CAREER MANAGEMENT AND PMMP 70'S

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00357R000800180002-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 24, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release001/08/02 : CIA-RDP82-00357R00080QM0002-7
CAREER MANAGEMENT AND PMMP 70's ,
The Opportunity is Now
There has rarely been amore apparent need for the systematic review
of personnel problems and requirements by the career services than there
is today. Improving staff management has been the persistent desire of
both managers and the employee. The latter has longed for more explicit
evidence of a career development mechanism which he can relate to per-
sonally. The average employee is disposed to view personnel decisions as
a matter of happenstance or the consequence of a "Panel" action whose
deliberations remain imponderable.
Personnel Succession Problems -
For some time the Agency has emphasized youth and has hoped to
develop a youthful image. Early retirements have been encouraged; incen-
tives have been sought to promote retirement decisions; efforts have
been made to seek and understand the attitude of youth. The need for a
serious appraisal of personnel successions in the various career services
has been nearly ignored. It is evident, however, that in the next several
years more and more employees will be obliged to retire at about the
same time as their supervisors. This represents the bitter fruit of the
well-known "age hump" in the Agency.
Management must appreciate that without significant lateral entry
input to the Agency, most replacements for departing senior officials
must come from the comparatively youthful employee now on board. A
reasonable upward flow of well-qualified careerists must be maintained.
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Personnel Utilization an Agency Concern
Agency career services and personnel managers have traditionally
concentrated on determining assignments and giving promotions to emplqyees.
Little has been done to develop those already on the roles through pro-
grams directly responsive to employee interests and capabilities. The
Director's concern with more effective utilization of manpower emphasizes
the need for the systematic assembly and analysis of information showing
the nature and significance of personnel problems throughout the Agency.
(Useful information can be provided Agency managers only through the
application by each career service of the same approach -in gathering and
reporting personnel data.) No longer should career services exaggerate
their distinctiveness to the detriment of the interests of the Agency as
a whole. Compartmentation must not serve to promulgate separatism.
Agency assets must be continually shifted to meet changing programs or
priorities. Agency managers should acknowledge that personnel issues
transcent parochial concerns.
PMMP 70's and Its Dividends
PMMP means that each career service reviews its personnel require-
ments, analyzes its employees' qualifications and plans personal develop-
ment for its employees. It becomes clear that when each career service
succeeds in this exercise, new policies and programs will follow. In
this regard, the Office of Personnel,-in coordination with career manage-
ment officers, must devise ways of making Agency personnel policies,
opportunities, benefits, and commitments-more uniformly applicable to all
Agency personnel.
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Promotion controls should be geared to prevent the overdevelopment
of employees and the oversaturation of Agency requirements in various
occupational categories. Uniform time-in-grade policies for each grade
level should be considered.
Career services should be explicitly responsible for keeping annual
inputs of different skill categories compatible with future opportunities
for their utilization. Related skill groups should be associated in
possible combinations of interchangeability without regard to career
service lines. Key qualifications and skills in these groups should be
identified at different grade levels so that the extra training or experi-
ence an employee needs for movement from his career field to a related
one can be established. This information would be of considerable value
to continued effectiveness of the PMMP project. -
PMMP Modified. and Simplified
The original PMMP scheme was rather ambitious and somewhat unrealistic
in that it involved a ten-year planning period. It has become quite
evident that detailed personnel projections and decisions become some-
what fanciful when too far-reaching. The content of the Advanced Staffing
Plans and the data prepared by the career services in connection with the
average grade exercise should coincide with the data required of PMMP.
The matter of estimating probable levels of separations, promotions and
accessions would be simplified. This kind of systematic planning would
be a major step forward and would provide a method for improving the
linkage between program changes and personnel support.
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