Principles of public personnel administration

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Preface

The present volume is the reverse of a pretentious undertaking. It has as its sole purpose to furnish a brief introduction to the study of the problem that confronts all governments of securing and maintaining an efficient personnel. The preparation of such a study was thought worth while due to the extreme complexity of the problem and the wide attention that is now being paid to the subject.

One has but to run through this volume, or the more elaborate one being published about the same time, by the Institute for Government Research, giving a detailed examination of the personnel system of the federal government, to appreciate the large number of distinct factors entering into the problem of an efficient public personnel system, all of which must be properly provided for if a satisfactory system of personnel administration is to be secured. These factors, moreover, are largely of a technical character. They involve, not merely general principles, such as that underlying the merit system, but the determination of the character of organization and procedure that shall be employed in putting these principles into execution, the nature of the tests that shall be made use of in selecting new employees, the manner in which employees shall be classified for the purpose of fixing their compensation, controlling their opportunities for promotion, etc., the means to be employed in determining the relative efficiency of employees engaged in the same or collateral lines of work, the nature of the personnel records to be maintained, and scores of other details. These are all questions that can only be answered after intensive and technical studies of them have been made.

Finally, there is raised in respect to almost every one of them the important question of the extent to which the effort should be made to fix conditions by statutory enactments or to leave discretion in respect of them to administrative authorities, and, if the latter policy is adopted, the extent to which this discretion shall

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PREFACE be placed in the hands of those officers who are in direct charge of the operating services or shall be vested in a general personnel agency.

Only a relatively few persons can be expected to concern themselves with the technical phases of this problem. There are many, however, who ought to have a fairly comprehensive grasp of the nature and scope of the problem as a whole. Especially is this true of the members of our national, state, and local legislative bodies, who are called upon to consider proposals looking to a reorganization of the personnel system of the governments with which they are connected, and the superior administrative officers of such governments. It is to this class that the present volume is chiefly addressed.

The author, Mr. Arthur W. Procter, has for years been directly concerned, as a member of the staff of the late President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency, the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, and the Institute for Government Research, with the study of problems of personnel administration; and, in 1915-1916 had charge of the investigation work of the important inquiry regarding the standardization of public employments of the state made by the Senate Committee on Civil Service of New York State. In one or the other of these capacities he made a personal study of the personnel systems of those states and cities that had made the most progress in recent years in the improvement of their systems for the handling of personnel matters. It is not to be expected that the positions taken by the author will in all cases be accepted. They represent, however, the conclusions that have been reached by one who has had exceptional opportunities for the prosecution of studies in this field, and will at least be suggestive and serve to open up the subject in a broad way.

The author writes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. D. W. Fisher of the University of Minnesota, who gave very valuable assistance in the preparation and editing of the manuscript of this volume.

W. F. WiLLOUGHBY

Contents

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I. History of Public Employment i

Chapter I History Of Public Employment

The problem of employment as it relates to private enterprise has of late years been given a great deal of attention. The corresponding problem, as it relates to the selection, retention, and development of workers in the service of our various governments, has received comparatively little attention. Yet the national government is the largest single employer in the country; and all of our governments taken together carry on their payrolls approximately 2,000,000 employees. In view of the number of persons directly concerned, and in view of the well known fact that conditions in the service of our various governments are far from being satisfactory, the problem of public employment is worthy of serious and constructive consideration.

In the following pages this problem is considered, existing conditions are briefly described, and remedial measures proposed. The discussion is limited to employment as it is carried on, or should be carried on, by civil service commissions in the national government and in the various state, city, and other local governments. As ah introduction to the study of this problem, the several phases of the history of public employment in this country since the founding of the national government are presented in summary form. Early Conditions. The first period extended from 1789 to 1829, the year which marked the end of the administration of John Quincy Adams. It was a period in which public employees were selected and retained without regard to any formal method, but on the whole with wisdom and fairness.

During this time public employment presented a comparatively simple problem. In 1800 the total number of civilian employees in the national service did not exceed 3,,ooo. The selection of men for the more important positions was handled directly by the President or the members of his Cabinet in accordance with a strong sense of responsibility to the electorate of the country. No restrictions, such as exist to-day, had been imposed on the power of appointment and removal, but competent men were generally chosen for public office and employment, and they were generally retained in the public service as long as they performed their duties honestly and effectively.

