AGENCY CAREER SERVICES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP92-00455R000100090007-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 25, 2002
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: May 3, 1973
• Content Type: MF

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3 MAY 1973
MEMORANDUM FOR: Executive Secretary, CIA Management Committee
SUBJECT: Agency Career Services
REFERENCE: Memo dtd 17 April 1972 to CIA Management
Committee fr ES/MC, Same Subj
1. Your comments in referent memorandum indicating
augmentation of the Career Service system to include the use of
effective personnel management mechanisms and the monitoring of
the program at the Agency level are most encouraging, for in
addition to personnel being our most important resource, they
are our most costly asset; as you know well, salaries and benefits
alone account rof the Agency's budget for FY 1974.
2. The investment and management of these resources has
traditionally been handled, as the recent IG report discloses, in
a decentralized fashion by the Directorates, and the dividends
appear to have accrued more to these corporate units than to the
Agency as a whole or to the individual employee. The extremely
small number of past cross--Directorate assignments has not only
promoted a narrowness of perspective but has resulted in a
negligible Agency pool of senior officers with varied experience
in our diverse enterprises; the constraints on mobility, deriving
more from attitude than merit, have frustrated the legitimate
ambitions of many employees at all grades and ages and have
limited career development and planning to a level which most
employees find hard to recognize.
ME",
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3. What appears to be needed is a personnel management
system which will guarantee:
a. to Agency management the degree of control
which will assure an abundant supply of highly skilled
and widely experienced officers for the whole range of
senior Agency positions,
b. to operating components the degree of control
essential to the conduct of their operations, and
c. to the individual employee the rights of equitable
pay, advancement, and participation, and the opportunity
for varied assignment based on demonstrated ability and
potential.
4. To accomplish the above, some DCI-sponsored objectives
should be established and some firm plans made to achieve them
with responsibility for implementing and monitoring the program
clearly assigned. The recent and forthcoming personnel reductions
will make the task of personnel management difficult, especially
selling the individual employee on the notion of improved career
development. Thus, some bold steps are necessary to demonstrate
clearly that personnel development is a particular interest of the
Agency's Management Committee.
5. Looking at the problem as one of resource management,
I have drafted some objectives which should get us on the road.
If you approve, I am prepared to undertake in coordination with
the Directorates and the Director of Personnel the development of
these objectives and of follow-on plans for their implementation.
At your earlier suggestion, I have arranged for receipt of statistical
personnel data to establish base lines for the evaluation of program
effectiveness.
ar es r1ggs
Attachment:
Director of Planning,
Programming, and Budgeting
DCI Personnel Management Objectives
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DCI PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES (PROPOSED)
O/PPB Comment
Career development is not easily defined. At a minimum it
includes judicious assignment, training, promotion, and develop-
mental rotation. Equally important, however, is the development
of the individual employee's attitude toward his job, his supervisors,
and the Agency. In drafting these objectives we have included
one, viz., the separation of marginal employees, which may appear
out of place in a list of career development objectives; such action,
however, is essential, particularly when these individuals are in
a supervisory or managerial capacity and thus directly and
adversely affect the attitude of junior personnel. A related problem
which these objectives do not address but which must be resolved
since it has too great an impact on employee attitude, is that of
marginal activity. Nothing will kill incentive, initiative and
interest quicker than work which does not result in a meaningful
contribution; none worth keeping will stay at it and all who
support it lose respect.
The bulk of career development planning should remain with
Directorates; a piece of the action, however, should go both to
Agency-level management and to the individual employee to serve
their legitimate needs if not their innate rights.
Objective 1
Review and revise as appropriate the Agency staffing
complement to achieve an overall T/O reduction during FY 1975
of o based on the elimination of lower priority tasks.
O/PPB Comment
The intent of this objective is to provide prior notice in the
event a reduction is indeed planned for FY 1975. In order to
make any orderly plans for career development, it is essential
that the operating components know the levels at which they will
be operating.
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Objective 2
Restructure the Agency's career service system to promote
a broadening of perspective and to restore employee confidence in
the concept of career development.
O/PPB Comment
This objective is intended to convince the individual employee
that there is an Agency personnel management and. career develop-
ment system. Given the depth of disbelief on the part of the
average employee and the ingrained intransigence of many managers,
this program must be DCI-sponsored and articulated, and it must
be monitored by his personal representative. It must be a bold
new program with change from the past and change for the better
clearly evident; it must be an all-employee's program with the
interests of the clerical, technical and professional personnel at
all grade levels provided for but with the interests of the Agency
pre-eminent. ' In developing the program, consideration should be
given to the following suggestions:
a. Demonstrate greater interest in what the employee
thinks about management-related matters, prefers by way of
assignment, etc., by expanding the Management Advisory
Group (MAG) concept to the Office/Division level, by
conducting periodic attitudinal surveys, and by inviting
junior officer representation in the restructuring of the
career service system.
b. Guarantee to interested and qualified junior officers
assignment in at least two Directorates during the first
years of service.
c. Remove all supergrade (and GS 15?) positions
from individual career service jurisdiction, put them under
the purview of the DCI's Career Development Officer and
require his concurrence for promotion to these grades or
assignment to these positions.
d. Limit tenure in senior (GS 16 and above) positions
to five years except in cases approved by the DCI.
