Which Of The Following Is / A Hiring Principle Or Principles Of The Merit-based Civil Service System

Learning Objectives

Past the terminate of this section, you will be able to:

Explain how the creation of the Ceremonious Service Committee transformed the spoils system of the nineteenth century into a merit-based arrangement of civil service
Understand how carefully regulated hiring and pay practices helps to maintain a merit-based ceremonious service

While the federal bureaucracy grew by leaps and bounds during the twentieth century, it besides underwent a very different development. Starting time with the Pendleton Act in the 1880s, the bureaucracy shifted away from the spoils system toward a merit system. The distinction between these two forms of hierarchy is crucial. The evolution toward a civil service in the U.s. had of import functional consequences. Today the United states has a civil service that advisedly regulates hiring practices and pay to create an surroundings in which, information technology is hoped, the best people to fulfill each civil service responsibleness are the same people hired to fill those positions.

THE CIVIL SERVICE Commission

The Pendleton Act of 1883 was non simply an of import piece of reform legislation; it besides established the foundations for the merit-based organisation that emerged in the decades that followed. Information technology accomplished this through a number of important changes, although 3 elements stand up out as especially meaning. First, the police attempted to reduce the bear on of politics on the ceremonious service sector by making it illegal to fire or otherwise punish government workers for strictly political reasons. Second, the law raised the qualifications for employment in ceremonious service positions by requiring applicants to pass exams designed to test their competence in a number of important skill and noesis areas. Third, it allowed for the creation of the United States Civil Service Commission (CSC), which was charged with enforcing the elements of the law.^fifteen

The CSC, as created by the Pendleton Act, was to be made up of three commissioners, simply two of whom could exist from the aforementioned political party. These commissioners were given the responsibility of developing and applying the competitive examinations for civil service positions, ensuring that the civil service appointments were apportioned among the several states based on population, and seeing to it that no person in the public service is obligated to contribute to whatever political cause. The CSC was also charged with ensuring that all civil servants wait for a probationary menses earlier being appointed and that no appointee uses their official authority to bear upon political changes either through coercion or influence. Both Congress and the president oversaw the CSC by requiring the committee to supply an annual report on its activities first to the president so to Congress.

In 1883, civil servants nether the control of the commission amounted to about 10 pct of the entire government workforce. All the same, over the next few decades, this percentage increased dramatically. The effects on the regime itself of both the police and the increase in the size of the civil service were huge. Presidents and representatives were no longer spending their days doling out or terminating appointments. Consequently, the many members of the civil service could no longer count on their political patrons for job security. Of course, job security was never guaranteed before the Pendleton Deed because all positions were subject area to the rise and fall of political parties. However, with civil service appointments no longer tied to partisan success, bureaucrats began to look to each other in social club to create the task security the previous system had lacked. One of the most important ways they did this was past creating ceremonious service organizations such every bit the National Clan of All Ceremonious Service Employees, formed in 1896. This organization worked to farther ceremonious service reform, especially in the area virtually important to ceremonious service professionals: ensuring greater job security and maintaining the distance between themselves and the political parties that once controlled them.¹⁶

Over the next few decades, civil servants gravitated to labor unions in much the same way that employees in the private sector did. Through the power of their collective voices amplified by their matrimony representatives, they were able to achieve political influence. The growth of federal labor unions accelerated after the Lloyd–La Follette Human activity of 1912, which removed many of the penalties civil servants faced when joining a union. As the size of the federal government and its bureaucracy grew post-obit the Great Depression and the Roosevelt reforms, many became increasingly concerned that the Pendleton Act prohibitions on political activities by ceremonious servants were no longer strong plenty. Equally a result of these mounting concerns, Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939—or the Political Activities Act. The primary provision of this legislation prohibits bureaucrats from actively engaging in political campaigns and from using their federal authorisation via bureaucratic rank to influence the outcomes of nominations and elections.

Despite the efforts throughout the 1930s to build stronger walls of separation between the ceremonious service bureaucrats and the political arrangement that surrounds them, many citizens continued to grow skeptical of the growing bureaucracy. These concerns reached a high point in the late 1970s equally the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal prompted the public to a fever pitch of skepticism about government itself. Congress and the president responded with the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which abolished the Ceremonious Service Commission. In its place, the law created 2 new federal agencies: the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The OPM has responsibleness for recruiting, interviewing, and testing potential government employees in gild to cull those who should be hired. The MSPB is responsible for investigating charges of agency wrongdoing and hearing appeals when corrective actions are ordered. Together these new federal agencies were intended to right perceived and real problems with the merit organisation, protect employees from managerial abuse, and more often than not make the bureaucracy more efficient.¹⁷

MERIT-BASED Choice

The general trend from the 1880s to today has been toward a civil service system that is increasingly based on merit (Effigy xv.6). In this system, the large majority of jobs in private bureaucracies are tied to the needs of the organization rather than to the political needs of the political party bosses or political leaders. This purpose is reflected in the way civil service positions are advertised. A full general civil service position announcement volition describe the government bureau or office seeking an employee, an explanation of what the agency or office does, an explanation of what the position requires, and a list of the knowledge, skills, and abilities, unremarkably referred to as KSAs, deemed especially important for fulfilling the part. A budget analyst position, for example, would include KSAs such every bit experience with automatic financial systems, knowledge of budgetary regulations and policies, the ability to communicate orally, and demonstrated skills in budget assistants, planning, and formulation. The merit system requires that a person be evaluated based on power to demonstrate KSAs that match those described or better. The private who is hired should have better KSAs than the other applicants.

A photo of Eric Holder holding a press conference.

