By Dan Gephart, June 17, 2024
Just over two years ago, we interviewed the newly sworn in Merit Systems Protection Board Vice Chair Raymond Limon. We discussed how Limon’s previous Federal work would help as the recently quorumed Board planned to tackle an inherited inventory of nearly 3,800 cases in the middle of a pandemic, while introducing a new e-Appeals system.
Limon’s Federal experience is vast. It included roles with the State Department and the Office of Personnel Management, as well as a stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Capital and Diversity and CHCO at the Department of the Interior.
However, the Federal job that best helped Limon move from a career “get-it-done” mindset to a political “lead-it” mindset was a volunteer position he held early on in his Federal career.
“I’ll be honest: It was the Peace Corps when I was in Honduras,” Limon said. “There you’re sitting in a fishbowl. It’s a different culture, a different language. People have perceptions about you that could be true, maybe not true. But all eyes are on you. That kind of vulnerability and confidence and willingness to make yourself vulnerable. I took a lot of those Peace Corps experiences I had to go through at a younger age, now I’m sitting at this table [here at the MSPB for my first transition briefing]. All the career executives are getting ready to brief me. I used to sit in that exact same seat you [the Board staff] used to sit in. I didn’t want to be that person that says: ‘This is what you have to do. You have to do this right away.’”
Limon very graciously took time to talk with FELTG last week over Zoom.
DG: Last time we spoke, you had just been sworn in. Tell us what those early days were like.
RL: A lot of that was listening to (MSPB staff), determining: What are the strategies [to tackle the inherited inventory]? What are the best practices we should focus on? And knowing, at some point, yes, we’re anticipating Cathy’s arrival. [Editor’s note: MSPB Chair Cathy Harris, at that point, had not yet been confirmed.] You want to get stood up, but not get ahead of your skis. You also want to make sure Cathy was set up for success.
As I think back on it, first and foremost it was the wellbeing and safety of our employees. Even though it seems like 20 years ago, it was two short years ago and people were still getting vaccinated and workplace safety practices were in place.
DG: And you had the inherited inventory of cases waiting for you.
RL: The expectation from the White House was: Get busy. Get started on these cases right away. I talked with all of the experts here to get their suggestions on what we should be doing to take on that inherited inventory. We wanted to make sure from a data collection standpoint that we were differentiating between inherited inventory and ongoing inventory.
Our progress has been demonstrated. [Editor’s note: The new Board started with an inherited inventory of 3,793 cases. As of the end of May, they had completed 78 percent.] We also post our progress monthly on the Board’s website. That’s a testament to the team, and all these different stakeholders, to make sure everybody was in the room, that they could hear the famous NASA “Go. No Go.” Make sure everybody was in step before we implemented.
It’s a great story, and I think it offers a lesson for other agencies if they ever find themselves in a similar situation. We dealt with a lack of leadership appointments, but other agencies can have unexpected inventories based on technology issues, budgets. The kind of practice we went through can be a map for another agency.
DG: What can other agencies learn from your approach?
RL: First of all, always listen to your experts. They have not only dealt with these issues for a number of years, they have also anticipated your arrival and come up with some good strategies.
As I alluded to earlier regarding my service in the Peace Corps, I needed to stop, slow my roll and listen so I could better understand the culture, better understand the pain points these people had gone through over the last five years, which was very unique.
I’ve been on that side of the table so many times, when a political team comes in. They sometimes don’t have the patience for you. Half the time in the briefing, they’re not paying attention, they’re on their Blackberries. I didn’t want to be that guy. Going back to my beginning, being a Peace Corps volunteer has probably suited me the best for the job I’m in.
One thing I would not sleep on is your IT infrastructure. You can be coming up with all the ideas but if you don’t have capacity to get that information out to your stakeholders, it’s not going to work.
We were facing a challenging time, rolling in a brand-new e-Appeal system, away from a homegrown series of software and IT systems that helped collect some of our information. At some point the legacy systems aren’t going to be supportable.
Again, don’t get ahead of your skis. If we were going to get out there fast reducing the inherited inventory, we needed the confidence our IT system could keep pace.