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e. Inaugurate a Personnel Action Line providing
employees a telephone number which they can call to get
prompt, accurate, and authoritative answers to questions
of a personnel nature.
f. Require advertising via the Vacancy Notice system
of all position vacancies for which a component does not
have a qualified candidate considering, in addition to
present mechanisms, the use of closed circuit television
or bulletin boards in secure areas. Make application
procedures less formal and less risky to the
individual who now often hesitates to apply for positions
for fear of a possible adverse impact on his future in his
present office. A Xerox copy of the one page OP biographic
profile mailed directly to the advertising office by the
employee might suffice initially.
g.. Drop the designations ("career employee," "career
status," etc.) which in fact mean little and tend to mislead
both the employee and management by their title. Extend
the probationary appointment period in order to permit
supervisors to better assess new employees.
h. Study position comparability in the Agency and make
recommendations on possible consolidatons regarding their
service designation. There are many positions in the Agency
(technical professional positions like computer personnel,
engineers, etc.) which might be combined under a single
service to the possible advantage of both the employee and
component management.
Objective 3
Reduce by o the annual attrition rate due to job
dissatisfaction.
O/PPB Comment
According to official records, over the past ten years an
average of 320 employees per year have resigned for reasons of
"job dissatisfaction." It can be accepted as fact that these records
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inadequately and often inaccurately reflect the real reasons why
people leave the Agency. This stems largely from a lack of candor
on the part of those resigning who are concerned that factual
reasons might adversely affect employment recommendations,
jeopardize possible future employment with the Agency, and
embarrass former colleagues or supervisors who may be friends,
or the departees may just not want to get involved in what they
consider an 'exercise in futility. Thus, not only is it obvious
that care in matching the individuals, training, experience and
desires with the requirements of the job is. required, particularly
in the initial work assignment, but also that greater speed is
required to change mismatch assignments.
Objective 4
Increase by o the number of black professionals on duty
in the Agency.
O/PPB Comment
This objective was discussed at the June 1972 DCI Planning
Conference and was favorably endorsed.
Objective 5
Identify and take action to remedy gaps in individual
employees' training--language, technical, supervisory, area
management or other--both for their present assignment and/or
grade level and as they represent developmental training for more
responsible positions.
Objective 6
Improve employee/ management communications.
O/PPB Comment: A classic and a truism, but not adequately
attended to, its motherhood acceptance notwith-
standing.
From Fitness Reports to productivity evaluation sessions to
periodic rap sessions by the DCI in the auditorium with Agency
personnel or by Deputy Directors with their Directorate personnel,
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much needs to be done in the area of communications, especially
to restore employee confidence in his role as well as that of the
Agency in support of national policy. The DDO's recent revision
11 December 1972) of its Fitness Report procedures
is a significant and constructive improvement in our personnel
management operations; the approach and philosophy it represents
should be considered as Agency policy and so applied. .
Objective 7
Establish and carry out a vigorous and honestly managed
program to identify the lowest o of the work force each year
and to eliminate half that number the following year.
Objective 8: Another motherhood perennial, but never effectively
- undertaken.
Develop an Agency-wide list of "comers" and ensure that
in any given year at least o of them move between Directorates.
Objective 9
Reduce by at least % the number of Personnel Rank
Assignments at grades GS 14 and above which have been in effect
more than years,
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much needs to be clone 'in the area of 'communications, especially
to restore employee confidence in his role as well as that of the
Agency in support of national policy. The DDO's recent revision
11 December 197;.) of its Fitness Report procedures
is a significant and constructive improvement in our personnel
management operations; the Ipproach and philosophy it represents
should be considered as Agency policy and so applied.
Objective 7
Establish and carry out a vigorous and honestly managed
program to identify the lowest 4 of the work force each year
and to ? eliminate half that number the following year.
Objective 8
Develop an Agency-wide list of "comers" and ensure that
in any given year at least of them move between Directorates.
O/PPB Comment
Another motherhood perennial, but never effectively undertaken.
Objective 9
Reduce by at least a the numbed Personnel Rank
Assignments at grades GS 14 and ,;love which have been in effect
more than years.
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