Guest Editorial:
Our Government is Becoming More Accountable ...
And As Assessment Professionals, So Must We
by David Dye
For the past several years, significant change has been taking place within government. The change is based on the premise that government must become “closer” to the people it is supposed to serve -- the taxpayers. But as we have heard many times recently, government is out of touch, too bloated, too inefficient, and too insensitive to understand the public’s needs. It is easy to see why terms like downsizing, rightsizing, restructuring, process reengineering, and privatizing have become so popular.
Why is this great change in government taking place? For one, public policy makers have recognized that there has been a significant decline in the public’s confidence in government, especially at the Federal level. Consider the following finding from a recent poll conducted jointly by The Washington Post, The Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University:
Of those surveyed, only 25% said they “trusted the Federal government to do the right thing” (the figures were about 1 out of 3 for State government). These figures can be compared to 3 out of 4 in 1964 and 1 out of every 2 just 10 years ago.
What can we, as assessment professionals, do to respond to this lack of trust and help restore the public’s confidence? Certainly, public trust is a very complex phenomena and solutions will not be easy nor quick. Here are some thoughts to consider:
We need to continue to inform and educate - As assessment professionals, we must continue to communicate to the public (as well as to our own internal management) that what we do not only improves the performance of our organizations, but also affects (positively) the everyday lives of people. The State of Oregon, through its “Oregon Benchmarks” initiatives, has shown that citizens have greater trust in their public services when they have a knowledge and understanding of what their government does. Surprisingly, the Harvard University researchers found just the opposite; that greater knowledge led toless trust. Why the difference?
My belief is that the difference lies in whether perceptions are based on actual experiences with government or whether they are formed from a more holistic (and likely politicized) view of government. A good analogy is when someone says that his/her Congressman is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but that Congress is generally inept. My own work within a few agencies has come to the same conclusion -- when you ask people about their own personal experiences with government services, their answers are more positive than when asking for their general attitudes about how well government entities function (By the way, speaking of a lack of knowledge, the Harvard University survey also found that 4 in 10 respondents either incorrectly or could not name the Vice President of the United States!).
We need to foster partnerships across levels of government - The Harvard University survey found that people trusted State government to do a better job of running things than the Federal government (61% to 24%). The reason was largely based on the view that local levels of government are able to solve problems with greater responsiveness. Moving government closer to the people obviously works. We need to establish single points of contact for communities. We also need to promote performance-based intergovernmental partnerships -- agreements between Federal and other levels -- in exchange for increased flexibility and a greater accountability for meeting certain levels of performance.
We need to view our organizations more systemically - For a long time, I have wondered why there issuch a divided split between the “I” side and the “O” side of psychology. At the risk of simplifying these two worlds, the “I” side tends to focus on how best to manage individual performance, while the “O” side tends to focus on how to deal with organizational performance. I recently had the opportunity to work with the same agency on two entirely different projects — one was to develop a selection procedure for a handful of occupations to improve overall individual performance; the other was to administer a climate survey and implement change strategies to improve organizational performance. Two databases now exist, each focused on a different level of the organization. By looking at these two datasets in tandem, we should learn more about how to improve this agency’s performance than by examining either one alone. We, as assessment professionals, need to view our organization’s functions more systemically so we can understand how to improve performance using information from a variety of sources. A good example of how organizations can be viewed systemically is the work of Robert Kaplan and David Norton. Their “Balanced Scorecard” concept of organizations calls for relating different business perspectives - e.g., financial, customer, innovation, and internal processes.
We need to stress the impact of our programs, placing less focus on internal processes - This is much of what government reinvention is all about — standards for improving performance and providing good customer service. Since 1994, at the Federal level, over 200 agencies have published customer service standards; eleven agencies, which have frequent and widespread contact with public, have been designated as the President’s Vanguard customer service agencies; and 71 agencies have been designated as pilots of the Government Performance and Results Act legislation. A more recent initiative is the introduction of “Performance-based Organizations (PBO’s) which stress even greater accountability for achieving results. All of these initiatives are geared toward meeting a “performance contract or guarantee” with the public — in some cases, if performance does not work, there will be penalties or negative consequences.
One of the better (and more humorous) examples of a performance-based guarantee I saw recently involved a contract that Amtrak had awarded to Bombardier Corp. of Canada and GEC Alsthom of France to build a new high-speed train. The trains are capable of traveling at 150 mph and have a smoother ride than current trains. In addition, the contractors guaranteed tough penalties against themselves if they did not meet certain performance standards. First, if one of their trains does not meet a three-hour Boston to NY schedule, the contractor is charged $10,000 for the first minute of being late and $20,000 for each additional minute that it is late; they are also assessed another $5,000 for lateness due to mechanical problems. It gets better. The contractor is subject to a $1,000 penalty for each on-board toilet that fails to operate properly! Now that’s a performance contract!
We need to talk about performance in terms that people understand - Peter Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker” years ago. In many respects, assessment professionals are the knowledge workers. However, we must be able to convey our knowledge and measurement expertise in ways that can be understood and tied to the bottom line. Certainly, test utility theory and methods attempt to translate validity in terms of dollar-based productivity savings. But I continue to be surprised to see that utility discussions usually speak toward predicted savings — rarely is there ever a follow-up to check on the accuracy of the predictions. We need to speak a language that management and the public understands. A recent survey made by a Central Florida I/O psychology interest group asked a group of I/O practitioners and graduate students about the future practices of I/O psychology. Both the students and the practitioners said that one of the key weaknesses of the field was that we “cannot translate our services to dollar value.” We must be able to state what our assessment practices do in terms of improving service and in reducing costs.
Finally, we must become more accountable as individuals in our profession. We must continually askourselves if we are working in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible. In my own reinvented world of government, our office recently become a 100% fee-for-service organization. This new environment has made us become more responsive, service-oriented, and focused on the bottom line. It’s been a new challenge, but one that has made everyone of us more accountable in what we do and how we do it.
For too long, government has been out of touch with its citizenry. Assessment professionals can play a big role in turning the public’s trust around.
David is an active IPMAAC member. He is on the Board of Directors, our representative to the Bemis Board, and a co-Chair for the ‘97 conference Program Comittee. In the real world he is a Personnel Research Psychologist for OPM.
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