The conditions in the national service were somewhat better than those that existed in the various state and municipal governments. As early as 1801 the conception of appointment to public office as an incident of party victory had been introduced into the administration of the government of New York State. The "Spoils System." The second period of public employment, which extended from 1829 to 1883, was dominated by the principles and practices known as thei "spoils system." The foundation of this system had' been laid in 1820 in the "Tenure of Office Act,," which provided that "district attorneys, collectors of the customs, navy agents, receivers of public moneys for lands, / 2

HISTORY OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT

registers of the land office, paymasters in the army, the apothecary-general, assistant apothecaries-general, and the commissary-general of purchases" shall be "removable from office at pleasure." When President Jackson came into office in 1829 he availed himself fully of the powers conferred under this act, and proceeded to establish firmly the system of spoliation. The underlying idea of this system was expressed in the slogan: "To the victor belong the spoils." In the course of eight years Jackson removed from office more men than had been removed in the 40 years preceding his administration, and he filled the vacancies thus created, as well as other vacancies which occurred in the civil service, by appointing his partisan supporters. The acquiescence of the people in the spoils system, as Bryce has pointed out, was explained in part by the fact "that the administration used to be conducted in a happy-go-lucky way, that the citizens, accustomed to helping themselves, relied very little on their functionaries, and did not care whether they were skillful or not, and that it was so easy and common for a man who fell out of one kind of business to take up and make his living by another, that deprivation seemed to involve little hardship." ^

Under the successors of Jackson the spoils system continued to flourish. It dominated the selection of public employees and exercised a potent influence over the whole of American political life. In 1846 Calhoun declared in the Senate: "The presidential election is no longer a struggle for great principles, but only a struggle as to who shall have the spoils of office." Both parties accepted and acted upon this principle. Victory at the polls was considered authorization to turn out of office all incumbents who had been appointed by the opposition. * American Commonwealth, 1910 ed., vol. ii, p. 140.

Offices and jobs in the civil service were regarded as patronage, to be used in building up and strengthening the party machine. Men were chosen for public office or employment primarily with regard to their usefulness to the party organization, and only incidentally with regard to their competence to carry on the business of the government.

Throughout this period vigorous protests were made from time to time against the system, but they produced no substantial results until the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

During this period the same system dominated the various state and municipal services. Public employment was conducted very largely in the interest of the party organization rather than in the interest of the people as a whole or of the great body of public employees.

Recent Conditions. The third period extends from 1883 to the present. During this period the more flagrant abuses of the spoils system have been mitigated, and considerable progress in the administration of public employment has been achieved.

The national government, as well as the various state and municipal governments, had grown greatly in size and complexity. The number of national employees had increased to about 100,000 in 1880, and the ordinary revenues had increased from $10,000,000 in 1800 to $333,000,000 in 1880. Considered by itself the efficient administration of the growing and intricate functions of government made imperative the introduction of a definite and business-like system, designed to regulate the selection and retention of public employees.

But there was another factor. The people had begun to realize that the spoils system was a grave danger to

HISI'ORY OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT

the integrity of the poHtical life of the country. A publication issued in 1882 by the National Civil Service Reform Association stated: "The country can be extravagant and spend a third more than is really necessary for transacting its business without serious danger, although a wise nation would not tolerate such waste. But it cannot maintain, without great and constant peril, a 'system which converts the enormous and extravagant expenditure for public salaries into a political bribery held at the disposition of a few men in every state." The people finally revolted against the spoils system, not primarily because it was wasteful and inefficient, but because it represented a grave danger to the free expression of the popular will through elections.

The movement for civil service reform resulted in the passage of the national Civil Service Act in 1883. This was a substantial, though not a complete, victory for the merit principle. The law provided for a national Civil Service Commission and it placed under the jurisdiction of that commission all the positions of the so-called classified service. It also provided that appointment to the classified service should be made, [so far as practicable, on the basis of open competitive examination and that national employees should be free from the necessity — which had prevailed up to that time — of contributing to campaign funds and of rendering political services.

Following the passage of this act the reform movement achieved important successes in variouls state and municipal governments. A civil service commission, with powers similar to those of the national commission, was established in New York State in 1883. Similar commissions have been established in Illinois, Ohio,

Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Wisconsin, Kansas, Connecticut, Colorado, and Maryland. Civil service commissions have also been established in about 250 municipal governments." Among the larger cities in which public employment is administered by civil service commissions are New York, Chicago, San F'rancisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, Rochester, St. Paul, Denver, Portland (Ore.), Syracuse, and Albany. Some counties,, notably Los Angeles County, Cal., Cook County, 111., and Milwaukee County, Wis., have al'so established civil service commissions.

