• Democratic Institutions and Politics
• International Relations, Science and Security
• Markets and Methods
• Management and Leadership
• Social Policy

Bob Behn on Government Employee Management

Debating how to make government work better has been a driving force in Washington and across the country for several decades. Although the federal workforce has been shrinking in recent years, the civil service still encompasses more than 2.7 million employees in dozens of agencies in all 50 states. Improving employee performance remains a top priority for managers in all layers of government. Bob Behn, lecturer in public policy, focuses much of his research on issues relating to governance, leadership, and the performance of large public agencies.

Q: You recently called for the abolition of the annual personnel review for federal government employees. Explain your rationale behind that controversial idea.

Behn: The problem that a lot of public managers and a lot of public agencies face is the inability to get rid of the obnoxious goof-off. This is the person who does nothing and flaunts it. And it's a significant problem because it undermines the morale and work ethic of others in the organization.

Why does this happen? Primarily because when a manager decides to confront the individual and goes to the person's file, they discover a large number of annual performance reviews that say this person meets expectations. Why does that exist? One argument of course is that the previous managers have been lazy. The other argument is at any given time a manager only has a number of priority items that he or she can tackle. And those priority items have to be really important public purposes. So getting rid of a poor-performer might be 6th or 16th on the list, but it doesn't make the top. And if you're going to deal with the obnoxious-goof off, you really only have two strategies - one is to launch all-out warfare against the individual; the other is to just pass the individual along and deal with other priorities, and most public executives continue to do that. As a result, it is very hard to get rid of the problem employee, but if you didn't have that file record of year after year after year of this person meets expectations, somebody might actually decide to take it on.

Q: But if public managers aren't going to be evaluating their employees annually, what should they do to monitor performance?

Behn: Obviously public managers are monitoring the performance of their subordinates daily; the question is what they put in the record. So what am I suggesting as an alternative to the annual performance review? I am suggesting that managers be encouraged to put in an individual's file a note of commendation or a note of criticism whenever it's appropriate. So what will most managers do? Most of the time they will only put in notes of commendation; they won't put in criticisms. But when it comes time to get rid of the obnoxious goof-off, what will people find? Nothing in the file. And nothing in the file might suggest the person hasn't done anything. Moreover, nothing in the file means that somebody who is going to decide to take on the obnoxious goof-off won't have to start off from a negative perspective; at least can start from zero.

Of course [human resources] is going to say the problem is the dumb managers who won't use our brilliant system, but if lots of managers haven't been using this brilliant system, then maybe it isn't quite as brilliant as they thought. Maybe people ought to re-think the current strategy.

Q: What can public sector managers learn from the private sector about improving performance?

Behn: I think what they can learn from the private sector or even what they can learn from good public sector management is to set very specific targets for people, very specific targets for teams, very specific targets that can be achieved in the time period, and then monitor what progress is being made, and make sure that when people accomplish their target, that they are given adequate recognition for their achievement.

Q: Many would argue that running a government is not as simple as running a business. How would you respond?

Behn: That's certainly true, in part because we have many more stakeholders in the public sector, each stakeholder group having a different idea about what the public agency should accomplish. So there's a lot more negotiation that goes on behind what should be the performance target. Nevertheless, effective public managers figure out what is important to citizens and they use that as an advantage. They emphasize that what the agency is trying to accomplish isn't just for a few consumers that buy the product; it is for all citizens, and they use that for their advantage. So I am quite prepared to argue that public executives have an advantage over private sector executives precisely because what they do, what their agency does, what the people in their agency do, is important to citizens.

Q: What sort of responses have you received to this proposal?

Behn: The responses have been divided into the usual two categories - one is how can Bob Behn be so stupid, and the second category is people who report to me, 'I tried to get rid of this person, but I couldn't do it. It consumed hours after hours, and the personnel department wasn't very helpful.'