January 2016 Federal Employment Law Training Newsletter
Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times recently wrote an article predicting the increasing irrelevance of human resources in large corporations. Her premise in large part is that more and more companies will come to abandon the “bureaucratic backward-looking charade” of annual performance appraisal. She predicts that employees “will no longer have to submit themselves to the cumbersome process in which they set a dozen meaningless goals and are rated on obscure things like ‘displays pro-active inclusivity.’” The Economist, “The World in 2016” December 2015. I bet that example rings a bell with more than one of you wonderful readers, that you have already reached the conclusion that annual performance appraisal is among the biggest government wastes of time ever invented. Ms Kellaway goes even further, asserting that historically HR departments have sought to justify their existence by dreaming up increasingly tiresome initiatives for managers to implement without any corresponding benefit. As an additional example, she suggests the pointless training forced on many managers, asking them to identify, “If you were an animal, what would you be?” Fortunately, if you hang with us here at FELTG, you’ll never have to worry about these “tiresome initiatives” taking up your training dollars. We teach you to write performance measurements that ignore inputs and capture outputs, because that’s how you hold a civil servant accountable. And when it comes to being an animal, we don’t ask you; we tell you. You’re a darned tiger. Now, go hold someone accountable.
Claims of Retaliation Have a Broader View of Coverage than Discrimination Claims
By Deryn Sumner Although I do represent a few federal agencies, I consider myself first and foremost an advocate for employees. But even I, upon reviewing a formal complaint from an employee, will sometimes think to myself, “How on earth can someone possibly feel...
Discipline in the Public View – Credit Card Misuse V
By Barbara Haga Now that the holidays are over and credit card bills are arriving in mailboxes around the country, it seems like a good time to return to looking at credit card issues in Federal agencies. “Saving Federal Dollars” Closer to Reality I mentioned in the...
Sorry, but Your Illegal Agency Accommodation Policy Doesn’t Supersede the Law
By Deborah Hopkins Can an agency policy overwrite existing law, if it’s specialized to a very small group of employees? In a word, nope. This article provides a review of reasonable accommodation requirements, courtesy of TSA. Two issues are central to this case: (1)...
Do Not Put Prior Poor Performance Examples in the PIP Initiation Letter
By William Wiley Questions out the wazoo. And this one goes to the heart of an issue that when I was a puppy, I went the other way. Now that I am older (and some would say wiser, but what do they know), I have found a better way. As for the question and then our...
Tips for Drafting EEO Settlement Agreements
By Deryn Sumner So after months (okay, or maybe hours) of negotiation, you’ve agreed on terms and reached a settlement in principle to resolve an EEO complaint? Great! Now comes the next hurdle: reducing the terms to writing and getting everyone to sign off on the...
Acronyms Matter When it Comes to Veterans’ Rights
By William Wiley Everyone knows that you can’t mistreat military veterans in the federal workplace because of their military duty. In fact, Congress has passed two separate and independent laws somewhat recently to protect the rights of veterans, and there’s an...
Sanctions: When Can They be Requested and What’s the Standard for Granting Them
By Deryn Sumner Ahh, sanctions. One of my favorite topics, and something I thought could be useful to explore over the next several months of newsletter articles. (As a side note, I received a suggestion that this series be titled, “Everything But the Kitchen...
This Isn’t the Way Civil Service Justice Should Work
By William Wiley The drums continue to beat to abolish the civil servant protections we have all come to love and respect. Certainly here at FELTG, we have pushed back hard, arguing that the oversight programs and redress procedures really aren’t that bad, that...
Charlie Manson? Oh, He’s Average.
By Michael Vandergriff I trained Charlie Manson’s psychiatrist. It was the California Medical Facility (CMF) in Vacaville, CA, the summer of 1980, and the topic was conflict management. Part of an external degree program in Criminal Justice, offered by California...