In some of the local jurisdictions named above, the administration of public employment is handled to-day more strictly in accordance with the merit principle and more effectively than in the national government.

The movement for civil service reform, however, has not received recognition in all state and municipal jurisdictions. It has been extended to less than onefourth of the (state governments, and it has not been adopted in some of the larger cities. Furthermore, even in jurisdictions in which the merit system is nominally in force, it is not applied in selecting the incumbents of all civil service positions. In the national service many positions are still "unclassified," or, if classified, they are filled without regard to examination requirements. In the state and city services a similar condition is found. The reform movement has not completely substituted the merit system for the spoils system. It has not entirely attained its objective.

And the original civil service reform movement set for itself an essentially incomplete objective. It was interested chiefly in the reform of the political conditions

HISTORY OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT

which surround public employment. It aimed to impose definite checks and restrictions on administrative authority over appointment and removal. In imposing such restrictions, this movement has accomplished results which are a necessary preliminary to a sound administration of public employment, but it has failed in large part to supplement its negative program with a strong positive program. It has not been interested to any marked extent in the improvement of the internal conditions of the public service as they affect the welfare of the individual employee or the development of a competent and efficient civil service personnel. Nor has it responded to the complex and growing requirements of the public service by formulating an adequately positive and constructive employment program.

A modern system of public employment presents a problem of great complexity. The national service includes approximately 745,000 employees, representing an annual expenditure of $700,000,000 or about 40 per cent of the operative cost of government. These employees are engaged in several thousand distinct classes of employment; in various clerical services, in'spectional, customs and revenue services, skilled and unskilled labor services, and scientific and professional services. Apart from the work which is peculiar to the needs of the government, they are engaged in practically every kind of activity found in modern enterprise.

The states and larger cities present a similarly complex employment problem. A representative state or city government is a great enterprise, carrying on its payroll thousands of workers engaged in a great variety of occupations. New York State has, in its civil service, approximately 22,000 employees ; Pennsylvania, approximately 15,000; and Illinois, approximately 7,000. The City of New York, including the teaching personnel, has about 100,000 public employees,^ representing an annual payroll of approximately $130,- 000,000.

In response to the complex problem presented in a modern system of public employment, the so-called "standardization" movement came into existence in the first decade of this century. This movement is essentially a response to the demand for a business-like and efficient administration of our national, state, and city governments. It is, in a sense, an outgrowth of the earlier civil service reform movement, but it places a new and positive emphasis on the need of discovering concrete ways and means of improving the internal conditions of public employment. It has laid particular stress on the establishment of scientific classification of public employments, and on the establishment of adequate and uniform rates of compensation. This movement has accomplished results of considerable value in New York State, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin, and in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Rochester, Denver, and other jurisdictions ; and it gives promise of valuable results in the national government. It has only a limited record of actual achievement to its credit to date, but it contains the promise of future constructive achievement of great significance.

2 The number of employees under the jurisdiction of the New York Municipal Civil Service Commission is about 53,000.

Chapter II

The Need of a Constructive Program. The present state of public employment in the national government, and in the various state and local governments, is unsatisfactory to the public at large, to public employees, and to responsible administrative officers. The public has suffered from impaired and ineffective service. Public employees have suffered from inadequate rates of pay and other unsatisfactory conditions of public employment. Administrative officers have found it difficult to recruit and retain a competent government personnel. This has been especially marked in the postal service and in the teaching service of our local governments.

A commission appointed by Congress in March, 191 9, has recently issued an instructive report on conditions in the service at Washington. This report contains the following statement:^

The Commission finds that there is serious discontent, accompanied by an excessive turnover and loss, among the best trained and most efficient employees; that the morale of the personnel has been impaired; that the national service has become unattractive, to a desirable type of technical employee; and that the Government has put itself in the position of wasting funds on the one hand and doing serious injustice to individuals on the other. . . .

^ Report of the Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries, 1920, part I, p. 54. This document will be referred to hereafter as the Report of the Congressional Joint Commission.

