ROLE OF THE DIRECTOR OF PERSONNEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01826R000800050016-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 8, 2000
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: April 18, 1957
• Content Type: MF

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18 April 1957
NEAMMXWEiTa: Director of Central Intelligence
TEROUGH: Deputy Director (Support)
Role .of the Director of Rersonnel
REif'BRENCE: - Memorandum for D/Pers from DDCI, dated 24 eanuary 1957
forwarding the inspector General's paper, same subject
1. This memorandene written in response to General Caball's
memorandum, contains a recommendation in paragraph 10.
. 2. In section III of the attachment to referenced memoranda% the
:inspector General raises two issues which appear to be ceotral to the
whole problem. These are:
a. The division of responsibility for personnel administration
among operating officials, the Career Services, and the Director of
Personnel.
b. Centralization of personnel administration as against
decentralization.
Once these issues have been resolved, the other qgestions asked in the
paper concerning the role of the Director of Personnel are more reedily
answered.
3. In preparing this response, I have read the regulations pertain-
ing to personnel administration and have talked with the senior Agency
personnel officers located here in Washington. I can report that thinking
among our personnel officers strongly favors a substantial decentraliza-
tion of V9 responsibility for personnel administration to the Career
Services. In their view, such decentralization will.
a. Fix responsibility Where it can be most effectively
exercised;
le Guarantee to our people that their careers are in the
hands of informed and responsible officials;
a. Provide a framework for sound. planning with regard to
pay scales and recruitment;
WACareer Service includes on its roles all of the specialists in one
particular field. For example, the Logistics Career Service includes
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d. Reduce duplication of effort; and
e. Make more effective our efforts to evaluate personnel,
advance the able, and weed out the ineffective.
4. Clearly, same of these advantages are already evident in our
present system of management. There has been a trend in this direction.
It is ray recommendation that we continue to move along these lines, that
any aMbiguity concerning the responsibilities of the heads of Career
Services be removed, that the aersonnel mechanisms of these services be
studied and gradually strengthened, and that the Office of Personnel
edjust its procedures and practices in such a way as to be in full
support of the Career Services.
5. I make this recommendation because I believe that the way to
achieve high standards of. work performance is to encourage each Career
Service to establish personnel standards and practices suitable to the
operational missions which the Service supports. FUrthermore, the Agency
bes settled down and become efficiently integrated to permit a healthy
degree of independence and nonuniformity on the part of the Career Services.
6. There are, of course, imporiAnt areas of personnel administration
Which cannot be decentralized to the Career Services. The Deputy Direetore
necessarily reserve to themselves certain responsibilities, Wide areas of
executive responsibility in the field of personnel management will continue
to rest with operating officials who, as executives, will act both in
behelf of the Career Services whose people fall under their command and.
of the Office of Personnel in such matters as employee benefits, travel,
insurance: record maintenance, and the like.
7. Finally, the Director of Personnel has certain staff responsi-
bilities and performs certain services of common concern which cannot be
decentralized. Row these relate to the responsibilities of other Agency
officials is discussed in paragraph 8 below.
8. While I agree with the Inspector General that further clarifica-
tion of the role of the Director of Personnel will in some measure cone
tribute to thestrengthening of the Agency's personnel administration, it
? is evident that the reputation of the Office of Personnel and of the
Agency itself suffers because of our inability to deal promptly and
effectively with the large number of cases of misassignment, overgrading:
ender-utilization and mediocrity. It is with these in's:Led. that the
following comments are submitted on Section II of the Inspector General's
paper.
a. Policy_Makkm
1). It is our position that personnel policy Should be
developed both for the individual Career Services and for the
Agency as a whole.
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2). ene,7 policy will necessaray be the meee fossml,
copprehensive, and authoritative. It will continue to deal
with basic eeployee-employer relationships, fiscal matters,
standarde of conduct, benefits and exivileges, RIO the like.
It will also encompass all personnel policies bearing on over-
seas service so that eqeality in treatment will be guaranteed
to field personnel. It is proposed that suggested changes in
Agency policy be referred to the Director of Personnel for
study before they are presented to the Career Council and that
the Council continue to act as the principal Agency policy
board in matters perteining to personnel adminietration.
3). The development of Career Services policies will be
encouraged and supported by the Director of Personnel in the
fields of salary administration., promotion, rotation, recruit-
ment, assessment, and elimination.
b.
1). It is proposed that the Office of Personnel do all of
the hiring in the United States for the Agency as a service of
common concern. It will be the responsebility of the individual
Career Services to define needs and to render such professional
assistance to the recruitment staff of the Office of Personnel
as may be eeqpired. The Office of Personnel will continue to
arrange for the participation of intelligence officers in this
effort.
2). The Director of Personnel is seecifically responsible
for ensuring that Agency eaployment standards are met.
3). A regulation on the subject of recruitment and screen-
ing of personnel is needed and is in the process of being drafted.
