Guest Editorial:
What Do Taxpayers Need From Selection Specialists?
by Chuck Schultz
As our budgets shrink, we consider ways to get more work done with smaller staffs. In public service we rarely think of doing less work as an option. Government workers believe in their programs and find little in them that their clients should do without. The clamor for lower taxes seems far removed from the people who utilize public services, including services such as the procedures for selecting a superior workforce.
We abhor the thought of hedging on professional standards. Lights burn late in government offices as diminished staffs execute their commitments. Even when your manager doesn't comprehend your purpose, you work overtime to get the job done properly.
We expect candidates who take our management tests to come up with a better answer than working overtime. The key--prioritize your work and do that which is highest priority. On our tests, we never expect candidates to exceed workload standards.
Workload standards are alterable. Developing better procedures is one of a work unit's tasks. Still, workload planning includes gauging a reasonable amount of work to accomplish. In spite of improved procedures, public managers and their employees commonly put in an extra ten or twenty hours a week because there is more work to be done than people to doit.
Why the difference between what we do and what we say a work group should do? If we ask the Director of Personnel, or if we survey taxpayers, about what we should be doing, they may leave out a crucial part of our function. We know that if we cut certain corners our processes will no longer be valid. We would rather work overtime than produce work we believe to be shoddy. And if we write fewer tests so we can spend the time it takes to make valid the ones we complete, management may complain about our diminished quantity.
What should you do when taxpayers don't want to pay and personnel directors don't appreciate the refinement that you find essential? Many of your colleagues have become consultants so they can accept only those projects that meet their ethical criteria. Some of your colleagues, including underutilized consultants, find excuses for doing the job as our unenlightened clients prescribe. "I told management what they should do. That fulfills my obligation." Others have left personnel selection.
Looking again at the tests we write, based on the expertise of our expert collaborators, we can find solutions to our dilemmas. We need to educate our clients--sell our craft. Our teamwork role is to provide our share to an informed decision. Then if the team decides that "doing it right" does not include what we call ethical procedures, we cram them down their throats. Right? Even if we have to do refinements in our own time.
Why do so many of you donate your time? We might see the impetus to do more with less in the global economy. A mood to do more than you get paid for is gaining popularity in business and government. Global competition stimulates this mood. Productivity keeps going up in this country. Then global competition pushes it up in other countries.
The result of global competition is a greater disparity in incomes. Mean purchasing power goes up while median purchasing power goes down. That is, increasing compensation of top executives brings up the average income while over half the population earns less in constant dollars. Workers become less eager taxpayers. They want their purchasing power to yield the same quantity of goods and public services, although they need a tax break in order to purchase the same quantity of goods.
Who benefits from the passion to do more with less? For whom does it improve the quality of life? Is competition unequivocally beneficial? When do you discuss with the taxpayer and agency management what amount of work your agency should do with a given allocation? What do you do when they won't pay for the work you think should be done? And what do you do when someone else will do what they want for the price they are willing to pay?
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