The so-called labor or personnel turnover is now generally regarded as an index to the state of mind prevailing among the employees of any establishment; a large turnover being indicative of unrest and general demoralization. In general terms, the annual turnover may be computed by dividing the number of separations, from the establishment in question by the average number of employees carried on the payroll. The report of the Congressional Joint Commission brings out the fact that the turnover in the service at Washington was 5.5 per cent during the year 1914; that it rose to 11 per cent during 1916; that it reached a maximum of 40 per cent during 19 19; and that it receded to 33 per cent during the first half of the fiscal year 1919-1920. A personnel turnover of 33 per cent — figured, as it is in this case, without taking account of the separations due to reductions in force — is abnormally high, and is indicative of a serious state of unrest and impaired efficiency. This report declares:^

The most conspicuous advances in the rate of turnover have been among scientific-technical employees. In six bureaus for which complete information is available and comprising a total of 2,765 employees, the turnover among scientific-technical employees has advanced from 12 per cent in 1916 to 69 per cent in 19 19. The increase in the rate of turnover of clerks in the same bureaus and comprehending approximately the same numbers, was from 12 per cent in 19 16 to 29 per cent in 19 19. In other words, the rate among scientific employees advanced over three times as f^st as among clerical employees. In some bureaus the conditions are even more , striking. In the Bureau of Standards, for example, the rate of increase among scientific employees has jumped from 28 • per cent in 1916 to 161 per cent in 1919. *

The high rate of turnover among scientific and )

technical employees becomes especially significant when .'

consideration is had of the fact that these employees constitute, in large measure, the directing force of the government.

Similar conditions of excessive turnover and impaired morale and efficiency exist, in only a slightly less degree, in the various state and municipal governments.

Ultimately the people themselves must take the initiative in bringing about any marked improvement of government employment. A government occupies a unique position. It is not in the position of a private commercial enterprise. It is not required to make a profit in competition with other similar enterprises. It may be extravagant and inefficient without going into bankruptcy. It is not required automatically, by the forces of competition, to be economical and efficient. A government must indeed compete in the "labor market" for some of the services which it requires, but it is not compelled by the forces of competition to recruit and maintain an efficient personnel. Moreover, it is not required to pay a liberal or even an adequate wage to its personnel, because many groups of public employees can find no immediate outlet for their highly specialized training in outside employment. A government operates, in many respects, outside the sphere of ordinary economic forces. Only the people themselves can compel a government, on the one hand, to maintain an efficient personnel, and, on the other, to pay its personnel a fair and adequate wage.

There is every indication that the people are now in a mood to demand economy and efficiency in public employment as in other matters of government. The high taxes following the war have made economy imperative. The achievements during the war period

II have raised somewhat our standards of efficiency. At the same time, there is a growing- recognition of the fact that efficient performance on the part of public employees must be rewarded by equitable terms and conditions of employment.

The problem of public employment is closely connected with other problems of government. To maintain a truly efficient government personnel it is necessary to devise and maintain efficient government machinery. Commenting on the national government, Franklin D. Roosevelt, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, recently said:

There exists an overlapping and duplication of administrative work in the different departments. New activities have grown up in or been assigned to departments with little regard to good business methods. A large part of this work should be reassigned, and much of it now scattered between different departments should be consolidated in one. According to data recently collected, 25 federal agencies do mapping work, 30 make chemical investigations, 27 have authority to build hydraulic works, 2.2 to make engineering researches, etc.

The Congressional Joint Commission observed a number of opportunities for the improvement of government machinery. It found : ^

Complex, indefinite, poorly designed organization; inadequate provisions for administrative control and supervision; apparent duplication between departments and within departments ; conflict of authority and overlapping of functions ; overmanning : unstandardized procedure ; unnecessary records ; and other unbusiness-like methods.

The result of the unbusiness-like methods that obtain in the national government has also been strikingly characterized by Franklin K. Lane, former Secretary of the Interior :

^Ibid., p. no.

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Every one seems to be afraid of every one. The self-protective sense is developed abnormally, the creative sense atrophies. Trust, confidence, enthusiasm — these simple virtues of all great business — are the ones most lacking in government organization. We have so many checks and brakes upon our work that our progress does not keep pace with the nation's requirements.

The lack of organization obtains particularly in the national government. In some of the state and city governments, the situation is not so backward. On the whole, however, the organization of governmental machinery in this country lags considerably behind accomplishments in the field of business and industry, and well behind what could be accomplished by the application of good will and intelligence in the field of government.

The improvement of government personnel cannot make headway apart from the improvement of governmental machinery. It must be accompanied by the consolidation of services, the elimination of unnecessary positions, direct and effective methods of doing work and of transacting business, a budget system as the basis of all appropriations, and competent and inspiring leadership.

