American Diplomacy

American Diplomacy

Volume VII, Number 1, 2002

 

Department of State and American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) on Reform Measures

Below is the text of a joint AFSA/Foreign Service Director General official cable transmitted by the Department of State to all U. S. diplomatic and consular posts on February 7, 2002. The cable specifies problems and actions to be taken regarding proposed reforms in the Foreign Service.—Ed.

FM SECSTATE WASHDC
To All Diplomatic and Consular Posts
Joint AFSA/DG Cable

Subject: Action on Foreign Service Reform Proposals
For all Foreign Service employees from DirGen Davis

1. Introduction:
On November 13, 2001, AFSA submitted a Package of Foreign Service Reform Proposals to State Management. Director General Ruth A. Davis met with AFSA on January 10 to discuss those proposals. Below is a Joint DG-AFSA statement adopted after that meeting. End of Introduction.

2. Joint DG/AFSA Statement on Foreign Service Reform:
Both State Department Management and the American Foreign Service Association see the need for reforming and reinvigorating the Foreign Service so that it may most effectively discharge its indispensable role in the active promotion of American interests abroad. Change is needed in four areas:

AFSA submitted an initial package of proposals to HR on November 13, 2001; the Department of State has either already implemented or will soon implement each of the reforms outlined below. In addition, the DG has invited AFSA to identify and propose further reforms in the coming months. AFSA agreed.

Training
Background: For more than a decade, inadequate staffing and other factors have kept Foreign Service members from receiving adequate professional, technical, leadership, and management training. As a result, many employees (including supervisors and managers) are deficient in key skills, especially those involving leadership and management. We must close this training gap to ensure that Foreign Service employees have the leadership tools they need to meet our foreign policy requirements in an increasingly complex world.

Strengthen worldwide availability
Background: A defining characteristic of the Foreign Service is the availability of its members to serve where their skills are most needed. Unfortunately, there is a sense that "service discipline" has declined somewhat in recent years. While part of the problem is the current imbalance between the number of positions to be filled and the number of Foreign Service employees available to fill them, there is also an underlying difficulty in convincing a small but significant percentage of employees to go where the service needs them.

Separate unsatisfactory performers
Background: The Foreign Service is a unique service that has mechanisms not found elsewhere in the federal government to separate unsatisfactory performers. One of those mechanisms is the tenuring process. Even though stiff competition to enter the Foreign Service assures that those hired exhibit exceptional potential to excel in our demanding work, the tenuring process is designed to offer permanent career status only to those employees who prove themselves in real-world Foreign Service postings. During the mid-1990s, Commissioning and Tenure Boards at the State Department determined that between 3.5% and 7.9% of career candidates had failed to prove themselves. However, in 1998 and 1999, fewer than 1% were denied tenure.

Organizational culture
Background: Every successful organization strives to create a work environment that allows its employees to put forth their best effort. The Foreign Service's organizational culture has not kept up with changes in its operating environment. Many of the well-entrenched characteristics that helped the Foreign Service wage the Cold War from the 1950s to the 1980s (e.g., risk-aversion and inward focus) are now holding it back from responding to the challenges of diplomacy in the 21st century.

Fill urgent human resources shortfall
Background: Years of hiring below attrition have created staffing gaps that leave the State Department unable to staff its missions with fully trained employees. Secretary Powell recognizes this problem and has made it a top goal to close this gap by hiring 1158 additional employees within the next three years. He was successful in convincing the Congress to fund the first year of this program. However, while the Secretary is committed to lobbying for funding to fill the remaining two-thirds of the shortfall, success in the coming two budget cycles cannot be assumed.

Career development
Background: Staffing deficits in the 1990s forced the Department to sharply reduce the exposure that many new Junior Officers got to the work of other career tracks besides consular.

Pay and allowances
Background: The exclusion of overseas employees from the locality pay system has created a huge financial disincentive to serve abroad. The pay cut this effectively imposes on overseas employees not only reduces the value of post allowances and differentials, but also reduces an employee's retirement savings (including the Thrift Savings Plan).

End of joint DG/AFSA statement.

Powell