This regulation will propose that hiring be based on anticipated
needs of the Career Services rather than on position vacancies
in operating components and will establish adeqeate mechanisms
for the evaluation andscreening of incoming personnel. ,
4). Our reason for centering recruitment policy platming
in the Career Services is to promote the efficient use of
personnel on duty and to provide for recruitment, only to meet
net reqpirements. Hiring to fill TY0 vacancies is certainly a
cause of overstaffing in some categories.
c. mAgent and Reassi
1). The Office of Personnel should assign all new employees,
with the exception of Junior Officer Trainees, to the appropriate
Career Service. The suggestion made by the Inspector General
that a Career Service be authorized to return unsatisfactory
employees at the conclusion of three months has great merit and
will be the subject of our immediate attention. Certainly, such
procedure will ensure better assigaments for some and an early
separation for others.
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2). The Office of :Personnel has taken the follovine action
which will indicate the direction of our thinking 4th regard to
the problem of reassigement:
a). Draftieg of an Agency regulation which sets forth
the procedures to be followed by an individual desiring
reassignmeat,
b). Establiebing a special assignment committee, with
Career Couucil approval.
c). Proposing to the Deputy Director (Plans) that
procedure be worked out which will provide for the
Immediate assignment of personnel reterning fran the field
and thus bring an und to "balleyeaking."
3). In addition to these measures, it is the intent of the .
Director of Personnel to work with the Deputy Directors and the
heads of the Career Services in an effort to eliminate the mal-
practices aseociated with "shopping."
d. promotipa Discingm, and Dischams
1). It is believed that the competitive. :promotion system
introduced by Regulation As sound. Regulations
pertaining to discipline and discharge are soend insofar as
they recognize and protect the rights, privileges, and benefits
of the employee. The role of the Director of Personnel in these
natters is accurately set forth in these regulations. It is
believed, however, that the Agehey's mechanisms designed to
identify unqualified personnel and arrange for their release
munt be sharpened very considerably. The full responnibility
for enauring that each actions are taken should initially rest
with the Career Services. Procedures eertaining to the selection
of personnel for the Agencyls Career Staff should be changed to
emphasize this responsibility and to relieve the Examining lassels
of such of their present "pick and shovel" work.
e. Wage Classification
I). The Director of Personnel should be reaponsible for
the administration of the Agency compensaticapaeleram--specifi-
calla., the development and application of pay plans, wage
schedules, and job evaluation procedures. He should work with
the heads of Career Services and operating offloials so as to
be aware of problems in compensatieg personnel faced by these
officials and to establish understandiag aud egreement of the
facts which influenee and detereine pay levels. Be must
necessarily keep in close touch with external pay levels and
salary administration eavetices? governmental and industrial;
make internal adjustments as appropriate and allowable under
Agency compensation policies, and submit to the Career Council
changes of a policy 'nature.
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2). Job evaluation Should emerge as a more positive and
useful tool to personnel manegement in the Career Services. We
believe that the Office of Personnel in cooperation with the
heads of Career Services should determine and maintain, through
use of job evaluation techniques, "a basic table of staffing
requirements" for each Career Service. This table should be
comprised of the numbers, types (occupations, age groups,
physical qpalificatione)? and levels of personnel which each
Career Service should include to provide for effective eupport
of the Agency's operational programs. It could well include,
in addition, a mall reservoir of personnel in training for
replacement and emergency assignment purposes. This device
will enable the Career Services to know' where they stand with
regard to current personnel assets as opposed to current and
planned future staffing re reLLeflt8 It will also make
possible more satisfactory personnel planning by the Career
Services through pointing out the changes in the composition
of each Career Service to be attained through premetions,
training or retraining, transfers between Services, career
planning, and recruitment, so that the proper balance of
personnel assets may be achieved. In the loug run, the
"basic table of staffing requirements" for each Career Service
will fore the bapis for the curtailment of the size of its
professional staff. It will alao serve as a base for budgetary
planning and will provide a means or controllirg the average
grade.
/ f. Mem__81m22L_._L__Deve.lsmpl
/i1). The Director of Personnel, working with the he of
Career Services, will undertake to develop an informal roster
Iof promising officers and to arrange for their formal and on-
the-job training in the interests of management develoement.
2). It is proposed that the Deputy Direct:Ws inform the
Director of Personnel onea continuing and .confidential basis
of all openings for senior personnel. With thie information
at band, the Director of Personnel will be able erot time to
time to suggest candldates for such positions, thereby
stimulating rotationz.
g. TEELARfi
he Control
i. Welfare other "Female" Services
The Inspector Generare remarks on these three subjects
are accepted and no further comment seems necessary at this time.
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CONCLUB:
( 0
The Inspetor Genen93.'s paper has served to focus the attention
of the senior maulers of the Office of Personnel on basic organizational
problems relec4ing to their murk. They are unanimous in their belief
that solutions to 'blase probl(ms1 set forth above, are appropriate to
the needs of the Agerly and can be applied to the present system of
personnel administratinfl with bvtmdnor?changes in our regulations.
IO. RECOMMENDATION
I
It is recommended that the responsibility for Agency personnel
administmation be decentralized to the Career Services to the. degree and
for the purposes given above.
GORDON M. STEWART
Director of Personnel
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