But the improvement of government personnel constitutes to a certain extent a separate and peculiar problem. It requires for its accomplishment the adoption of specific measures of employment policy and administration. Consideration will now be given to some of the more important measures that may be expected to lead to an improvement of the present state of public employment.

Extension of the Merit System. It is a basic requirement of progress in public employment that the merit system should be extended. The merit system is the underlying idea of civil service legislation. It aims to eliminate personal favoritism and political preference, and to establish impartiality in the conduct of public employment. It accomplishes this end, in the main, by throwing safeguards around the appointment, promotion, and removal of public employees. It requires that appointment and promotion shall be made on the basis of examination, usually a competitive examination, though in some circumstances a qualifying or non-competitive examination. It also requires that removal shall be made only for bona fide reasons, and after the employee shall have been given a fair hearing. The merit system thus insures the use of fair and effective methods in the selection and subsequent promotion of public employees, and it affords to public employees reasonable security of tenure.

The merit system, as has been indicated, wa!s introduced in this country in 1883. It is a necessary means of combating the waste, inefficiency, and political corruption which attend the imcurbed operation of the spoils system. It does not afford a solution, however, of all the problems that arise in the administration of government employment, but rather clears the ground of the grosser political obstructions that stand in the way of a proper solution of these problems.

This system, which is nominally in force in the national government and in a number of state and municipal governments, should be extended and applied in a thorough-going manner.

In discussing the feasibility of a thorough application of the merit system to all, or practically all, of the \ positions in the executive branch of a government, a distinction is commonly drawn between political and non-political positions. Political positions are commonly defined as policy-determining. In the executive branch of the national government they include the Presidency, the Cabinet offices, the headships of the bureaus, etc. In the state governments, they include the governorship, the headships of the principal departments, etc. Non-political positions are defined as those which do not involve policy-making. These positions include the great bulk of employments in the executive branch of the national, state, and municipal governments. They involve the duty of executing the policy or carrying out the work which has been decided upon by the responsible administrative heads of the government.

The merit system, as a method of selection, is not applicable to positions of a truly policy-determining character. The incumbents of these positions should be, above all things, responsive to the will of the people. Some of these officers are, and should be, chosen by election. Some of them, who are called upon to interpret or aid in determining fundamental matters of policy are, and well may be, chosen by executive appointment. These officers cannot well be selected according to the merit system, on the basis of their standing in an examination. , ,

But the merit system is applicable to a great many more positions in the executive branch of our national, state, and municipal governments than it has ever been applied to. It should be applied to many of the positions that are commonly held to be political, but which, in fact, are not political or policy-determining in character. By a liberal use of the short ballot, a number of these positions should be eliminated from the list of offices now filled by election, and should be placed under civil service regulations. A number of them should be eliminated from the list of offices now filled by executive appointment, and should be filled according to the examination requirements of the merit system. Moreover, the merit system should be applied to all, or practically all, of those public employments which are not, and which have never been seriously held to be, policy-determining in character. It should be applied to the great mass of government positions involving clerical and commercial work, manual labor, public safety, and scientific and professional work.

Two lines of action are required to effect a thorough-going application of the merit principle to the positions of the executive branch of a government.

Action must be taken (in the case of the national service by the President, and in the case of state and local services by legislative bodies) placing practically all of the positions of the executive branch of the government in question, except those of a bona fide policy-determining character, in the so-called "classified" service and under the jurisdiction of the civil service commission.

Action must be taken by civil service commissions that will insure that the positions placed under their jurisdiction are handled according to the letter and spirit of the merit principle. At the present time civil (service commissions frequently "exempt" a number of positions from examination requirements. This practice is sometimes justified by the difficulty of holding suitable examinations ; more frequently it lacks any justification. Civil service commissions should limit the number of "exempt" positions to the lowest figure possible. They should endeavor to devise suitable examinations for entrance and promotion to all positions in the classified service; and they should, wherever practicable, throw these examinations open to competition.

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Establishment of Adequate and Uniform Compensation.

The rates of pay offered in public employment at the present time are not, generally speaking, proper or satisfactory. This fact is reflected in the difficulty which administrative officers have in recruiting suitable workers for the public service, in retaining competent workers who have acquired valuable training through yearls of experience, in properly administering advancement and promotion, and generally in maintaining the morale and efficiency of the public service.