DG: Based on the cases you’ve reviewed, what’s the mistake made most often when it comes to performance?
RL: I’ll put the bottom line up front: It starts with supervisors. People typically don’t leave the agency necessarily for more money. They leave their supervisors. When it comes to performance management we have to step back. I really do believe performance is a team event, everything from design of your performance program to the development of the performance standards to how you communicate that with your team, how you work with your unions, to roll out, etc. Going back to IT world. I’m at that age and experience, where I transitioned paper processing for time and attendance and/or performance management systems to a web environment and it is not easy.
It’s very important that the supervisor take his or her role seriously, understanding the performance management system, being involved at the beginning stage of it, the communication side of it, understanding how developing your employees is the right thing to do.
Now that I’m, of course, adjudicating and ruling on these cases where employees felt like they were not being treated fairly in the performance process, or management is defending its actions, it basically comes down to there was a communication breakdown. If the standards weren’t completely clear, did they come down from the strategic goals to department goals to office goals to the employee?
When we develop performance standards and metrics, every employee needs to feel it was written for them, to be able to say: “You understand me. This is what I do. It makes sense, now I’m now going to go out and do it.”
A lot of times supervisors, when they don’t clarify and they’re not involved in process, they kind of treat it like they have to instead of they get to, some kind of communication mishap is going to occur, and it manifests itself into litigation. I do see the worst of the worst of that.
I also know from sitting on the CHCO Council for 16 years, there are success stories. There are good ways to do it. It’s not all doom and gloom. In my world, I’m seeing the manifestation of the lack of communication, supervisors not taking their jobs seriously because of several reasons – one being, they were appointed to be supervisor and shouldn’t have been. They didn’t have the competencies, the ability to be a supervisor.
Are agencies holding the probationary periods for supervisors in check? Some do. Some don’t.
Are supervisors being rewarded for growing their people? When supervisors turn down shadowing opportunities to allow employees to go out and strengthen their skillset, but their managers are hanging on tightly, saying I can’t lose you. Nobody else knows how to write that report. There’s no way I’m going to let you go off to training or that detail.
That’s where we’re missing the forest through the trees. When supervisors are so locked into the tyranny of the present, they forget their role as a supervisor is spending at least 25 percent of their time, according to OPM’s supervisory guide, managing and developing people.
DG: What trends are you seeing in new PFRs that are being filed?
RL: I’ve not necessarily noticed a change in types of cases we’re getting. Maybe this is more of a byproduct of the growth of the Board. Through e-Appeal, we’re finding, in my humble opinion, that moving of data and pleadings is happening more efficiently. Looking at the inherited inventory, there were a lot of issues about timeliness, for instance. Was it completely faxed in on time? Did the person receive notice? There was some of that.
We’ll continue to see a significant number of whistleblowing cases. I think 20-25 percent of our cases involve some level of whistleblowing, either as an affirmative defense or an individual right of action. I think that trend line is going to continue to grow.
DG: The Board recently issued a “Notice of Opportunity,” which it has rarely done. I know you can’t talk about the specifics of the case in question, but can you describe the process that leads to a decision to issue a similar notice?
RL: Under the Board’s regulations, when we are looking at a case of first impression or something that we believe needs clarification, we can solicit stakeholder feedback. Recently, we did this in a matter that involves the whistleblower statutes and asked our stakeholders for their viewpoints on the questions we posed. Also, even though I’ve been in multiple agencies and worked with many employment attorneys over the years, I can say unequivocally the best attorneys work here at the Board. No knock on anyone else, but these attorneys are the best.
They live and breathe it. They read all of the opinions coming from the different courts. We shouldn’t rely on our own hubris. It’s OK to ask for help. With our regulations, we have the authority to go out and ask for briefs. As in our recent notice, we post a couple issues, see what the public thinks. Bring that back in and, hopefully, we start to draft and finalize that opinion.
For more on the Board’s happenings and cases, check out FELTG’s newly-updated class Advanced MSPB Law: Navigating Complex Issues, July 9-11.