Effigy fifteen.six Historically, African Americans have gravitated to the civil service in large numbers, although it was but in 2009 that an African American, Eric Holder (pictured here), rose to the position of U.Due south. chaser general. As of 2017, African Americans represented 18.ii per centum of the federal workforce, a number unduly larger than their share of the population (xiii.4 pct).¹⁸ While in that location are many reasons for this, a prominent i is that the merit-based nature of the civil service offered African Americans far more opportunities for advocacy than the private sector, where racial discrimination played a large role.

Many years agone, the merit system would have required all applicants to also test well on a civil service exam, as was stipulated by the Pendleton Human activity. This mandatory testing has since been abandoned, and now approximately lxxx-five pct of all federal government jobs are filled through an examination of the applicant's education, groundwork, knowledge, skills, and abilities.¹⁹ That would suggest that some 20 per centum are filled through appointment and patronage. Among the first grouping, those hired based on merit, a small percentage notwithstanding require that applicants take one of the several civil service exams. These are sometimes positions that crave applicants to demonstrate broad critical thinking skills, such as foreign service jobs. More often these exams are required for positions demanding specific or technical noesis, such every bit customs officials, air traffic controllers, and federal police force enforcement officers. Additionally, new online tests are increasingly being used to screen the e'er-growing pool of applicants.²⁰

Civil service exams currently test for skills applicative to clerical workers, mail workers, military personnel, health and social workers, and bookkeeping and engineering employees among others. Applicants with the highest scores on these tests are virtually likely to be hired for the desired position. Like all organizations, bureaucracies must brand thoughtful investments in human capital. And fifty-fifty later hiring people, they must proceed to train and develop them to reap the investment they make during the hiring process.

Go Connected!

A Career in Authorities: Competitive Service, Excepted Service, Senior Executive Service

Ane of the significant advantages of the enormous mod U.S. bureaucracy is that many citizens find employment in that location to be an of import source of income and meaning in their lives. Chore opportunities exist in a number of different fields, from foreign service with the Land Section to information and record clerking at all levels. Each position requires specific background, education, experience, and skills.

There are three full general categories of piece of work in the federal government: competitive service, excepted service, and senior executive service. Competitive service positions are closely regulated past Congress through the Role of Personnel Management to ensure they are filled in a fair style and the best applicant gets the chore (Effigy 15.7). Qualifications for these jobs include piece of work history, didactics, and grades on civil service exams. Federal jobs in the excepted service category are exempt from these hiring restrictions. Either these jobs require a far more than rigorous hiring procedure, such as is the instance at the Central Intelligence Agency, or they call for very specific skills, such as in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Excepted service jobs permit employers to ready their own pay rates and requirements. Finally, senior executive service positions are filled by men and women who are able to demonstrate their feel in executive positions. These are leadership positions, and applicants must demonstrate certain executive core qualifications (ECQs). These qualifications are leading change, being results-driven, demonstrating business organization acumen, and building better coalitions.

The official seal of the United States Office of Personnel Management.

Figure xv.seven The U.S. Part of Personnel Management regulates hiring practices in the U.S. Ceremonious Service.

What might be the practical consequences of having these different job categories? Tin y'all think of some specific positions yous are familiar with and the categories they might exist in?

Link to Learning

Where once federal jobs would have been posted in post offices and newspapers, they are now posted online. The nigh common place aspiring civil servants look for jobs is on USAjobs.gov, a web-based platform offered by the Office of Personnel Management for agencies to find the right employees. Visit their website to see the types of jobs currently bachelor in the U.S. bureaucracy.

Ceremonious servants receive pay based on the U.South. Federal Full general Schedule. A pay schedule is a nautical chart that shows salary ranges for unlike levels (grades) of positions vertically and for different ranks (steps) of seniority horizontally. The Pendleton Act of 1883 immune for this type of pay schedule, merely the mod version of the schedule emerged in the 1940s and was refined in the 1990s. The modern General Schedule includes fifteen grades, each with x steps (Figure 15.8). The grades reflect the dissimilar required competencies, didactics standards, skills, and experiences for the diverse ceremonious service positions. Grades GS-1 and GS-two require very trivial educational activity, feel, and skills and pay little. Grades GS-iii through GS-7 and GS-8 through GS-12 crave ascending levels of education and pay increasingly more. Grades GS-xiii through GS-15 require specific, specialized experience and teaching, and these job levels pay the most. When hired into a position at a specific class, employees are typically paid at the start footstep of that grade, the lowest allowable pay. Over fourth dimension, assuming they receive satisfactory cess ratings, they will progress through the various levels. Many careers allow for the civil servants to arise through the grades of the specific career as well.²¹

This table has two columns. The first row is a header row and labels the columns

Figure 15.8 The modernistic General Schedule is the predominant pay scale within the Us civil service and includes xv grades, each with ten steps. Each higher grade typically requires a higher level of education: GS-ane has no qualifying amount, GS-2 requires a high school diploma or equivalent, GS-5 requires four years of education beyond high school or a bachelor's caste, GS-9 requires a chief'southward or equivalent graduate degree, and then on. At GS-13 and higher up, appropriate specialized experience is required for all positions.

The intention behind these hiring practices and structured pay systems is to create an environment in which those almost likely to succeed are in fact those who are ultimately appointed. The systems almost naturally issue in organizations composed of experts who dedicate their lives to their work and their bureau. Every bit important, however, are the drawbacks. The primary 1 is that permanent employees can become too independent of the elected leaders. While a degree of separation is intentional and desired, too much can result in bureaucracies that are comparatively responsive to political change. Some other downside is that the accustomed expertise of individual bureaucrats tin can sometimes hide their own chauvinistic impulses. The merit arrangement encouraged bureaucrats to turn to each other and their bureaucracies for support and stability. Severing the political ties common in the spoils organization creates the potential for bureaucrats to steer actions toward their ain preferences even if these contradict the designs of elected leaders.