interviewed by the selecting official.

Government Executive:  While McDermott has gotten more managers involved  in general hiring strategies, he has limited the number of people who evaluate each candidate to keep the process moving along. The agency has shifted from three-person applicant rating panels and instead usually has the person who would work most closely with the new hire review applications.  "If you want to slow your process down, you get a rating panel involved - a panel of busy people who have all kinds of conflicts on their schedules," McDermott says. NRC's streamlined course of action still has checks and balances, because the recruiter's boss must sign off on the decision."

Dale Yeilding:  Having a recruiter's boss replace the rating panel removes the key quality check on the process.  Traditional policy prohibits application review and involvement by the new hire's supervisor or subordinates as part of the rating panel.

Management Directive (MD) 10.15 -  The selecting official and the supervisor of the vacant position are prohibited from serving on the rating panel. Additionally, a direct subordinate in the chain of command to the supervisor normally should not serve on the panel.

KSAs of Little Value - McDermott gets enough information from the applicant's resume as compared to their answers to traditional rating factors demonstrating their Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

Government Executive:  The agency has simplified the application process further by requiring candidates to send only a résumé at first. McDermott says he believes questions on knowledge, skills and abilities - which are commonplace on federal applications - have little value in being solid predictors of good performance…Going at somebody with the right questions is highly predictive of future success at the job."

Dale Yeilding:  What's missing with McDermott's approach are the actual questions federal recruiters will ask a candidate.  If the traditional knowledge, skills and abilities are not even identified for the job what will be the predictor of good performance.

MD 10.15  - Rating factors based on careful job analysis should include not only the occupational knowledges needed to perform the duties of the position, but also the skills and abilities required. These abilities include interpersonal skills and teamwork when they are directly related to the position, such as in project or team leader positions or supervisory or managerial positions.

On-the-Job Evaluation - Now McDermott is going to "on-the-job" test the new employee to see if there is a match.  Does the applicant realize the risk of taking this McDermott test with their career and job change to the NRC?

Government Executive - NRC's McDermott:  "What I want is a résumé, and then I want to put people to work," he says. "Get in and see them face to face and see if there's a match."

Dale Yeilding:  McDermott hires without a rating panel providing traditional scrutiny.  If the uprooted employee moving from a previous job, doesn't match NRC's needs, they face being fired without any need for justification during their 2-year NRC probationary period (a manager's lawful right). 

Disregard for the Law:  McDermott will comply with Merit Promotion requirements if he has enough lead time.

Government Executive:  "In some cases, if we have enough lead time and can comply with the merit promotion requirements, we'll have posted a job targeting that particular school," McDermott says.

Dale Yeilding:  McDermott's miss-aligned priorities for streamlining and cutting the time to hire in half may result in the NRC placing the wrong applicants into important regulatory positions.

MD 10.15 - The functions of the HR representative are to ensure that merit principles are observed

MD 10.15, Objective: To meet organizational mission needs and efficiently utilize the skills, knowledges, and abilities of NRC employees through application of merit staffing principles.

Concluding Comments from Dale Yeilding

NTEU has a right to bargain the procedures used for promotions into bargaining unit positions and has had these procedures in place for decades.  Other position selections, including  supervisory selections are controlled by the procedure in Management Directive 10.15 (Merit Staffing).   

The elimination of competitive procedures for supervisory selections was identified in Yellow Announcement, 2007-134, and questionably titled "Staffing Process Enhancements".  They may enhance the agency's streamlining of the process but they will not enhance fair competition.  A Human Resource webpage summarizes these changes with this particular issue described as;  " Eliminate requirement for rating noncompetitive eligibles for supervisory and NBU GG-15 vacancies."   

Competitive procedures control many aspects of the selection process, but most importantly, they insert a rating panel to prevent unfettered selection by a management official.  This single attribute may be the most significant in preventing pre-selection.   The Best-Qualified candidates as determined by the rating panel are the only candidates interviewed by the selecting official.  The agency saw a need to balance merit considerations and uniformity with flexibility to meet organizational needs.  This flexibility may result in placing the wrong applicant into the job.

 How about some icing on the cake?
  Here is one more McDermott streamlining effort !

No Competition for Non-Bargaining Unit Temporary Promotions:  It is well known that a "temporary rotation of assignment" to a higher grade provides employees valued experience, in addition to an advantage for subsequent consideration for a promotion into the job if it is ever made permanently available.  Past policy limited the temporary promotion/rotation to 90 days so as to not provide any unfair advantage by being in the temporary position longer.  The past practice to post for competition an extended temporary job >90-days has been another victim of McDermott's streamlining.  He has changed the policy for non-b/u rotations to extend the limit for a temporary rotation from 90 days to 180 days without the need for competition.  Now the agency can pre-select their favorite employee and place them in the job for a half year where they might develop the needed knowledge skills and abilities to be selected when the temporary job is replaced with a permanent posting.  Let's also not forget about the higher pay for the extra time without the need for competition.

NTEU Working Today for a Better Tomorrow

Contact Dale Yeilding in the NTEU Union office O1G22 with any questions 301-415-3600.